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“Because I … I’ve got something for you,” I say. An outright lie. I have nothing for him. I just want a few minutes to talk without cameras pointing at us. And to tell him that I’m willing to renegotiate the terms of our bet so he won’t have to spend twenty-four hours a day—minus bio breaks—in the nest.
I leave and head up to my room with nothing to do while I wait for the event to start. My publicist, Jane, is busy doing her job so I just have to show up on time, explain my concept, thank the Power family, answer some pre-screened questions from a few strategic media outlets, and then mingle.
Opening night is like an orgasm after a very long, sometimes painful, period of foreplay. It’s a pure high, feel all, often out-of-body experience. The opening night orgasm afterglow lasts a day, sometimes two, and then there’s the inevitable emotional plunge. The comedown. The wanting. The needing.
Months of depression-like symptoms while I refill my creative well. Fifty-six major installations over two decades and the pattern is always the same. Right down to the self-destruction of any relationship I might have been in leading up to the climax.
And here I am again.
Except different since I’m strategically single. An experiment to see if I can shorten the flamed-out spell before I rise again like a Phoenix from the ashes of my own making.
Back in my studio condo—a beautifully appointed room in the Power tower used for situations just like mine, where consultants are brought in from other parts of the world to work with the company—I put away a few things and make my bed so the room is guest-worthy.
And then, I strip to shower.
After several minutes, I’m shocked to hear a rap on the door since I’m still standing under the hot water. Well, under and above. Sort of. The handheld showerhead is below me, relieving a little tension and pulling me fully into the opening night orgasm state of mind and body.
“Just a minute,” I call. I need a little more time to finish. If I don’t, I’ll be on edge until I can. I decide Eric can wait in the hall since he’s really early.
Another, more urgent knock pulls me out of the zone again.
“Five minutes,” I yell, hoping for the first and only time in my life that I can be heard through a wall.
My phone rings. It’s the special ringtone I have for Jane.
“Frick.” I turn off the water and grab my phone from the counter. “This couldn’t wait five minutes?”
“Catherine, we have a problem. Eric has left the building. It seems he made some lame joke to the security guy that this gig was for the birds and he was flying the coop?”
The impact of her words is no less jarring than a cold shower.
“The jerk. Okay,” I exhale a focusing breath. I knew this was a possibility. We’ve prepped media lines for this. “Let Aiden know what’s happened. Have him come to my room as soon as he can.”
“Will do.”
I drop my phone on the counter and stare into the mirror.
“It’s all good. In fact, it’s perfect. Right? Yes, right on message for the piece. This is better. We don’t need Eric.”
I nod at my reflection.
“This is good.” I say it out loud one more time, but in my head, my heart, it doesn’t feel good at all. The installation will still do its job of creating a public dialogue about the assumed roles of women and men in the workplace and at home, but in this moment, standing naked and dripping on the floor, I couldn’t give a rat’s patoot about the art piece. My experiment with Eric has failed before it even officially started.
I dress in black, as I always do for an opening. It may be cliché, but it works. And I may be the embodied stereotype of the frustrated feminist, but a T-shirt, pants, and no-heel boots both fit my personality and keep reporters from wasting words talking about my clothes instead of my art.
Forty minutes later, a double knock, light but confident, breaks the silence in my room and the chatter in my head.
I open the door and come face-to-face with a pair of hands holding a Fabergé Egg. A replica, of course, but a quality one based on the fine detail of the golden filament that weaves around it.
I place one hand on top of the egg and gently press down to see who’s holding it.
“Hi,” he says.
My heart takes flight. “Eric. You came back. I thought …”
“You thought I left you? On opening night?” He looks hurt.
“Jane said—”
