mess, but she also didn’t want her fretting over the weekend.
“Look, Dara,” she added. “I know I’ve been a bit mysterious at moments this week, but you shouldn’t be concerned. It was simply a little personal drama I stupidly stepped into. Fortunately it’s behind me now.”
“Thanks, Kit. I was just worried for you. I didn’t know if a client had done something crummy or tried to screw you over.”
“No, nothing like that,” Kit reassured her. She smiled. “Besides, if a client ever tried to screw with us, we could just put Baby on the case. The person wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“Ha! Okay, so I’ll take you up on your offer about splitting early. I’m just going to finish up a couple of emails.”
Dara departed a few minutes later and Kit was out the door shortly afterward. It was another gorgeous spring day, and this time she let herself relish it. She took a subway to the east twenties and then walked west to Chelsea, past endless bodegas, delis, restaurants, and flower shops. People were dashing rather than walking, charging toward their weekends. And so was she. For the first time in days she didn’t feel as if she existed in an alternate universe.
Chuck arrived at the gallery just a minute after her, dressed in the outfit that had become more or less his uniform: a crop-jacketed suit, polka dot tie, and brogue shoes worn withoutsocks. His prematurely gray hair was spiked up in front, also a signature for him. They hugged warmly.
“Don’t you wonder?” he asked, after they’d entered Gagosian, “why the people at the front desk in galleries always act as if you’re tearing them away from their jobs when you ask a question. It’s like you’ve interrupted them as they’re about to negotiate the sale of a de Kooning or a Rothko. I thought it was their freaking job to be there for the people walking in the door.”
Kit laughed. “Oh, good, I thought it was just me that generated that kind of please-don’t-annoy-me response from them.”
“Shall we just browse now and catch up over dinner?”
“That sounds like a plan,” Kit said. They’d been friends for six years and though Chuck had told her he could simultaneously gab and engage in almost any other function at the same time, even a tooth extraction, he knew Kit preferred quiet when she looked at art. She liked to fully absorb what she was seeing.
They spent a half hour at Gagosian and then decided to head to two more galleries before dinner. At the third they separated for a bit so Chuck could check out woodprints she had little interest in.
She positioned herself in one of the rooms, where each wall was dominated by a huge canvas by the same artist. She tried to do what an artist friend had once suggested: examine each corner and let it tell you something about the middle.
As she studied the most dramatic piece, she sensed someone come up alongside of her, just a few feet away. For a moment she thought it was Chuck, back from the woodprints and eager for food and booze, but out of the corner of her eye, she could tell that the person’s hair was long and black. She glanced over.
It was someone she knew, she realized, though for a moment she struggled to place her out of context. And then, with a start, her mind caught up.
She was staring at the woman from the hedge fund, the onewho’d come into the ladies’ room. She couldn’t escape from those people, Kit thought in frustration, no matter how hard she tried.
The woman turned, too. Kit noticed her gray eyes flicker with recognition.
“Hello,” the woman said, slowly drawing out the last syllable, as if deliberating the reason for Kit’s presence. She was wearing a perforated black suede anorak over another pair of sleek black pants. An expensive fragrance wafted off her, a floral scent with a hint of something resinous, like amber.
“Sasha Glen, from Ithaka,” the woman added. Kit realized she’d been staring blankly at her, and the woman had assumed she
“Look, Dara,” she added. “I know I’ve been a bit mysterious at moments this week, but you shouldn’t be concerned. It was simply a little personal drama I stupidly stepped into. Fortunately it’s behind me now.”
“Thanks, Kit. I was just worried for you. I didn’t know if a client had done something crummy or tried to screw you over.”
“No, nothing like that,” Kit reassured her. She smiled. “Besides, if a client ever tried to screw with us, we could just put Baby on the case. The person wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“Ha! Okay, so I’ll take you up on your offer about splitting early. I’m just going to finish up a couple of emails.”
Dara departed a few minutes later and Kit was out the door shortly afterward. It was another gorgeous spring day, and this time she let herself relish it. She took a subway to the east twenties and then walked west to Chelsea, past endless bodegas, delis, restaurants, and flower shops. People were dashing rather than walking, charging toward their weekends. And so was she. For the first time in days she didn’t feel as if she existed in an alternate universe.
Chuck arrived at the gallery just a minute after her, dressed in the outfit that had become more or less his uniform: a crop-jacketed suit, polka dot tie, and brogue shoes worn withoutsocks. His prematurely gray hair was spiked up in front, also a signature for him. They hugged warmly.
“Don’t you wonder?” he asked, after they’d entered Gagosian, “why the people at the front desk in galleries always act as if you’re tearing them away from their jobs when you ask a question. It’s like you’ve interrupted them as they’re about to negotiate the sale of a de Kooning or a Rothko. I thought it was their freaking job to be there for the people walking in the door.”
Kit laughed. “Oh, good, I thought it was just me that generated that kind of please-don’t-annoy-me response from them.”
“Shall we just browse now and catch up over dinner?”
“That sounds like a plan,” Kit said. They’d been friends for six years and though Chuck had told her he could simultaneously gab and engage in almost any other function at the same time, even a tooth extraction, he knew Kit preferred quiet when she looked at art. She liked to fully absorb what she was seeing.
They spent a half hour at Gagosian and then decided to head to two more galleries before dinner. At the third they separated for a bit so Chuck could check out woodprints she had little interest in.
She positioned herself in one of the rooms, where each wall was dominated by a huge canvas by the same artist. She tried to do what an artist friend had once suggested: examine each corner and let it tell you something about the middle.
As she studied the most dramatic piece, she sensed someone come up alongside of her, just a few feet away. For a moment she thought it was Chuck, back from the woodprints and eager for food and booze, but out of the corner of her eye, she could tell that the person’s hair was long and black. She glanced over.
It was someone she knew, she realized, though for a moment she struggled to place her out of context. And then, with a start, her mind caught up.
She was staring at the woman from the hedge fund, the onewho’d come into the ladies’ room. She couldn’t escape from those people, Kit thought in frustration, no matter how hard she tried.
The woman turned, too. Kit noticed her gray eyes flicker with recognition.
“Hello,” the woman said, slowly drawing out the last syllable, as if deliberating the reason for Kit’s presence. She was wearing a perforated black suede anorak over another pair of sleek black pants. An expensive fragrance wafted off her, a floral scent with a hint of something resinous, like amber.
“Sasha Glen, from Ithaka,” the woman added. Kit realized she’d been staring blankly at her, and the woman had assumed she
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