Free Starry Night by Isabel Gillies Page A

old masters and the new masters. It was unusual for the Met to exhibit so many current artists, which was one of the reasons the show was such a big deal.
    Reagan released my arm to snake her way through the crowd and I let Vati and Farah move ahead of me. They didn’t recognize Cy Dowd. He looked younger than I would have thought, even though he had gray hair on the sides of his head. He wore heavily framed black nerd glasses, which didn’t surprise me, and a navy tux. You might not notice it was navy, but because Cy was standing next to the mayor, who was in a normal black tux, I could tell. I think it’s some sort of statement to wear navy instead of traditional black. George Clooney does it all the time at the Golden Globes . And Cy Dowd was wearing blue Vans sneakers. I wondered what he wore when he painted. I wondered if he liked these big parties, or if he was an introvert who wished that the evening would be over and he could go back to his massive studio in Brooklyn, drink red wine, and paint his next masterpiece with his pet teacup pig by his side (I read that he had one in that New York magazine article).
    The cavernous, marble entry hall was loud. All the party guests were talking to each other intensely, as if they were in the most important conversation of their lives. Some people would explode in laughter. What were they laughing at? Politics? I wanted to retreat to my bedroom and draw an owl or something. I felt like that big wind of the day was in the hall with us, blowing everything and making me feel like I had to hold on.
    Suddenly I heard my father’s voice in a microphone.
    â€œHello … Hello, everyone!”
    Nan and David Noorlander (at these things they seem more like Nan and David Noorlander than Mom and Dad) were standing at the foot of the large white marble stairway leading to the upstairs galleries that held Vermeers, Manets, Monets, Jackson Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm (I wrote a paper on that painting in an art history elective once), and of course, a large number of van Goghs.
    â€œLadies and gentlemen, esteemed guests, Mr. Mayor, dear friends, it is my greatest pleasure and honor to welcome you all tonight. It is rare, even at this great institution, that we can erect a show with the work of so many vital contemporary artists. How lucky we are to be living in a time when we are globally connected and have the technology and resources to be in an active, alive, real-time conversation with artists from around the world who, it seems to me, are working together as if in a master class. Some, like Rosanna Zelman, live in Kyrgyzstan. Tony Une resides in Tokyo. Alexandra Sheere, in Paris. For the first time at the Met, we have tried to continue that conversation in the galleries you are about to see. We are truly fortunate to have with us tonight Cy Dowd, who has seven works in this show.”
    The room exploded in applause. Vati, Farah, and I were, totally by accident, standing so close to Cy Dowd that it felt like everyone in the room was looking at us, which of course they weren’t. Cy lifted his glass to my father and then took a small bow to the crowd. But then, when he lifted his head, he unmistakably looked in our direction, not at me, but at Farah. They caught eyes. You could see it as plainly as if it were a scene in a TV show. Was it because Farah was in a silver dress? I looked around to see if anyone else had noticed, and there was Charlie who was now back with us. I took his sleeve and pulled him closer to me.
    â€œDid you see that?” I didn’t really have to lower my voice because the whole room was still applauding.
    â€œWhat?” He had found the duck things and had a pyramid of them in a napkin. “Why do you guys have champagne?”
    â€œI don’t,” I said.
    â€œThey do.” Pointing his pile of duck in Farah and Padmavati’s direction.
    Farah was now coyly poised with her knee bent like a fawn and smiling at Cy