there’d been so much talk of. It was a man’s mouth, stubble below the bottom lip. Black and white, the lips just slightly parted. It should have been trite, something from a high school photography show, but it was one of the most arresting and strangely sexual things Fiona had ever seen. A sense of movement, as if the mouth were about to open wider, about to say something. How was it that you could tell the mouth was opening and not closing?
She hadn’t thought about it in years, but she remembered, suddenly and in quite a lot of detail, the opening of Nora’s collection at the Brigg, the first real opening she’d ever been to. She tended to think more often of the times she took Claire to see its permanent installation in what was by then the enormous and world-class Brigg Museum. She’d tell her about Soutine and Foujita; she’d show her Ranko Novak’s work and say, “She loved him her whole life. Such a long time.” And she’d think maybe it was only possible to love someone that long if he was gone. Could you love a living, flawed human that many years? She’d tell her about Yale getting the art, making the show happen, keeping Ranko’s work in the collection, and she’d say, “That’s where you got your middle name! Yale was right downstairs when you were born, helping wish you into the world! And when you came here from heaven, you left the door open so he could go out.” It hadn’t seemed such a terrible thing to say, but she could see now, yes, how a child would have misunderstood, heard the guilt in Fiona’s voice and taken on its mantle. What had she been thinking? Maybe she hadn’t been thinking of Claire at all; maybe it was a fairy tale she’d needed to tell herself.
Fiona spotted Corinne and Fernand in the center of the room, holding court. Their picture was being taken.
Claire was still at the mouth; Fiona would give her space. She was increasingly reassured that Claire wouldn’t flee the gallery.
This work was much more postmodern, much more multimedia—Fiona wished she had the vocabulary for it—than anything she’d seen from Richard before. A large photo showed a Polaroid sitting on a stack of papers. The Polaroid, in turn, was of a man in a chair, his face in his hands. It looked like the ’80s or early ’90s—something about his white T-shirt, his Docksiders—but Fiona didn’t recognize him. Next to it hung a photo of an apartment building’s facade, three of the windows painted over with red X’s. According to the sign, Richard had taken the photo in 1982 but added the X’s just this year. She supposed that the show’s title, Strata, was about this layering of old and new.
She found the updated Julian series—the 2015 Julian smiling mischievously. But no face in a Richard Campo photo ever showed just a single emotion. He also looked embarrassed, and also triumphant.
She almost collided with Jake Austen. He said, “There’s my girl!”
She patted his chest. “I am not your girl, Jake. But it’s good to see you.”
It was, really. She’d had the feeling for the past ten minutes that she didn’t know what the hell year it was—the year of Nora’s show, the year Julian vanished, the year she first took Claire to the Brigg, the year Claire was born—and here was a living, breathing reminder that it was 2015.
He said, “Check it out! From the movie.” He pointed across the gallery to where that actor stood, the one someone on the street had called Dermott McDermott.
But no one was looking at him; everyone was looking at Richard, who had just entered the room. Slim gray slacks, a coral shirt open at the neck, his cheeks glowing with attention. Her famous friend. How bizarre life was.
* * *
—
By the time Fiona made her way around the sectional wall, Jake was off toasting with some loud young Brits, and Julian had circled back.
He said, “Is everything okay with your daughter?”
“Lord only knows.”
“It’ll be okay. I can tell it will. I know these things. And my God, she’s just like you.”
Fiona laughed. “She’s nothing like me. That’s the problem.”
“Are you kidding? Don’t you remember yourself? You were the most bullheaded little—you were practically feral! Remember when you told your parents you’d climb in the coffin if we couldn’t all come to Nico’s vigil?”
“There was no coffin. I said I’d stand up and tell everyone.”