Where’d She Go? - Part I

About twenty years ago, my husband and I began attending art auctions. We didn’t know anyone and were never included in the post-auction lunch outings, so it was odd when we attracted the attention of a woman who always asked if she could join us for coffee or a meal. In the beginning we were baffled as to why this vague and whispery woman would’ve latched onto us, two unknowns. But we also wondered if she wasn’t aware of a certain hidden fact about us, one that we wanted to keep secret. We’ll never know for sure, because she mysteriously disappeared without a trace.

THIS IS PART 1 of a FOUR-PART STORY

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

In the mid-aughts, our family status changed. My husband and I had lost both sets of parents and we were now officially adults. As adults, we stepped into our parents’ shoes and began almost immediately to do what they had done, which was to collect art. My parents’ final home, an apartment on Park Avenue, was filled with valuable African masks and sculptures; my in-laws, who lived a few blocks away, occupied the entire floor of an exclusive, chi chi building and every one of their oak-paneled walls was hung with a multitude of sporting paintings. (Two little factoids: Barbara Walters, who wanted to live in their building, had been turned down because the board didn’t approve of entertainers and all the publicity they brought; and Winston Churchill was rumored to have had a heart attack in my in-law’s apartment when it was owned by Bernard Baruch, the previous tenant.) And so, like our parents before us, we began to go to auctions.

Morning auctions at both Sothebys and Christies began at ten sharp and ended at noon. The crowd was well-heeled. Often one could spot the buyers who sat whispering quietly to the hired personal consultants seated beside them. The dealers always stood, in dark suits and ties, or silky dresses, at the back, a recognizable brethren. As the auction ended, people would gather in groups, schmooze for a few minutes and then go out to lunch. We didn’t know anyone and were never included, except by one person, a sleepy-eyed, rather ordinary-looking woman, who would always follow us out of the auction hall and ask if she could join us for coffee or a meal.

Her name was Andrea Jean Levy, and in the beginning, because she seemed so vague and out-of-it, we assumed she was on drugs. Why else would she have latched onto two unknowns?

But we also wondered if she wasn't aware of a certain hidden fact about us. A few years earlier, we’d wandered through the pre-sale gallery of American painting at Sothebys and noticed a museum-worthy portrait by a household name painter listed at a price we could actually afford. At the time we weren’t taking ourselves seriously. Why not try buy it? we wondered. This was just a lark and we went down to the business desk and placed a phone bid on the painting. (When the auction took place, we’d be back in Austin, so they’d phone us when the piece came up.) A day later, when we left New York and returned to our normal lives, we forgot all about the painting and the tenuous connection we had to it.

Cover image: Auction Room, Christie's

Next: Read Where’d She Go? Part 2 >>