Funeral's over. Time to start getting back to normal. Whatever that means.
It's the most I've seen of Dad in a long time. Good thing I'm still in contact with Dr Lana, with all the guilt that stirred up. It's complicated. I feel bad about not seeing my parents, but spending all this time with Dad reminded why I avoided them for so long. I hoped he'd be a bit better about the gallery now I'm doing well with it, but it's obvious he's still disappointed in me. Then there was the usual grilling over my love life, which would be bad enough even if I could give him a reason why I've given up on dating, but I can hardly share the real reason.
I had really good intentions about keeping in touch with Ezra, but that didn't go so well. At least I did manage to text him. Turns out he lost his father around the same time. Nothing related, just a horrible coincidence.
I didn't have time to open the gallery with Dad needing me on hand for funeral stuff, but it's back open now. Another coincidence. I was expecting Ezra to visit pretty soon, but I wasn't expecting Jared at the same time, and certainly wasn't expecting Meri Janson. She wasn't her normal self, and Dr Lana says I have to be honest in these journals, so I have to admit to some schadenfreude after the way she was behaving last time we met. She seemed genuinely upset though, going on about Marielle Dubois taking over her gallery and hearing strange noises in the night. Chanting in French or Latin or something. I suggested she look at the camera footage but apparently they've even taken over the security. Sure, I find her annoying, but she's a professional when it comes to the actual business. It's not right treating her that way.
She came through on the tickets for the Atrocity Exhibition, I'll give her that. I got a taxi this time. I'm still a bit shaky about public transport and I wanted to show up on time and relaxed. I met Ezra and Jared there, along with Jim Bowman, an art student I've exhibited before. The whole thing was pretty well staged, I have to give them that. Suitably gloomy music. Catering staff all in white suits with these weird Venetian masks. Fancy tickets with watermarks. And I can't fault a buffet and open bar.
We had some time before the actual opening, so we went for a look around the other galleries. Bit of a theme going on. We started off in the Rosenfeld. Funerary art from the middle ages. Pretty depressing stuff. Just what I didn't need. There was one painting the others seemed to kind of fix on. Woman with lamb type of deal, obvious religious metaphor. Being kind of sensitive on the subject of mothers right now I moved on.
The next painting along was a young man with some kind of halo and a bird on his shoulder. Some kind of trick image, by the looks of things, as while I looked at it it somehow changed, and the man's face had partially skeletonised. Just for a moment it put me in mind of Spencer. The others didn't seem to notice anything odd about it though.
I clearly wasn't my normal self, which was a waste of an excellent networking opportunity, but Jared of all people gave me a pep talk. He was quite right. Hanging around these gloomy paintings was bad for me. We moved on to the Hewett gallery where there was a Día de los Muertos exhibition. Much better all round. Just what I needed, an optimistic view of death. I was in much better spirits when we got to the Van Assen gallery, and managed to find a kind of humour in Alfred Kubin's The Best Doctor.
I'd been having a pleasant chat with Jim and Ezra about the satirical elements of Kubin's work when Jared freaked out. I don't know why. Jim ran after him, and Ezra and me caught up with him outside the bathroom where Jared had locked himself in. I'd been thinking up to then that he was the well balanced one, while me and Ezra were moping about, but I guess not. He'd mentioned losing an uncle earlier on, but he didn't seem quite so affected by it. Maybe I was wrong.
Anyway, he'd helped me out earlier in the evening, so it seemed only polite to make sure he got a bit of privacy. He'd picked up a bit of a crowd, but I heard one of them say that this must all be part of the show, so I turned on the charm and ran with it. I soon had them all convinced nothing out of the ordinary had happened and steered them away from the bathroom.
That's when I heard Spencer's voice.
Even after all this time, my heart leaps at that sound. There's a part of me that's sure some day he's just going to walk back into my life like nothing ever happened, and that's why I went chasing through the crowd after him. The first time I'd moved away from the others all evening and I could feel every eye on my as I passed and hear whispers about my clothes and my appearance. I tried to ignore them, but let's add paranoia or whatever that is to the list next time I talk to Dr Lana.
I caught up with him in the basement. I could see him with his arm around a young woman, looking just the way I remember him, talking about how he was planning on opening a new gallery and featuring up and coming young artists. Our plan. I called his name but he didn't hear me. I walked up to him and tapped his shoulder, but when he turned around to look at me, it wasn't him.
Ezra caught up with me then, and I had to explain that I thought I'd recognised someone but made a mistake. At that point one of the projectors lit up, so we sat down and watched the movie they were showing. Some creepy stop motion animation. It actually made me feel better though. Ezra too. Just something else to focus on. I'm going to have to get some plasma screens for the gallery. So much interesting video work is showing up, and I can't let my place get left behind.
We headed back to join the others. Ezra wasn't sure what was up with Jared either, having assumed the same as me that it was just Jared being Jared at first. It sounded like it was getting sorted out though, and his girlfriend was coming to join him in the morning. Until then I figured we should probably keep an eye on him at least.
That's when things got interesting. Brahim Nasra showed up. Which by itself is pretty normal, given that he's a fellow art dealer, if a much bigger name than me, but he was there to stage some kind of dramatic scene where he accused Marielle Dubois of stealing art from the Tunisian government. No idea if that's true or not. She insisted she had all the proper paperwork, but he certainly acted like he believed it. Security dragged him away of course, but I recorded the whole thing on my phone, and sent it to Ezra when it ended. Well I tried. The signal was terrible.
As was, apparently, the smell of the security guards.
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