Oceans

"She wondered how long it would take Legolas to realize that he was subsidizing my stable of barely average artists. I was literally taking money from him to support a crew of artists who didn't have a fraction of his talent. If I was such a smart business woman why was I neglecting my biggest asset to spend most of my time on lesser clients?"

"She said that doing that proved that I wasn't much of a business woman but that wasn't really what she'd been talking about. She told me that besides being stupid as a business woman, I was stupid as a woman period for doing what I was doing to a man who loved me as much as Legs did."

"She told me that if I continued in my stupidity, I shouldn't be surprised if someone who'd treat him the way he deserved took him away from me."

"I realized then that she was in love with my husband. I went crazy. I swung at her as hard as I could. She grabbed my arm and threw me on the floor. She just stood there looking at me and then walked away."

"I guess I should have stopped then but I didn't. I was drunk with power and I couldn't give it up. This was my niche. This was my way to impact the art world. Dana and I simply co-existed for a long time."

"I guess the rumors about me started making the rounds then. It was a really insanely busy time for both of us. It was about the time that Legs had gotten the commission for the Commerce Bank sculpture. I was doing several interviews a day. Legs had never said a word to me before that about my absences or the lessening of the time we spent together and he didn't say anything then either. He was always wrapped up in his own little world. He was so into his art that I was sure he didn't know what was going on around him."

"I knew that I had to stop. It hit me all of a sudden one day when I went into his studio, or tried to and found out that I couldn't find him. He'd changed his workspace to a separate studio and I knew nothing about it."

"I made it a point to be home that evening when he came home. And I could tell by the way he looked at me that something was different. Until that night every time the man looked at me his face lit up. This was a man whose vision set the world on fire and all he'd ever wanted to do was spend time with me."

"We had dinner together and my guilt was palpable. I didn't know what to say or what to do. He left after dinner to go back to work on the piece. Before he left I told him that I wanted to go with him. He told me that he wasn't ready for anyone to see it yet."

"I was crushed. He'd always loved having me look at his pieces and give my opinions. He also looked really sad."

"The next day Amanda came to see me at my office and we fought. She was very angry at me. I guess she thought that she was partially responsible for what was going on since she was the one who'd pushed me into artist management."

"It was the last time she ever spoke to me. Even later on, when I needed friends, she and Raphe were among the first to cut me out of their lives."

"I was always sure that I could fix things. I guess I was like a smoker. I was sure that I could quit whenever I wanted to. I decided that after the Commerce Bank job was over Legs and I would just take a long vacation together and fix things. That would give him the time to complete his statue and I could sign my next new prospect."

"That new prospect was Denny Wainwright. I was sure that he was going to be the next big thing. He was actually kind of a poor man's copy of Legs. He didn't sculpt. He only painted, but I was sure that I could market him. "

"One thing that made me sure of it was that, he, like Legs, was more of a personality than just an artist. Being interesting actually made people want more of him. I later found out that he was more interesting as a personality than an artist."

"I saw him at a small showing in New York and approached him. It was the beginning of the end for me. For weeks by then, Legs had simply withdrawn into his shell. He barely spoke to me and when he did it was always cryptic phrases. I realized later that he'd been trying to warn me. Just like with the tattoo, he didn't know exactly what I was doing, but he knew that I was doing something to hurt us."

"Instead of handling Denny the way I normally did things and wait for him to approach me, I decided to push ahead and just go after him. I couldn't imagine him not wanting the services I offered. I did everything for my people to free them up to just create. In a lot of those cases, I was doing things I shouldn't have done."

"Imagine my surprise when he laughed in my face at my offer to represent him. And he did it in public at the art show. The fact that he'd done it in front of people who were involved in the tightly knit world of fine arts made it even worse than the words he used."

"Thanks, but I like to keep my art pure," he said loudly, drawing attention from the people around us. "I have no need of a whore, no matter what else she might do for me."

"Everyone in the room knew who he was and who I was. As I said, it was the beginning of the end."

"I just walked away from him with a stunned look on my face. As I looked around the room, I saw nothing but smirks on the faces of most of the people there. A funny thing about the art world, everyone involved watches everyone else. In some cases they want to see you succeed, in others they just want to be there to see you fall. I could tell by the looks on most of those faces that I was headed for a sharp, steep drop."

"I needed Legs then like I'd never needed him before. I drove home and ran into our house only to find it empty. I called his cell phone and it went to voice mail. I called again immediately hoping he'd missed the first call. It was answered the third time I called him, but not by him."

"Why the hell are you answering his phone?" I asked.

"Why the hell are you trying to call him in the middle of a taping that you should already be at?" she hissed right back.

"Dana, what are you talking about? I need to speak to my husband right now," I told her.

"Kerri, you really have lost it haven't you?" she asked. "You're supposed to be the one who represents him and handles his business interests, so why the fuck are you calling him in the middle of his first appearance on Letterman?" She hung up the phone on me and I slumped to the floor. How had I forgotten that?"

"Legs was on a three day promotional tour doing signings of prints of some of his earlier paintings. He was also scheduled to do the Letterman show and a couple of other talk shows to pique interest in him just before we unveiled the Commerce Bank sculpture next month. How the fuck could I forget the biggest most important block of appearances in my husband's career thus far?"

"Legs had tried in vain to get me to reschedule them because he hadn't wanted to take the time away from the sculpture. This was the one thing that Dana and I had agreed on. Most of the shows that he was scheduled to appear on had never had an artist on as a guest, not even Amanda had done this. It was very important for Legs' career and I'd forgotten."

"Even worse was the fact that when we'd scheduled the appearance nearly a month ago, he'd begged me to go with him. He was very nervous and almost afraid to go. He thought that he just wouldn't appeal to a mass audience. Art isn't really a form of entertainment. It's a more personal pursuit. I realized then that I'd let him down yet again. I got the bottle out and started crying."

"For the next few days, I stayed home trying to avoid people. Legs wasn't returning my calls or answering his phone either. Even Dana wasn't picking up her phone or his either. I tried to call Amanda, hoping that maybe she could intercede for me. Her assistant's assistant took a message and said only that she'd make sure that Amanda's assistant got my request."

"I knew what that meant. Amanda had never refused to take one of my calls. Obviously she was distancing herself from me. I knew that there was no need to even bother trying to call Raphe. Whatever his wife did or felt, he echoed. The two of them were as close as Legs and I used to be."

"Used to be? Even saying the words hurt me. There had to be something wrong with him. He had to know that there was no one on earth that I loved even a fraction as much as I loved him. Lots of career minded couples drifted apart when they got busy working. This was our dream. We'd always planned to take the art world by storm. Maybe we weren't doing it the way we thought we would, but we were still doing it."

"I told myself that from then on, I'd put Legs first. After all, he was my most important client. It was only right that he should get most of my attention. I went into our home office to check his schedule for the next couple of days. Our home office was pretty big. We both had huge desks that faced each other. I'd wanted them to both face outward, side by side. Legs had moved his immediately."

"I guess that I'd gotten that wrong too. I tried to explain to him that having the desks side by side symbolized the fact that we were a team and we put forth a united front. I guess I looked at it as being an "us against the world," statement."

"Legs just laughed and said that inside our own house we had no need to fight anyone. Then he brushed my hair and kissed me. He told me that he liked having our desks that way not to make any kind of statement, but because he enjoyed looking at me."

"I looked at his desk and couldn't find a copy of his schedule anywhere. The only thing I could do was wait for him to call me or to come home. In the meantime, I was getting lots of calls from my clients about things they needed."

"I started to return their calls and found out some things that I'd missed. As has been mentioned before, Legs was the only one of my clients who was really successful. One of the things I'd been doing lately was to place the best works of some of my other clients at Legs' appearances and shows. It made sense that people who came to see him or his work might be interested in seeing pieces by other artists as well. That morning, not one, but four of the five artists I'd planned on using pieces by to supplement Legs' sculpture at the Commerce Bank opening called me."

"They were all very upset. They'd been told that none of their works would be shown. It was news to me. I was sure that all of the details for the opening had been confirmed. I figured that perhaps there'd been a snafu at the bank. I called the person at the bank that I usually dealt with and was told that there had been several changes made recently. He would get back to me with the name and number of the person I needed to contact to straighten things out."

"I was pissed. I'd thought until that moment that I was the person in charge of what happened at the opening. I had, after all, been the person who got Legs to even take the commission. Legs had, of course, come up with the idea and designed the piece, but I'd handled all of the details."

"As soon as I got off of the phone, my phone rang again. I was sure that maybe the guy from the bank had made a mistake and was calling back to clear things up. It was my secretary, Joan. Her call made me feel even worse. She started by telling me that news of Denny Wainwright's snub of me the previous evening was all over town. She had even worse news for me. Denny was showing some of his pieces in the free art fair in Central park the next afternoon. Because people were talking about him, he'd been invited to appear on a local radio station called "Art Beat," this morning. The show had been a disaster. The original intention of the show was to publicize the art fair. Denny had used it to try to publicize himself. Joan e-mailed me a copy of the show. She told me to be prepared to be upset."

"Unlike Legs, who tended to be shy and let his art speak for him, Denny was loud and brash. He thought that by drawing attention to himself he'd bring more attention to his art."

"The host of the show kept talking about the art fair and Denny kept trying to bring the conversation around to himself and his art. He practically called himself the greatest artist of our generation. He bragged about his innovation and modernization of the arts. He talked about how he did many of his designs on a computer and then painted them."

"The host found it all boring, but to try to make the conversation interesting, he changed tactics. He asked if Denny was the greatest artist of the generation, how he compared himself to Amanda Anderson. Denny said he was better. The host laughed. Then he mentioned how many thought that Denny was a junior copy of Legolas Ambrose. Unfortunately, it was just what Denny had been waiting for. He knew that his work was not even on the same level as Legs' or Amanda's so he needed to sow controversy. By making outrageous statements, he could drum up interest in himself where his work alone never would."

"Actually," said Denny. "Legolas and I have a lot in common."

"Like what?" asked the host.

"Well," said Denny. "I'm pretty sure that he and I are the only two artists in town who aren't screwing his wife." I don't think I heard anything else after that. I turned off my computer and started crying again. I had to get to Legs so we could work this out. I had to try to explain what was going on before I lost my marriage."

"My phone continued to ring, after a while I just turned it off. I tried screening my calls at first. I realized what a mistake it had been to give some of my clients my home number. I did regularly check the screen to see who was calling me in case it was Legs or Dana but I wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone else."

"The next morning was a continuation of the day before. I was actually supposed to go to the art fair in central park. A couple of my clients were showing some of their work. I was supposed to arrange to help them transport and display their work but I just couldn't leave the house. I knew that if I showed up at the art fair it would turn into a circus. It did anyway, even without me being there. I heard about it from one of my clients."

"It must have been about six in the evening when she called. Her name was Chloe Parker. Chloe did paintings in a style that was very odd. Her paintings were very colorful and she had her own way of imagining people and scenes. Though her style was very different, she reminded me of Amanda. But only because she saw things differently from the way that normal people did. All of the people that she drew or painted were distorted or even twisted. All of her people had huge bodies and tiny heads. Some of her paintings resembled scenes from comic books."

"I answered Chloe's call because she hadn't called me in a week or so and I needed to tell her that I was trying to figure out what happened at the bank. She surprised me because she told me that not only was she still showing her pieces at the bank, she'd had to pull them all from the art fair because they'd asked her for more pieces for the bank gallery's opening. She also needed some supplies because since the opening had been delayed she wanted to do a few more pieces."

"I told her that I didn't understand what she was talking about. So she filled me in on what had happened that morning. She was sitting in her booth with about four of her latest paintings on display. She'd had a few people come over to look but she hadn't sold anything yet."

"She'd seen Denny's display. He had about eight pieces in his booth even though they'd been told to only bring three or four pieces. One of his pieces was a huge cityscape that she said looked as if he'd tried to copy the one that Legs had done years ago. She said it looked amateurish but he was extremely proud of it. She'd tried to talk to him but he had a stick up his ass and blew her off to talk to people he thought might buy one of his pieces."

"Later when she was back in her booth, she heard the sound of tires screeching and people yelling. She saw a lot of people running towards Denny's booth, but she couldn't leave then because she had no one to watch her paintings. She figured that Denny as usual was doing something outrageous to call attention to himself."

"I didn't find out until later what had happened at Denny's booth. Chloe told me that after some, but not all, of the hubbub at Denny's booth had died down. Legs had come over to her booth. He'd looked pissed at first but as he looked at her pieces, he'd smiled and nodded his head. She told me that there was a woman following him who turned out to be his assistant. He thrown his sword to the woman and sat down with Chloe to talk about her work. He'd told her that she should save those pieces for the Bank Opening because he was sure that she'd get far more for them there. He'd asked her how many pieces she was showing and she'd told him two, because that was all I'd told her were allowed."

"She said he told her that I probably wasn't aware of the changes in the way the opening was going to go and that she could bring at least eight pieces. He also thought that the show would be a great launching point for her career. He'd changed the date of the show that morning. It would be delayed by two weeks because of what had happened with Denny, but he wouldn't go into it any more than that. He needed to make a few changes in his piece. He also told her that he wanted to talk to her about her career after the show."

"I was pissed for a number of reasons. I understood that Legs could change things if he wasn't happy but he should have come to me first. After all, he was supposedly a part of my agency. It made me look stupid when some of my clients had to tell me what my husband was doing. It made me look even worse when I had to ask another woman where my husband's new studio was located."

"The thing that made me the angriest was the fact that it seemed like Legolas was trying to rub my nose in what I'd been doing, by doing it himself. All of that shit he'd given her about wanting to talk to her about her career sounded like the way I spoke to some of my clients to get them to sign with me."

"I was sure that he was going to get her alone after the show and tell her that if she liked the way that show felt, she could have more of it. All she had to do was to be very nice to him. I got more and more pissed. I was sure at that point that he'd been fucking Dana and was now tired of her and wanted someone new. How dare he even pretend to be upset at me, if he was doing it too?"

"Over the next few weeks, things got worse. My brother ran into Legs and they'd spoken. My brother asked me what the hell was going on. He told me that Legs looked like he was on life support. I didn't actually find out what had gone on at the art fair until my brother told me about it."

"My brother had gone to the art fair to confront Denny, both about calling me a whore and about what he'd said on the radio show. He'd been waiting for the right moment, when he, like everyone else, heard one of the loudest engine sounds he'd ever heard. Legs' Red Shelby drove into the parking lot, way too fast. Legs had done a couple of donuts and got out of the car. As soon as people recognized him they started following him. Apparently Dana was there as well."

"My brother is a typical man. He described her as cute and voluptuous, which means that she had big eyes, big tits and a big ass. I still think she's plain and fat."

"He said that she got out of the car and followed right behind Legs. People started asking him questions as they walked. When they got to Denny's booth Legs handed his sword to Dana and took off his jacket. My brother asked me why he never got arrested for carrying those swords. I had to tell him that celebrities can get away with things that would surprise him."

"Legolas went over to the cityscape that Denny had painted. It was the biggest piece he had there. "Do you like it?" Denny asked Legs."