Chapter 2 #3
The gallery was impressive, and Charlie recognized the name when they got there.
They handled important artists, and a valet parker took the car.
A number of people were leaving, and stood on the sidewalk talking, waiting for their cars, or just chatting before they left, as Ted and Charlie headed toward a knot of people at the door.
They could see through the windows that there was still a big crowd inside.
Charlie smiled, the scene was so typically New York.
There was a lot of security on the sidewalk, and someone said that both the mayor and the governor were there.
As Ted and Charlie tried to make their way into the gallery, there was a tangle of humanity blocking the door, trying to make their way out.
Their bodies were pressed together and nothing moved for a minute, as Ted and Charlie tried to inch sideways through the crowd, with others ahead of and behind them.
Charlie smelled her faint exotic Oriental perfume before he saw her.
It was a musky scent of patchouli with a dash of spice which caught his attention, and was an extremely pleasant sensation.
There was a mysterious quality to it, and he wondered which of the women around him was wearing it.
There was a mass of red hair next to him, so close he could have touched it, as he smelled the perfume.
The head turned then, and Charlie held his breath for an instant when he saw her.
She had an exquisite delicate face, creamy white skin, and piercing green eyes, the color of Imperial jade.
She was looking directly at him, and the world stopped for an instant.
Some overpowering force made him want to touch her face, and she gave him the smallest of smiles, as though they were intended to meet and she was pleased to see him.
They were crushed against each other, and he felt an electric current run through him as the logjam tightened around them and seemed to bring her even closer.
She was less solidly on her feet than Charlie to withstand the crowd.
He was taller and stronger. She was wearing a black dress and jacket, and what mesmerized him were her remarkable green eyes.
He noticed that she had graceful hands and wore no rings.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly, just loud enough for her to hear him, and she nodded, and an instant later, the knot loosened and she was propelled forward away from him, and all he could see when he looked was her back and her red hair.
He felt an almost irresistible compulsion to follow her, but she was nearly through the door by then.
She didn’t turn to look at him, but he stared at her, and found himself deposited into the main gallery with the rest of the people arriving.
The paintings around him were incredible.
The show was beautiful. He spotted the governor, and he realized that two of the portrait subjects were standing near him.
He recognized them immediately, standing near their portraits, looking proud.
There was an alcove of children’s portraits that were poignant.
The artist had an incredible gift. Each portrait looked as though it was about to speak and tell a deep secret.
There had obviously been a powerful bond between the subjects and the artist. Each portrait told you something intimate and personal about the subject.
A group of museum directors were speaking to the gallery owner, among them the director of the Metropolitan Museum.
Two of them wanted to purchase Devon’s work.
Charlie could see from the red dots next to every painting that an hour after the show had opened, all of the paintings had been sold.
Probably several even before that. The commissions were purchased, obviously, but so were all the paintings of children in the room of random subjects.
Devon had been very happy when she left.
Six commissions had been requested. The show was a resounding success.
Charlie felt breathless as he toured the gallery to see all the paintings.
There were portraits of two famous women, while all the others were of men.
Ted found Charlie as he stood looking at one of the portraits.
They had a fresh contemporary feel to them, but had been painted in a classical style.
She had a method all her own, with a kind of magic to it.
It was that same compelling feeling of deep mystery, love and long-hidden pain, and raw emotion that he had seen in the redheaded woman’s eyes on the way in.
She had seemed powerful and fragile at the same time. He felt haunted by her now.
“The paintings are something else, aren’t they?
” Ted said when he found him. It was almost a religious experience looking at the art.
Her talent exploded off the canvas with a life force that held you in its grip, and you couldn’t tear yourself away from the paintings.
Charlie turned to Ted with a look of amazement.
Some of the paintings of the children made him want to cry, they were so touching and alive, full of innocence and joy yet with a hint of sadness.
Devon brought everything she had lived and experienced into her art.
“The paintings are amazing,” Charlie said, feeling dazed and awestruck.
“I think we passed the artist on our way in,” Ted said vaguely. “The woman with the red hair, if you noticed her. There’s a picture of her on the gallery director’s desk.”
Before they left, Charlie went to the desk and picked up one of the folders set there for the guests to take.
There were photographs of several of the paintings in it, most of them of famous subjects anyone would recognize, and a list of the people the artist had painted.
The prices for her portrait sittings were listed as “upon request,” depending on the size, which didn’t surprise him.
He was sure they were appropriately steep.
As he looked at them, Charlie thought of the portrait the board wanted of him to hang in the boardroom.
The paintings he was looking at were entirely different from the stuffy, pompous portraits of his ancestors, but they had so much more meaning—they were a collaboration between the artist and the subject, a secret they had shared, a moment of communion that would last forever in the portrait.
He had felt that bond himself for a minute when he saw her.
She was a woman without artifice, without armor or a shell.
She looked at you from the depths of her soul, and looked straight into yours with those powerful green eyes at once strong and gentle.
She was from another world. She seemed like a woman who could do no harm, but perhaps had been injured herself, and turned the wound into a blessing through her art.
Ted would have liked to have a portrait painted by her as a symbol of his success.
Charlie would have liked to sit for a portrait with her so he could see her again.
He was still haunted by her as they left the show.
Ted had made a point of meeting the governor and the mayor.
Charlie didn’t care about them. The only person he would have wanted to meet was the artist. He spoke to no one while he was there, he was too intent on the art.
He took the folder with him, the valet collected Ted’s car, and Charlie got in.
He felt as though all the air had been knocked out of him.
“Thank you,” he said to Ted. “They’re the most beautiful paintings I’ve ever seen.”
“It makes you want to have one, doesn’t it?
” Ted agreed as he drove them to the restaurant.
“I’m sure I can’t afford her, but you can.
” Charlie didn’t believe in portraits. He always said that he thought they were a meaningless narcissistic gesture, because he associated the idea with his father and the portraits of him.
But what Devon did was entirely different.
It was true art that deserved to be in a museum, and would last for centuries, and the bond between her and her subject would still be there, as alive a hundred or two hundred years later as it was today.
“I don’t think the boardroom at the bank deserves a work of art like that,” Charlie said respectfully, as they reached the restaurant and got out of the car.
He could hardly concentrate on the menu to order dinner.
They both ordered burgers at the trendy restaurant, which was as crowded as the gallery had been.
Ted explained the deal he had in mind to Charlie, who didn’t turn it down, but wasn’t as enthused as Ted had hoped, and he trusted his old friend’s instincts.
Charlie had an unfailing nose for what would work, and what would never be more than ordinary.
He told Ted to keep him apprised of his progress, but he didn’t leap to join him in the deal.
Ted was disappointed but didn’t press him.
Charlie knew what he liked and what he didn’t.
And when something sparked for him he was relentless, pursuing it with passion and excitement.
Ted’s proposal just didn’t turn him on, or make him want to join him.
They enjoyed the dinner together, and Charlie thanked him again for taking him to the show. He said it had been a wonderful experience. He still felt as though he hadn’t come back to earth yet. The two men promised to stay in touch and get together again when Charlie next came to New York.
He put the gallery folder on his desk when he got home and walked out to his terrace, sat down in a lounge chair, and looked up at the sky, thinking about Devon, and when their eyes had met when they were pressed together in the crowd.
She was so close he could have touched her face, her hair.
The world had stopped turning when he looked at her.
He couldn’t breathe. All he could see was her.
Everything around them was a silent blur.
He wondered if all her subjects felt that way about her or if this was different.
He had never felt anything like it. He was still haunted by her when he went to bed, and the only thing he knew was that he had to have a portrait painted by her, just so he could see her and talk to her.
He didn’t want to wait for a portrait. It was midnight by then, too late to call her.
But he knew he had to speak to her and see her.
He had to see those mysterious, magical green eyes again.