It was happening again, the swell of dissatisfaction that had been tormenting her for the past year, like a case of bursitis. The fact that it seemed to have been brought on by the death of her father continued to nag at her. Guilt made everything so much worse.
A howl came from the kitchen. Matt had been directing loud complaints at the television all morning; apparently, people in some other time zone were playing soccer. Mary Ellen clutched her forehead and called his name, but he didn’t answer. She set her laptop aside, wormed her feet into her slippers, and went down the hall.
“What are you doing today?”
He was sitting at the counter, cereal untouched, staring red-faced at the TV. “I can’t believe Iniesta blew that shot. I could’ve made that shot.”
“Matt.”
“What?”
“I was thinking. Let’s go to ICA today.”
“To what?”
“The Institute of Contemporary Art. There’s a show I want to see.”
He grimaced and laughed at the same time.
“Come on. You need to get out of the house. I do too.”
“I don’t need—”
“We can have lunch. There’s that sushi place.”
“I thought you had to work.”
“I only have a conference call at two. I can play hooky the rest of the day.”
Matt wiped a hand down his face. “Can’t you go this weekend? Take the girls. They’ll be more—”
“When’s the last time we did something, just the two of us?”
Matt stared at the TV.
“It’ll be fun,” she said brightly. “I just need to take a shower first. I’ll be right back.”
She knew Matt was going to hate everything about ICA—the blurry video installations, the rigorously sparse galleries, the pious hush. It made her uncomfortable too, but it was a good discomfort, an interesting discomfort, and she thought she might be able to get him to see it that way. Matt had been trundling along in a well-worn rut just as long as she had. Maybe he would enjoy being pulled out of it for an afternoon.
The show was called Transubstantiation; Justine had called it a feminist comment on constructivism. Mary Ellen had relayed this information to Matt in the car on the way to the show, but she wasn’t sure he’d been listening. Now he was leaned forward, scrutinizing the label next to a dress hanging inside a dry cleaning bag on a gallery wall. “Constructivism started in Russia,” she explained. “It began during the Bolshevik revolution—”
“This one is called ‘Number 7,485,’” Matt said, straightening up. “Do you think she really made seven thousand of these?”
“Maybe it’s a comment on the commodification of art.”
“Would you wear it?”
Mary Ellen snorted. “That’s not the point, Matt.” She looked at the dress, which had a photograph of a factory building printed on it. “Or I don’t know, maybe it is. It’s a photograph, hanging on the wall in a gallery, but it’s also a piece of clothing. I read about this. I think it’s called…” She snapped her fingers. “Productivism!” She beamed at him.
Matt sighed and put his hands in his pockets. “Does that mean it’s good?”
“Well, it’s interesting.”
“How much do you think it is? You could buy it and hang it in your closet with all that other stuff you never wear.” He gave his baseball cap a waggish tug, then retreated to a bench while Mary Ellen finished her round of the gallery. She felt pleased at having remembered productivism; she was definitely going to have to slip that into a conversation with Justine. She inspected the rest of the pieces, ticking through the movements in her head: relational aesthetics…postexpressionism…appropriation… It was all there, a trail of bread crumbs for the initiated.
“So what do you think?” she asked Matt, sitting beside him on the bench.
“Me?” He rocked his head side to side. “I don’t know. Not really my thing.”
“But doesn’t it make you curious? To know what this is all about, what it’s trying to say?”
“I’ll be honest, Mary. I think most of it is hideous. I wouldn’t want it hanging over my couch.”
“Okay, but that’s the thing. You’re not supposed to like it.” Mary Ellen put a hand on his arm. This was the most important thing Justine had taught her, the most seductively counterintuitive bit of wisdom that was now lighting her path through this new world. “Beauty, pleasure, gut reaction—that’s all irrelevant.” She pressed her lips together and canted her head back, filled with the power of this proclamation. “It’s about criticality.”
“That’s not a word.”
“It’s about locating ideas within a cultural framework—”
Matt pulled out his phone and checked the time. “Oh look, it’s sushi o’clock.”
Mary Ellen sighed. “Don’t you ever feel like learning something new? I mean, besides how to replace the InSinkErator.”
“I read biographies.”
“I mean learning something that changes you. That changes the way you see things.”
“No.”
“Matt.”
“Seriously, Mary, no. I like the way I see things. And I don’t understand all of…this.” He lifted his chin toward the wall. “I don’t get why you worship that teacher of yours, why you’ve started speaking in some kind of…code. I don’t get it.” He turned off his phone and shoved it back into his pocket. “It’s like you’re trying on a costume. Which is fine; it’s fine to try stuff out, but you don’t have to take it so seriously.”
Mary Ellen drew herself up. “I take it seriously because it’s serious. Art is serious, or at least it should be. And I don’t worship Justine. I admire her.”
“Okay. Sorry. Can we go eat?”
Mary Ellen felt her headache begin to swell again. She searched her bag for her bottle of Numbitol. “There’s another room we haven’t seen. But if you want to leave, I can meet you
