Chapter Five #2
The violin player has toured Europe with several top orchestras and has soloed with the Auckland Philharmonia, so it doesn’t surprise me that the bid reaches forty-five thousand dollars before Genevieve declares, “Sold to number one hundred and sixty-seven!”
Sold, like a prize cow at a market fair.
I shift uneasily, watching as the violinist takes her seat. I mustn’t think like that. I’m helping to raise significant money for worthwhile causes. I have to think of all the women in rural communities who these programs will help.
Slowly, Genevieve works through the artists. Each woman gives a brief talk about her art and the experience she’s offering, and then Genevieve begins the bidding.
I watch the process, growing increasingly stiff with resentment and outrage as the evening progresses and Spencer’s warning plays out.
The older women struggle to reach twenty thousand for their bids, while all the younger women easily pass forty thousand.
One—a particularly beautiful, young, blonde poet—even gets to seventy-five thousand before Genevieve declares her sold. How fucking predictable.
Nobody else seems particularly bothered by this. Everyone appears to be having a great time, and most of the women look thrilled to think they’re fetching a decent price. I think it’s Spencer’s fault—if he hadn’t planted the idea in my head, I’m sure I would have been having a fantastic evening.
All too soon, Genevieve reaches artist thirteen, and then it’s time for my turn.
The mood is excited, even raucous, with people calling out, cheering, and whistling.
I stand as she announces my name and approach the podium.
I’ve written a short speech on a card, and I read it out, explaining to the audience that I’m offering a private portrait session in my studio on Waiheke Island.
They already know this of course as it’s written in the glossy programs sitting on their tables, but I tell them a little about my studio and my process, and then describe why the title is ‘The Face I See’.
“You come to be seen, as I choose to see you,” I tell them.
It was Genevieve’s idea—she thought it would make the bidders curious as to what my interpretation of their portrait would look like, and it naturally puts the power in my hands.
I stand to the side as Genevieve begins the bidding, starting at ten thousand dollars. Across the room, people begin lifting their paddles.
Genevieve increases the bids in five-thousand-dollar increments, and the price rises swiftly past thirty thousand, then past forty.
I stand there, hands linked in front of me, watching the bidding war take place.
I force a smile on my face, but inside, my heart is thundering.
I run my gaze along the tables at the front, which is where many of the final bids have landed.
Most of the sponsor tables feature older, rich businessmen with florid faces, laughing and nudging each other as they outbid one another.
Nausea rises inside me at the thought of one of them winning the bid.
It doesn’t mean anything, I tell myself furiously.
It’s just for a studio session—it’s not for a date!
So why does it feel so cheap and… yes, Spencer was right… degrading?
My gaze skims across the guests—and then it slams to a stop. For a moment, I think I’ve conjured him up by thinking about him. Sitting at a table to one side of the hall, leaning back in his chair, one arm hooked over the back, is Spencer Cavendish.
He definitely wasn’t on the guest list. He must have snuck in at the last minute.
God knows how much his ticket cost him. Like everyone else, he’s in a tuxedo, a three piece, as his jacket is unbuttoned and the waistcoat beneath is visible.
He’s wearing a wing-tip white shirt and a black bow tie, which complements his dark hair that’s threaded with silver, and those distinctive flashes at his temples.
My heart bangs as our gazes lock. Almost immediately, though, I realize he’s not bidding. His paddle sits discarded to one side, and as I watch he lifts a glass to his lips and takes a sip. He looks relaxed, almost bored. He’s not here for me.
I tear my gaze away and look back at Genevieve. The bids have been slowly climbing, and she’s just reached fifty thousand.
“Come on, ladies and gentlemen,” she teases, “aren’t you intrigued to see what this beautiful young woman will make of you in her studio? What vision will she have of you? Imagine what it will be like to hang an amazing, raw portrait of yourself in your home! Do I hear fifty-five thousand?”
Grinning, a man at a sponsor table raises his paddle, and she gestures toward him. “Fifty-five, thank you! Do I hear sixty?”
To my astonishment, the price continues to climb. It’s all men bidding now. Sixty, seventy, eighty thousand. It’s passed the maximum reached so far, and Genevieve’s face is bright with excitement.
“Do I hear eighty-five?” she asks.
The man who bid eighty meets my eyes. He’s in his eighties, by the look of him, overweight, and slightly balding, and even from here I can see his top lip is shiny with sweat.
I try not to despair. This is a professional auction!
I don’t even have to be alone with him. I’ll ask Helen or Mum or someone else to sit in the studio with me.
It’s not like I have to kiss the man! I scan the room, half-hoping someone else will continue the bidding, half-hoping it finishes here and I can slink back to my seat.
“Going,” Genevieve declares, “going…”
“Half a million dollars,” a deep voice calls out from the side of the room. “And I’ll double it if you end the bidding now.”
There’s an audible gasp across the room. My eyes widen and my jaw drops. I already know who the voice belonged to. Spencer looks lazily amused, and lifts his paddle to show Genevieve his number.
I look at her. For a brief moment, her eyes flare with something, but the emotion is gone before I can pin it down, and then she smiles and says, “Goodness, well, what can I say to that? The bidding is over—sold, for a million dollars, to number two hundred and thirty.”
The room erupts in a cheer. At most of the tables, people bend their heads to whisper to one another, no doubt wondering what on earth prompted Spencer Cavendish to place such an outrageous bid on a relatively unknown artist. I turn and make my way back to my seat, face burning.
The other women smile, but I can see one or two envious looks.
Genevieve gives me an amused, curious glance before turning her attention to the final artist.
When I’m seated, I finally look back at Spencer’s table. Half of me expects to see him looking the other way with bored indifference; the other half is sure he’ll be staring at me with his wolfish gaze.
To my surprise, his seat is empty. I scan the room, but he’s vanished, presumably out of the side entrance, heading toward the lobby.
I sit there in a haze, my head spinning, as the bid rises to sixty-five thousand before Genevieve calls it a day.
She gives a closing speech, promising that the artists will be available to those at the sponsor tables for a private meet and greet in the adjacent room in a short while.
Then she ends the auction, thanking everyone for their attendance and for raising such a generous amount of money for worthwhile female-led programs.
We file off the stage into the meeting room. Helen is there, waiting, and she laughs as I walk up to her.
“What was that about?” she asks, amused.
“I have no idea.” I’m flushed and confused. I don’t know what to think, and all of a sudden I have to speak to Spencer. If he hasn’t left the building, which is possible. “Can you tell Genevieve I’ll be back in a minute?”
“You’re supposed to wait… The press wants photographs…”
But I’m already walking away, toward the door that leads to the corridor down to the lobby, my heart racing.