Read Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You: A Novel Online

Authors: Peter Cameron

Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You: A Novel (5 page)

BOOK: Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You: A Novel
5.23Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
 
Friday, July 25, 2003
 
WHEN I ARRIVED BACK AT THE GALLERY JOHN WAS SITTING behind the front desk, but when he saw me he got up and went into his office, closing his door. I knew my mother had arrived because the temperature had dropped about twenty degrees. Among my mother’s many interesting but misguided notions was the idea that keeping the gallery chilled like a meat locker would be good for business. This idea was the result of taking seriously an article she had read in the Style section of the
Times
, which maintained that, based upon a recent survey of the temperature of various emporia in New York City, a venue’s exclusivity was in direct inverse proportion to its temperature: Bergdorf Goodman’s 63°; Kmart 75°.
And so I put on the sweater I kept handy for such chilly times as these. I assumed my position behind the counter and looked at the computer monitor, which displayed the gallery’s home page. John always returns to this page after he’s been surfing, and I don’t think he realizes that just by pressing the BACK key I can see what sites he’s been visiting. They are usually a very interesting mix of the esoteric and the pornographic. After a few clicks I found myself at Gent4Gent.com, “where quality men find other quality men.” I clicked back one more window and found what I assumed was John’s profile, as there was a photograph of him standing on the deck of a beach house in an obscenely (yet flatteringly) tight-fitting bathing suit. His profile was titled “Black Narcissus” and read as follows:
GBM, 33, 5’10”, 175. Successful, educated, cultured. Handsome, fit, hot. Looking for smart and funny men interested in sex and semantics. Likes: Paul Smith, Paul Cézanne, Paul Bowles. Dislikes: Starbucks, Star Jones, Star Wars. Up for discourse, dates, debauchery.
This relentlessly alliterative profile was followed by a long list of favorites: book, movie, leisure activity, country, etc., etc. At the bottom was a section where one described one’s perfect partner. John’s dream man was white, 26–35 years old, had a college degree or higher, made at least $50,000/year, was between 5’7” and 6’7” and between 140 and 240 pounds, smooth (but not shaved), “gym-fit,” liked the arts, baseball, sex, tolerated cats, dogs, and birds, did not smoke but drank “socially,” and used drugs “sparingly, if at all,” practiced safe sex “always,” lived in Manhattan, was spiritual but not religious, Democratic, vegetarian, versatile, and uncut.
Because there was nothing else to do, and because it was free to join Gent4Gent (although you had to pay for “premium services”), I created and posted a profile for John’s perfect partner. I felt a little like the guy who created Frankenstein, for the creature I devised did seem potentially monstrous: a 30-year-old hunky blond (6’, 190) who worked in the Contemporary Art Department of Sotheby’s, was half-French and half-American (I had a feeling John was a Francophile), had graduated from Stanford and done postgraduate work at the Sorbonne, had two Maine coon cats (“Peretti” and “Bugatti”), loved the Yankees and New York City Ballet, lived in Chelsea, and had an 8” uncut cock.
About fifteen minutes later two people, a middle-aged man and woman, entered the gallery. They ignored me and walked around the garbage cans in that crablike shuffle that people use to maneuver around a gallery. They peered intently at every garbage can and spoke softly and incessantly in German. After they had examined them all, they approached the desk. They looked rich and glamorous in a Germans-visiting-galleries kind of way. The man was wearing a fawn-colored suede jacket over a brown Comme des Garcons T-shirt; the woman wore a Marimekko sundress (backward) and espadrilles. They both wore sunglasses.
“What is the name of this artist who made the garbage?” the woman asked. I couldn’t tell if she was using the word
garbage
for identification purposes or judgmentally.
“He has no name,” I said.
“He has no name?”
“Yes,” I said. “He has no name.”
“But he must have a name. What is he called?”
“You may refer to him however you like,” I said. “He believes that having a name influences your perception of his work. He believes names are encumbrances.”
“Ah yes, I see,” she said. She said something in German to the man, who nodded and said,
“Ja, ja.”
“It is good,” the woman said. “It is pure, there is no ego, no filthy pride.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Can you send these garbages to Germany?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “We ship our art worldwide.”
“It is good,” said the woman. She spoke again to the man in German, who once again answered,
“Ja, ja.”
“And the price is?”
I handed her one of the price lists that sat on the counter, and pointed to the price of each piece; they were all untitled, numbered, and priced at $16,000.
The woman looked at it and then showed it to her companion, pointing to the price with a highly developed nail lacquered red.
“They are all available?” she asked.
I said they were.
“Not one has been sold?” she asked.
“There has been much interest,” I said. “We are holding some. But no sales yet. Is there a particular one you are interested in?”
“The number 5 is very nice, we think.”
“Ah, yes,” I said, “that’s my favorite.”
“It is the best, you think?”
“Yes. I believe it is the artist’s favorite, too.”
“It is good,” said woman. “Very good. We may return here. You have a card for us?”
I handed them one of the gallery’s cards. “Would you like to join our mailing list?” I asked, indicating the guest book.
“Ja,”
she said. “Of course. Although probably we are already there.”
She signed the book, and handed the pen back to me. It was a Waterman fountain pen; my mother thought it was very classy to have such a pen, but of course people were always trying to walk out with it, so it made things very difficult. Whenever anyone signed the book I had to watch them and make sure I got the pen back. I thought the resultant asking for the pen back pretty much countered any classy aspect it provided, but my mother was undeterred.
Later that afternoon, when I returned to the gallery with John’s snack, my mother was standing at the front desk, going through her bag. My mother spends much of her life going through her bag. She always carries around these huge bags in which she stows everything and can never find anything.
“My sunglasses have disappeared,” she announced. “As soon as I find them, I’m leaving. Do you want to walk home with me?”
“It’s only four o’clock,” I said.
“Yes, and it’s a Friday afternoon in July. Anyone who is even remotely interested in art has already left the borough. Is that for John? Tell him he can leave, too.”
I brought the frothy and expensive beverage in to John. “She says you can leave,” I said. I could tell by the intent way he was looking at his computer screen he was gent4genting.
“Great,” he said. “I’ll be right behind you. Just finishing up some work.”
“Have a good weekend,” I said.
“You too.”
My mother had miraculously found her sunglasses and we left the gallery and walked down the hall and waited for the freight elevator, which is the only elevator in the building and is operated by friendly men who relish their ability to dawdle and delay gallery folk.
Out on the street we turned west and walked the one block to the West Side Highway. We waited for the light to change and then walked over to the Hudson River promenade, which was, at this hour, teeming with Rollerbladers, bicyclists, and joggers: a sort of mobile, healthy happy hour.
It was nice, though, walking along the river. We passed a cart selling frozen lemonades and my mother bought us each one. “Did you have lunch with your father today?” she asked me.
“Yes,” I said.
“Did you tell him about me?”
“Yes.”
“I wish you wouldn’t do that, James. He doesn’t need to know every little thing that happens in my life.”
“I don’t think that’s a little thing,” I said.
“You know what I mean,” she said. “Where did he take you?”
“The partners’ dining room.”
“My God, you can’t even get a decent lunch out of that man. Do they let women in there yet?”
“I guess,” I said. “As long as they’re partners.”
“Which, of course, they are not,” said my mother. “What did you have?”
Like so many people who eat the majority of their meals in restaurants, my mother is always curious about what other people ordered other places. “Penne,” I said. “With fresh basil and heirloom tomatoes.”
“Was it good?”
“Yes,” I said. I thought about telling her what my father had said about pasta, but I decided to skip it.
“I had lunch at Florent with Frances Sharpe. Did you know her daughter goes to Brown?”
“No,” I said.
“Yes,” said my mother. “Olivia Dark-Sharpe. She’s going to be a junior. Unfortunately she’s spending her junior year in Honduras. Apparently Brown has some program there, where you teach crafts to the natives.”
“Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”
“What do you mean?” my mother asked.
“Why do Honduran people need Brown students to teach them how to make crafts?”
“Frances explained it to me. Apparently the crafts they make are no good. So this program gets them making crafts that can be sold abroad, like tote bags and scented candles and soaps.”
“Well, I can’t wait for my junior year.”
“Don’t be smart, James. Frances says Olivia adores Brown.”
“Adores?”
“Yes: adores. What’s wrong with that?”
“I don’t know. I just think it’s a little weird to adore a college.”
“Sometimes I can’t stand you, James. You’re so reluctant to show any enthusiasm about anything, or even allow it in other people. It’s very annoying, and immature.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “I’m enthusiastic about many things.”
“Such as?”
“Well, that house I showed you last night, for instance.”
“What house?”
“The house in Kansas. With the sleeping porch.”
“Well, since that has absolutely no bearing on your life, it hardly counts. What in your life are you enthusiastic about? What do you adore?”
“I adore Trollope,” I said. “And Denton Welch and Eric Rohmer.”
“Who’s Denton Welch?”
“A brilliant writer. He was British, and he wanted to be a painter, but when he was eighteen or something he got run over by a car while bicycling and became a permanent invalid who couldn’t paint, so he began writing.”
“That sounds morbid. Although I do admire people who make the best of adversities.”
“He was an amazing writer. You shouldn’t make fun of him.”
“I’m not,” said my mother. “But, James, those are all cultural things—books and films—it’s easy to like them. It’s easy to like art. It’s liking life that’s important. Anyone can like the Sistine Chapel.”
“I hate the Sistine Chapel,” I said. “I hate that Michelangelo had to waste his talent pandering to the Roman Catholic Church.”
“Well, fine—hate the Sistine Chapel. But like something real.”
“You don’t think books are real?”
“You know what I mean—something that isn’t created. Something that exists.”
“I would like the old Penn Station, but it doesn’t exist anymore.”
“Well, what about Grand Central? Grand Central Station is wonderful, and thanks to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, it still exists.”
“Well, I do like Grand Central. But you can’t live there.”
“Of course you can’t live there! What, you won’t be happy unless you live in Grand Central Station? That doesn’t bode well, my dear.”
I didn’t answer. I knew my mother was right, but that didn’t change the way I felt about things. People always think that if they can prove they’re right, you’ll change your mind.
We walked for a while in silence and then my mother said, “What’s new with your father?”
I thought about telling her about my father’s elective cosmetic surgery, which would have delighted her, but decided not to. The only way my parents ever find things out about each other is through Gillian and me, but since my mother had scolded me for disclosing her marriage debacle, I saw no reason to cooperate. So I said, “Nothing.”
“Are you going out to East Hampton this weekend?” she asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I think I’ll go see Nanette tomorrow.”
Nanette is my grandmother: my mother’s mother. She lives in Hartsdale and she’s probably my favorite person. She’s called Nanette because she thinks it sounds more sophisticated than Grandma or Nana, and plus she understudied the star (I think it was Debbie Reynolds, but I’m not sure) in some revival of
No, No, Nanette
in the seventies. For many years she was a panelist on a TV game show called
You Don’t Say
. She got to wear a different dress every day, all provided by some department store. She often refers to herself as “the poor man’s Kitty Carlisle Hart.”
BOOK: Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You: A Novel
5.23Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Eleven Hours by Pamela Erens
Project Lazarus by Packard, Michelle
A Midsummer's Day by Montford, Heather
Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon
Twice Cursed by Marianne Morea
A Heritage of Stars by Clifford D. Simak
B00BPJL400 EBOK by Anderson, Taylor
Something More by Mia Castile
Switching Lanes by Porter, Renea