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The doors part, and I motion for Margaux to step off first. In her skintight dark denim, white blouse, and colorful PUCCI scarf tied around her neck, she is a vision of poise and style. Her hips sway ever so slightly as she heads to the first wall, reminding me of the day I spotted her at the Hartsfield Galleria.
I’d called her later that night, and sure enough, she confirmed it was her and apologized for missing me. I would’ve asked her about the bakery grand opening, but Theodora was the one who told me about that—not Margaux.
We spent the rest of that night talking on the phone, breaking only once when I had to put my daughters to bed. It wasn’t until two in the morning that our conversation had more yawns than words and we decided to call it a night.
“More Halcyon,” she says, pointing to two side-by-side paintings meant to have a mirror effect. “You’re obsessed.”
“Hoping to pass these down to my daughters one of these days,” I say. “This particular set reminds me so much of them, how they complement one another while maintaining their own individuality. As alike as they are different.”
“Sounds like my sister and me . . .” She moves on toward the next painting, a Chagall the size of a postcard.
“Is this a real Chagall?” Margaux claps her hand over her mouth. “It is, isn’t it?”
I chuckle, slipping my hands in my pockets as I live vicariously through her. I’ve seen this one enough that it’s lost its luster a bit, but it’s a top-notch investment piece. Still, I miss the days when I would walk into this room and feel like I was seeing it all for the first time again.
“If you like this, you’ll love my Duchamp over there.” I nod to the far corner, where an earth-toned cubist painting hangs against a stark-white wall. “Got into a bidding war with this one. Earned myself an enemy by the name of Rolf Fischer. It’s been several years, but every time I see the man around town, he still shoots me dirty looks.”
“Rolf Fischer . . . as in the billionaire German software engineer?” she asks. “The one married to that Serbian supermodel that’s in all those Givenchy perfume ads?”
“That’s the one. How do you know him?”
Her lips part for a second, but she doesn’t answer right away.
“People talk,” she says with a casual shrug before moving on to the next work. “Oh, my god. You own Orpheum at the Hillside?”
She moves closer to the landscape oil painting, one that set me back a cool seven million two years ago. The artist was a favorite of Emma’s, and I purchased it on what would have been her thirty-second birthday.
“How does it feel to know you have superior taste to ninety-nine percent of art collectors worldwide?” she asks before gifting me a teasing smile. “Seriously, though. You have made some impeccable choices here.”
“So you’re impressed?” I tease back.
“No. I’m spellbound.” She saunters to the next item, a pottery piece from an eighteenth-century Prussian artist whose name I’d likely butcher if I attempted to pronounce it in front of her. All I knew when I purchased it was that it was rare and valuable, and I was looking to diversify my collection at the time. “Good luck getting me to leave . . .”
I don’t know that most women would be impressed by an art collection.
But Margaux’s not like most women.
Not even close.
“Don’t tell me you have a Picasso. Are you kidding me?” She lets out a squeal as she leans in to examine the unfinished work. The man painted until the very end, sometimes two pieces a day.“This was supposedly his very last painting,” I say. “Painted shortly before he died, hence the reason it’s unfinished.”
“This has to be worth hundreds of millions . . .”
“You’d think.” It’s just a blank canvas with a few navy-blue brushstrokes and some hair-thin pencil outlines on the other side. “It’s priceless to me. Maybe someday someone else will feel the same.”
I stand back as Margaux makes her way around the rest of the room, fangirling in awe, much like she did at the Halcyon studio. Her zest and enthusiasm are contagious, and I find myself grinning like a schoolboy as she fills the room with her giddiness.
This is true, unfiltered, genuine happiness. The elusive kind. The kind you have to capture in a bottle because it’s so mysterious and wonderful and you never know when it’s going to strike again.
No one can tell me otherwise.
Checking my watch, I ask, “You want to grab a coffee? I’ve got a couple of hours until the girls get home from school, and there’s a place around the corner. I can’t guarantee you’ll see Al Pacino there, but I also can’t promise you won’t. Word on the street is the man loves his three o’clock pick-me-ups.”
