SoHo Sins by Richard Vine Read Free Book Online Page A

polyurethane entrails.
    “Best behavior, ladies,” Angela said into the dimness. “We have a gentleman caller.”
    “Your work has changed a lot.”
    “Yes, it had to.”
    “Just be careful with some of those materials you’re using. Polymers, resins, hot glue—they can be terribly noxious.”
    “Don’t worry, I know. Wouldn’t want to end up with a brain tumor like Eva Hesse. Or mad as a London hatter.”
    She flipped on an array of overhead lights, and the sculptures turned pale. We walked among them as Angela explained how her new process reflected the mental transformation—from self-abasement to mute pride to anger—that came over her after her fortieth birthday.
    “I’ve been working some things out,” she said.
    “So I see. How did it happen?”
    “It’s hard to say. You can’t control the things you create really. Motherhood taught me that.”
    “But you can manage your career at least.”
    “I’ve hired a publicist. She wants me to call the show ‘Asylum.’ ”
    “At last, a title we can all relate to.”
    “I know you don’t think much of publicists, Jack. But I have to make up for lost time. Playing coy doesn’t cut it at this stage.”
    She was right, in a way. The art world, like Moloch, consumes its young. Eager kids fresh out of grad school, ready to throw themselves into the searing arms of dealers like me. The younger the better, for our name-driven market, with the promise of a fresh vision now and rising prices for years to come.
    Angela’s artistic metamorphosis, a more self-motivated act, had begun with some transitional maquettes made from Melissa’s broken doll parts.
    “She was always managing to pull something off her Barbies or plastic baby dolls,” my hostess explained. “An arm, hair, legs, even a head now and then.”
    “No mercy, that girl.”
    “Once the dolls were damaged, Missy lost interest in them. So I started putting the odd bits together. I found that I quite admired the little freaks I’d created. Even more so once I set about using grittier materials and scaling the bodies up. Do you like them, Jack?”
    “I do indeed. Though I’m not sure ‘like’ is the proper word. They’re rather fierce.”
    “Good. I’ve been much too nice in my life. It’s time for something tougher.”
    “Actually, Angie, I never thought of you as particularly meek. Rigorously polite, maybe.”
    “Yes, I was schooled in good appearances. It was the only way to live with Philip as long as I did.”
    No one could fault Angela’s performance as a wife, or her absolute fidelity during the marriage. I should know. But after Philip dropped her for Amanda Wingate, Angela did the one thing that her ex-husband had not expected and could not abide. The little Brit immediately found other men—attractive, intelligent, successful men—and bedded them in quick succession, with energy and delight, almost with abandon.
    The once blasé Philip was shocked. Even though he had betrayed his wife, leaving her for his own well-to-do lover, he was devastated by Angela’s new appetite. When I pointed out the inconsistencies, he waved them aside.
    “All I’ve ever wanted in my life,” he said, “is a woman who’s wise enough to accept a double standard.”
    “What would be so wise about that?” I asked.
    “It just might work, and nothing else does.”
    Philip made his complaint almost sadly—as though Angela owed him an indulgence. After all, she was small and plain, while he was enormously wealthy and, as Angela’s mother said, “quite posh for a Yank.”
    “Is that so much to ask?” Philip said. “Of all the things that people do for love, is it really the oddest or most difficult?”
    He seemed genuinely baffled, oblivious to the fact that the same brash manner and sleek, eager body that once drew him repeatedly across the ocean to Angela, “that little English minx,” now made her equally alluring to other men.
    “You’ve had your hands full,” I conceded to Angela