Free Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo Page A

first, she says then I’d be taking my clients in the order of their importance.”
    “You could’ve invited her to dinner.”
    “I did, and she accepted. Then she found out you were coming and suggested lunch instead. Over her fourth Prosecco the poor dear got maudlin and confessed she still thinks the two of you should be together.”
    Noonan couldn’t help smiling at that, imagining skittish Anne trying to manage him in the throes of one of his bull-in-a-china-shop night terrors.
    “She’s between lovers, and you know how that makes her.”
    “I’ll fuck her anytime she likes, if that’s her problem.”
    Their first courses arrived at that moment, and Hugh used his hands to help waft the aroma of his risotto up to his eager nostrils. Hardly necessary, from where Noonan sat. Dead, rotting fish. His stomach turned over.
    “Tell me,” Hugh said, “do you really enjoy being an asshole?”
    “Yes,” Noonan said. His pasta and beans looked prechewed by some earlier diner. “It’s one of the few things I do enjoy, anymore.”
    “You and she are both going to be pleasantly surprised at the kind of money this new work brings. People are beginning to buy art again. Not everyone’s, but they’ll buy you. Anne will have to work harder, but then
she’s
not averse to hard work.”
    “Here we go,” Noonan said, pushing his bowl away, the food barely touched.
    “Well, would it kill you to come to New York a week before the show? Do one or two interviews—don’t look at me like that. Just the important ones, go to a couple of parties, allow yourself to be seen at the Four Seasons, that sort of thing? Maybe get a mention in ‘Talk of the Town’?”
    “Aren’t you the one who’s always telling me I misbehave in public?”
    “In this instance misbehavior might not be so bad. It’s been a long time. You still have your fans in the city, but a lot of people have forgotten what a bad boy you used to be. You could insult someone of my choosing. It wouldn’t even have to be a new act. Your usual boorish routine would suffice to remind people of your vulgar origins, that dreadful little burg you hail from. Tanneryville.”
    “Thomaston.”
    “Create some buzz, is what I’m saying.”
    “God, you exhaust me. Less than twenty-four hours you’ve been here, and I swear I could sleep for a week.”
    “Your problem,” Hugh said, his teeth and lips stained black with squid ink, “is that you think selling’s beneath you. You’re always in Tintoretto mode when you should be thinking Titian. Now
there’s
a fellow who knew how to network. He had emissaries in every court in Europe, and they weren’t pushing Venetian art either. They were pushing Titian.”
    Noonan leaned forward across the table so he wouldn’t have to raise his voice. “The thing about Titian? He was Titian. And those paintings they were ‘pushing’? Titians.”
    “Fine. You’re not a careerist? Then do Columbia. Just paint and teach and forget the rest of it.”
    “Why? What possible reason could I have for leaving Venice? I’m getting more work done now than I did when I was forty. You saw for yourself.”
    “Yes, I did, and what I saw convinced me you need to clear out of here for a while. And don’t go throwing up your hands. When you returned today, I bet you didn’t even notice I’d rearranged your canvases.”
    So, Noonan thought, he’d been right. “I did, actually. You put them in chronological sequence.”
    “Well, that’s not the organizing principle I had in mind, but it doesn’t surprise me. I rearranged them so they went from dark to darker to darkest.”
    “Your point being?”
    “And the darkest of all is that Dorian Gray number on the easel. One whole side of the face is in shadow and let’s not even go into that thing on the wall, which we shouldn’t be able to see, after all, given the light source.”
    “It’s the Bridge of Sighs,” Noonan said, expelling a sigh of his own.
    “Oh, I feel
so
much better