Chapter 19
The following days unfold like a dream. Journalists and gallerists begin to write and call, circling like kind, subservient vultures.
Mr. Sorenson this, Mr. Sorenson that…Paul responds to all of them with confident ease, as Mr. Sorenson, naturally, would.
By the end of the first week, this new identity has blotted out the old one so thoroughly that he forgets all about his real job: teaching photography.
He calls Betty in the main office to cancel class at the last minute with only a twinge of disappointment that he won’t face Charlie while wearing this new, unassailable skin.
But there’s so much more to think about than Charlie.
Though no one ever says it aloud, Judith’s gruesome death has amplified the public response to her work, and Paul feels himself at the center of a maelstrom almost immediately.
He’s booked for radio, television, newspaper, and magazine interviews, during which he speaks somberly, respectfully, about Judith’s last day in class, how she broached her desire to publish, and what exactly he saw and heard when he left the school building that evening.
Nothing, he tells one mournful-looking host after another, shaking his head.
Absolutely nothing. On one occasion, he hears the live audience’s collective moan and thinks it sounds slightly ecstatic.
They’re feasting on Judith’s tragic story—and on the story of “Judith and Paul.” Not quite a love story, no—though some are already speculating about this in the press—but still something for his listeners to tear into.
Not one of his interviewers has come out and said, If Judith were alive, you wouldn’t be sitting here, would you, pal?
And thank god for that! But Paul still hears it as a subtext to certain questions: How long ago was it that your own work was published in Harper’s, Paul?
Are you still an active photographer, or do you simply devote yourself to your teaching now?
As time passes, though, he grows inured to it all, sets aside any focus on possible subtext.
What does subtext matter, anyway, in the mind of the public, which has no mind?
The public wants surface, only surface, and he’s good at giving it, so good.
He knows he’s the best possible champion of Judith’s work—much better than Judith would have been herself.
Marty reports that sales of the issue are “through the roof,” and he treats Paul now like the son he never had—though the Harper’s check still hasn’t arrived.
Before long, Paul’s tireless efforts secure a glowing prize: a one-woman show at Doven Gallery, the crown jewel of the New York art world.
When Paul brings fifty of Judith’s photographs to share with Jahan Davani, Doven’s famed owner and head curator, the man is so moved by them that tears spill down his cheeks.
He blots these elegantly with a monogrammed handkerchief while Paul stares; what surer proof of his own elevated status, his sparkling new life, than the sight of this ethereally handsome, successful, stylish man weeping over his pictures?
Once Jahan recovers, clears his throat, and declares the work “dazzling,” he lights two cigarettes from a slim gold case and hands one to Paul.
Then he recites a litany of promises and intentions: Doven will mount a one-woman show; it will draw thousands of viewers; Paul will be “consulting curator,” essential to the mounting of said show; a contract will be drawn up and work will begin posthaste, as Jahan wants the show to open in April—or at the latest, May.
Jahan shakes his hand and claps him on the shoulder, then kisses him on both cheeks while bidding him goodbye.
Paul, ecstatic and dazed, stands on the sidewalk outside the gallery, wondering if what happened was a dream.
Consulting curator, the man said. Paul has no idea what the job will entail, and he has no credentials for it either, but it’s his and he wants it badly.
He’ll be the best goddamn consulting curator the world has ever seen, and Judith’s show will be the hit of the season—or of the whole year.
And after that, who knows? The world will be his fucking oyster.