5. The Kristman Gallery, November 2011
Sarah stood in front of one of the bright white walls of the gallery, feeling like she herself was another piece of art on display. There should be a label under her saying: Young Photographer Acting Nervous, Mixed media: cotton-blend fabric and flesh.
It was Sarah’s first gallery opening in Toronto.
She was part of a group show of six up-and-coming young photographers, painters, and video artists, and she had an entire wall set aside for her Single Life series in one of the city’s smaller, edgier downtown art galleries.
Now she hovered in uncomfortable heels and a sheath dress at the opening, occasionally meeting eyes with the other young artists who all seemed inexpressibly cooler than she was.
They were standing in their assigned corners as potential buyers circulated in a meandering orbit of cheap wine and stilted conversation.
“This is yours?” A woman in her sixties with a silvery bob of hair leaned close to one of the photos, peering at a detail in the upper corner.
“It is,” Sarah agreed. The question felt superfluous; all the photos were self-portraits.
The woman stepped over to examine another photo, then chuckled and moved on to the next artist without even glancing at the rest of her work.
Sarah needed to get used to that: the inconsistent attention, the casual dismissal in people’s eyes.
This was part of the game, she supposed: developing a thick skin, selling herself as much as her work, acting charming in the face of rich people’s knowing looks.
Her friend Anya had stopped by earlier, apologizing for having to run but giving her an assertive hug and a long stream of enthusiastic gushing.
Her roommate Winnie had come by as well and had quietly eaten a single piece of cheese on a napkin before giving a half-whispered compliment and slipping out the door.
How Winnie managed to function as a student-teacher in a room full of Toronto public school students was beyond Sarah’s imagination; given Winnie’s general disposition, Sarah suspected that they were eating her alive.
Just as Sarah began to consider helping herself to her own glass of wine and then hiding in the back hallway to down it, she saw Paul entering the door and peeling off a black and white checked scarf as he looked around to find her.
Trish had purchased a peacoat for him, and Sarah could concede that it made him looked appealingly dashing, if amusingly British.
Someone else had entered behind him, too—surely not Trish herself.
No, it was Ren. Sarah’s stomach flipped at the sight of him.
Were Paul and Ren good friends, now? The idea made her sad—that Ren was now accepted as part of Paul’s social circle but she herself was not.
“There she is!” Paul called when he saw her. He stepped forward and gave her a casual hug, his wool coat exuding the chilly fall air. “This is so exciting!” His eyes flicked to the photos and back again. “Your first show in the city!”
Ren stood back, smiling at her in one of his scuffed leather jackets. “Hey,” he said warmly. She gave him a hug and smelled a whiff of a stolen cigarette on him.
“Aren’t you supposed to be having a baby right now?” she asked.
“Five days ’til deadline,” Ren said. “But I wouldn’t have missed this. Why didn’t you tell me you had a gallery show?”
“You’ll know why when you see the work,” she said with a self-deprecating laugh.
Ren immediately went to examine her photos as Paul followed behind.
Her heart pounded from nerves, watching him pause at the first one.
At least there was no gratuitous nudity, but in every other way the photos made her feel completely exposed.
Her Single Life portraits made Sarah seem by turns comical, confident, and absurdly lonely.
“Inspired by the break-up with Liam, I take it?” Paul asked over his shoulder.
“And your housewarming party,” Sarah replied to Paul. She saw Ren register this with a frown. “When I was the only single person there,” she reminded them.
“That was entirely an accident,” said Paul, waving a hand in protest, and Sarah repressed the desire to point out that in spite of his denials, Trish hadn’t invited her over again.
Sarah and Paul had had coffee a few times and he had been warmly supportive of her break-up and her new artistic goals.
But she and Paul never did anything involving Trish, nothing that meant Sarah was going to be part of their core friend group.
Fair enough, Sarah supposed; she didn’t like Trish either and shouldn’t expect unreciprocated affection. It still made her sad.
She watched Ren taking in the photos in order: The Picnic, which depicted Sarah lying on a checkered blanket alone in a park surrounded by empty bottles of wine, her legs clad in rainbow tights, smears of blinding white sunscreen on her cheeks; then The Sunbather, a portrait of her alone at a beach, wrapped in a sandy towel and reading a smutty novel under a neon pink umbrella as the legs of an attractive young lifeguard walked past. Ren stepped in front of a photo of her in a bubbly bathtub, then moved on quickly.
She noticed a few women registering Ren from across the room.
That must happen to him everywhere. She realized it had been a while since she’d even remembered how beautiful he was.
She was too busy missing him. He hadn’t called her again since the museum day.
She hadn’t reached out, either, of course.
His wife was having a baby; she felt like he needed to be the one to maintain the outlines of their friendship.
“These have so much of your personality,” Ren said when he returned to her side.
“Sassy and self-absorbed?”
“Sunny but with a razor-sharp wit,” Ren offered. “No, I just mean they have a perspective. An opinion. It’s a really cool direction for you.”
“It’s like you’re a theater director,” Paul agreed. “Designing costumes, staging sets.”
“Well, we’ll see if any of them sell. They may be a little too pointed to hang in people’s living rooms.”
“I would buy one,” Paul insisted.
Sarah almost snorted. “Can you imagine a photo of me with my legs akimbo between Trish’s black-and-white photos of Toronto tourist attractions?”
Paul winced a little, while Ren looked like he was suppressing a laugh.
“I’m sorry!” Sarah cried. “That came out snarkier than I intended. Your place is lovely. Very…clean.”
“We’re engaged, actually,” Paul said. Sarah stood frozen in shock for a half-second before her smile returned.
“Wow! Congratulations! Look at you two.” She waved her hand between them. “You’re engaged, and you’re having a baby. Checking off all the big ones. I might be forced to call you adults soon.”
“We probably won’t get married for a couple of years,” Paul added, “to save up for the wedding Trish wants. But that’s the plan.”
“Well, that makes sense. Let Trish plan what she wants! And you,” Sarah added, turning to Ren, “need to send me a photo of your gorgeous baby as soon as it arrives.”
“Any day now,” Ren said. “Paola warned me that I better not freeze up when the day comes.”
“We’re actually meeting them for dinner soon,” Paul said. “So we should get going. Hopefully, she doesn’t go into labor before the food is on the table.”
The fact that neither of the women had stopped by Sarah’s opening felt like a statement; Ren caught Sarah’s hurt expression before she could hide it.
“Sorry I haven’t been free to hang out much,” Ren said gently. “Paola’s had a tough pregnancy.”
“Well, she’s in the home stretch.” Sarah upped her good cheer in the face of his kindness. “I should let you both get to the restaurant so you’ll be ready to whisk her away to a hospital if required.”
“As long as I don’t have to do the delivery,” Ren said. “That’s my nightmare. Having the baby come in the taxi.”
Sarah smiled. “You can handle anything. You once stayed up for thirty-six hours straight to finish a paper on Thomas Pynchon.”
“I’ll remind myself of that when changing diapers at 2 a.m.”
“The Crying of Baby 49,” Sarah joked.
“I think diapers are more like Gravity’s Rainbow,” Paul replied. He took a breath. “Well, I’m glad we made it. This is tremendous work, Sarah.”
She held her chin even higher. “I have suffered for my art by having solo wine parties and reading trashy paperbacks.”
Paul gave her a kiss on the cheek, then Ren gave her a light hug.
“I want to hear about all your shows,” Ren said quietly. “I mean it. You promise?”
“I promise.”
And she watched her two favorite men in the world leave together to return to their partners and their bright, hopeful lives.
She glanced at her photo entitled Bathtub.
In the image, she was dangling one leg over the edge of a tub, the rest of her mostly covered in mounds of frothy bubble bath except for a bit of her collarbone peeking through the foam.
One confident hand with purple nail polish raised a beer can in victory.
She had used a pop flash, 1970s style, like she had been caught by paparazzi.
Sarah loved the image, even if Ren hadn’t.
The photo made her look exactly like she felt. Ridiculous. Messy. A little hopeful in spite of everything.