Page 71 of There is No Devil

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As a cover ofHeart-Shaped Boxpours out of the speakers, the creepy music-box backing track perfectly suits my oversized painting of a charred teddy bear, glass eyes melted, fur still smoking in places.

I hadn’t realized ‘till this moment how the painting’s title echoes the lyrics of the song:

Meat-eating orchids forgive no one just yet

Cut myself on angel hair and baby’s breath

This one hurt me the most to paint. It’s just a fucking bear, but I was overwhelmed with guilt that something I had loved had met such a bitter end. I almost didn’t finish, putting the painting aside, then changing my mind, turning it around again, and setting it back on the easel. I tilted it,I Remember and I Don’t Forget.

This series includes eight paintings in all, each larger than the last. I want the viewer to feel dwarfed by the canvases, overwhelmed by them. Like they themselves have shrunk down to child-size.

I painted at a speed I never could have imagined when I had to squeeze in my art between endless work shifts, already exhausted by the time I lifted brush to canvas.

Some of the paintings are realistic, others include surreal elements.

One is calledThe Two Maras,a reference to Frida Kahlo’s famous portrait.

In mine, the first version of Mara stands before a large mirror. The “real” Mara is battered and bruised, with a wide-eyed expression of fear. Her reflection in the mirror looks ten years older: glossy-haired and dressed in a diaphanous black gown, her eyes dark and ferocious, her entire aura crackling with the terrible power of a sorceress.

I called the painting of the girl in the nightgownThe Burial,as Cole suggested.

The next one along is the same girl in the same nightgown, sitting barefoot on a bus, her feet filthy and scratched, her head leaning exhausted against the window.

All the adults gaze blindly in her direction, their blank faces nothing but a smear of paint.Mind Your Business,the title card reads.

Seeing all my paintings together, properly hung and lighted, is the most thrilling thing I’ve ever experienced.

I’m looking into the window of my own future—a dream I had hoped for desperately, but only ever half-believed.

Here it is now in front of me, and I still can’t believe it.

“How do you feel?” Cole asks me.

“Drunk—and I haven’t had a sip of champagne.”

This time as Cole and I make the rounds, I’m starting to remember people’s names and faces, and they’re starting to remember me. I almost feel comfortable chatting with Jack Brisk, who has forgotten that he ever dumped a drink on my dress and is asking if I’d be interested in showing at his collective exhibition in the spring.

“It’s an all-female show,” Brisk says pompously. “Supporting women’s voices. Nobody loves women more than me.”

“Obviously,” Cole says. “That’s why you’ve been married four times.”

“Five, actually,” Brisk says, roaring with laughter. “I could fund the UN with all the alimony payments I’ve made.”

The pretty young thing on Brisk’s arm, sporting an engagement ring that looks quite new, does not seem as amused by this conversation. When she flounces off and Jack Brisk chases after her, Sonia sidles up to me and says, “She’s just mad ‘cause she’s the first one he’s making sign a prenup.”

As Cole gets pulled into a conversation with Betsy Voss, Sonia amuses me by whispering other bits of gossip about everyone else who passes.

“That’s Joshua Gross over there—he tried to throw a pop-up show this summer. Displaying paintings in posh houses all over the city. Mixing art with architectural porn.”

“Not a bad idea,” I say.

“It was a fucking disaster. July was blazing hot, and everybody with money had gone to Malibu or Aspen or the Hamptons. Those of us stupid enough to attend were stuck in traffic for six hours trying to drive between houses. It turned out that he never got the right permits to sell paintings out of houses. The city slapped him with so many fines that I doubt he made a dollar off the show.”

Poor Joshua still looks frazzled, with unshaven stubble and a haunted look on his face as he gulps down a glass of champagne, a second glass clutched in his other hand.

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