Michael Cunningham - By Nightfall

Vic has arranged, on well-lighted shelves, the ancillary merchandise, beamed in from some parallel dimension in which this guy is a superstar. The action figure (she’s got somebody who makes them in China), the T-shirts, the key chains, the lunch boxes. And, new this season, a Halloween costume for kids.

It’s good. It’s ironic but humane, the whole notion of arbitrary stardom that might, in the Warholian sense, be conferred on literally anybody. It’s adroit. Sure it has elements of irony and condescension but it is at heart (this is especially clear when you know Vic Hwang) an homage. Everybody is a star, on his or her home planet. The actual stars, the people on whom they do in fact model action figures and lunch boxes, are peripheral—we know plenty about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, but our sense of them pales beside a quick leap to avoid a plastic bag while we’re on our way to a morning meeting in Philadelphia.

And yet, it gives Peter nothing. Not now. Not today. Not when he needs… more. More than this well-executed idea. More than the shark in the tank meant to frighten, more than the guy on the street meant to say something pithy about celebrity. More than this.

Best to go into his office, probably, and e-mail people. Make some calls.

Where are you, Mizzy?

Eighteen new e-mails, all from people who believe their business to be urgent. The only necessary act: call Groff about yesterday.

“Hey, it’s Groff, you know what to do.”

He is another of those people who never picks up his phone.

“Hey, Rupert, Peter Harris. Carole Potter loves the piece and, as far as I can tell, she’s sold. Call me and let’s figure out a time for me to take you up there.”

And then, okay, leave a message for Victoria.

“Hey, Vic, Peter Harris. The work looks amazing. You’re coming in around noon to hang the rest, right? Can’t wait to see you. Congratulations. It’s a beautiful show.”

He can’t answer the e-mails. He can’t call anyone else.

Propped against a wall in his office—the ruined Vincent. The gash droops a little, showing a line of muddied canvas. Peter goes to the painting and carefully, as if it could feel pain, takes hold of the torn flap of waxed brown paper and tears it further (it’s wrecked, there’s no fixing it, it’s in the hands of the insurance company now). The heavily waxed paper is slow to tear. The sound it makes as it tears is wet, vaguely fleshy.

What he uncovers is an ordinary painting. Philip Guston colors, a smear-and-scrape technique stolen directly from Gerhard Richter. Derivative, and inept.

Peter goes into Uta’s office. She’s frowning at her computer, mug of black coffee at her right hand.

She says, “How do you like the Hwangs so far?”

“They’re nice. Can I tell you what I just did?”

“I’m all ears.”

“I peeled all the paper off the fucked-up Vincent.”

She looks at him darkly. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s destroyed anyway. It’s not like he was going to fix it.”

“It’ll make it harder to explain to the insurance people, you know how they are. Would you like to tell me why you did that?”

“Curious.”

“And what did you find, Mr. Curious?”

“Just a shitty student painting.”

“You’re joking.”

“Nope.”

“Well. That little fucker.”

Are Uta and Rebecca the same woman, at heart? Is he doubly married?

“Changes things, don’t you think?” he says.

“I suppose.”

“Suppose?”

“They’re conceptual. If you believe there’s something wonderful underneath, but you never see it…”

“Like Schrödinger’s cat.”

“Couldn’t have put it better myself.”

“I don’t think we can represent him anymore.”

“We can’t represent him anymore,” says Uta, “because the work doesn’t sell.”

Peter’s cell plays its interlude of Brahms. Caller Unknown. “I’m going to take this,” he says, and steps out into the narrow hallway.

Could it be? Is it possible?

“Hello.”

“Hey.”

It is.

“Where are you?”

“With a friend.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’m staying with a friend. His name is Billy, he lives in Williamsburg, I’m not in some basement drug den.”

And really, Mizzy, why are we supposed to give a damn whether you are or not?

What Peter says is “You’re all right, then?”

“I don’t know if I’d say all right. I’m perfectly fine, if you know what I mean. How are you?”

Why, thanks for asking.

“I’ve been better.”

“I want to see you.”

“And?”

“We should talk.”

“Yeah, I guess we should. Do you know how freaked-out Rebecca is?”

A brief, breathy silence on the other end.

“Of course I do,” Mizzy says. “Do you think I wanted to make her feel bad?”

“A note of some kind would have gone a long way toward making her feel less bad.”

“What would I have said in a note?”

Fuck you, you spoiled brat.

“You’re right,” Peter says, “we should talk. You want to come to the gallery?”

“How about if we meet someplace else?”

“Got anyplace in mind?”

“There’s a Starbucks on Ninth Avenue.”

Right. Starbucks. There’s no misty field for them to meet in, is there? There’s no castle keep. Starbucks, why not?

“Okay. When?”

“Like, forty-five minutes?

“See you there.”

“Right.”

He clicks off.

“Was that Victoria?” Uta calls from her office.

“Nope. It was nobody.”

Peter goes back into his office, where the Vincent still stands, haloed by its scraps of torn paper.

It would be romantic, wouldn’t it, for Peter to stare long and hard at the earnest ineptitude, but Peter can’t summon the concentration. If it’s a metaphor, it’s a lame one. What it is is a trick played by a second-tier artist. Neither more nor less than that.

Peter has other things to think about.

What does Mizzy have in mind? What scene is about to play out, in forty-two minutes, in the goddamned Starbucks on fucking Ninth Avenue? Has Mizzy prepared a riff about how he can’t bear the subterfuge? Is he going to ask Peter to go off with him, to heedlessly leave the carnage behind, to go to… that house in Greece, or an apartment in Berlin? What will Peter say if Mizzy wants that?

Yes. God help him, he will in all likelihood say yes. With not even the ghost of an illusion about how it’ll turn out in the end. He’s ready, with the merest encouragement, to destroy his life, and no one, not one single person he knows, will sympathize.

Peter answers his e-mails. Normal, normal. He tries to ignore the passing of time but of course the time is displayed in the upper-right-hand corner of his computer screen, every flipping minute. And then, with twenty-six minutes to go, Victoria arrives. He hears Uta letting her in, goes to the gallery to greet her.

Smiles. All smiles.

Victoria is an ardent eccentric, a tall Chinese woman with a buzz cut, prone to saucer-size earrings and vast, tendriled scarves.

“Hey, Genius,” Peter says. “It looks amazing.”

He and Victoria exchange one of the swift, wiry little hugs Victoria will permit. Lips do not touch flesh.

She says, “Do you think I’m getting predictable?”

Uta, a true professional, says, “You’re still working something out. These are variations. You’ll know when it’s time for a bigger change.”

“You’d tell me, right?” Victoria says to Peter. She hates women.

“We would,” Peter answers. “You’re doing exactly the right thing right now, and by the way, you’re about to be a huge hit. Trust me on this.”