“Let’s get some bubbly and then I’ll introduce you to my boss, Sheldra Fine.” She led me to the bar as she talked about the things you talk about when you see someone with whom your only connection is your alma mater. Benign questions, like Did you hear that so-and-so got engaged? or that so-and-so is in rehab? She was so basic.
Just as we were running out of nothingness she caught the eye of her boss and we were summoned over. The boss was the kind of woman that my grandmother would describe as handsome. She spoke in a monotone: “Hello, Sophie. Thea has told me so much about you.” I smiled, thinking, Thea doesn’t know so much about me.
She took a step back and looked me over from head to toe, purposefully, not discreetly. She asked, “Whom do you consider more innovative, Shiraga or Yves Klein?”
Please, so easy. “Shiraga painted with his feet years earlier than Klein used his body.”
She didn’t react. “Shinzo or Kikuji?” she asked.
“Eiko,” I responded with a confident smile.
“A photographer? And don’t say Moriyama or Kawauchi.”
I smirked, as I had what I knew was a great answer. “Fan Ho. For his drama and simplicity.”
“Hmmm. I like your style. Call me Monday morning to set up a formal interview.”
Thea was more excited than I was. “You nailed it. Let’s do a shot!” she shrieked as soon as her boss was out of earshot. We both sat down. “Two shots of Patrón, please,” she asked the bartender before I’d even agreed. As we toasted I held up my phone and took a selfie. We checked it before we drank, in case we needed a redo.
“You can’t post that!” she quickly objected.
“Why? You look great!”
“It says Christie’s behind us!” she said, alarmed.
“So?”
“So it will raise suspicion!”
“I’m quitting anyway. What’s the difference?”
She looked at me like I was a total moron. “Obviously Sheldra is going to want you to do some spying before you leave—you know, some internal espionage,” she said, without humor.
“Who are you, Edwina Snowden?” I said, laughing at my own joke. “I can’t spy for you!” Of course I meant I actually couldn’t spy, because I had no way of getting into the building, but I wouldn’t have spied on Sotheby’s even if I could have.
I had begun to Instagram the pic when she grabbed my phone away from me. “I’m serious, Sophie!”
I got serious too. Somehow the fact that I’d been lying made me even more self-righteous.
“Listen, Thea, it’s one thing for me to leave Sotheby’s but quite another to screw them over in the process. If Sheldra doesn’t want me for my style and my knowledge, then I’m out.”
“Then I guess you’re out,” Thea said as she placed her still-full shot glass back on the bar and stormed off. I laughed at my ambiguous principles. I guess it was one thing to quit a fake job but quite another to be the kind of girl who would fake-screw my employer. In a strange way it felt good to hold on to my values, convoluted as they may be.
The man beside me hijacked Thea’s shot and raised it to toast. “To you!”
I clicked his glass and we drank. “Why are we drinking to me?” I asked upon recovering from the burn.
“I don’t often see that kind of integrity in young people. I’m impressed.”
I thanked him as he ordered us another round.
“Was she a good friend?” he asked curiously.
“Not really,” I said, playing with the rim of my glass. “She wasn’t really my type—a snob, and for no reason. She was a slush-fund baby.”
“You mean a trust-fund baby?”
“No, a slush-fund baby—her father paid for her entire education by stealing from his company’s petty cash.”
He laughed spontaneously from his gut. Hmmm, I’m cool and funny.
“I wish I was in the art game. I would snatch you right up.”
“What do you do?” I asked, more out of courtesy than because I cared.
“I own a marketing company, DrinkTheKoolAid.com,” he said, as if I should have heard of it. My face must have given me away. “Drink is made up of a group of influencers. We bring ideas to the mainstream consciousness through social media. It’s like reality television for the three-second attention span.”
I laughed. “That’s actually what I do!”
He asked me to explain, so I went on to describe the road that led me to the seat at the bar next to him. Everything from my very first aligram to borrowing the little black dress from Bloomingdale’s in a last-ditch effort to keep up appearances. As I told the story I realized how much I had enjoyed the whole trip. Not the lying, but the creativity involved in getting the right photo, choosing the right caption, and the instant and constant gratification of the likes and new followers. I was good at it. It was actually what kept me from sinking into a depression through all the rejections of my unsuccessful job search. He ate it all up and promised me that if I came to work for him, I could hashtag my way to a crib of my own in no time.
“You put on a good show,” he said. “Right down to your red-bottomed shoes.”