Chapter Ten
Chapter Ten
Iris joined Roman at the art gallery on the far west side of Chelsea for the Yayoi Kusama exhibition “Every Day I Pray for Love.” As they explored the installations, they caught up on how Roman’s living situation with James and his family was really going.
“It’s cramped. I mean, I’m happy we can help, but it’s five people in a one-bedroom. But it’s temporary, that’s what I keep telling myself.”
“Right. Although Mike, Hannah’s husband, got back to me, and unfortunately he can’t take the case because his firm does work for the city, so they’re conflicted with NYCHA.”
She and Roman entered a pitch-dark room with a glowing green neon ladder jutting from a barrel in the center of the room and reaching all the way to the ceiling—actually, it appeared to ascend into the ceiling.
“Thanks for trying. Honestly, as chaotic as it is having them stay with us, I don’t mind the distraction right now. At least it changed the subject.”
“From what?”
“James wants to get married.”
Iris grabbed his arm. “Omigod! He proposed?”
“No. It was more like ‘Hey, asshole, when are we getting married, or do you not love me?’?”
“Oh. Have you guys discussed that before?”
“No! Well, a few times, postcoitally, which doesn’t count! But he was dead serious. It caught me off guard.”
“Did he give you an ultimatum?”
“No, I think he knows I wouldn’t react well to that kind of pressure.”
“Whoa, look down,” Iris interrupted. They peered down into the barrel, which wasn’t truly a barrel but a mirror, and the neon ladder seemed to plunge into an elevator shaft infinite stories deep. The illusion made Iris queasy with vertigo.
“See, this is how talking about marriage makes me feel,” Roman said.
Iris looked back at her friend. “But you and James are so good together.”
“Exactly, why mess with it? He’s not really ready for marriage anyway. He just wants reassurance.” The color of the neon ladder shifted from green to red, rendering Roman’s face a human stoplight.
“He isn’t ready, or you aren’t?”
“ We aren’t ready for it. We moved in together less than a year ago!
He’s always been anxious, I’m avoidant—it’s our secret sauce and our kryptonite.
I think he sees marriage as a status marker of stability that he didn’t have growing up.
But my parents have been married for forty years, and all it got me was a front-row seat to their kitchen cage match. No, thank you.”
“So what did you say to him?”
“I put his dick in my mouth and he forgot about it.”
Iris chuckled and they walked on.
The next room they entered featured sculptures spread out across the floor like quicksilver that had spilled in giant drops and pools. As the gallery guests walked among the pieces, the globular mirrors distorted their figures.
“You know I’m on your side, but after what I went through with Ben, I can’t help but sympathize with James here. If you’re never going to get there with him, you should cut him loose.”
“Who said never ? I only know how I feel now. I love him, I’m embracing his family, I’m showing him with my actions how serious I am about us. Why isn’t that enough?” He stopped beside one of the mirror blobs, and his reflection shrank to an angry dwarf.
Iris’s frown stretched down to her torso. “Just make sure you’re honest with him.”
Finally, they reached the immersive installation that had gotten the most buzz, the “infinity room”—and the line to view it.
The infinity room was a large mirrored cube at the center of an all-white room, and two gallery employees stood beside it like bouncers meting out entry to small groups, five minutes at a time.
Iris and Roman were admitted with an attractive straight couple ahead of them.
The man had his muscular arm draped over his petite girlfriend, who clung to his waist, their bodies flush together, as if they were running a three-legged race.
Once the door had closed behind them, the immersion was complete—and breathtaking.
All the interior walls, floor, and ceiling were mirrored, which created the illusion of boundless space in every direction.
It was lit by countless pendant lights, small orbs that dimmed and brightened irregularly, shifting colors and temperatures from warm white to cool blue, then fiery red.
Iris turned off her lighting professional brain to experience it as Kusama intended, mysterious and sublime.
“This is crazy.” Iris used her dressing room whisper, aware they were in close quarters even if it felt like being lost in space.
“Okay, c’mon, we’re doin’ it for the ’gram.” He snapped a couple of pictures of them together in the surreal surroundings, then stepped aside. “You should take some solo pics for Hinge.”
Iris regarded her reflection in the twinkling universe, but she had more than one double lurking elsewhere.
It took a moment for her to recognize her own back facing away from her over there, and farther still she spotted her profile turned another direction.
It gave Iris the uncanny feeling of glimpsing herself in different timelines, her life going other ways: one engaged to be married to Ben, one where she had never met him and wasted her time, one where she was already a mother, one where she was still someone’s daughter.
But she returned to her double whose level gaze met her own, a reflection of how she often felt: alone, untethered, floating above herself, in a beautiful and perplexing world.
But she was not alone. Iris felt the faint tickle of being watched, like someone blowing on her ear.
Elsewhere in the mirror, she spotted a reflection of the man staring at a reflection of her, like a little movie.
While his girlfriend was distracted, Iris watched his eyes scan her backside approvingly.
It was like her skin awoke under his gaze, and she felt goosebumps as she took in his own pleasing form.
Then, in the mirror, their eyes met. That embarrassed them both enough to break the spell. Iris turned away.
And bumped straight into his chest, the real him. She chuckled, cheeks aflame. “Whoops, sorry.”
He steadied her with a hand on her arm. “?’S all good.”
His girlfriend appeared at his side, and he dropped his hand from Iris’s elbow, breaking the electrical current. But places where his fingers brushed stayed warm after he let go.
“Babe, I’m ready to go,” she said.
On cue, a corner of the room suddenly swung open and flooded the space with blinding light. Like waking from a dream, the illusion shattered and the room was revealed to be nothing more than a hundred-square-foot box.
An employee poked her head in. “Thank you for coming,” galleryspeak for “please leave,” and the four of them filed out.
“That was amazing, wasn’t it? I loved it.” Iris squinted at Roman, her eyes still adjusting.
“Yes, and I loved the little drama that played out, too. That hot guy was checking you out so hard. I thought his girlfriend was gonna take her earrings out.”
Iris blushed. “I did notice that. And I feel dumb saying this, but do you think it’s the perfume?”
He tilted his head. “You know, I could really smell it in those close quarters.”
“Is it too strong?” She smelled her wrist to see if it had changed on her, but maybe she had grown nose-blind to it. “You’d tell me if I smelled like a cheap whore, right?”
“No, it’s not like that at all, it’s gorgeous, it’s…sexy.”
“It actually makes me feel sexy, which is rare.” She laughed.
Roman frowned. “What are we doing in a museum? We should go out.”
“It’s a gallery, and there are two more rooms.”
“Pumpkins and polka dots, we get it. If we’re really gonna test this perfume, we need to take it for a proper spin.”