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ChapterSix
Asnap rang out. Alana blinked, jogging herself back to full consciousness, as Bianca’s slender fingers snapped again, directly in front of her face.
“Earth to Alana! Hello?”
They stood in the green-tiled bathroom of the Et Tu? gallery, with its antique golden mirrors and its seventeenth-century painting of a young woman in front of a very similar mirror, washing her face with glistening water.
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere. You can’t just leave me out to dry at these functions. Asher might be one of the chicest artists currently working today, but art collector types are art collector types, no matter where you go. They’re stuffy, and they want to adorn their walls with gorgeous art— and their homes with gorgeous women.” Bianca snapped open her hand purse and removed her lipstick, tracing her lips with expert precision.
Why had Alana come into the bathroom in the first place?She couldn’t remember using the toilet. Alarmed at her momentary blackout, she removed her own lipstick and mimicked Bianca.
“That’s the thing about the art world that I hate the most.” Bianca capped her lipstick. “It’s aesthetics first when it comes to everything, not just the paintings between the frames.”
Alana remembered the dark eyes of a nineteen-year-old Asher, peering over the canvas that now hung in the triangular room.Why don’t you come with me?They were words that had changed her life forever. But had she ever been anything more to him but a pretty face?
“We should really get back out there,” Bianca said.
Alana straightened her posture and dropped her lipstick into her purse. “Maybe we can sneak out early and catch a late movie.”
Bianca gaped at her, as though she’d just spoken Japanese for the first time. “Asher would kill you if you left.” She snorted. “Imagine that? ‘Wife of famous artist ducks out of exhibition to catch a Marvel movie.’”
“I would never watch a Marvel movie.” Alana’s stomach filled with laughter.
Back in the gallery, Asher breezed toward Alana, a permanent scowl across his face. His large hand gripped her elbow with a sense of ownership, the way you might grab onto a dog’s collar.
“I have people I need to introduce you to,” Asher muttered. “People I need to impress.”
“I think you’ve done enough impressing people for one lifetime, haven’t you, darling?” Alana asked, her words slurring together the slightest bit.How many champagne glasses had she drank? No more than three, surely.As she hadn’t bothered to eat beforehand, her head buzzed in a way that seemed familiar, reminding her of long-lost modeling parties when her stomach had only wistful memories of food.
“Hello!” Asher barked to a flat-faced man in his early fifties. “Alana, I’d like you to meet Hank Peters, the iconic director ofYou Don’t Know Nothing, which premiered last year at Cannes.”
Alana slipped her hand into Hank’s. It was as smooth as a stone.
“Hank, it’s marvelous to meet you,” Alana breathed, pretending to be Anne Hathaway or Cate Blanchett or someone equally regal-looking and easy.
“And you! That painting on display in the back room is a true achievement. It’s a beautiful thing to see you here in the flesh, so many years after the initial creation of the painting,” Hank, the director, continued. “How many years, exactly?” He glanced toward Asher for this information.
“Twenty-seven,” Alana answered for Asher.
“Well. You’ve really held up over the years, haven’t you?” Hank asked.
Alana’s brain was aflame. Her lips parted of their own accord, preparing to spit out an insult. Asher sensed this and squeezed harder at her elbow, drawing her back.
“Alana, have you met my dear friend Gregory?” Asher tugged her toward the corner, where a man with thick-rimmed glasses sipped a glass of champagne alongside a woman who looked to be twenty-two and a size zero. “Gregory is the editor forParis Art magazine. We discovered that we were both in Beijing at the same time and had a rave of a time.”
“Ah! The wife.” Gregory took Alana’s hand and kissed the top. “I managed to keep your husband busy during your time away from Beijing. I hope your family matters were handled well?”
What had Asher told Gregory about Alana’s “family matters”?Obviously, he hadn’t mentioned the awful fight they’d gotten into before she’d left, during which she’d called him manipulative, cruel, and the “most monstrous man” she’d ever met. That wasn’t the sort of conversation you could bring out at parties.
Had she meant all of it?
Over the next half-hour, Asher tugged her from one bigwig in the art world to the next. Alana heard a strange and sparkling laughter, one that she soon recognized as her own.What was she laughing at? Was anyone at that party capable of telling such a humorous joke? She didn’t think so.
Alana switched to red wine after her fourth glass of champagne. The bubbles of the drink had begun to irritate the lining of her empty stomach. True, red wine would be no better, but she enjoyed the strange and exhilarating thought that the red wine would stain her teeth and make Asher look bad.Did you see Asher Tarkin’s wife? Quite a mess, isn’t she? And so old.
Alana lifted her glass toward Asher as a sort of toast. “Darling. I can’t believe you finally had the courage to do it.”
Asher’s eyes glittered menacingly. This was one of their marital fights brewing.
