[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Ben and Belinda were invited, of course, and had accepted.Hundreds of others, too, had told Lacey they were going to both openings, uptown and down, and the evening, intended to flush art sales from the distant bushes, was turning into a soiree.Already there were holds on three pictures, at two hundred fifty per, minus a ten percent courtesy discount, and with two holds at Talley’s end, she was at least one-third out of her investment.On the Sunday before the opening, Lacey celebrated with Angela and Sharon, both of whom were coincidentally in Manhattan for the weekend.For this rare girls’ night out, she bought dinner, and they seemed happy for her.Sharon, continuing on with a decent man and pregnant with a second baby, and Angela, who was accompanying her famous writer boss on a promotional tour, seemed happy with their lives far away from Manhattan.Lacey went to bed that night with visions of sugar plums dancing in her head.Monday morning would be a day spent adjusting the show, sprucing up the gallery, and doing touch-ups on the shoe-level scrapes that had inevitably bruised the white walls.The gallery would be officially closed until opening night, and Lacey knew there would be urgent calls made by collectors trying to get an early peek.Monday noon she called Talley, but he was unavailable.“Have him call me,” she said.By two there was no call back, so she called again.This time he took the call, but breathlessly.“Have you been watching the stock market?” he asked.“I hate the stock market.Why would I watch it?”“It’s down over five hundred points.Lehman Brothers is bankrupt, Merrill Lynch is sold, and AIG is bankrupt.”Lacey didn’t quite know what all this meant, but Talley’s voice was shaking.“They’re already calling it Black Monday,” he said.The next day, Tuesday, the stock market just quivered, but on Wednesday it fell four hundred fifty points.Investors, meaning not just high-end Wall Street pros but every civilian with a few thousand dollars, pulled their money and bought T-bills and T-bonds, and they certainly didn’t buy art.There was no credit, which the U.S.mainstream had relied on for at least thirty years.Only the credit card system was still operating, and with usurious interest rates, those companies had little to worry about.Several were taking three percent of every purchase and eighteen percent on every unpaid debt.Thursday, the day of Lacey’s opening, the stock market gained a bit, and she called Barton Talley.“Up today,” she said.“Lacey, still not good.”“But it’s up.”“Even a dead cat bounces.”Opening night, Lacey swung open her doors to a few students.The only thing missing in Chelsea was tumbleweeds.There were a few stragglers, who looked like scavengers prowling for bodies from which to pluck watches and gold teeth after the big shoot-out.By eight p.m., Lacey’s receptionist was afraid to look at her.Talley called, reporting that there were a few people there, but all they talked about was the collapse.“Lacey,” he said, “I’ve never heard anyone talk about global financial disaster and then say, ‘I’ll take it.’ ““But there’s a market,” Lacey insisted.“What about the last Hon See that sold at auction? Just four months ago.”“We bought it.Bravo and I bought to keep the prices up.We were the only bidders.”The last Monday in September, the Dow fell seven hundred seventy-eight points and continued its slide through the week.Overnight, the Arabs, the Russians, and the Asians left the art market.The holds on the Hon Sees were released, with, “Sorry, can’t do it right now,” and, “I’m going to wait and see.” Lacey’s show hung for another month to cobweb silence.Art as an aesthetic principle was supported by thousands of years of discernment and psychic rewards, but art as a commodity was held up by air.The loss of confidence that affected banks and financial instruments was now affecting cherubs, cupids, and flattened popes.The objects hadn’t changed: what was there before was there after.But a vacancy was created when the clamoring crowds deserted and retrenched.Art magazines and auction catalogs thinned.Darwinism swept through Chelsea, killing off a few species, and only the ones with the long necks that could reach the leaves at the tops of the trees survived.There was still some business, but not for Lacey, and negotiations got tougher and tougher up and down the street as collectors, even the ones unaffected, wanted bargains.Lacey was willing to give bargains, but no one wanted what she had to offer.She needed an influx of buoyant money, but in her heart, she didn’t know if it would be wise to keep the gallery afloat.She might just be incurring more debt by delaying the inevitable.She called Barton Talley.He could meet her at his gallery later that day.The taxi ride uptown turned into a coincidental Grand Tour of her life in the art world: through Chelsea, past Christie’s, and up Madison where all the galleries hid.Upon arriving at Talley’s, Lacey pushed the doorbell as she had so long ago.It clicked and she muscled it open.She threw her weight against the inner door when there was a second click, and she saw Donna, older, shopworn, still feigning efficiency, with her thumb pressing on the door buzzer long after Lacey had entered the gallery.“Hi, Lacey.Can I offer you something to drink?”“Is there any poison?” said Lacey.“Sorry?”“I’m here to see Barton.”“I’ll see if he’s in.”Then she heard Donna say over the phone, “Are you in for Lacey Yeager?”Donna looked up at Lacey and said, “Go on up.”The nostalgia continued for Lacey as she recalled her initial ascent of these stairs almost a dozen years ago, where she had encountered Agent Parks, now her boyfriend.She recalled her accidental peek at the Vermeer copy at the wrong end of the hall, and her first entrance into Talley’s expert world.Her time in this gallery was the best of it, she thought, and as she walked down the hall, she recalled her footsteps years ago when she headed excitedly toward the window to look for Patrice Claire [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]