“It’s down south, by Redondo Beach. Oddly enough, I know exactly where it is.”
“Oh? How?”
“John Sepulveda.”
“Gina’s husband?”
“Uh-huh. His family’s from there. Palos Verdes. And there’s a city there that was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, Junior.”
Christy’s brow furrowed. “Why do I know that name?”
“Well, Olmsted Senior designed Central Park and a bunch of other things, including the gardens and grounds at Biltmore.”
“Oh, wow.”
“Junior wasn’t as famous, but he laid out the city of Palos Verdes Estates. He and another guy used deed restrictions to— Never mind. It’s urban planning stuff. And not very nice.”
“Why not?”
“They used deed restrictions to keep out non-whites.”
“Oh my gosh! Seriously? When? Recently?”
“No. Starting in the twenties, until the Supreme Court outlawed it in ’48. Anyway, Toshiro and May own a gallery in Torrance…?”
“Uh-huh! There are tons of Japanese there. Real Japanese, I mean, not Japanese-Americans. Honda’s headquarters is there, and they…”
She talked through another drink and a second order of tuna tataki. Toshiro and May wanted to bring her to LA to meet some of their Japanese clients, and they wanted to include her in a gallery show to introduce her to the art community in LA.
“They couldn’t believe I speak Japanese,” she finished. “I was a little rusty, though, ’cause I don’t have anyone to talk to.” She eyed me mock-balefully.
“Hey, don’t look at me! I barely speak American. No habla Japanese.”
“That’s Spanish.”
“So you speak Spanish now too?”
“I can’t help it! Only, not really. Just enough to talk to the nice people at the Mexican restaurant when I pick up takeout.”
“Why’m I not surprised?”
“So sue me. You know how I am.” The ice clinked in the bottom of her glass, and she gestured to the server. “Stop interrupting,” she said to me. “May has a bunch of ideas for the kind of things their clients will like. She’s an artist too, a painter. She thinks…”
* * *
Christy built a dedicated following in Atlanta and Los Angeles, with a smaller but passionate group in San Francisco. Her style was the same across all her work, but her creative inspiration varied. Her Atlanta clients liked more traditional sculpture, anything from Renaissance to modern themes. The LA crowd wanted Asian- and Japanese-inspired pieces, and they favored animals as much as humans. The San Francisco people wanted a bit of everything, from amusing to erotic.
Case in point, Christy created one piece called Janus & Janet. Renée was visiting at the time, and we posed together, back to back. Christy seamlessly blended our bodies into one. She cast the final statue in bronze, about three feet tall, a nude woman from one side and a nude man from the other. The effect was surreal, and a San Francisco collector bought it sight unseen, based on the description alone. He liked it so much when he actually received it that he ordered a half-dozen replicas to give as Christmas gifts.
The different markets all had their exceptions, but the general rule applied. Christy privately described them as “good, better, best.” The Atlanta people were a steady source of income, the LA people were the happy middle ground, and the San Francisco people allowed her the freedom to do whatever she wanted. May and Fred coordinated and kept her busy with commissions and limited editions.
Christy’s career really kicked into high gear when we moved into our new house in 1999, and especially after Susie started preschool in the fall. Christy finally had enough room to work on several projects at once. Her 3,000-square-foot workshop had a kiln, a small furnace, and the forklift she’d always wanted. The semidetached studio even doubled as a gallery for finished work.
Fred suggested to Christy that she might hire a full-time apprentice, and they brought Gabby onboard to help with the larger pieces and the demand for limited editions. Business was so good that in 2000 they hired two more people, a welder-turned-artist named Peregrin and an MFA student named Winter. Between them, they took over the production of smaller pieces and replicas.
I was just as busy with my own career. Paul+Hughes Design beat Trip’s most optimistic projections for 1998 and 1999, and he announced at our September board meeting that the company was worth thirty million. Six months later, in April 2000, we moved into our new global headquarters. We had more than a hundred employees and plenty of room to grow.
The Lake Lanier development was moving forward as well. We weren’t raking in the dough, yet, but the golf course was under construction, and the country club had started advertising for members. We’d sold about a quarter of the lots in the subdivision, and most of the buyers had opted for a Paul Hughes home. I had to deal with a few who wanted nouveau-riche monstrosities, but I focused on the dream clients instead, the ones who wanted Architectural Digest instead of National Enquirer.
* * *
In many ways our lives were perfect for several years, starting in about 1997. Christy’s career and mine were both thriving, and the girls were doing well in school. Laurie joined a competitive swim team, Emily began ballet, and Susie started regular dance classes.
We went on family vacations in the spring, to resorts in Florida and the Caribbean. We spent a week at the Pines each summer. We went skiing in the winter, to places like Vail and Deer Valley. Christy and I partied with friends and took vacations by ourselves, to France, Hawaii, and Japan.
Things looked fine from the outside, but cracks had begun to appear in the foundation. The problems started with money.
Christy spent more as her artwork sold more. She went on shopping sprees at Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus. She bought dresses and shoes, purses and jewelry, and pretty things for the girls. Some months the credit card bills were so big that I had to pay them down over time instead of all at once.
Part of me couldn’t really blame her, especially since she thought she was spending her own money. But her art cost money to create, which she never considered. Many months she spent more than she made, and we argued about it constantly. The arguments turned into actual fights whenever she bounced a check or maxed out a credit card. She always apologized and promised to do better, but she never did.
She started drinking more, too. We usually finished a bottle of wine with dinner, but one bottle became two over time. Two turned into three when we started opening another after the girls went to bed. Eventually, Christy switched to whiskey after dinner instead of wine.
For a long time, I told myself that she was getting drunker at night because her metabolism was slowing down. And I didn’t complain because I enjoyed it—she was usually horny when she’d been drinking, and women didn’t suffer from whiskey dick.
Then I began to suspect that she wasn’t just drinking in the evenings. Sometimes I’d come home from work and she’d already have a bottle of wine open. Other times she had a glass of something stronger. She always claimed she’d just poured it, and her metabolism was high enough that I couldn’t be sure. She might’ve started five minutes ago or five hours.
I probably could’ve lived with the spending and drinking, but she neglected the girls sometimes too. Once again, it was little things at first. She’d get busy on a project and be late to pick them up from school. Or she’d forget their backpacks for swimming and dance class, and the girls would be late because they’d had to return home to get them. I heard about it at bedtime, but I always made excuses for her.