Chapter 9

Bette pulled her car up to the curb and got out handing the keys to her car to the valet outside the bar. It was Friday, the end of the week that had felt like a month and a short hour simultaneously. She had lost herself in her work, the way she always found herself doing so when she wanted to quite simply lose herself; and she had wanted and needed to do that all week.

The CAC had more than enough to keep her days occupied. She had managed to clear a day next week for the dinner that Peggy wanted to host in her honour and was looking forward to the opportunity to cultivate some donors. Provocations had heightened the CAC’s reputation, both good and bad. She had to balance eager new artists and their agents who hoped to show their work there as well as the continual protests.

Regardless of people’s opinions on the exhibit and even Bette herself, no one was mistaken on the fact that Bette Porter was a formidable player in the game. Bette relished the respect from her peers that Provocations had given her. Professionally Bette was once again garnering the praise she had missed since she had closed her gallery.

Bette Porter was a name everyone was starting to learn again, and those who she had not heard from since she took the position at the CAC were remembering they still had her number. She had certainly kept James busy. He had to decline more requests for Bette’s presence at some event or a meeting with some unknown artist than ever before. Through it all he looked on in awe at how she politicked her way through each day. She was flawless; the model of poise and proficiency. 

At night, that was when the fa&#231ade slipped. When she stepped into her car on her way home from the CAC she was the Bette Porter that everyone in that world wanted to talk to and see or even just have a phone call returned. When she stepped out at her home she was the Bette Porter whose wife had left her because she had cheated on her, and when asked had not been able to say that she could do whatever it took to have her back.