Page 120 - Just Deserts

Chameleon Dress Tips

Frisko awoke late in the morning, found himself hung over in his
loft studio in SoHo, and wondered briefly why he had not spent the
night at his remodeled farmhouse in Connecticut. Then he
remembered: Evian Beek was coming here at eleven o’clock to talk
business, and it hadn’t seemed worth the commute after the wild
party at Vozkonsky’s apartment last night. And he’d stayed past
midnight, hoping to score with that young co-ed from Columbia; his
fame had drawn her to him, but the Russian’s cheap liquor had sent
her home sick in a taxi.
Better luck next time, he muttered to himself, shivering as he
threw off the futon cover, stood up and put on his clothes. The
expensive German coffee-maker had broken down, so he stumbled
into the kitchenette and put some water in a sauce pan and heated it
on the gas ring for instant coffee. He yawned lazily, then hurried into
the bathroom to empty his bladder. The mirror over the toilet was
unavoidable. He looked. This was not the face of a successful artist:
not yet. He combed his thinning dyed hair into a topiary semblance
of a younger man’s coiffure, straightened his slumping shoulders and
narrowed his baggy eyelids into vulpine slits. There. That’s the old
Frisko, he thought. That’s a man who knows what he does and does
what he knows. And that is—
His ruminations were interrupted by the street level buzzer.
He ran back into the kitchenette and pushed the button releasing
the front door. This could be an important contact, Frisko thought,
dashing about his loft to make sure it had the appearance of a proper
studio. Vozkonsky had nothing but praise for Evian Beek, a Britisher
by his accent and a relative newcomer among the major gallery
owners and art dealers in Manhattan. Beek had found several buyers
for Vozkonsky’s ‘Dim Sum Cart Collisions’ series—an impressive
feat, Frisko realized, considering that the mixed media constructions
had languished for years in another midtown gallery. And Leo Ferox,
also Frisko’s contemporary, had succeeded in getting his ‘Shredder
Manifesto’ collages in the Museum of Modern Art’s recent
‘Depressionists’ show only by dint of Beek’s diplomacy and
salesmanship.
119