“Yes.” I smiled. “Lest anyone think that.
“I’m going to give him a few more minutes and then I’m going to save him from the girls. And then I’ll get him to take some pictures, yes?”
“Yes.” She nodded, stroking her neck. Her hair was pulled back, and the thin straps of her dress accentuated her delicate bones. “Daniel is going to lose his mind.”
“Yes, well, Daniel fucked up, didn’t he?”
* * *
I was navigating the sea of bodies filling our space when I bumped into Josephine chatting up a guest. She stopped me, grabbing my elbow.
“Great show. Great turnout.”
“Yes, I’m very happy. You guys worked hard. Awesome DJ-ing, by the way.”
“I made sure not to put any August Moon on the mix.” She smiled.
“Probably wise.”
She introduced me to the guest she’d been chatting with, an early-thirties male with a man-bun and one of those lumbersexual beards. I did a quick check of the condition of his shoes and fingernails. These days, it was getting harder to tell who the potential buyers were.
The hipster excused himself to look at a piece, and Josephine leaned into me, furtively. “I assume you got your package.”
“I did. Thank you.”
“He wanted to surprise you. You have no idea how difficult it was to not mention it all this time. And the look of disappointment on your face when you realized it was sold…”
That Saturday night in July, at the Smoke; and Mirrors opening, I’d noticed a mark on our master list indicating the piece had been purchased. When I asked Josephine who the buyer was, she threw out some name I’d never heard.
“… I so wanted to tell you then.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
“So,” she said, sipping her Pellegrino, “I guess this means the Access Hollywood thing is true? I mean, you don’t have to say anything. But he’s here. And that piece was fourteen thousand dollars.”
“I know how much it was. Thank you.”
“And then that video in the Hamptons…”
I froze then. “What video?”
“TMZ. It’s not … It wasn’t a big deal. Just footage of him in an SUV with his bodyguard. And you’re in the back. You’re turned away from the camera. It’s fuzzy, and you can’t see your face, but it’s your hair, and I recognized your dress. The white one with all the little buttons up the back. I love that dress.”
I stood there for a moment, unable to speak. The idea that we, that I, had been caught. We weren’t even doing anything. And I felt guilty.
“No one’s mentioned it,” Josephine said eventually.
I nodded, slow. “I appreciate your discretion. Get the guy with a bun a drink. He may buy something.”
They had not moved very far. Although the number of guests who had gravitated to Hayes’s general vicinity had appeared to multiply, the girls were still surrounding him. They had positioned themselves strategically before SexWax, Joanna’s nod to Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans. The canvas featured a brazen image of the popular surf wax with its iconic logo. “Mr. Zogs Sex Wax,” it said. “Quick Humps, The Best for Your Stick.” Lovely.
As I neared them I could see Rose tossing off a joke with her attitudinal stance, and Hayes laughing, and I feared where their conversation had turned.
“May I borrow him for a second?” My voice sounded off to me, the side effect of my worlds colliding. The revelation of TMZ. I just needed to get through the night.
“Hayes, I need to introduce you to someone. Ladies, I’ll bring him right back. Promise.”
Hayes excused himself graciously and followed me through the crowd.
“Sorry about the girls.”
“Oh, it’s fine. They’re very sweet. She’s very sweet, your daughter.”
“Yes,” I said. And then: “I hope you’ll remember that when we’re breaking her heart.”
“Oh bollocks!” he said, which actually made me smile. “Very much looking forward to that. All right, so to whom am I being introduced?”
“No one. I just wanted you to myself for a little bit.”
“Ooo, that sounds naughty.”
We made our way into Gallery 2, which was marginally less crowded. I could see the artist, Joanna, across the way, radiant and ebullient, a vision in a black minidress. She was laughing loudly, the crowd in her hand.
“Okay.” My attention returned to the boy a half step behind me. “Just look very serious and act like we’re talking about art.”
“Can we talk about this dress?” He smiled.
“No.”
“Can we talk about your arse in this dress? Because that’s kind of like art.”
I laughed. “No, definitely not.” I stopped him in front of one of the larger pieces. Low Tide at No. 24, acrylic on linen. “I want you to act like you really like this.”
Hayes’s eyes scanned the print. “Oh, I do quite like it.”
“Even better. Act like you’re interested in purchasing it. I’m going to go to my office and return with some information on the piece, and then you are going to follow me into my office, as if you’re planning to buy it.”
He nodded, slowly. “Oh-kay. I see you’ve thought this through.”
Hayes cocked his head then, eyeing me closely. “What happened to your face?” His hand gestured toward my cheekbone.
I stood there, staring at him, looking for signs of recognition, but nothing was registering. “Really? The table.”
His eyes widened and his jaw dropped, and I wasn’t sure if he was going to laugh or cry. “Oh, Sol.” He’d never called me that before. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“It’s okay. I’m fine.”
“No, it’s not okay. I’m sorry.” He leaned in as if to kiss it.
“Don’t.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “No more tables. Promise.”
“I liked the table,” I said, and then turned and walked away.
* * *
Minutes later we were in my office, the door securely locked.
“Now can we discuss this dress?” He did not waste time, his hands moving over the material, my waist, my hips, my ass.
It was a clingy jersey halter dress in smoke gray. Paired with my four-inch black Alaïa Bombe “fuck me” sandals with the embellished ankle strap. He did not stand a chance.
“What is it you wanted to say about it?”
“It’s very … nice,” he said, lowering his mouth to mine, his hand traveling up over my abdomen and reaching in the top of the halter.
“I did not bring you in here to do this.”
“Didn’t you?”
“No. I just wanted to smell you.”
“Really?” He smiled. “Just smell me? That’s all?” His mouth was on my breast. I could hear voices outside the door. Ed Sheeran: “Don’t.”
“You. Are like a fucking drug. Hayes Campbell.”
He pulled away after a minute and stepped back, smiling like the Cheshire cat. “Go ahead. Smell me, then.”
I took the opportunity to inhale him. His neck, his throat, his ridiculous silk scarf. I reached into his perpetually unbuttoned shirt and ran my hands over his smooth chest, his perfect erect nipples. I could live here.
“I have gum,” he said.
“Gum, but no condoms.”
He smiled then, sheepishly. “I have condoms.”
“You have condoms here?”
He nodded.
“Yesterday, then … Were you just testing me?”
“I was enjoying you.”
It hit me intensely, the memory of it. The feel of him.
There was laughter in the corridor. Familiar. It might have been Matt.
He leaned into me then and whispered in my ear. “Can I just bend you over this desk, please? For like a second?”
It was not like him to ask.
I looked at him as if he were crazy. And then I heard myself say: “You have two minutes.”
“I can be done in two minutes.” He smiled.
“Do not get anything on my dress.”
“Won’t. Promise.”
* * *
Six minutes later we were back out in the gallery and no one was the wiser. At least I wanted to believe that.
“Will you do me a huge favor?” I asked him as we made our way into the crowd. “There’s a photographer here from Getty. I would love to get a shot of you with Joanna. But if you feel uncomfortable doing that, I completely understand.”
I hated asking him. I hated everything it insinuated. I did not want him to think for one second that I was taking advantage of our relationship and his celebrity to sell art.
“Solène.” He grabbed my wrist then, pulling me into him. “Why wouldn’t I do that for you?”
I turned to look at him, aware that he was touching me in this very public space. The boy who I had just let fuck me in the office.
“I came here for you, right?”
“You came here for me. You didn’t come here for Marchand Raphel.”
“I came here for you,” he repeated. “And last I checked, that was a huge part of you.”
* * *
We shot him along with Joanna and her husband before Low Tide at No. 24. Hayes insisted on there being a third person in the photograph because Joanna was “far too beautiful” for him to be pictured alone with her.
“They’ll assume I’m sleeping with her,” he had said when I questioned his reasoning.
“What? Who are ‘they’?”
“The press. The fans. The world.”
“She’s like twice your age, Hayes.”
“Yes, well, clearly that doesn’t stop me, right?” He smiled, salacious, chewing his gum. “Do you want to sell art, or do you want a scandal?”
Evidently, Hayes knew what he was doing.