The night of New Voices I’m so nervous that I vomit in the gutter on the way to the show.
Cole said he’d send a car for me at 9:00.
At 8:20 I left on foot.
I’ve come to know Cole Blackwell more intimately than I would ever have imagined these last few weeks. I honestly think I might know him better than any person in this city, because it’s only around me that he lets the mask fall. And it’s not one mask—it’s dozens.
I watch him lift each to his face, one after another, each tailor-made for the person with whom he converses.
The mask for my boss Arthur is that of a fellow businessman with an emotional attachment to his young protégé—in Cole’s case, tinged with an all-too apparent romanticism.
The mask he wears around most of his employees is of a distant, autocratic artist. He has them jumping at his wild demands, all the while making just enough outlandish requests to disguise what he actually wants . . .
The mask he wears for Sonia is the most fucked up of all because it appears the most intimate. Around her, he shows his ruthlessness and wicked humor. He’ll even admit unflattering things to her. But then he turns to me, and I see the animation fall from his face, revealing the absolute blankness beneath. A sight Sonia has never glimpsed, not even for a fraction of a second. He’s too careful. He never slips.
Everything he does is deliberate and flawless.
I’m not so fucking stupid that I don’t realize he could also be using a mask on me. The most deceptive of all, because it most approximates reality.
He knows how good I am at spotting irregularities. I’m jumpy, sensitive—tiny details are glaring sirens to me. He knows this one has to be good. A real work of art. Otherwise, it won’t fool me.
All of this is to say, I have been watching Cole just as closely as he watches me. I watch while he mentors and instructs me, ripping my painting to shreds and demanding that I work and re-work it, laboring constantly, continuously, perfecting it for the show. And he’s right, that’s what fucking kills me, he’s right! The things he points out, the things he tells me to change, I see them too. I know what I have to do.
We both see the painting as it WILL be. As it HAS to be.
We see the perfect vision.
The closer it gets to perfect, the tighter Cole slips his noose around me. He thinks he has me tied up, completely under his control: in his studio, in his show, publicly known as his protégé.
He’s getting bossier by the day. Trying to take more and more of my time. Showing up outside my work, knowing when my shift is over, walking me to his studio. Taking me home again at night. Making sure I never go anywhere outside his sight, without him knowing.
I see what he’s doing.
He’s planning to pick me up in that limo tonight, already dressed for the evening, him in whatever he’s picked out for himself and me in the dress a courier brought over this morning: a stunning silk gown, slit to the navel. Elegant and dangerous. Something that would have turned every head in the gallery.
Well fuck him, I pick out my own clothes.
And nobody is gonna look at me tonight because of a low-cut dress. They’re going to stare at the painting. Because the painting is fucking gorgeous.
I stomp over to the gallery, wearing a 70s mini dress and my favorite boots.
I get there a half hour early instead of fashionably late. I could have strolled in on Cole Blackwell’s arm. Instead, I’m going to see peoples’ reactions to my work. Their REAL reaction, when they don’t know I’m here.
The half-moon of people around the canvas stand quietly like worshippers.
The painting is lit as all paintings of saints should be: by one, single, brilliant overhead light.
The figure’s face is upturned to that light, her body positioned in a way that is simultaneously elegant and broken, contorted and free.
She is pierced through with knives, arrows, bullets, boards . . . a stone has caved in half her skull. Her pale flesh strains against the leather harness, smooth as alabaster stone.
Yet her expression is ecstatic. Beatific. Grateful, even.
The title reads, The Mercy of Men.
The painting is exactly life-size. It’s hung as if you could step right through the canvas and take her place in the frame.
The new critic for the Siren points at the figure’s face.
A perfect portrait.
My portrait.
“Who the fuck is that?” she says.
