A Nearly Perfect Copy - By Allison Amend Page 0,13

the postcard of the show, “write down your number. I’d like to talk to you about Connois, if you don’t mind.” A strawberry-scented curl of hair fell in her face as she opened her small pocketbook.

He wrote down his cell number and she put the postcard in her purse, snapping it tightly and patting it to confirm it held something valuable. “I’ll be in touch,” she said.

Hans appeared. “Who was that?” he asked. “Pretty, for a Frenchwoman. And was that Lise?” Hans was drunk, slurring his words slightly. “She looks good,” he said. Gabriel couldn’t tell if he was smiling behind his beard. “Are we really in our fucking forties?”

Gabriel turned to him: “I would like to get blind, stinking drunk.”

The next day, after slogging, dehydrated and irritated, through work, Gabriel made the trek to his studio. The space was cheap and illegal, so far out beyond the Périphérique that it almost didn’t deserve the title “suburb.” A friend from school had jury-rigged the place, pirating electricity and erecting crude walls of corrugated cardboard.

Gabriel nodded at Didier, who sat on a supermarket crate near the front door, smoking. Didier had been a part of his life since he arrived in France twenty-one years ago. They weren’t friends exactly, but years of proximity had cultivated a mutual fondness. When Gabriel slipped on the ice outside Galeries Lafayette last winter and hit his head, they wouldn’t let him leave the hospital unless someone came to get him. He called Didier, thanking him by taking him out for a beer.

If Gabriel hadn’t seen Didier’s finished canvases, he wouldn’t have believed that Didier got anything done, so often did cigarettes interrupt his day. In fact, Gabriel thought that it would be fairer to say that painting interrupted his smoking. But it seemed to work for him. Gabriel wished, not for the first time, that he was a smoker too, so he’d have something ostensibly productive to do while avoiding painting.

The air had grown cold now that the sun had set, and Gabriel hugged his arms to his torso and shifted from foot to foot. Didier emerged from the darkness, pushing himself upright from his smoking squat.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” Gabriel replied. He hadn’t expected to see Didier in the studio. If it had been the day after his solo show, Gabriel would be lying in bed, or getting a massage. “Your show was really great.”

“Thanks,” Didier said hollowly.

“I’m surprised to see you here,” Gabriel said. “I thought you would move out of the studio, you know, after the show.”

“Not everything sold. What did sell, you know, the commission, materials. I mean, I’m not dirt poor anymore, but it’s not like I’m buying a mansion on Avenue Foch or anything.”

Gabriel was surprised that he and Didier were still peers. He had expected that Didier’s show would enable real studio space, shows in other countries, attention for his previous work. But it seemed that Didier’s brush with greatness was just that, a slight catch of the wrist, a fleeting touch. Gabriel should have known better than to be surprised, should have known that the art world never simply anoints royalty.

Didier pinched the end of his cigarette and threw it on the ground. “You look terrible.”

“I have a hangover.” Gabriel hugged himself tighter. “My work’s going badly.”

“Sorry, man. That sucks. I’ve been there. But, I mean, work through it. You’ll have a show soon. It’ll be your turn.”

Gabriel frowned.

“Seriously, man. I mean, you won the student choice award at the École. You have massive talent. It’ll happen for you. Hey, have you ever sent de Treu your slides? You know, he reps Gutierrez, he might like your stuff.”

Gabriel was often compared to Gutierrez, a Spanish abstract imagist whose artwork bore nothing in common with Gabriel’s.

“I’m not really ready,” Gabriel said. “I’m transitioning.” Gabriel never sent out his slides. He considered it akin to hawking his wares on a street corner.

“Come on, man. You gotta put yourself out there. Otherwise, it’s like some previous century dream of poverty and burning canvas to stay warm. There’s no noble artist anymore, no purity. There’re just working artists, and that’s us, so we work it.”

Didier patted his pockets to make sure his lighter was secure. “I gotta head back in. Take care, man.” He clapped Gabriel on the back twice and made his way inside.

Gabriel waited a minute, then followed. Inside, he wound around the maze of walls, the clip lights throwing harsh shadows. It was cold in the studio. Space heaters