Chapter 20
The dampening reality, of course, is that he’ll have to tell Tom about the Doven show.
He’s waited several days, letting himself bask in the glory of Jahan’s offer, but now he has to fulfill his contractual obligations to Tom.
Though Tom signed over managerial control of Judith’s photographs to Paul—when he believed it to be unlikely they’d even be published—he retained the right to be “informed of all consequential decisions related to the public display of [her] work.” So telling Tom about the show is largely a formality, Paul knows, but it could be an unpleasant one.
Or not—he was surprised by Tom’s silence when the Harper’s issue came out; the man didn’t call him ranting about the introduction—or anything else.
They spoke once, in the aftermath, and Tom sounded almost elderly, bewildered and aged a dozen years by his late wife’s sudden transfiguration into an overnight public sensation.
Paul hopes for the same reduced man when he calls today and delivers the latest news as gently and as coolly as he can.
“A show?” Tom asks, as if Paul were suggesting they mount a Broadway burlesque, a cabaret, or even a topless dance at a gentlemen’s club inspired by Judith’s work.
“Yes, Tom. This is, you know, the best possible outcome. The pinnacle for any artist or photographer. It’s the best thing for Judith—and for you and TJ,” he adds quickly.
Tom snorts. “Not for us.”
“Well, for Judith, then. Think of—”
“Don’t tell me ‘Judith would have wanted this.’ She asked for your help with submitting a few photographs to magazines, and now you’ve gone and whipped up a circus.
You want this. That’s why you’re doing it.
You love the spotlight. You’ve been giving interviews left and right, don’t think I haven’t noticed.
Putting up a gallery show? That’s something you’re doing for yourself.
You’ll get more money that way, won’t you? ”
“There could be sales, yes. But you’ll get the bulk of those profits. Seventy percent, remember?”
“I don’t want it.”
Paul leans his head in his hand, as if Tom were there to witness his weariness. “Look, if Judith were alive, she would have understood this as the natural next step. This isn’t—”
“This is about you, Paul. It’s all about Paul Sorenson,” Tom says with disdain.
“I’m building her legacy!” Paul practically screams.
“Her legacy? Thanks to you, everyone on earth knows she was brutally murdered, and took weird photographs. It wasn’t enough for you to write about it, either—you had to go shouting it on every TV show, in every newspaper.
To hell with you and your show, Paul. I’ll have to read through that contract again and see if it holds up.
If it doesn’t, our lawyer will be in touch. ” And with that, Tom Senior hangs up.
Paul holds the receiver in his hand and stares blearily around the room, listening to the dial tone.
He hasn’t slept well since the issue came out but he’s been riding adrenaline for days; now exhaustion lands like an anvil.
He looks at the boxes of Judith’s photographs, his small desk piled high with correspondence related to her work, and the hall table smothered in unopened fan mail.
He sees it all as real, substantial evidence of everything he’s done to bring a great artist’s oeuvre into the world.
If Tom sees him as some kind of narcissistic opportunist, he’s a fool.
And he is a fool, isn’t he? He knows nothing about art or the art world; he couldn’t even appreciate his own wife’s photographs.
Still, Paul feels sullied by Tom’s words, and afraid of what he said about a lawyer.
He didn’t know the Stanleys had a lawyer—it’s the first time he’s hearing it, and it could be a bluff.
Contracts can be broken, though; they can be torn into bits and flushed down toilets, or burned to ash.
He wouldn’t have the resources to fight, should Tom take action.
But all he can do now is wait and hope that Tom’s words were just bluster, or that TJ will talk sense into the man. Again.
In the meantime, he has to focus on other things—there are so many things in need of his attention, and he has so little energy for them all.
He reaches for a cigarette, lights it, gets a burst of uplift with the first inhale.
His eyes land on the stack of unopened fan mail: one of his less urgent tasks.
He’s told himself he doesn’t have time to read those letters right now.
He’s told himself it isn’t important—what Middle America thinks of Judith’s work.
But he’s curious. And it doesn’t take much to open and read a few letters.