In the days leading up to the gallery show, Gen had a number of errands to do and details to take care of. She sent Ryan off to do more sightseeing—he wanted to take a guided tour and then ride the Staten Island Ferry—while she visited the framer to ensure Gordon’s paintings were being handled properly, met with Bellini again, and talked to an art journalist about a magazine piece he was doing on Kendrick.
When she’d met with Bellini, she’d asked to see the catalog that would accompany the show, but he’d said it wasn’t ready. She’d gotten the feeling that he was putting her off, so she’d nagged him about it, calling him repeatedly to ask if it was finished yet, and when she could see it.
She’d known from his tone, and from his repeated excuses, that there was something wrong with the catalog. Even so, when a messenger finally brought a copy to her hotel and she retrieved it from the front desk, she was caught unprepared for what she found.
“It’s all about Bellini!” she ranted over the phone to Gordon as she leafed through the catalog. “It’s about how he discovered you, and … and how he saw something in you, some ‘spark of genius,’ as he puts it. Apparently, you owe everything to him.”
“We’ve never met,” Gordon remarked dryly.
“I know!” Gen exclaimed. “Of course, there’s no mention of the Cambria residency. Shit. Shit! And no mention of me. Jesus! To read this, you’d think Bellini was standing there holding your brushes as you worked.”
Gordon sighed heavily over the line. “What about the paintings? What does it say about the paintings?”
“Okay, wait. It says … Oh. Oh, no. It says you were inspired by the … wait. The ‘clash between man and industry in a post-global-warming age.’ What the …”
“Trees,” Kendrick said. “I was inspired by trees. And the sky. And cows.”
“This is … They’ve completely misinterpreted your work.”
“So it would seem.”
“You’re calm,” Gen said. “Why are you so calm?!”
“Gen.” Gordon sounded infinitely patient, something she never would have expected from him when they’d first met. “It’s all about the work. None of the rest of this matters. And the work is going better than I ever could have expected.”
“Well, that’s … Okay. You’re right. I know you’re right.”
“And no matter what the catalog says, it was you. Bellini didn’t bring this out of me; you did.”
Gen was touched. Her eyes were hot and wet, and she felt a smile come to her lips. “Thank you, Gordon. You know, you’ve changed since you came to Cambria.” She didn’t want to tell him he’d been a mess. But she probably didn’t have to, because he already knew.
“I feel … It’s like I finally know what I’m doing.”
She wished she did, too, but more and more these days, she found herself doubting it.
“Well, you’re going to be doing it with a lot more money when this is over.”
“From your lips to God’s ears.”
Gen was becoming more and more stressed as the date of the show approached. Bellini was an asshole, the catalog was full of lies, the paintings were being misinterpreted, and she had to grit her teeth to get through any meeting with the Archibald / Bellini people without throwing something.
Ryan, on the other hand, appeared to be having a wonderful time.
Every day, he went out into the city eager to take in the sights, excited about whatever he was planning to do that day. If she had a light schedule with the gallery people, she’d go with him. They would eat at a deli, walk hand in hand through Battery Park, or people-watch on Fifth Avenue. They spent an afternoon at the natural history museum, marveling over the dinosaur skeletons and the IMAX planetarium show.
In the evenings, they made love in the hotel bed, or in the shower, or once—memorably—against the wall. Gen drew the line at doing it on the floor, because one could never know what lurked in the depths of hotel carpets.
“Are you having fun?” she asked him late one night when she was naked and wrapped in his arms.
“Yeah. I really am. But I know you’re kind of having a rough time with work.” He kissed her forehead tenderly.
“Work? What work?” she said dreamily as she raised her face to his to be kissed.
It was almost over. She and Ryan were set to be in New York for a week, with the gallery opening scheduled for a Friday night at the tail end of the visit. As Friday arrived, Gen was looking forward to wrapping things up and going home to enjoy her victory. By the time the evening ended, she’d have done everything she’d set out to do. She’d found an artist, brought him to Cambria, coaxed him into producing terrific work, and helped him to get his name known among the power people of the art world. She’d brought her own name to the attention of those same power people. And she also, quite likely, would go home with earnings substantial enough to help her relocate to New York.
Right now, though, she wasn’t even sure she wanted to come here.
It would be easy to tell herself that Bellini was the exception—that he was just one man who lacked integrity, and that the rest of the New York art world upheld higher standards. But she knew that was bullshit. If she moved here, she’d have to deal with one Bellini after another, one self-absorbed, power-hungry, money-obsessed asshole after another. Bellini wasn’t the exception. He was the rule. She would be the exception. And upholding her own ideas about ethics and personal character would place her at a distinct disadvantage here.
But that wasn’t the worst part.
The worst part was the idea that she might learn to adapt, and that adapting might mean that she would become more like him than she would ever want to admit.
“Do I have to be Bellini?” Gen asked Ryan anxiously as she fussed with her earrings in the hotel mirror.
“I certainly hope not,” Ryan said, coming up behind her. He put his hands on her shoulders and bent down to press a kiss against the soft skin of her neck. “That would kind of put a damper on our sex life.”
She smacked him playfully with her hand. “I’m serious.”
“You’re serious about whether you have to become a middle-aged Italian man?”
“I’m serious about … Well, God. About whether I have to act like him in order to compete. You know? He’s successful, Ryan. Really successful. If I want to be successful, do I have to turn into a … a …”
“An insufferable, morally challenged narcissist?” Ryan supplied.
“Thank you. Yes.”
He gently turned her around to face him. His voice softer, he said, “Gen, that’s not going to happen.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I can be sure, because I know you.”
She looked into his dark, liquid eyes and wanted to believe him. “You think you know me, but …”
“I know you,” he said.
And she thought that he did. At least, he knew part of her. He knew her at her best, knew the person she wanted to be. And she realized that the person she wanted to be was very much like him: honest, compassionate, gentle, and strong.
She wanted to be those things not only for herself. She wanted to be those things so she wouldn’t disappoint him.