Chapter 9
9
If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him.
THE ART OF WAR , SUN TZU
Chase checked his watch. He’d arranged to meet Bella here after securing a meeting with Sascha through her professor. But he was early which gave him too much time to think. He stared up at one of New York’s most respectable art colleges with a mixture of resentment and curiosity.
He’d got a scholarship to the UK and had never looked back. His mom had always wanted him to travel. To study abroad. To live up to his potential. And now, here he was looking for someone else’s potential because he couldn’t even look at a canvas let alone a paintbrush.
Get over it, dude.
Ever sympathetic, his inner voice.
I am over it. That’s why I’ve got the job as a gallery director.
And you’re fucking that up too.
Bella arrived just in time for his inner thoughts to have a WWE throwdown.
Four days ago he’d bumped into her on the way home. And thank God he had because he’d hate to think what would have happened if he hadn’t.
They were met soon after by Sascha’s professor who led them through halls towards studios that smelled of paint, damp, coffee and nicotine, because kids still thought they were invincible.
‘We’ve had our eye on Sascha for a while. Her promise was evident from the very beginning.’
Chase tuned him out and instead cast glances at the studio space. What had once been white walls – and would be periodically painted over again – currently looked like rough drafts of Pollock paintings. There were a few students still here in the afternoon. The die-hards.
He remembered. He’d been one himself.
Paint beneath the nails, knuckles grazed from pulling canvas across frames they’d made themselves.
A sudden memory of him and Dave falling into hysterics, because Dave had cut one piece of wood too small and didn’t have enough wood left to fix it, and had mulishly decided to keep it, resulting in some kind of deformed rhombus. Their art teacher hadn’t seen the funny side of it.
But they had laughed until they’d cried, gone to the pub and laughed some more.
Sometimes Chase wondered if that was the deepest betrayal from his wife. That she’d taken his best friend with her. Ruined all his memories of them.
‘She’s been working through here for the last six months,’ the professor said. ‘I’ll just make the introductions and then… maybe if you could pass by after, we could interest you in our donation programme?—’
‘No,’ Chase replied, without sparing the man a glance as he entered Levy’s studio space.
His eyes consumed the walls as, behind him he heard Bella apologising to the professor and lying about a meeting that they had after this. Irritation and resentment burned and, after the professor left, he turned to block her path.
‘What was that?’ he demanded.
‘What was what?’
‘What you said to the professor just then,’ he demanded, holding onto his temper by a thread.
Instead of backing off as he’d expected, she leaned in and whispered harshly, ‘I was apologising for you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you were rude,’ she declared. ‘And because if we’re going to make Nayak New York a success then you need to stop being rude ,’ she exclaimed hotly.
‘Do you want to know how much of their “private donations” go to providing scholarships for financially disadvantaged students?’ he asked, her eyes registering confusion at the sudden about-turn of their conversion. ‘Twenty-three per cent. Do you want to know how much of their “private donations” go to BAME students? Sixteen per cent,’ he said as Bella stepped back.
‘If I am going to donate to anything, then you can be damn sure that I want all my money going to where it should go, instead of lining the pockets of board members.’
‘I didn’t know,’ she said, her eyes huge and glistening.
‘No, you didn’t,’ he said, ‘because you just give the money, and as long as you’re told it’s for a worthy cause, you don’t really care.’
He was wrong. He knew that the moment he’d said it. The ‘you’ hadn’t been Bella specifically, but people like her. But that still didn’t change things.
‘Don’t ever apologise for me again,’ he warned frostily.
He turned on his heel, pushing down his anger at the professor and the discomfort at arguing with Bella, and stalked towards the studio space where Sascha Levy was eyeing him coolly, clearly having heard his disagreement with Bella.
‘You do your research,’ Sascha observed.
‘Always.’
‘It’s about time someone put him in his place,’ Sascha said of the professor that had left.
‘That wasn’t putting him in his place, sadly. But as my comms director says, I’ve got a gallery to make a success of.’
‘And you’re looking for art at a New York college? You’ve got bigger problems than your personality.’
‘I think Bella would disagree with that right now,’ he said, his eyes on her artwork.
Sascha Levy was a tall, angular young woman who wouldn’t grow into her hard lines. But she was striking and defiant and Chase liked that a lot. She was going to need some of that defiance if he had any hope of pulling off what he wanted to, now that he’d seen her artwork.
Potential , the professor had said. Patronising ass didn’t even know what he had here. The man had probably locked himself away at this college for nearly thirty years, never challenging himself, or his creativity, as much as his students did.
Christ , he was furious. He knew it wasn’t the professor. It was being here. The energy, the creativity, Sascha’s work on the walls, and fucking hating that it wasn’t his. That he wasn’t the one with the paintbrush, that he wasn’t the one pouring out his inner essence on the walls and not giving a shit who saw and thought what.
He hadn’t felt that way for years .
She deserved more time. Time that she’d probably take for granted, just like he had, but she was also ready. To work, t o sell, to show, for her pieces to be seen.
Chase was aware of the weight of Bella’s gaze, flicking between them and the walls.
‘You need a lot of work,’ he said truthfully, but he could see it: what she really could be.
‘What did you use here?’ he said, walking over to one canvas.
As Sascha walked him through her process, he took it all in.
Monochromatic slashes, with texture and tears and energy. Fury, anger, hunger.
Relentlessly physical.
Something deep within him recognised her talent and cried out in joy at seeing it.
‘You have more?’
‘Yes,’ she replied.
‘Is this your only studio space?’ he asked.
‘I have… a space,’ she replied a little cryptically.
He’d let her have that. Because every artist needed safety. Somewhere they could be completely them without fear of judgement, observation. Somewhere to experiment, somewhere to… fuck up .
‘Some of these are good starting points, but we’d need more.’
‘We?’
‘Nayak,’ he said.
‘Your new gallery,’ she said as if it were a little pet project.
He smiled at her. ‘You can get cocky, that’s fine. We’ve all been there, we’ve all learned the hard way. You’re good, but you need work and direction and you know it.’
Sascha ground her teeth together, but nodded.
‘And you’re not getting it here.’ It was a statement, not a question, but he was glad that she recognised it too.
‘No, sir.’
‘Don’t call me sir.’
‘Gotcha.’
Chase hid a smile. ‘I’m going to find you some space, we’ll take a few days and see where we get to. And we’ll take it from there. How does that sound?’
‘Amazing,’ Sascha replied, for once the guard dropping from her eyes, and the prospect of working with someone she admired practically shining from her skin.
Christ , he felt old.
Potential.
Yeah. So damn much, it hurt.
‘Can you give your details to Bella?’
‘Of course.’
Behind him they shared information while Chase looked over canvases that made him ache from the inside.
He knew a place where she could set up for a chunk of time. He’d work with her. It would mean that he’d be less hands-on at the gallery, but Bella would be able to pick up what he had to let go of in order to ensure that they had a featured artist for opening night. He was half convinced that she’d do a better job than he would anyway.
‘She’s good,’ Bella said when they hit the sidewalk, falling into step with him. But he wanted, needed to be alone.
‘She’s fucking amazing, but don’t tell her that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because soon everyone will be telling her that and she’ll stop bothering to try,’ he said, knowing firsthand how it worked.
‘Is that why you stopped painting?’
Her question caught him by surprise. Everyone else pussy-footed around him, ignoring the gaping black hole in his chest.
‘No, Bella. That’s not why I stopped painting.’ He barely managed to force the words out through the fist gripping his throat tight. He needed to get out of here.
He scanned the road, stuck out his hand and hailed a cab.
‘I’ve got somewhere to be. You can head back to the gallery, or home, whatever works for you. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
He didn’t, couldn’t, spare her a glance as he got into the cab and told the driver to take him anywhere but here.
Coward , his inner voice accused.
Damn right.
* * *
Bella stood on the sidewalk, watching the taxi get lost in a sea of cars, buses, cabs and trucks. Raw. She felt raw from their confrontation.
Don’t ever apologise for me again.
Even now, the cool winter’s dusk settling over New York couldn’t dim the fierceness of the blush of shame on her cheeks. She railed against the telling off, wanting to have been in the right. Usually always in the right. But she wasn’t. She’d been so eager to smooth the tension with the professor that she’d assumed Chase’s rudeness was wrong. But it hadn’t been.
And now she felt uncomfortable. Like her skin was crawling and she wouldn’t be able to settle until he told her it was okay. She hated it. The fear of having done something wrong. And the fact she was concerned about being good for Chase? That was really worrying too.
She headed back to the apartment, unable to expel the nervous energy that rippled around her, forcing a smile for Isiah, the doorman, and wondering where Chase had gone to as she rode the elevator up to their floor.
She’d just let herself into her apartment, slipping off her coat and dumping her bag on the back of the island countertop, when her phone pinged.
Astrid
Please tell me you’re close to bringing him down.
I need some good news today.
Frowning Bella typed back.
Bella
Everything okay?
Astrid
Not really. But it will be.
Bella
Want to talk about it?
Bella waited, but no reply came.
She checked the group messages, but there was nothing new on there either. She thought of how much Astrid meant to her. How much they all meant to her. Astrid deserved her vengeance, just as much as Chase deserved his just desserts. So, Bella the good girl ignored the feeling in her gut that she was missing something, that she didn’t have all the pieces, that Chase wasn’t behaving like the callous, egotistical, autocratic, cheating scumbag that she’d envisioned him to be, and fired off a message to Astrid.
Bella
Don’t worry. I’m on it.
Bella retrieved her laptop from her bag and pulled up the user ID and password she’d found in the personnel files.
CMiller
V. E. R. M. E. E. R. 1675
Surely if he was logged on, she’d just get a user error or something? She should have tried this with her own account, she realised, her finger hovering over the enter key. But she had to act now. She knew it. Or she’d chicken out, Good Bella overriding her need to get Astrid the just desserts she so desperately deserved.
She prayed to whatever goddess was listening and hit enter.
And just like that she was in. She exhaled a sigh of relief and about three years of her life expectancy.
Putting the laptop to one side, she grabbed her phone and logged on to her work email account, giving the draft email she’d composed earlier that day one last read.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Nayak Exclusive
Mr Chester,
I hope this email finds you well. As we gear up to the opening for Nayak New York, I am writing to arrange an exclusive interview between Living Culture and Chase Miller, Nayak’s Gallery Director.
Your magazine is absolutely perfect for the audience we are aiming to reach and would relish the opportunity to explore an exclusive, behind the scenes, sneak peek ahead of the pre-opening.
We are very much looking forward to hearing from you,
Bella Carmichael
Comms Dir. Nayak New York
It was commsy enough to pass, a little loose enough to suggest that she was every bit as terrible as most people seemed to think she was. In short, it was calculated and completed to perfection. But what was most important wasn’t actually the body of the email at all. It was the CC line.
She hit send and, turning back to her laptop where she was logged on as Chase, waited for her email to appear in Chase’s inbox. Her foot tapped on the metal support of the bar stool, her pulse pounding in her throat. When the email appeared in his inbox, she deleted it. She flicked into his deleted items and deleted it from there too.
She then pulled up his contacts, settings, and added Chester C. Carlton to his blocked email addresses before coming back out of settings, closing down Outlook and logging off Chase’s account.
And in less than two minutes, she’d planted the seeds of what would look like Chase’s self-destruction. If Chester C. Carlton disliked Chase now, he was going to absolutely hate him when the man couldn’t even be bothered to show up to the interview he’d begged for. Let alone when they sent the new incompetent comms director who may or may not happen to let slip that they lost their featured artist because no one wanted to work with them.
Could she pull this off?
For herself? No. But for Astrid? For the girls?
Absolutely.
* * *
Chase squinted at the whisky on the bar. He checked his watch and groaned. It was nearly closing time and he’d been here since… since whenever the cab had dropped him off.
He was in some godawful trendy hipster place where apparently it was cool not to be able to see the person next to you. Christ, he missed English pubs. The closest thing they ever came to a cocktail was a vodka and orange. And if you wanted a straw? You’d be laughed out of the pub. Hell, you were lucky if you got ice.
He hadn’t done this for ages. Got trashed in a bar. Not since after Astrid disappeared before he could explain himself. He’d thought about reaching out to her, but what could he have said that would make it okay? That would make any of it okay. So instead, he’d spent nearly two days drinking himself into a stupor.
‘Well, at least I didn’t have to fly to France this time,’ Tej said, taking a seat beside him.
Oh, thank God.
‘Was that drunken growl supposed to be, Thank you, Tej . I really appreciate it ?’
Chase nodded his head and then stopped when the room began to spin.
‘I think I’ve drunk more than I thought.’
‘That’s a lot of thinking, my man,’ Tej said, slapping him on the back and raising a couple of fingers to the barman.
‘Is she good?’ Tej asked of Sascha, taking a seat beside him.
He’d told Tej about her because he needed Tej to be okay with the risk Chase was planning to take. It was Tej’s gallery, Tej’s money, and Chase wasn’t a complete asshole and had absolutely no plans to take such a risk without his permission.
‘Yeah. Better than I was at her age,’ he admitted.
‘Better than you now?’ Tej asked, like a punch to the gut.
‘I’m nothing now,’ Chase said, the humour burning away in the air like ethanol.
‘Dude, it’s not been that long.’
‘Yeah, dude , it has,’ Chase bit back, taking another mouthful of the whisky.
And even just talking about it, the cold sweat began to scratch its way onto his neck in painful pin pricks, his heart pounding in his chest as if he were facing down a wolf, rather than the inevitability of life without painting. Failure and fear, familiar, but still as poisonous and painful coursing through his veins.
‘Okay,’ Tej said, slapping him on the shoulder, as if he knew he needed to be punched out of his internal thoughts and back to the present. ‘So what? You’re going to avoid this kid?’
‘I’m going to help her put together a collection that will launch her.’
‘That wise?’
‘It’ll be good for Nayak. Come out of the gate swinging with the unexpected. Show that it’s not like other galleries. Bella will be able to work up some excellent copy about how, in a world of the stayed and familiar, Nayak is breaking barriers and turning the art world on its head.’
Tej barked out a laugh. ‘I think I got you two in the wrong jobs. You should switch.’
‘I don’t have the patience for what she does. But I will need her to step up if we’re going to get Levy ready.’
Tej took a mouthful of his drink. ‘I’ll keep an eye on her if you like. I’m sure she can handle it though. She’s handled you. That’s enough to take down lesser men.’
She’s handled you.
I wish she would.
Chase bracketed his mouth with his hands, exhaling his thoughts into his palms. This was good. A bit of distance between them was good. He’d be out of the office much more and she’d be too busy to look his way.
‘A bad friend would let you get away with avoiding my question. I’m not a bad friend, Chase. Is it wise for you to help Levy, when just one meeting with her results in this?’ Tej asked, waving a hand between their glasses.
Chase swallowed. ‘You are a good friend. Which is why you’re going to sit here and watch me get blind drunk, get me home safely and pour me into bed and never speak of it again. Just tonight,’ Chase said, shaking his head. ‘I just need to get it out of my system,’ he said, like a promise he hoped to keep true.
Chase held his breath while Tej considered his request and then nodded once.
Chase signalled for another drink.
Is that why you stopped painting?
No, Bella. That’s not why I stopped painting.