Strawberry Tattoo

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Authors: Lauren Henderson
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assistant, by the way, I’m my own man, that was just Carol being cruel—Java, our lovely receptionist, Suzanne, who does the inventory—”
    “Does the inventory? What, full-time?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Jesus.”
    Laurence raised his eyebrows.
    “Oh, just the scale of the operation—”
    “Hey, you’re in the big leagues now, little lady. OK, who else is there? The archivist—she’s full-time too—book-keeper…oh, and Don, the handler.”
    “Don’t you like him?”
    There had been an edge to Laurence’s voice as he came to Don. Now he shrugged elaborately, adding a fresh sprinkle of dandruff to the grey shoulders of his suit.
    “Don’s very into his image. All that he-man stuff leaves me cold,” he said dismissively.
    “Into his image?” I said incredulously. “Dressed like that?”
    “Oh, it’s the boy-from-the-Virginia-backwoods thing. Country boy in the big city. He thinks it gives him this kind of hokey charm.”
    “Hey, guys.” Kate stuck her head round the door. “Laurence, get your big feet off my desk, boy. Anyone want to come to the bar? It’s past six.”
    The word “bar” had me on my feet and reaching for my jacket.
    “Well, talk about Pavlov’s barfly,” Laurence said, swinging his legs down from Kate’s desk and standing up too.
    “Laurence?” Kate said, nodding at me. “What about Carol? I mean …”
    There was a long pause.
    “Oh, Jesus, she’s still on the phone,” Laurence said finally. “She’s always hours with Mrs. Kaneda. And it’s Sam’s first night here. We can’t abandon her, can we? It wouldn’t be polite.”
    “No, you’re right.” Kate relaxed.
    “So I can come?” I said hopefully, though without quite understanding the by-play.
    “Sure,” Kate said. “We just have to be careful that Carol doesn’t think we’re poaching you.”
    I raised my eyebrows, unable to imagine a situation in my London gallery where Duggie, the owner, objected to my going for a drink with his assistants. Actually he would be amazed if I suggested it, as none of them were at all appetising, but he would scarcely mind. Maybe New York rules were different. But it still seemed strange.
    “But she could be in there for another hour,” Kate was saying. “I’ll just drop in and run it by her. She’ll probably be grateful to us for taking you off her hands. I know she’s got a dinner appointment.”
    “When doesn’t she? You’re in a hurry,” Laurence observed, watching me pull my gloves on as fast as if I were practising it as an Olympic sport.
    “Coffee will only take a girl so far,” I explained. “Now I need some vodka. And do they have any bar snacks at this place we’re going to?”

“I don’t know,” Kate said to me apologetically as we settled into the booth. “Maybe we should’ve taken you somewhere more hip than here. It’s a real dive.”
    “Oh, no,” I assured her. “I like it. It’s cosy and I’m shattered. Anything too designer tonight would have given me hives.”
    “Well, if you’re sure…. We always come here. I don’t know why.”
    “’Cause it’s not posey and the drinks are cheap?” Laurence suggested.
    It was a little bar on Bleecker Street, only a five-minute walk from the gallery. I found this area much more congenial, or perhaps it would be fairer to say familiar, than my lofty perch on the Upper West Side; SoHo was generally constructed on a more human scale. The buildings were lower, the streets closer together, and we had passed a shop with the best array of fluorescent wigs I’d ever seen, music spilling out from the wide-open door in a slow insistent rhythm. It was like Camden with money.
    This place was simple and basic: wooden floors, wooden booths, a glowing bar at the far end and surprisingly low lighting for six in the evening, when it was only just starting to get dark. Soon I would learn that this was one of the factors that made New York bars so fabulous. They were so dark you couldn’t see how much you were

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