fraghood2009

@@@@@ He stepped aside, pulling the dolly with him, so I could climb the rest of the way up to Little Pink He was still staring at the pictures "Jack, is this guy at the Scoto really okay? Do you know?" "My Mom says he is, and that's good enough for me Meaning, I think, that it should be good enough for me, tooI guessed it would have to be "She didn't tell me anything about the other partners - I think there are two more - but she says Mr Jack had called in a favor for me "And if he doesn't like these," Jack finished, "he's wack "You think so, huh?" He nodded From downstairs, Wireman called cheerfully: "Knock-knock! I'm here for the field tripAre we still going? Who's got my name-tag? Was I supposed to pack a lunch?" 306 vi I had pictured a bald, skinny, professorial man with blazing brown eyes - an Italian Ben Kingsley - but Dario Nannuzzi turned out to be fortyish, plump, courtly, and possessed of a full head of hairI was close on the eyes, thoughThey didn't miss a trickI saw them widen once - slightly but perceptibly - when Wireman carefully unwrapped the last painting I'd brought, Roses Grow from Shells The pictures were lined up against the back wall of the gallery, which was currently devoted mostly to photographs by Stephanie Shachat and oils by William BerraBetter stuff, I thought, than I could do in a century Although there had been that slight widening of the eyes Nannuzzi went down the line from first to last, then went againI had no idea if that was good or badThe dirty truth was that I had never been in an art gallery in my life before that dayI turned to ask Wireman what he thought, but Wireman had withdrawn and was talking quietly with Jack, 307 both of them watching Nannuzzi look at my paintings Nor were they the only ones, I realizedThe end of January is a busy season in the pricey shops along Florida's west coastThere were a dozen or so lookie-loos in the good-sized Scoto Gallery (Nannuzzi later used the far more dignified term "potential patrons"), eyeing the Shachat dahlias, William Berra's gorgeous but touristy oils of Europe, and a few eyepopping, cheerfully feverish sculptures I'd missed in the anxiety of getting my own stuff unwrapped - these were by a guy named David Gerstein At first I thought it was the sculptures - jazz musicians, crazy swimmers, throbbing city scenes - that were drawing the casual afternoon browser