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Chapter 6: The Reception from Nikola's Perspective

Nikola arrived at the gallery at precisely six-twenty according to her watch. She liked to be punctual, especially for what she considered work, and this was definitely work.

She entered the gallery and looked around. Quite a crowd had assembled in the front room, creating a human wall between her and the center of the gallery. Nikola stood just inside the doorway for a few minutes and observed the various individuals in front of her, the fear within her rising. They stood together in groups with their backs to her. Most of them were fashionably dressed in dark colors. They all seemed deeply involved in some conversation, articulating with sharp angular movements that looked almost robotic, with apparent disdain for anyone not in their group. She felt like she didn't belong amongst these strangers. She had to keep herself from fleeing in those first few moments, while she gazed at the dark mass of bodies before her and thought about the four pages of names that she had barely glanced at the night before. This is my reception, she reminded herself, but that only amplified her fear.

She tried to control her emotions, and began to scan the crowd for a familiar face. She thought she spotted Martha in the back of the gallery and started to walk towards her. She got about half-way there before she was stopped by the sound of her name. Eddie was at her elbow. "Nervous yet?" Eddie asked.

"Panic is more like it."

"Really? You look perfectly calm."

"Inside, I feel anything but."

"It's just a reception. What can they do?"

"Insult all my paintings, belittle me, make me feel like an insect..."

Eddie laughed. "You worry too much. They wouldn't dare, or at least not in front of you."

"Thanks, you're a great help. Where's Martha?"

"In the back, kissing up to her special clients. They get the good champagne. I'm sure she's more than ready for you by now. Have fun."

"I think that might be asking too much." Nikola exchanged a kiss with Eddie and headed towards the back.

When she got there and saw the sparse arrangement of paintings, she remembered the unwelcome sale with the force of a blow. The walls looked almost empty. Nikola cursed Martha in her thoughts before forcing a smile on her face and approaching Martha's group. She braced herself for the stream of interrogations she knew she was in for.  

Martha introduced her first to a middle-aged couple, in their early to mid fifties. They both looked very cosmopolitan, extremely thin and impeccably dressed in tailor made, classically cut, evening wear. Martha was all smiles, air kisses, and handshakes. "Nikola, I would like you to meet Richard and Diane Barclay. Their collection is truly outstanding and they like your work. You should consider it an honor."

Everyone shook hands and the usual polite discussion ensued about the current art scene. After that, the Barclays questioned Nikola about her exhibition history, artistic influences and working methods. It reminded Nikola of job interviews she had been to - she had to think carefully about everything she said. She felt pressure to sell herself, yet wondered about the value of evaluating art based on the artist's resume. In her mind, a painting was an entity in its own right which the artist had only facilitated and then let loose on the world. If it didn't affect you by itself, it wasn't the right painting for you. However, through experience she had learned that most people didn't agree with her, so she tried to respond to the barrage of questions as well as she could.

Another couple approached while they were talking, David and Adele Cox. They were friends of the Barclays, and their California counterparts. Where the Barclays wore classically cut clothes, the Coxes went for a softer, sunnier look. They both had deep tans and blonde-streaked hair, accentuated by tasteful gold jewelry. They were in the movie business, Nikola found out when Martha whispered into her ear on the way to the next introduction.

Martha fed Nikola a running stream of client background information as they walked from introduction to introduction. "Now, this next man I'm going to introduce you to has already expressed interest in two of your paintings. He's incredibly wealthy and buys whimsically. It's easy to be nice to him, because he's very sweet. I noticed him admiring you from across the room, so it shouldn't be hard for you to charm him."

After a short walk across the gallery, Martha stopped in front of an elderly gentleman, whom she introduced as William Brown. He was short for a man, a few inches taller than Nikola and very thin but he made up for his physical stature with a strong and vibrant manner of speaking. At first Nikola imagined him to be an authoritative businessman, but the longer she listened to him, the more she realized how unpretentious he really was.

Martha left them alone after a few minutes to pursue someone at the other end of the gallery. Instead of the usual interrogation that she had come to expect from clients, Mr. Brown told her about his collection and asked for her expert opinion. Nikola found it refreshing to encounter a collector who obviously knew what he liked in art. He seemed unimpressed by the latest fads and uninterested in market trends. He then went on to point out those paintings of hers that he liked most, giving her a description of his reaction to them. He tried his hand at interpreting them, and asked if his interpretations had any similarity to her original inspiration. Nikola enjoyed listening to an outside observer's reactions to her paintings, and found his comments fascinating. It was the only discussion she enjoyed at the reception so far. When Martha pulled her away again after only ten minutes to steer her towards more introductions, she regretted ending the conversation.

Later during the reception, Nikola managed to get away from Martha for a few minutes and sought out Eddie again. Eddie stood in a group with Donna, Brian, and two men that Nikola didn't recognize.

Eddie greeted Nikola with, "Look, here's the star of the show."

Nikola smiled and replied, "I feel more like space debris than a star. My head has been spinning ever since I arrived."

"Well then, let me add to the confusion and introduce you to some of our other gallery artists." Eddie turned back to the group and began the introductions: "Nikola, this is George. George, Nikola."

George was a well-rounded, dark-haired man of medium height with penetrating dark eyes and a goatee. "Very pleased to meet you," he said, stepping forward and inclining his head slightly. He offered his hand to Nikola and shook hers with a flourish. She was not sure how to interpret his theatrical gestures.

"Nikola, this is Warren," Eddie said while gesturing towards a tall and powerfully built man who looked and dressed more like a manual laborer than an artist. He had longish brown hair that he was constantly brushing away from his face, and deep-set eyes which gave him a distant expression.
He nodded at Nikola with a brief "Hi" that sounded more like a grunt than a word, and did not offer his hand. After the introduction he stood silently, dividing his attention between the group and the rest of the room. His silence intrigued Nikola and she couldn't help but wonder what he and his paintings were like. But it was George who stepped forward and spoke first.

"This exhibition is indeed commendable," he said in an accent that Nikola had never heard before, like a stylized version of British English. "Your style is very evocative." He stared directly into Nikola's eyes, and played with his goatee while he spoke, giving him a very thoughtful expression.

"Thank you," Nikola said, hoping that his comment was meant as a complement. His demeanor made Nikola nervous. She felt as if there was some double-entendre behind his words that she wasn't picking up. She was almost relieved when she heard Martha calling her from across the room.

She excused herself immediately and turned to re-join Martha, who was approaching her from behind with a man at her side. He was tall and slender with short, straight, brown hair, brown eyes and very refined, almost feminine, facial features incongruously placed around a large roman nose. In a slightly different arrangement, his features would have been considered attractive, but as it was, he seemed a bit awkward, and he moved as if he wasn't quite comfortable in his body.

"I'd like to introduce you to Alan Drake. He's another artist who works with the gallery."

Having completed her introduction, Martha spotted a potential client and walked away from them.

"I'm very impressed by your work. Were you at all influenced by the German Expressionist school?"

"I did study their work, but my techniques are very different. I'm actually rather surprised you asked. I didn't think my work looked anything like theirs."

"Oh, I never meant to imply that it did. That was just such a big movement in Germany that I thought... Never mind. Your work is very nice."

"Thank you."

"I found myself quite moved by it, but a lot of it seems very lonely. I would think a woman as beautiful as you would never be lonely."
Nikola glanced at Alan's eyes before she responded to his complement. They were twinkling with a secret smile that made Nikola question his sincerity. "Thank you for the compliment, but looks and friendships are quite unrelated."

"I would think you really couldn't separate the two."

"Then those are not real friendships."

Alan looked away uncomfortably and paused for a moment, but it didn't take him long to recover. "Yes of course, you're right. Friends come in all shapes and sizes." He paused again before changing the subject, "Have you been here long?"

"No, I just arrived a few weeks ago."

"Really? Well you must have been studying English for a long time before then, because you speak it perfectly."

Why does everyone ask me this question? Nikola wondered. Aloud she said, "I learned it when I was very young." Nikola could see that he expected her to elaborate, but she declined to do so. She had no intention of sharing her past with this perfect stranger. She glanced around the room, trying to think of something innocuous to say, and wondered why Martha bothered to introduce her to another artist, it didn't seem like Martha's style.

"So. I guess you haven't had much of a chance to see the city yet," Alan said.

"No."

"Then you must let me take you to dinner sometime. One of my hobbies is keeping up with New York's restaurant scene, and I can show you a sampling of the best this city has to offer."

"I'm sorry, but I can't think right now, and you'll have to excuse me because I see Martha signaling for me. It was nice meeting you," Nikola said as she started away from Alan. He nodded and smiled ordinarily enough, but still made Nikola uneasy. She followed Martha's signal and found herself immersed in a seemingly interminable round of client introductions and polite discussions about nothing.

From then on, the reception seemed to drag on eternally and Nikola started getting dizzy from all the names and faces she knew she could never remember. By eight o'clock, she felt as if the smile she was forcing would be frozen on her face forever. Her cheek muscles already bothered her and threatened to give out completely. She had uttered every nicety she could think of at least a dozen times, and felt as if her mind would snap if she had to repeat any of them again. Yet she knew she still had a dinner to get through and prayed that she wouldn't have to talk much during it. However, she was impressed with the large turnout for her reception, and felt honored that all these people came out to see her paintings. Until a few hours ago, she knew less than half a dozen people in this country, and over ten times that amount were here at the reception. While she hoped that most of them were here to see her paintings, she knew from experience that many of these people had their own agendas.

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