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CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

6:00 P.M.

Stacy Schecter was wearing new shoes, or at least new to her.

She had spotted the black Christian Louboutin slingbacks last week at Housing Works. She’d found some funky vintage bargains before at her favorite used clothing haunt, but she rarely had the kind of luck to come across anything by an in-demand contemporary designer in like-new condition. Even though they might have been a half size too large for her feet, she nevertheless swept up the three-inch pumps as too good a find to pass up. The shoes might not appeal to Stacy the artist, but they suited Stacy the Honest and Attractive Brunette just fine.

As she made her way west on Twelfth Street, she was cautious with her steps, mindful of the height of her heels and the looseness of the straps behind her ankles. At the same time, she was aware of the minutes passing on the clock and knew she couldn’t squander them.

Ideally she should have left her apartment earlier. She liked to arrive at the meeting locations well before the clients. The extra time allowed her to still her mind and get into character. It also permitted her to watch the man arrive. Make sure he was on his own, no backup officers monitoring the conversation. No one waiting to bust her once they’d struck the agreement of sex for money.

But tonight she’d continued painting long past the moment she should have begun preparing for her date, and now she was running late. She suppressed the urge to linger at the bargain shelves outside the Strand Bookstore and scurried across Broadway against the light, provoking a honk from a passing cab.

She was only one block from her destination and her mind was still back in the apartment. She’d been working on the piece she had tentatively entitled Katie Was Miranda. She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so confident. Somewhere along the way, she had transitioned from a college student who truly believed she would be the next Lee Krasner or Agnes Martin to an artist who chose palette colors based on the latest trends in yuppie home decor. Her painting no longer had anything to do with her. She had stopped painting for herself entirely.

But her portrayal of Miranda/Katie was different. Some artists painted what they saw in life. It had been a long time since she had attempted even to do that. But with this piece, she was going further, painting not what she saw in those photographs of Miranda, but what she felt when she saw them. She had no idea whether anyone would enjoy the piece, or admire it, or even lay eyes on it for that matter.

All she knew was that she had to finish. Every stroke of the brush against the canvas was like its own kind of bloodletting. For the first time in years, her art was personal. It was art. And she wasn’t going to stop with Miranda/Katie. She was carrying other images in her head—of absence and longing, of love and violence, of masked male faces and exposed female bodies. She finally felt inspiration for a series. If she was going to make her money with her body, she might as well make her art count for something. She’d roll the dice and see what happened. Maybe she’d be the only person ever to see it. Or maybe these would be the paintings that would change her life.