Page 102 of Charmingly Obsessed
If I’d had to call him over, or worse, actually seek him out, Vesuvius Rodin, on sheer principle alone, would have bailed. Disappeared into the Parisian night like a puff of expensive, cigar-scented smoke.
Vesuvius Rodin was what we, in the high-stakes, underground poker games of our misspent youth, used to call a “whale.” A moneyed whale.
The kind of guy always given a prime, front-row seat at the big art auctions because he buys too much, too impulsively. And a red-table, high-roller VIP at the illicit, backroom card games because he loses too much. Too spectacularly.
And he does it all with an enviable, almost infuriating ease. He lives with a casual, almost contemptuous disregard for the obscene amounts of money he both makes and loses.
No one, not even me, quite noticed the exact moment when Vesuvius transformed from a mere, predictable “fish” into the veritable Neptune of international high society.
But I’d bet good money the bastard welcomed that particular, transformative moment with a slow, knowing, devilish smirk.
Vesuvius always arrives everywhere hand in hand with his impenetrable, almost suffocating cynicism. He might change his ridiculously expensive, custom-tailored Tom Ford tuxedo now and then, but his aura of dark, hopeless, and surprisingly witty nihilism remains unchanged. He despises Paris, yet plans to live here for as long as he already has – which is to say, fifteen long, miserable, beautiful years.
In other words, we could have been, and probably should have been, good friends.
But Ves already has millions of devoted, loyal, and entirely uncomplicated friends. And every single one of them is neatly, conveniently stacked in his various offshore bank accounts.
Undine and Diana are now deep in a serious, almost academic discussion about a massive, unsettling canvas hanging on the wall next to us.
A looming, shadowy figure of a man on a rooftop, his own enormous, feathered wings seemingly pushing him downward, not lifting him up. He shields his face with a gnarled, twisted hand from the blinding, merciless glare of an unseen sun.
“Icarus, Icarus,” Vesuvius murmurs, his voice a low, amused purr as he sips his blood-red wine, seamlessly joining their conversation. “Get off the goddamn ledge. You’ve drunk too much. And besides,” he adds, a cynical smile playing on his lips, “everyone knows… people rise only from below.”
He feigns surprise at the presence of my beautiful, and currently very serious, wife, lazily saluting me with his wine glass.
“I wouldn’t recommend buying this Carlson fellow,” he nods dismissively at the enormous, depressing painting. “Seriously, Mykola. It was outdated before the paint even dried.”
“We’re more interested in the contemporary Asian pieces tonight,” Diana replies, her voice cool, professional, not giving him an inch. The great collector, for his part, barely spares her a passing glance.
I pull my wife closer, tightening my arm around her waist in a subtle, territorial gesture.
“We’re planning to buy something… out from under someone… tonight,” I hint to Vesuvius. His perfectly sculpted eyebrows lift, a flicker of genuine interest in his usually bored, world-weary eyes.
“What the hell happened to you, Mykola?” he asks, a slow, amused smirk spreading across his face. “Since when do you chase after mere… blotches of paint?”
The word “blotches” sounds menacing coming from him—a man who just last week bought a lost Caravaggio for a sum that would make a small nation weep.
“Connect me with that drunken, impulsive Irishman over there. He’s reserved three of the paintings I want.”
“You’ve always been a cheapskate, Mykola,” Ves says, brushing a piece of non-existent dust from the sleeve of his immaculate tuxedo, casting an impenetrable, almost bored glance at the now openly amused Undine.
“It may seem unlikely, given my chosen profession,” I say, taking Diana’s hand in mine, lacing my fingers through hers, “but I do, in fact, know how to count. And that guy,” I nod towards the red-faced Irishman, “rides on pure impulse. He’d sell his own children for a few cheap auction wins. By now, heshould be drunk enough to think… finallyrationally. At least, for a price.”
“Not really,” the collector grimaces, swirling the wine in his glass. “It won’t work. No one would believe I have such a vested, and sudden, interest in emerging contemporary Asian art. It’s not my brand. You go charm him, Frez.”
“Few people are truly, genuinely interested in contemporary art, my dears,” Undine winks at Diana, a shared, conspiratorial gesture.
“And that,” Ves tilts his head, signaling to a passing waiter for more wine, “is entirely, completely its own fault.”
“Though I do buy it, of course,” Undine admits, smiling at us. “But I’ll be perfectly honest with you both – I’m not much different from a simple, uneducated countryside bumpkin. I don’t understand a single, solitary damn thing about this so-called… genius of modernity.”
“Genius and modernity, my dear Undine, are fundamentally incompatible,” he declares, his voice heavy with a theatrical, world-weary sigh. “Christ Almighty, this wine is fucking awful. The museum must be struggling financially. I can only hope that future generations, with their advanced, AI-enhanced intellects, will somehow find a way to make sense of our current, contemporary, and largely nonsensical scribbles.”
“Art,” Diana says suddenly, her voice quiet, but clear, cutting through their cynical, witty banter, “is the experience ofseekingunderstanding, Vesuvius. It’s not a mathematical formula to be solved.”
“Good Lord,” he mutters into his wine glass, casting another, longer, more appraising look at her this time. “Mrs. Frez just solved a generational, and deeply philosophical, artistic dilemma. In one sentence.”
Yes. My Diana is exactly like that. When she finally, finally speaks her mind, she cuts straight to the heart of the matter. With a devastating, beautiful, almost brutal precision.
