The following days unfold like a dream. Journalists and gallerists begin to write and call, circling like kind, subservient vultures.Mr. Sorensonthis,Mr. Sorensonthat…Paul responds to all of them with confident ease, asMr. Sorenson, naturally, would. By the end of the first week, this new identity has blotted out the old one so thoroughly that he forgets all about his real job: teaching photography. He calls Betty in the main office to cancel class at the last minute with only a twinge of disappointment that he won’t face Charlie while wearing this new, unassailable skin.
But there’s so much more to think about than Charlie. Though no one ever says it aloud, Judith’s gruesome death has amplified the public response to her work, and Paul feels himself at the center of a maelstrom almost immediately. He’s booked for radio, television, newspaper, and magazine interviews, during which he speaks somberly, respectfully, about Judith’s last day in class, how she broached her desire to publish, and what exactly he saw and heard when he left the school building that evening.Nothing, he tells one mournful-looking host after another, shaking his head.Absolutely nothing.On one occasion, he hears the live audience’s collective moan and thinks it sounds slightly ecstatic. They’re feasting on Judith’s tragic story—and on the story of “Judith and Paul.” Not quite a love story, no—though some are already speculating about this in the press—but still something for his listeners to tear into.
Not one of his interviewers has come out and said,If Judith were alive, you wouldn’t be sitting here, would you, pal?And thank god for that! But Paul still hears it as a subtext to certain questions:How long ago was it that your own work was published inHarper’s, Paul? Are you still an active photographer, or do you simply devote yourself to your teaching now?As time passes, though, he grows inured to it all, sets aside any focus on possible subtext. What does subtext matter, anyway, in the mind of the public, which has no mind? The public wants surface, only surface, and he’s good at giving it, so good. He knows he’s the best possible champion of Judith’s work—much better than Judith would have been herself. Marty reports that sales of the issue are “through the roof,” and he treats Paul now like the son he never had—though theHarper’scheck still hasn’t arrived.
Before long, Paul’s tireless efforts secure a glowing prize: a one-woman show at Doven Gallery, the crown jewel of the New York art world. When Paul brings fifty of Judith’s photographs to share with Jahan Davani, Doven’s famed owner and head curator, the man is so moved by them that tears spill down his cheeks. He blots these elegantly with a monogrammed handkerchief while Paul stares; what surer proof of his own elevated status, his sparkling new life, than the sight of this ethereally handsome, successful, stylish man weeping over his pictures?
Once Jahan recovers, clears his throat, and declares the work “dazzling,” he lights two cigarettes from a slim gold case and hands one to Paul. Then he recites a litany of promises and intentions: Doven will mount a one-woman show; it will draw thousands of viewers; Paul will be “consulting curator,” essential to the mounting of said show; a contract will be drawn up and work will begin posthaste, as Jahan wants the show to open in April—or at the latest, May. Jahan shakes his hand and claps him on the shoulder, then kisses him on both cheeks while bidding him goodbye. Paul, ecstatic and dazed, stands on the sidewalk outside the gallery, wondering if what happened was a dream.Consulting curator, the man said. Paul has no idea what the job will entail, and he has no credentials for it either, but it’s his and he wants it badly. He’ll be the best goddamn consulting curator the world has ever seen, and Judith’s show will be the hit of the season—or of the whole year.
And after that, who knows? The world will be his fuckingoyster.
20.
The dampening reality, of course, is that he’ll have to tell Tom about the Doven show. He’s waited several days, letting himself bask in the glory of Jahan’s offer, but now he has to fulfill his contractual obligations to Tom. Though Tom signed over managerial control of Judith’s photographs to Paul—when he believed it to be unlikely they’d even be published—he retained the right to be “informed of all consequential decisions related to the public display of [her] work.” So telling Tom about the show is largely a formality, Paul knows, but it could be an unpleasant one. Or not—he was surprised by Tom’s silence when theHarper’sissue came out; the man didn’t call him ranting about the introduction—or anything else. They spoke once, in the aftermath, and Tom sounded almost elderly, bewildered and aged a dozen years by his late wife’s sudden transfiguration into an overnight public sensation.
Paul hopes for the same reduced man when he calls today and delivers the latest news as gently and as coolly as he can.
“A show?” Tom asks, as if Paul were suggesting they mount a Broadway burlesque, a cabaret, or even a topless dance at a gentlemen’s club inspired by Judith’s work.
“Yes, Tom. This is, you know, the best possible outcome. The pinnacle for any artist or photographer. It’s the best thing for Judith—and for you and TJ,” he adds quickly.
Tom snorts. “Not for us.”
“Well, for Judith, then. Think of—”
“Don’t tell me ‘Judith would have wanted this.’ She asked for your help with submitting a few photographs to magazines, and now you’ve gone and whipped up a circus.Youwant this. That’s why you’re doing it. You love the spotlight. You’ve been giving interviews left and right, don’t think I haven’t noticed. Putting up a gallery show? That’s something you’re doing for yourself. You’ll get more money that way, won’t you?”
“There could be sales, yes. But you’ll get the bulk of those profits. Seventy percent, remember?”
“I don’t want it.”
Paul leans his head in his hand, as if Tom were there to witness his weariness. “Look, if Judith were alive, she would have understood this as the natural next step. This isn’t—”
“This is aboutyou, Paul. It’s all aboutPaul Sorenson,” Tom says with disdain.
“I’m building her legacy!” Paul practically screams.
“Herlegacy? Thanks to you, everyone on earth knows she was brutally murdered, and took weird photographs. It wasn’t enough for you to write about it, either—you had to go shouting it on every TV show, in every newspaper. To hell with you and your show, Paul. I’ll have to read through that contract again and see if it holds up. If it doesn’t,our lawyerwill be in touch.” And with that, Tom Senior hangs up.
Paul holds the receiver in his hand and stares blearily around the room, listening to the dial tone. He hasn’t slept well since the issue came out but he’s been riding adrenaline for days; now exhaustion lands like an anvil. He looks at the boxes of Judith’s photographs, his small desk piled high with correspondence related to her work, and the hall table smothered in unopened fan mail. He sees it all as real, substantial evidence of everything he’s done to bring a great artist’s oeuvre into the world. If Tom sees him as some kind of narcissistic opportunist, he’s a fool. And heisa fool, isn’t he? He knows nothing about art or the art world; he couldn’t even appreciate his own wife’s photographs.
Still, Paul feels sullied by Tom’s words, and afraid of what he said about a lawyer. He didn’t know the Stanleyshada lawyer—it’s the first time he’s hearing it, and it could be a bluff. Contracts can be broken, though; they can be torn into bits and flushed down toilets, or burned to ash. He wouldn’t have the resources to fight, should Tom take action. But all he can do now is wait and hope that Tom’s words were just bluster, or that TJ will talk sense into the man. Again.
In the meantime, he has to focus on other things—there are so many things in need of his attention, and he has so little energy for them all. He reaches for a cigarette, lights it, gets a burst of uplift with the first inhale. His eyes land on the stack of unopened fan mail: one of his less urgent tasks. He’s told himself he doesn’t have time to read those letters right now. He’s told himself it isn’t important—what Middle America thinks of Judith’s work.
But he’s curious. And it doesn’t take much to open and read a fewletters.
21.
Paul slits open the first envelope with his dagger-shaped letter opener and settles into the armchair to read. Margo in Illinois calls Judith’s work “disturbing, unladylike, and harmful to the general public.” Not exactly a fan letter but it makes him laugh, and laughing feels good. When did he last laugh? Everything has been so serious and intense for days—though it’s all going well. Except for Tom. He turns to another letter, quickly: this one from a fellow photographer in Idaho who says Judith’s work has been a great inspiration. There are more like this, one after the other, thanking Paul for what he’s done. He pours himself a generous glass of whiskey and toasts himself, then takes a burning sip. He’s having fun, and he deserves to have fun, doesn’t he?
The next letter is written in a childish hand and signed by someone named Eddie. There’s no return address. Eddie asks if Paul knows “who knifed the lady photographer,” and if he watched it happen. What did it look like, how did it sound, what did Paul feel? Eddie asks. Suddenly, the whiskey sits like acid in his empty stomach. Paul should have eaten, though he had no appetite—and now he has less. He knows “Eddie” is just some wacko, but he feels guilty somehow—as if he encouraged men like Eddie to write things like this. He didn’t, of course; he blames the interviewers, forever asking him about Judith’s morbid end. He has no choice but to answer them, does he? To the twisted delight of the Eddies of the world.
Paul tears up the letter and tosses it into the trash.
After a brief pause and a deep inhale and exhale of clarifying smoke, Paul keeps moving through the diminishing pile, gaining a sense of small accomplishment. It’s suspenseful, too. He keeps wondering what’s next. In one letter, a woman from Arkansas thanks him for helping women artists everywhere. “We’ve been neglected and dismissed out of hand, but in helping Judith rise to the top, you’ve helped the rest of us,” she writes. Paul rereads it several times, smiling as the acid in his stomach fades to mellow warmth. He thinks about sending this one to Tom, along with some others that sing his praises. But it might just enrage him, all these strangers weighing in on his precious “private” wife.
Forget Tom, he tells himself, and picks up another. This one comes in a plain white envelope with no return address; Paul’s name and address are written in block letters. Hopefully not another odd one—the handwriting reminds him of “Eddie’s,” though it’s bolder, cleaner, and more assured. He opens the envelope, unfolds the single piece of unlined white paper inside, and reads the message written there, also in tidy block lettering:
