My mother laughed. “You would have made a terrible rock and roll groupie.”
“Thank you.” I missed Nate. “I’m more a Sweater Vest Girl than a Tight Leather Pants Girl.”
The sun was almost gone and the temperature was dropping. I looked around the streets, filled with so much history, ancient and contemporary, and knew one thing for sure: I was wiped out. My pilgrimage was over for now. “Can we grab a cab back to Fortnight? I’ve walked far enough for today.”
Epilogue
January 2012
It was cold and rainy in Southern California, the perfect evening for a cashmere pashmina, a glass of red wine, and a fire. And that’s exactly the situation I found myself in on a Sunday night, not cozied up at home but back at the bar at the Langham Hotel, once again taking refuge from a tricky domestic situation. Although this time, it wasn’t my ex-husband moving out of the house; it was me. The boxes labeled, the paintings in Bubble Wrap, all that was left was the moving trucks to arrive on Monday. So rather than sleep in a ghost house filled with memories, I checked myself into the hotel, booked a few spa treatments, and headed to the bar.
Next week would officially be the start of something new. But tonight, I was keeping my eyes open for something familiar.
The bar was quiet. When it rains in Southern California, no one leaves the house, terrified of slick wet roads, inexperienced rain drivers, and terrible traffic: all justified fears. The light crowd meant that I spotted him right away as he walked in, the guy with wet hair in one of those puffer coats that had taken over America, with a small gym bag over his shoulder. Exactly as he’d said: he was here most Sunday nights. He caught me staring and stared right back, long enough to register my identity and give me a nod and then a bit longer to take in the fact that I was alone at the bar and waiting for him. He headed in my direction, but first stopped to say hello to the regulars, order from the bartender, and direct the drink to be delivered to where I was sitting. He was in no hurry.
Neither was I.
It had been almost a year since Casey had delivered his news, and the rush of panic and frantic searching for self—and other items—dissipated into an understanding that eventually I’d figure it out. The decade between my father’s death and now was a long slow grief train, and the shotgun wedding, a marriage built on hopes and falsehoods, the safe but uninspiring job were all cars on that train. I didn’t realize how much baggage I’d accumulated until I let it all go. Now I was at a place where I knew where I was coming from, where I was headed. Conjunction junction. Now that. As long as. With.
In a first-things-first move, I quit the museum. Or I was sort of fired because I had to confess to David Weller how I’d lost a piece of artwork, withheld the truth about it, and then took some risk, both personally and institutionally, to get back the Panthéon Sketches. Even though the fake theft resulted in a sale, I knew that the real story of what went down in Paris might come out, and Mike Dembretti and his security business would take the fall if I didn’t explain my part in “the misunderstanding.” David proceeded to tell me how valuable my contributions had been in the past, but now seemed like a good time for me to move on. He hoped that this conversation wouldn’t, in any way, affect our future relationship. I assured him it wouldn’t.
After a short deliberation, my mother and I listed the Pasadena house. It was a real estate feeding frenzy that signaled the long economic downturn was over. A pristine midcentury modern with a pedigree resulted in multiple offers over the asking on the day it listed. The decision to sell was easy when I returned from Europe with my dignity and confidence back intact and my mother returned with my father’s notebooks and a renewed zest for life. With Luther’s help, we made a number of financial and foundational decisions we should have made years ago. The Henry Blakely archives would be donated to the Wallace Aston Museum.
Thanks to the sale of several pieces of art from my parents’ collection, there would be an endowment to cover a website and educational outreach programs, and a dedicated scholar, Tai Takashita. Tai was thrilled to have the opportunity to shape the cultural scholarship, and I was thrilled that my father’s legacy was in such good hands. “Do you think I can add ‘thought leader’ to my LinkedIn profile?” Tai has asked over our celebratory dinner with Anders, now publicly his boyfriend, as the added title and money had given Tai the courage to come out to his family. It had gone poorly, but Tai was hopeful that his parents would come around. In the meantime, he was proceeding with his life. Tai reveled in the fact that he and my mother had very similar taste, so it made all conversations about branding and design work a snap.
For the tenth anniversary of my father’s death, my mother did two interviews, one with CBS Sunday Morning the other with the Los Angeles Times. Both were moving and dignified and returned my mother to public life. On September 11, 2011, we skipped the formal ceremonies and made the trek to Marin County, where we asked the private collector who owned It’s Not Really a Small World After All if we could come see the piece. He was touched and very accommodating, inviting us into his home afterward, where we talked for hours about Henry Blakely. The collector put us in touch with his brother, a film agent in New York. Now there was a deal in the works for a documentary about my father’s work. My mother, Tai, and I would executive produce, and David Fincher would direct. Suzi Clements Blakely had her eye on an Oscar nomination.
She was splitting her time between Manhattan and Rouen because Peter Beckman didn’t fly, so transatlantic ocean liners were their transportation mode of choice, and an East Coast city made more sense than Ojai. It was both a shock and a comfort that she had found someone to share her life with, even if it was Peter Beckman. Clearly, she was drawn to men who lived on the edge of genius and sanity, and that’s a pretty short list of eligible bachelors available to an aging supermodel.
I might never fully trust Peter, but I fully believed my mother deserved some life back in her life, and I didn’t have the energy to judge. Bright & Dark: The Musical, currently being workshopped at a regional theater in Connecticut, was set to debut at the Public Theater in New York the following summer. I had followed through with JM’s suggestion, and Luther had negotiated the life rights and a piece of the show. Beckman, who claimed not to have any lawyers, seemed to round up a few for the contract negotiations, but it was cordial, and he was generous. As Luther reminded me, “He has to be, or it’s ten years of work down the drain.”
I had promised to be at the premiere, God help me. I couldn’t decide if I wanted it to be a flop or a rave, but either one or the other because a lukewarm review and half-packed houses would kill my mother. She wanted that story told.