Lost and Found in Paris
Lian Dolan
Chapter 1
Pasadena
February 2011
My father always said that beginnings and endings were clichés. They couldn’t help but be, with beginnings being bright and new and even the best of endings being painful in some way. He was right, of course.
Still, a cliché can crush.
Had I known what was going to happen, I wouldn’t have spent my last twenty minutes of ignorant bliss talking about fruit. I would have had a drink and reapplied my lipstick for a little Chanel courage, as my mother calls it. But I was oblivious, so I carried on about produce. “One of the themes clearly defined in this piece is hierarchy. Power and privilege. Though the fruits and vegetables may appear to be strewn chaotically upon the table, in bowls or baskets, even upon the ground, the artist has actually imposed a well-defined order. They are arranged based upon their value and rarity.”
A sea of glazed eyes greeted my observation; the well-suited locals who composed my listening audience were probably more interested in the food and drink outside on the patio than the pictures of food and drink inside the Wallace Aston Museum. The museum, known as the WAM, was a jewel box of art treasures from the private collection of industrialist Wallace Aston and his actress wife, Ashley Simonds Aston, ranging from European masters to twentieth-century abstracts to Asian pieces spanning two thousand years. Unlike some larger museums that used traveling exhibits with mass appeal to draw in visitors, at the WAM, it was the permanent collection that was the star. It was breathtaking to walk the galleries knowing that you were looking at a private collection on the grandest scale. Manet, Cézanne, Picasso, Van Gogh, Goya, Rembrandt, Zurbarán, Rodin, Degas, Frankenthaler, Fragonard, Nevelson, Kandinsky, Noguchi, Ruscha, Brancu?i, Warhol—a greatest hits and then some. All displayed in a compact, well-composed space recently updated and turbocharged with fresh windows and new gardens. I loved it there—a clean, brilliant little burst of genius tucked in between the freeways.
My job was to develop lectures and other public education projects, write articles for the website and monthly magazine, and sometimes accompany the art to another museum as a courier. My work at the museum wasn’t critical to the day-to-day running of the place. I had the words “Special Projects” on my business cards, because that sounded slightly less vague than “Employee-at-Large” or “Volunteered to Do a Few Things and Never Left.” When I was hired nearly ten years prior, the museum was banking on my future contributions, and I was searching for an immediate distraction. It was a mutually beneficial relationship.
Tonight, I’d been assigned a VIP tour from the local hospital, a mix of doctors and administrators looking for some creative inspiration served with wine and cheese. Their fee would go into the children’s education coffers. Usually I could command my audience’s attention, but I appeared to be off my game. My feet hurt and even I had to cringe when I used words like “strewn” in a sentence, but I was nearing the end. Big finish. “You’ll note the root vegetables relegated to the ground, while the prized peas and asparagus are elevated in status by their presence in baskets in the foreground of the painting. Questions?”
A hand went up, a childish gesture from a grown man wearing a checkered bow tie and a smirk. I knew exactly what he’d ask. He didn’t disappoint. “How much is something like this worth?”
I answered like I always did, “A painting like Frans Snyders’s Still Life with Fruits and Vegetables is a masterpiece of the Flemish baroque period. There simply is no price.”
“But if there was a price?” Bow Tie Boy wouldn’t give up. I bet he honed that overconfidence as president of his frat. And was that a slight Southern accent? Unusual here in Pasadena. The group twittered with laughter. I noticed my boss, the charming Caterina de Montefiore, standing off to the side but displaying her omniscience. Caterina was the director of communications, and she had tipped me off that there was a New York Times travel writer hiding among my corporate private tour. Half-Italian, half-Brazilian, and very competitive, Caterina was locked in a PR death match with other Los Angeles–area museums. She wanted the WAM to be the only one mentioned in this roundup of hot places to spend a Friday night in Southern California. She nodded and gave me the look that said in no uncertain terms, “Sex it up, Joanie.”
I pointed to the painting, a riot of overripe fruit and luscious vegetables bursting with color and texture. “Let me ask you the price of a bowl of perfect cherries, deep red and glistening, begging to eaten. Now imagine their worth in the middle of a cold, dark Flemish winter after months of deprivation.” Oh, I had Bow Tie Boy’s attention now. “And what about this gorgeous plate of pears. Have you ever seen such lovely fleshy orbs, perfect in size and shape, bursting with sweetness? Finally, look at the longing in the woman’s eyes. That’s the look of a woman who wants to touch and feel and taste all she sees. This is not a painting of a table full of fruit; it’s a masterpiece of desire. What’s that worth?”
Bow Tie Boy conceded, “Well, I guess you got me there. Hard to put a dollar figure on that.”
Caterina strode over, her steps making an authoritative pounding in the marble front gallery. She was ready to take over the tour, the museum, or a small country in Central Europe, wherever she was needed most. Caterina was always in charge.
I bowed like an idiot because that’s how tired I was. “Thank you for your time and attention. The Blakely in the garden is best viewed right about sunset. Don’t miss that. I’ll hand you off to Caterina de Montefiore, who’ll be happy to answer any questions about the museum or our programs.” Caterina commanded the group into the Degas gallery with the wave of her hand.
Get me out of these shoes and get me home, I thought as I turned on my heels and headed toward my office. I felt a hand on my arm. Bow Tie Boy was offering his card, and up close, he was definitely more of a Bow Tie Man. “Mason Andrews. Thank you for the tour. I’m a doctor and I don’t know much about art, but I’d really like a bowl of cherries right now.”
That made me laugh. It had been a while since any man had made that happen. “That’s what art can do. Make you want . . . experiences. I’m Joan Blakely. And, as you probably figured out, I’m an educator here at the WAM.” It was the easiest way to describe my multifaceted job, especially to an emergency room doctor, as his card indicated.
I shook Mason’s hand, a firm grip coupled with plenty of eye contact. Is now the moment when I tell him I’m married, or do I play this out a little longer because, despite the desperate bow tie, he’s very attractive and, frankly, it’s been a while since I’ve had a bowl of cherries?
“Blakely, as in ‘. . . the Blakely in the garden’ Blakely?”
I nodded. “Yes, Henry Blakely was my father.”
There was a flicker of recognition, then remembrance. “I went to the retrospective at LACMA a few years ago. Okay, I’ll confess, an old girlfriend dragged me there, but I was blown away. The use of light and perspective. The colors. The space. It was amazing. Your father was amazing. You must get tired of hearing that.”
“Never. It’s a great gift to me. Really.”
“He did that big thing in Central Park, right?”
“Yes. It was called Castle Burning. In 1993.”
“My cool friend in high school had a poster from that exhibit,” he said, like it was all coming back to him in that moment, and then, “I’m so sorry about what happened to him.”