Burn (Songs of Submission #5)(25)
Author: C.D. Reiss

“They’re currently in customs, thank you,” said Kendall. “Even if they’re released immediately, they won’t get here for the preview. Sir and Madame, I cannot express to you the financial impact this will have on the museum if we do not have this piece installed. Allocation of space is eighty percent of our concern, and to have a gallery empty is unacceptable.”

“The gallery won’t be empty,” I said. “We’ll have to figure out the sound system, but I think we can get this to work. It won’t be a complete piece, and it won’t match the catalog, but the space will have something in it.”

“If it sells, there will be financial repercussions.”

“If it doesn’t, it’ll be worse,” muttered Darren. He looked up from the clipboard. “Can we get these moved?”

“Right away,” Kendall replied. “We’ve gotten a lot of interest in this piece.” Darren and I looked at each other as Kendall hailed down a guy with a forklift.

CHAPTER 25.

MONICA

My idea was simple. The installation had four walls. Two had been delivered. A bunch of carefully indexed detritus was in the kitchen table-sized box. That was enough for half a piece. If we placed it against a corner of the gallery, we would at least have four walls.

“Two of them will be plain white,” Darren said. “The whole meaning of the thing was about the overwhelming nature of emotional vulnerability.”

“Think about the overwhelming nature of telling that guy his gallery’s going to be empty.”

We didn’t know what we were doing. We’d made something using Kevin’s expertise, and though we tried to learn all we could while contributing to the visuals, Darren and I had essentially designed the sound. We placed the speakers, deciding which types to use and where. We conceptualized it, recorded it, mixed it, and made it work. We talked with Kevin about how the sound would work within the scope of the piece, but anything that could be seen was his. He had the last word.

So the assembly design had been up to him, and it concerned us only insofar as the speakers needed a place to be hidden.

The galleries were packed with artists hanging their work, and when they heard about our plight, we found volunteer helping hands and working minds who understood how to put up an installation. The front of the house, with the doorway, and the adjacent wall. The bug inside was a whole, finished asset. The thing didn’t look entirely broken. Darren and I decided how to get the sound to work by using the museum’s walls, which we decided to leave white. Darren could have drawn something on them, but it wouldn’t have matched Kevin’s artistry. We placed the glass and broken cinderblock as we remembered it. When it was as good as it was going to get, with the walls stabilized, the top part hovering over the gash, and the layers of my voice filled the room, the artists that had helped us stood back and applauded themselves and us for pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

Though we’d make a success of the show if it killed us, the talk around the galleries was that Kevin’s career was jeopardized. Non-delivery of work was such a dead serious infraction that even the craziest artists didn’t get away with it. Non-delivery was a loss of space. It was a loss of prestige and face. It was apologies and returned money.

When he got out of whatever hole he was in back home in Idaho, Kevin would have to dig himself out of an even deeper hole in the art world. I didn’t envy him. As a matter of fact, I felt very, very sorry for him.

CHAPTER 26.

MONICA

We were very close to being late. The piece had gotten up and the music turned on as the caterers finished the buffet and bar. Feran had been at our service the whole time, even shuttling Darren around to pick up a cable he needed to reconfigure the sound. He sped us through the city, around side streets and highways, and got us back to the hotel with seven minutes to spare.

“Dude,” Darren said, “thanks.”

They shook hands like only men can, and Darren and I ran to our rooms.

The door between our suites was open. I peeked into Jonathan’s space and found him in a tuxedo shirt and tie, setting in a cufflink. Clean-shaven, hair neatened for the event, wearing a suit sexier than any lingerie, he silenced my reproaches about the open door just by looking as though he’d stepped out of a magazine.

“You look nice,” I said.

“Thank you. I had some things sent from Yaletown,” he said. “They’re in the closet.”

“I brought my Eclipse dress.”

“No doubt you did.” He tapped his watch. “I’m leaving. But you guys are going to be late if you don’t move it.”

“I have to close this.” I indicated the door.

“Shoo.”

As painful as it was to cut him out of my vision, I closed the door. Of course, I had no intention of wearing any dress he had sent from wherever he said they were sent from. I got out my Eclipse dress, which was the most beautiful thing I owned. I loved it. But next to it in the closet hung a wide garment bag designed for multiple hangers. In this case, seven.

I hung the Eclipse dress in the bathroom, behind the door, so the steam would relax it, and ran the shower. As I undressed, I made it a point to not think about the seven dresses. In all likelihood, they didn’t go with my shoes. I didn’t have the right accessories, and looking at them would only hammer home what I already knew. The dresses had been picked out by someone who didn’t know me, didn’t know my taste, and obviously shopped with an eye to making that gorgeous man’s female interest look like a wet dumpling.

The shower wasn’t the right temperature. Not quite too cold. Maybe it was too hot. That was it. I inched the handle a quarter inch toward cold and ran to the closet as though the bag held candy and opened it so fast the zipper screamed.

“God help me,” I said. “I am not made of stone.”

Seven dresses. Four black. I pushed those to the side. Everyone was going to be wearing black, and time was ticking by. Darren would knock in minutes.

One tonal print. Out.

The last two fell just below the knee. A sparkly, flesh-colored halter with a handkerchief bottom, and a red, low-cut power suit that screamed don’t f**k with me. That was it. And it went with the shoes.

I showered fast, keeping my hair dry. Quick shave. Soap all over. Dried like lightning and out to the closet.

Right. Red dress.

I pulled my underwear out of the bag, and of course, though I intended to wear my regular cottons, the lace and garter were right there. The set was white with gold hooks and clasps. The suspenders were satin with overlayed lace, and the rings holding the straps were as big as quarters. The front was held together with tiny gold hooks. Fuck it. At least I had an outside chance of getting laid in it.