The artist closest to me, layout-wise, was a guy named Bradley Winterbottom, who’d done a portrait of a child on the beach. He had at least twenty people gathered in his area—chatting companionably about the composition, delighting over the way he’d captured that late-afternoon sunlight, swooning over the sweetness of the child’s face.
I mean, nothing against Bradley Winterbottom, but I really hated that guy right then.
He had more admirers than he deserved.
I, in contrast, had zero.
I didn’t even need admirers. I would’ve been happy for someone to talk to. A person who needed directions, say. A lost hiker.
But no luck. It was just me. Alone.
Nothing to do but panic over life-altering decisions about where to rest my hands. They were too posed and awkward at my sides, but they felt hostile if I crossed them over my chest, and they had too much judgy-mom energy if I rested them on my hips. I just kept shifting them around. Was behind the back too goofy? Was clasped at the pelvis too meek? Was clenched into fists of misery too … honest?
Nothing worked. Every few seconds I tried a new pose. Like an animatronic scarecrow.
To no avail.
I had no idea where to look, either. Looking at the floor would make me seem ashamed. Looking at other people would make me seem needy. Looking at my own portrait on the wall would make me seem like I was fully, heartily giving up on my dreams in real time.
Which I was, by the way.
There is nothing—nothing—more socially awkward than standing alone in a crowd waiting for someone, anyone, to come and join you.
I cursed Sue for getting kidnapped. And for eloping. And for every Angry Canadian she’d tossed back.
Then I felt guilty and took it back.
I cursed Joe instead. For everything.
Then I felt guilty about that, too.
Then I toyed with cursing myself … before deciding I was cursed enough, already.
* * *
THE WHOLE EXPERIENCE was wall-to-wall agony. There were no two ways about it.
I finally set my phone’s timer for eleven P.M.—the moment when the show technically ended, according to the invitation—so that I could stride out, or possibly sprint, the very second I was done.
Only two hours and forty-five minutes left to endure.
For the auction component of the show, each artist had a sleek, Jetsons-style cocktail table next to their portrait with a clipboard on it for patrons to write down their bids.
Bradley Winterbottom had to request an extra bid sheet after his filled up—front and back—but do I even need to say how many bids wound up on my clipboard during the entire time that I stood there?
Zero. That’s right.
But was that the worst, most insulting part of the evening?
Wow. That’s a tough call.
Let’s review the options:
There were all the shocked looks people gave my portrait from across the room—hands over mouths, eyes big with pity—the way you might rubberneck past a car wreck.
There was the moment when I accidentally knocked over the bucket of A/C drippings and then apologetically mopped it up with paper towels from the bathroom, one drippy bunch at a time, while other artists and patrons glanced over with irritation like I was really bringing everyone down.
There were the endless ten minutes when another finalist, who wore a little porkpie hat, went by the single pseudonym Lysander, and apparently possessed a nervous digestive system, had to work through some brutal digestive issues in the men’s room, which I could of course hear in detail from my primo spot by the bathroom doors—grunts, splashes, and all.
Oh. And there was the time when I took a pee break and overheard some judges who seized that moment to dart over and laugh at my work. Yes, that’s how close my placement was to the bathrooms. I could literally hear these people talking from the stall.
“What is happening here?” Judge 1 asked, in a horrified whisper.
“I know,” Judge 2 said.
“Did the artist … leave?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“I never would have shown up at all.”
“She must have fled.”
“Right? Off to not quit her day job.”
“Or to fling herself off a bridge.”
They snickered at that.
“It’s just so bizarre,” one went on pensively. “The body and background are so exquisite…”
“But then you get to the face.”
“I keep thinking it’s Carl Sagan.”
“I keep seeing Steve Buscemi.”
“It looks like a wolf face, in a way.”
“Impossible. Animals are against the rules.”