Читать книгу Escape From Bridezillia - Jacqueline deMontravel - Страница 14

“What are you wearing?” asked Daphne over the phone as I dressed for my interview with Daniel West.

“My black Michael Kors pants, fitted Chanel sweater, and”—I paused, holding in my breath to accentuate my calf with the same motion as tucking in your tummy for too-tight jeans—“my sexy suede Dior boots.”

“Change.”

“Change?”

“Change!” she ordered.

“Excuse me, Ms. Wintour, but I do recall these being recent runway items.”

“Daniel is expecting a creative personality, someone with a touch of the exotic. You must show your openness to experimentation. Your love of color!”

Was she talking about my meeting or having an affair with a Masai tribesman?

I was waiting in the reception area of Daniel West Gallery, which I knew was the right place with “Daniel West Gallery” painted outside the door in dripping red paint, probably brought to you by the people behind the latest teen slasher movies.

In my head I kept calling him “Daniel West.” Daniel West was a brand, one that I knew on a commercial level. Just as I wouldn’t call Orville Redenbacher “Orville” or Frank Perdue “Frank” from the many times I met with these two men, it would be inappropriate to refer to Daniel West simply as “Daniel.”

Turning the knob to go into the gallery, you went from red and white to black and white. I began to think of the “what’s black, white, and red all over” jokes, supplementing the uninspired interiors with skunks in blenders. The walls were so bare they were blinding, with one black canvas for which I couldn’t identify the painter, and considering it was really just a black canvas, that made it a bit more difficult to attribute.

I was feeling pleased with myself for not taking Daphne’s advice on what I’d wear, as I fit right in with the black and white composite without even doing a scout.

The receptionist pointed to a seat and I sank into a high-backed couch that had an uncomfortable scratchy texture. Overcome by tiredness, I considered nodding off, until the receptionist awakened me, informing me that I would meet with “Mr. Daniel West” in about fifteen minutes. He then offered me a water, which I declined because I wasn’t sure if I was being graded on this and didn’t want to appear as the high-maintenance type.

He smiled, returning his attention to his Smythson planner and wrote something, which I figured to be a mark that passed in my favor. I then took out my Smythson to show that we were indeed of the same tribe. Having my book also gave me security, something that preoccupied me, with no coffee table displaying magazines to read or other attractions for awaiting guests unless you elected to stare at the black canvas that took all of two seconds to commit to memory.

Scribbling nonsensical notes also distinguished me from the yappy cell phone type, which was an important quality I wanted to distinguish myself as. Luckily, the view onto Fifty-seventh Street had some clever animation with its bustle and color of New York street energy. I must have been nervous, going to such efforts to impress a receptionist, whose job was to answer a phone, an easy enough skill that required no prior training.

Suddenly, a bird made a terrifying splat into the window, its wings frayed into every direction before it slid from our view. I turned to the receptionist and he met my gaze, his face contorted to hysterical directions, and then we both burst into laughter at the expense of this bird—this bird now probably squatting somewhere in a halo of stars. My relationship with the receptionist shifted to a new, more intimate role.

“Miss Briggs?” asked Daniel West from the side of the reception desk.

“Oh, hi,” I said waving, trying to act composed, but that would be like hitting the brakes after driving over 90 mph, not that I would drive over 90 mph (unless it was very late and the highways were free of traffic).

“What’s so funny?” asked Daniel West.

“Well. You see, there was this bird,” but I stopped, realizing that Daniel West may be some animal rights fanatic and not find the humor in a bird that would soon be swept into the dustbin of a worker in a gas station jumpsuit.

“Have you been to the new gallery before?”

His last gallery had been located on Prince Street, which I’d frequented many times, drawn by the great parties where you discussed art with celebrities in a mist of champagne.

“No, but I rarely missed your exhibitions on Prince,” I said, as we both stared at his name dripped in blood. Daniel West Gallery—very clear.

He laughed at me with his eyes. Daniel West was quite handsome. His butt most certainly was, thoroughly analyzed as he showed me to a conference room adjacent to the gallery’s main viewing room.

Presenting a seat at the end of a long steel mesh table that seemed to be created from the underwear of armor, I shimmied onto it with flirtation in mind. The chair felt rather uncomfortable. It could have benefited from a cushion, but that would have disrupted the style of the unfurnished room.

Breathing in his $100-an-ounce cologne, I thought that, while cologne topped my list of dislikes on men, worn on Daniel West—with the dark shoulder-length hair tucked behind his ears, a black cashmere sweater, and Prada loafers—the style worked.

I leaned down to give him my portfolio, an aluminum box that encased eight and a quarter-inch images of my paintings glued onto thick pieces of black poster board and a few Polaroids of my most recent works. He thumbed through the pictures delicately, giving each frame significant thought. This lasted about eighteen hours.

“Very Lucian Freud, yet you have this classic training—like the great portraitists if they were on something. Manet, Velasquez,” he finally said. “There’s even a hint of Picasso—his early works. But I also see some Jenny Saville from the realism. And then there’s the Claude Belcham appeal—whom I represent, as I am sure you know.”

Daniel West dropped the names of varied artists the way the fifth floor of Barney’s tested out the brands of new designers. Usually I’d be weary of such overt namedropping, though considering this man had the power to direct my future, I’d play along.

“Listen, Emily,” Daniel West said, shimmying the metal lid on top of my portfolio. He then shot his dark eyes at me. If he kissed me, I wouldn’t be offended. “You’re good, young, and I like this little pixie thing going on.”

Pixie thing?

“So, by the time I return from Paris, I want to have another meeting to see if you have enough sketches to base an exhibition. A portrait—or two. Possibly three paintings—shoot for an entire body of work.”

Was it just me or was his list of demands increasing as he spoke? I should really have used that Smythson planner of mine to take some serious notes, especially considering that there was no one else in the room to copy from. Did he really call me a pixie?

“If I like what I see, I will be giving you the go-ahead to produce enough paintings for an exhibition. We want to shoot for before the summer. Everything stops during the summer months, so you need to work fast and brilliantly.”

“Sure,” I said happily, apparently agreeing to produce more pieces than I had ever created, unless we counted the paintings I made in the particularly rainy summer of ’84 that focused on my friends’ belly buttons (really an excuse to ogle my tennis instructor’s abs). Suddenly I had an image of all of my Smythson planner sections—the wedding, the move, and now a major exhibition. And then there was that wedding portrait of Henry and me. Well, that would just have to be part of the exhibition, along with the picture of Daphne’s Emily and Henry. Daniel will just not be privy to such minor details right now. I started making notes in my head.

“Okay then.” Daniel West gave me his hand, for me to shake, and I offered him my hand with the duct-taped finger. He seemed perplexed by this.

“Too big!” I laughed, and he just looked inquisitively. Why did he call me a pixie? I hoped that wouldn’t stick.

“Jean Paul, outside in reception, will take your information and go over the deadlines with you and set up our next meeting.”

“Sure, Jean Paul.”

“You know Jean Paul?”

Of course I knew Jean Paul. We watched a kamikaze pigeon slam into your window but, again, Daniel West may have been some animal rights activist, so I just gave him a nod.