Her first appointment of the day is with grooms Steven and Byron, and Char, their wedding planner. Char is concerned that the hallway leading out to the patio area where the couple will exchange vows features a photography exhibit of dying AIDS patients, one of whom is giving his lover a blowjob from his hospital bed. “What will their families think?” Char asks. Sherri has worked with Char before. She knows she’s trying to downplay the museum because she gets kickbacks from some of the other venues around town.

“Well, I hope they’ll think what you think,” Sherri says, ignoring Char and addressing the couple directly. She can feel a special kind of energy rise up in her—she knows she has the confidence she needs to sell a space. “You guys love and value art. That’s why you live here, right? And that’s why you’re thinking of having your wedding at the museum. This is a place that epitomizes your values. There’s no denying the images are powerful, and if you ask me, they’ll remind your guests that life is fragile, and the love you have for each other is absolutely precious and beautiful.”

She slips their deposit check into a manila folder, winks conspiratorially at Char, and runs upstairs to the museum entrance for her next appointment, a meeting with billionaire James Wingra’s much younger wife, Fiona, who is thinking of joining their board. Fiona is fresh out of USC. She’s dressed for Coachella in her boho sundress and wedge espadrilles, a French bulldog at her heel. She’s what people in Sherri’s office call a “walker”—there are lots of walkers in town, whether they are young, gay men hanging off the arms of wealthy widows, or women like Fiona who suction themselves to much older men.

Sherri doesn’t want to tell Fiona that dogs aren’t allowed in the museum, so she suggests they meet outdoors instead. They sit at a table overlooking the Černý sculptures, eight-foot-tall steel babies that appear to crawl around in a giant sandpit. “Their faces look like heating vents,” Fiona says with an expression of confusion and displeasure.

“Bar codes,” Sherri says. “They represent dehumanization. I think they look like swarming ants from a distance, don’t you? It was quite a coup for us to get them. The artist is from Prague, a real renegade. He rose to fame for painting the Soviet tank pink.”