Kathleen Tessaro - The Debutante

That piece had won her an award that year. But it all seemed to belong to another lifetime. How long had it been since she’d produced anything original? Could she even do it any more? Or had her imagination completely atrophied? And yet it came about almost by accident, her new career. There was no long discussion; no real debate or even a period in which she’d gone away to think about it. Like so many of the defining moments of her life, it was little more than a wavering; a yielding to what seemed easiest in that moment.

‘He’s been in the business a long time and is highly respected,’ Paul had told her, scribbling Derek Constantine’s address on the back of an envelope for her. ‘At least he can introduce you to people. You never know.’

She’d rung him as soon as she’d got off the plane. Still jet-lagged, she’d stumbled along the Upper East Side clutching the envelope in one hand and her portfolio in the other, eager to be on time and make a good impression.

Derek’s shop was tiny but, like everything about his aesthetic sense, fastidiously and ruthlessly defined. She’d never seen anything quite like it, even in London. It had a lush decadence about it. Here it was permanently evening, forever bathed in dim lighting that mimicked candlelight, softening edges, smoothing out flaws. The walls were lined with black silk taffeta; the air was scented with cedar candles imported from Paris; the bare wooden floorboards were polished till they shone. He had only a few pieces, but they were exquisite, once-in-a-lifetime acquisitions. He made his reputation on being able to provide antiquities of singular quality and rarity. A lone ebony Empire chair was displayed in the window, lit by a rose spot from above. Passers-by stopped in their tracks, arrested by the beauty and symmetry of it; the shocking good taste of displaying it on its own. Derek had an eye for Empire pieces. With their over-the-top opulence and narcissistically soothing classical proportions, they best seemed to fit the personality of his particular clientele.

His pièce de résistance was a large, round eighteenth-century convex mirror. Its elaborate gilt frame was fashioned with intricate golden sparrows and twining ivy leaves, shining luminously against the shimmering inky wall. Derek said that there wasn’t a week when someone didn’t make an offer on it, but he would never sell. He’d dragged it with him all the way from London and practically had to prise it from another dealer, who’d badly miscalculated its value. And it made a statement.

It couldn’t have been ten minutes into their first meeting when he suggested it to her.

‘Can you fake?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Can you fake, darling? Let me see your portfolio.’ She showed it to him.

Frowning, he leafed through. ‘I’ve got clients who would pay handsomely for some original art. Of a more traditional vein.’

‘That’s not my forte. But I’ve got some ideas about a large abstract series based on a modern-day version of The Three Graces…’

The expression on his face stopped her mid-flow. ‘Do you want to rent a broom cupboard in a flat-share in Brooklyn for the rest of your life?’

‘Alphabet City.’

‘Whatever.’

‘No, not at all. But I thought that if I could just get a body of new work together…’

Again, he shook his head. ‘To start with you get a name, a client base. As a first-class reproduction painter.

Then, very gradually, you begin to paint your own subject matter. See, you’ll be coming from a much stronger place. And I, my dear, am happy to help you. I know plenty of people who can’t even hang their collections because the insurance is so expensive. And some who are too ashamed to admit that they’ve already sold their most precious pieces. Children’s educations have to be paid for in cold hard cash, after all.’ He smiled at her. ‘Let me help you. Let me guide you.’

‘I’m…I’m just not sure…’

‘Would you rather make money painting or waitressing?’

‘Painting. Of course.’

He looked at her. ‘Well, you wouldn’t know it by the way you’re going on. Do you know how many art students flood into New York every year, each of them thinking that they can take this city by storm? It’s not as easy as it looks. You need an in. You need help. You need’ – he smiled slowly, leaning back in his chair – ‘me.’

‘I am grateful, Derek.’

‘Ava Rottling has just bought the most amazing penthouse overlooking the park. And guess what? She wants a fantastic trompe l’oeil in the entrance hall. Of course she doesn’t know that yet. But she will, when I’m done talking to her.’

‘A trompe l’oeil?’

‘Yes. Plenty of fat pink cherubs bouncing around on fluffy white clouds. And a nubile Venus eyeing a sleeping Mars, preferably in a state of undress.’

The horror in her voice was unmistakable. ‘You mean Romantic?’

‘Yes, Romantic. And expensive, my child. Very expensive.’

‘I don’t know…’

His eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. But I could easily tell her that I know just the right artist, a specialist from London, who’ll be able to do the work. In fact, there’s only one person I would trust with such an important commission. Ava does a great deal of entertaining. Your work would be seen by everyone.’

Fat cherubs. Fluffy clouds. Great, she thought. Everyone would see my derivative Venus; my copy of crap classical bullshit.

‘Pretty soon you could charge what you like. But of course if the subject matter is beneath you…’ he stared at her, unblinking, ‘I believe they’re hiring at the Chicago Rib Shack.’

‘I’ve never painted a trompe l’oeil,’ she pointed out.

He reached for the phone. ‘How hard can it be? Foreshorten, foreshorten, foreshorten! She’s blind as a bat anyway. I’ll put in a meeting for tomorrow afternoon.’ He started to dial.

She’d thought he might let her work in his shop – not redesign her career.

‘Remember,’ he continued, ‘you’re just off the plane. Your portfolio hasn’t arrived yet. You’re doing this as a favour to me, understand? And whatever you do, tell her that you absolutely don’t have time in your schedule.

I want you to turn it down flat. Politely, charmingly, but firmly. Allow me to negotiate the whole thing. Rich people are like babies, they only want things they can’t have.’

She sighed.

At least she would be painting. And being paid. Perhaps Derek was right. Maybe she didn’t have anything new to say artistically. Certainly around him she felt uncouth and adolescent. She’d felt talented in London. Here she felt pedestrian; banal.

Perhaps it was best if she did what he suggested.

Now she had that feeling again, of standing once more at a hidden turning point in her life.

Only what were the choices? Why were they so difficult to see?

There was the crunch of footsteps in gravel. She looked up. Jack was standing on the path, hand across his eyes, wincing in the bright sunlight.

‘Don’t you want anything to eat?’

‘No thanks.’ She shook her head. ‘Not right now.’

‘OK.’ He jammed his hands into his pockets. ‘I was just

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