ishakhemkablog

I began counting the hairs on Greg’s scalp. He definitely wasn’t bald. There wasn’t exactly an abundance of strands perking up, definitely not enough to grab a handful of, maybe a pinky. I could only peek up in increments – any prolonged stare would alert him to my secret pursuit. He was kind of round, maybe ten years older than middle age. I wasn’t sure how to speak to him. After all, the only reason I was at an art fair was through my mum’s friend. Maybe a joke? He wheezed and honed in on his laptop. Maybe no joke. Frieze masters definitely didn’t need another limp seventeen-year-old intern, wearing a blazer whose shoulder pads indicated that it was her mum’s, moping around. I feel the same way about beanies. Caps I can do, but me in a beanie would make any passerby hush out to a friend, “She must be a first-time beanie wearer”. I have that sort of amateur look. I think I exacerbate it with how self-aware I am. So Greg, another intern – whose name I can’t quite remember–, and I set up our acrylic black chairs in a triangular battle formation. I kept looking at my nails whilst pretending to look at the information booklets – they were so ugly I was tempted to – in a frenzy, skip over to the opposite stall and aggressively wiggle my fingers to lure them out and coax them into ours. I didn’t, of course. I just sat there and opened my laptop whilst we waited, pretending to work whilst blindly pressing different cities on the weather app. If I was trying to present myself as even more diligent, I would indulge in tapping my fingers in every direction on my keyboard, painting a beautiful rainbow of letters in my search bar that even unlimited chimpanzees on typewriters wouldn’t manage to write out. Oh right, the artist – a Spanish modernist – you wouldn’t know his name. I enjoyed making the ‘th’ sound when pronouncing the ‘C’s in his name, though. His art had a clear Fauve influence, non-descriptive colour, bold clashing primaries.
All that spiel made itself comfortable on the tip of my tongue as we waited. I stirred my matcha again. It was very granulated. I only drank it instrumentally to absorb the sugar. I stirred and stirred as if I aspired to be a nutri-bullet blender. I yearned for it to whirl into a tsunami that would take out all the stalls in the B section. The most enthralling part of Frieze Masters, however, was scrutinising the hundreds of outfits that sashayed past. Some audacious, some understated so hard to the point of overstatement, some gluttonous, presenting 20 different colours all too close together. I was waiting for Naomi Campbell to come out and announce a secret runway in the B section. God, I was numb with crippling boredom … and my iPad was nearly dead. I went to the bathroom to pick up my friend from Houston’s call. I always enjoy noticing his little Americanisms. For example: ‘I feel so dumb” received with a, “No, you’re good.” A moral affirmation like that was sure to pat my back on a hard day, even if he meant something else. A few people did peer into our stall at about 1 o clock, 50% of them defiantly rocking “sleek bobs”, the rest with various tote bags: “Rothko at Firenze”, “The RCA”, “The RA”. Then I saw him, checking his face on his iPhone camera at the stall opposite us. His eyes met mine. I hid my fingers under the table and engaged in a staring contest with Greg’s scalp. He was gorgeous, hair blonder than possible – I’m sure Greg was fuming – not white but yellow. He wore a T-shirt which said “New Order” on it, and wore it with a bland coolness like he knew it was my favourite band. The shirt was white and blue, and was walking away. Walking away? He would come back, I nodded to myself and smoothed back some stupid strands. So I writhed into my chair and watched the bomber jackets and pashminas pass by. A minute. Two minutes. By the third, I leapt up, excused myself politely and wrenched fate between my arms like it was a fresh, squirming catch. I can only describe what happened next as carnage. I tumbled past Maya ceramics, Wunderkammer and Dutch still life paintings. Was that Tracey Emin? Not sure. No time. I chucked myself past a stunning Rembrandt.  Bleached blonde balayages and Bottega Venetta bags, champagne glasses and dropped bits of sandwhich but no New Order T-shirts. I had reached the far side – he was nowhere to be seen. I was glad I had my bag with me. I just left and went home. It was a stupid day.