Though we imagine it will not be possible for you to attend the exhibit in person, if by happenstance you find yourself in the Philadelphia area in March, we would be delighted to host you at a small reception for the prize recipients. Otherwise, we enclose the exhibit guide, and thank you again for submitting your outstanding work.

Our kind regards & etc., Dr. George C. Poundstone, Vice President On Behalf of the Officers of the Philadelphia Camera Society

Lee picks up the exhibit guide and flips through the pages. A few pages in she finds her bell jar series, with Man’s name beneath it. In his short artist statement, Man has defined solarization and written, “I discovered this process by chance last year, and refined it over a series of months.” Nowhere is there a mention of Lee’s name.

It must have been weeks ago when Man mailed off these photographs, which means that for weeks he’s known that he has betrayed her, and yet said nothing. What could he have been thinking? The photos are good—she and Man both know that—but of course he has photos that are just as good as or better than these. Photos that are his alone. Could it be that he has forgotten that these are Lee’s?

As she lies there, things he’s said over the past few months come back to her. “You’re not not me,” he said, and at the time she didn’t know what he meant. The sentence was nonsensical. But now she sees. If that is how Man views her, then perhaps he views her work the same way. His property.

Her father, then Condé Nast and Edward Steichen, and now Man. All of them using her for their own purposes, taking what they need with no regard for what’s left for her when they are done.

In the winters in Poughkeepsie the windows in her childhood home got so cold they frosted over, and in the mornings Lee would get out of bed and scrape her fingernails through the frost flowers, screeching them up and down over the frozen glass until she could see through to the snow beyond. Her eyes feel like that now, scraped and freezing, as if she is seeing clearly for the very first time.

By the time she swings her legs over the side of the bed a few minutes later, she has a plan. Gets a piece of notepaper and dashes off a telegram she will send to Man that afternoon. Bal Blanc on Jan 6. Want you to be there. Need your help. Your Lee.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

As they are setting up the projectors, Man tells her about the Wheelers’ new seaside cottage outside Cannes.

“What makes it so lovely,” he says, “is that it’s genuinely simple. There’s no pretense. Arthur washed the floors in an ebony wax, and left all the windows bare, so you feel the countryside even when you’re indoors. The first day I was there we picnicked under a beautiful spreading oak at the edge of the property, and Rose served cold roast duck and pickled quail’s eggs and a nice Chablis. That was it. It was delicious.”

“Sounds wonderful,” Lee says. She pays little attention to what he is saying and moves determinedly around the solarium, tying white sheets around the bases of the projectors’ stands, then taking a few steps back to survey her work. Guests are supposed to start arriving in two hours, and there is much to be done. Plus, Mimi tells her that everything needs to be ready early, because some of her guests will disregard the time printed on their invitation and show up when they feel like it. Lee has never been good at getting things done early—or really, even getting them done on time—but tonight she’ll do it if it kills her.

Man doesn’t share her urgency. He seems calm. Ever since he returned to Paris two nights ago, he has acted as if everything between them is back to normal. When he arrived, he found her in the studio, unable to stop editing the films and still surrounded by the mess she created while she was working. There was so much clutter everywhere that Man tripped as he made his way across the room to her, and without meaning to, Lee moved forward to catch him as he almost fell, and they ended up with their arms around each other. Man’s relief at seeing her was palpable. He laughed at her mess and kissed her the same way he often kissed her, the way that used to send a hot bolt from her lips to her groin, and she parted her lips and pushed her tongue against his in the way she remembered doing when she wanted him. And he—foolish man—did not seem to notice any difference in her reaction to him, did not notice how vacant she was, how her mind stayed on her work while her lips kissed him. And that night in bed, Man was tender with her, held her in his arms and stroked her hair and cheeks and shoulders and seemed content just to be next to her.

“I’m so glad you wrote to me,” Man whispered into her back. “I was so angry when I left. But it was terrible being away from you. I’ve never been so lonely in my life. Did you feel the same?”

“Yes,” Lee said into the darkness, but even that one small word she had to force out of her mouth.

The next day, Lee took Man back to the studio and explained what she was thinking about the Bal. She showed him the film of her hands and stood in the beam of light from the projector so that he could see how the images looked as they moved across her body.

“Ah, it’s so good, Lee,” he said, his voice full of admiration. “How did you learn to do it all so quickly?”

She told him about all her plans for the party, about the Pecci-Blunt mansion, the swimming pool and the solarium, where the films would be shown, and he nodded and made notes in the small notebook he always carried in his back pocket.

There are a few things Lee does not tell him. She does not tell him about his package from the Philadelphia Camera Society, which she has taken outside and thrown in a rubbish bin a few blocks from the apartment, digging with her bare hands until it is buried under the wet stink of other trash. Lee does not tell him about her fourth film, the love poem she made for him, which she has unwound from its reel and pitched into the studio’s metal sink and lit on fire, the nitrocellulose igniting so quickly she was almost scared for her safety, the hot blue flames rocketing up to the ceiling and reducing the film to a twisted lump. And she does not tell Man about what she did the afternoon before he arrived, the hours she spent plotting how to hurt him, what to do to make him feel the worst. How on impulse she hired a cab to take her to the Palais Garnier with a note she’d written clutched in her hand, Antonio Caruso written across the front in big dark letters. When the cab got there, she asked the driver to wait for her as she ran over to the building, through the side door, and down the narrow dark hallways behind the stage. It was hours before the night’s performance, so there were few people there, but when Lee bumped into a skinny, surprised-looking dancer in the hallway, she pushed the note into the woman’s hand and asked if she knew who Antonio was and if she could deliver the envelope to him. The ballerina nodded, agreed, and when Lee got back into the cab she rested her forehead against the cold leather seat, trembling and almost nauseated from what she had done. All these things she keeps to herself.


Now, Lee looks around the party space and thinks that truly, she has thought of everything. Even her outfit—at the sight of which Man raised his eyebrows, saying, “You’re wearing that?”—is perfect: a trim white sailor top and white shorts. She didn’t even need to look in the mirror to know it was right. Effortless and modern. Standing in the verdant, sweet-smelling solarium, Lee looks as though she is on a pleasure boat, and as she puts all the pieces of the party together, she tries to channel that feeling, to empty herself of the anxiety and anger that jangle around her like a suit of chains.

It’s only half an hour until guests are scheduled to arrive. Heat lamps are lit. Waiters in crisp white tuxedos are lined up at the side of the room, chatting among themselves. The projectors are ready. The bar, a shining creation made entirely out of ice—a last-minute idea of Lee’s—is stocked with gin and vodka and white wine, the only drinks that will be served all evening long. Collins glasses rest upturned on the ice counter like rows of crystal soldiers. And Mimi has emerged to survey the space, dressed in a floor-length white column dress covered in white paillettes that quiver and shimmer as she moves around the room.

“Miss Miller has done a tremendous job, don’t you think?” Mimi asks Man, and he nods in agreement. “Are you taking over from here?”

Before Man can respond, Lee interjects, “No, he’s helping me run the projectors. That’s it.”

Mimi looks a bit startled at Lee’s tone. Man stays silent. When Mimi is pulled away by a caterer, Man looks at Lee with a mild expression. He is being so patient that Lee almost wishes she wasn’t angry at him. But there’s nothing to be done. Her anger is like the cellulose fire: it cannot be extinguished.

Man goes over to one of the projectors and fusses with it, testing things Lee has already tested, and then asks her what else he can do to set up.

“I think everything is ready,” Lee says, and even she feels a little surprised.

“Then let me get you a drink, and we can toast.” Man goes over to the bar and returns with two gin martinis, orbs of onion, skewered with white cocktail picks, balanced on the rims. “To Lee, my love, and to the assured success of this lovely evening,” Man says, raising his glass to hers, and they clink them together. The gin tastes like the forest on an autumn day.