Bad Girl Creek by Jo-Ann Mapson

Author:Jo-Ann Mapson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2001-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

I HAVEN’T BEEN TO EUROPE, but last time I checked, that wasn’t an arrestable offense. I did take art history in college, and if I’m not mistaken, the walls of this house are lined with Picassos, Diebenkorns, and the sculpture outside by the pool with drinks set atop it is a genuine Henry Moore. The man who owns all this is predictably as squat as a toad, richer than Croesus, and what Rick would call a “flamer,” and what I guess I call out of the closet. When James introduces me, the art collector is interested only in him. It’s unnerving to James, who tries to no avail to fend off the affectionate squeeze our host attempts to deliver.

“Aren’t you lucky,” I say, pulling Mr. Toad back to a safe distance, “to be surrounded by so much beauty? Come take me on a tour of all this art, won’t you, sir?” And I take his arm and direct him to a very ugly Lichtenstein that is probably worth more than I will earn in my entire lifetime. It’s personalized to Saul and Carl, from Roy. “Tell me the story behind this one, please?”

Saul the mauler whips out a cigar and uses it to gesture to the frame. He’s telling me about his last foolish relationship, and how this print was a present to both of them, and honest, I was listening at first, but now I am in the peripheral mode, where the things happening around me are all I’m taking in. The skinny women in their beaded black dresses; the balding men who tote the skinny women; the painted matriarchs dripping in pearls; the social climbers and the wheeler-dealers like James, who move from gathering to gathering, dispensing a joke, pressing a glass of wine, introducing people to one another, discussing local politics and whether or not Clint Eastwood will show up at this party.

Here is one thing I know. Rick Heinrich of After-Hours Magazine would have done some impressive gathering of his own by now—quotes to drop in articles, little bon mots that border on slander—Rick had a thing for authority, and it wasn’t respect. I take it as a bad sign that I’m looking at the people at this party only to seek out his features. The craggy jaw of the waiter—his. The way the man playing the piano has his hair blocked at the nape of his neck—Rick always kept his cut like that. And how when I pressed my face to his hairline he always smelled of this strange but comforting combination of soap and artichokes, yes, artichokes—summer and youth and heat—that kind of smell found nowhere else in the universe.

“Which artists do you collect?” Mr. Toad is asking me as his hand hovers at the small of my back. “Anybody up and coming you recommend?”

“Oh, definitely Phoebe DeThomas,” I say. “Her sculptures are small but terribly amusing. If she got her hands on some grant money she could be a name.”

“DeThomas,” he mutters. “It’s a familiar name, but I can’t put the work to the artist.

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