A Pegasus with only one wing, turning toward the ground.
A starfish with a missing limb … but it’s the missing limb that you feel reaching toward a comet.
A lion with a whip for a tail.
An elephant trying to curve its trunk around a crescent moon.
And then, in the next painting, the crescent moon trying to curve itself around the elephant.
She’s painted these things as if every single one of them is real.
“I should turn the car around, shouldn’t I?” Katie says when I’ve been silent for too long.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” I reply.
Katie seems satisfied by this.
“It’s just a lot for me to take in,” she says. “It’s one thing when your friends are seeing it. Or people at school. But with strangers—it opens up something else. It gives a whole different dimension to it. Because suddenly the art has to stand for itself. That’s weird to me.”
“You’ve had plenty of scrimmages with your team, but now this is the game,” I say.
“Yes. This is the game.”
I sense there’s something else she’s not saying. So I go, “And?”
“And … I can’t help thinking it’s tied to her. None of this would have happened without her.”
“None of it would have happened without you, either.”
“I know. But I guess my point is that it’s the combination. Her and me equals this. However directly or indirectly. This.”
We drive a while longer, letting Sky Ferreira and Lorde do the singing for us. I finish looking at her art—even though I’m strictly amateur, there are some pieces that can be eliminated easily. Rough sketches that are rough because they haven’t found their subject yet. Assignments that feel like assignments. A collage that’s supposed to be political but only ends up being obvious.
“Have you made your choices?” Katie asks.
I can’t believe she trusts me. But I nod anyway.
“Good,” she says. “Keep those in the portfolio and throw the rest in the backseat.”
“Are you sure?” I ask.
She looks me in the eye and says, “Never.”
* * *
AntlerThorn is located in a somewhat trendsidential area off of Japantown. If it has a name, I don’t know it. All I know is that once we’re inside the gallery I am way, way out of my element. EDM is blasting Every Damn Moment, and the walls are painted the brightest pink I’ve ever seen.
“Intense,” I say.
“That’s one word for it,” Katie murmurs.
The music cuts off. The lights undim. A Mumford & Sons song begin to strum in the far background.
A man comes out of a door in the back and tells us, “Hello, hello, hello!” He’s got a grizzly beard and a Tigger bounce as he walks. He’s wearing a One Direction T-shirt, on which someone has spray-painted AND THAT DIRECTION IS OUT.
“You must be Ms. Cleary. And entourage. Audra is so sorry she can’t be here to see you. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me. LOL!”
“Hi,” Katie says.
“Oh, how rude of me! I’m Brad. Bad-with-an-r! Or rad-with-a-B! Depends on which day you catch me! Can I get you something to drink? We have tap water, tap water, or tap water. We’re a nonprofit, after all. Not that we’re a charity—we just rarely turn a profit! Ha!”
“I’m fine,” I say.
“Me, too,” Katie says.
Brad spies the portfolio in Katie’s hand. “Oh, goody! Audra just loved what she saw on your Instagram—she wasn’t going to take Garrison’s word for it! We always like to check the work in person before committing to it. It’s like online dating!”
Katie is starting to take deep breaths.
Brad talks on. “Sorry about the techno onslaught when you came in—Audra just wanted me to check it out for the opening tomorrow night. It’s so great that you can take Antonio’s place—I can’t believe Ross is being such a bitch about it, but you know, Ross was always jealous of Antonio’s art, in the same way that Antonio was jealous that Ross was sexting dick pics like they were spam. To each his own! Audra was so worried about the whole situation, and then you fell right onto our gaydar, and suddenly it was like, eureka, now we know what to do with Wall Six. ‘Get ’em hung!’ Audra told me. And I told her, ‘I try!’ Ha!”
He’s walking us over to a table in front of a blank wall that must be Wall Six. I’m thinking I might need sunglasses to calm the power of the pink, but Katie isn’t looking straight on. She’s looking to the wall next to hers.
“Lin Chin,” she says with something approaching awe in her voice.
Each piece on this wall is a glass box, and inside each box is a pair of folded paper cranes. At first I don’t get it, but then I look closer, and my mind skips a beat. Because the cranes aren’t just floating there. They aren’t lifeless paper things. They exist in relation to one another. They are having a conversation, and I am observing it. Their bodies have language. The space between them has an intimacy.
“Oh yeah, aren’t those great?” Brad says. “Lin made those especially for this exhibit, if you can believe that. She and Audra go way back. Wayyyyy back, if you catch my drift. Wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy back.”
As Katie marvels at the cranes, Brad takes the pieces I’ve chosen out of the portfolio and spreads them on the table.
“Ooh!” he says. “Oh yes. Hmmm. Fierce. Very fierce.”
Katie is pretending not to be listening, but it’s obvious that she is. I turn to another wall to find a series of sketches of two men kissing. It starts when they are young—probably twelve or thirteen—and then, gradually, they age. Almost year by year. They’re my age. Then they’re older than me. And older. Their haircuts change. (One of them goes from blond to brunette to something in-between.) Their faces alter slightly, starting full, then narrowing, then regaining the fullness in a different way. The one thing that doesn’t alter is the intensity of the kiss.
There isn’t any explanation. Just the artist’s name, Nic Pierce. But I don’t think I need an explanation. I know, instinctively, that this has happened, that this is true. Nic Pierce found it. The kiss that lasts for years.
“Wow!” Brad says. I turn my head and see he’s gesturing Katie over. I go over, too, because I feel she wants me by her side.
“These are so fierce,” Brad tells her. “I mean, so, so fierce.”
“Fierce,” Katie repeats. “To be honest, I don’t even know what that means.”
“Ha! You are so adorable. The bottom line—and I’m a bottom, so I’d know, ha!—is that Audra loves your work. Adores it. Have you sprung fully formed from the head of Cindy Sherman? No. Is your work on par with, say, Lin Chin’s? Ha! But you have more promise in your little finger than most people have in their heads, and Audra just loves how many followers you have. Buzz always greases the wheels of art, and our wheels need all the lubrication they can get! You leave these with me and I will get them framed lickey-split—I know a guy who owes me some favors, and his framing’s better than any of the other favors he could offer, ha! It’s too late for us to get you in the catalog—sorry about that—but we can send out a release pronto that you’ve been added to the show, and the hits will follow. I promise: The hits will definitely follow.”
“Can I have a minute to talk with my manager?” Katie asks.
“Sure!” Brad chirps. “Especially since he’s cute as a butt. I mean, button. Ha!”
Katie yanks me over to the front of the gallery. We’re now near a wall that has what I’d call the c word written in different fonts. It’s very strange to see it in Comic Sans, but I guess that’s the point.
“It is very unclear to me whether they are truly interested in my art, or are simply interested in my followers,” Katie tells me. “And it’s also very unclear to me whether that matters.”
“I think he genuinely likes it,” I tell her. “I mean, he finds it fierce.”
“Catwoman is fierce. Cate Blanchett playing an assassin is fierce. Lady Mac
beth is fierce. I’m not sure my art is supposed to be fierce.”
“He did say wow. That’s less ambiguous, right?”
“I just don’t know if I’m ready for this. Am I ready for this?”
I want to tell her, How am I supposed to know? I want to point out to her that the only reason I’ve even looked at the lit mag was because I knew it would mean a lot to Ryan if I did. I want to pass the buck to someone who knows her better.
But I also want to tell her what she needs to hear. So I simply say, “Yes. You’re ready for this.”
She doesn’t question my credentials. She doesn’t thank me. She just nods and says, “Violet thought I was going to be in an art show. Now I’m going to be in one. I can’t accept it, but I will anyway.”
“That’s the spirit,” I tell her.
“Are we good?” Brad calls out.
“We’re good!” Katie calls back.
Brad squees, then says, “Ooh, Audra will be so pleased. She has such an eye for talent. Such an eye. This will make her so happy. And when Audra’s happy, we’re all happy! No wire hangers! Ha. I think I’m going to break out some sparkling apple cider. Who’s in?”
“We are!” I tell him.
He runs into the back room and returns with three plastic cups and a bottle.
“It’s always good to have something on hand for special celebrations with the underage!” Brad proclaims. At first it looks like he’s going to open the bottle over the table where Katie’s art is lying, but she body-blocks him. Which is good, because when he pops the cork, the contents geyser onto the floor. “Ooh, that’s always happening to me!” he giggles.
Eventually he gets some into the cups. As he does, I tell Katie, “I’m excited to be here. This is a big moment, right? Your first gallery showing.”
“This is happening, isn’t it?”
“Yup. It’s happening.”
Brad hands over the cups. “I’d like to make a toast!” he says. “Even though there are no true beginnings in life—there’s always something that came before—there are definitely moments that feel like a beginning, and it’s always good to stop and take a second to enjoy them. Your talent started long before you walked in that door, Katie, but here’s to the start of a different, wider recognition of that talent. To Audra!”
“To Audra!” Katie echoes, while I say, “To Katie!” Then we clink our plastic cups and sip the warm cider of our celebration.
Katie looks like the kind of happy that doesn’t believe itself. And I’m a more straightforward happy to see it.
We’re so caught in the moment that we don’t hear the door open. We don’t sense anyone else in the gallery. It’s only when she says, “Excuse me? Are you open?” that we turn to look.
I see a pretty girl with a sequined scarf looking somewhat confused.
Katie, however, sees something else.
“Violet?” she says, her fingers clutching the plastic cup so tight that it cracks.
“Kate? Is that really you?”
And Katie says, “Yes—I guess it’s really me.”
8
Kate
She’s smiling her amazing smile, right here, right in front of me, not in a photograph, not on a screen, but here. In life.
And I am frozen, lukewarm cider dripping down my arm from my cracked cup, Brad saying, “Here, let me clean you up,” and then, in Mark’s direction, “I’ve never said that to a girl—ha!”
“What are you doing here?” Violet asks. But before I can answer she shakes her head and says, “I take that back. I only asked because I’m nervous. You’re here because of your show. And I’m here because of your show. I saw your Instagram post, and I live not too far from here, and I wanted to see your paintings up close, without all the other people.”
“How perfect,” Brad says, dabbing my elbow with a paper napkin. “Are you a collector? So sneaky. So smart to just pop in the day before the opening. Bad girl! And by that I mean good girl. Feel free to take a look around. Kate’s work is clearly fierce, but if it isn’t quite what you’re after I’d understand. I mean it’s, you know, wow, but let’s say it’s not your cup of tea? If that’s the case I’d be thrilled to introduce you to some of our other artists’ work.”
“I’m here to see Kate’s work.”
He stops dabbing and sets the napkin next to my tightrope painting. Practically on my tightrope painting.
“Of course,” he says. “And here it is.”
His gesture toward the table may as well be the unveiling of my heart. The stripping off of my clothes.
I might as well be singing her a love song.
She walks toward them and I feel myself step backwards, away from the sight of her looking at my paintings. They are not fierce. They are not wow. They are crude representations of the possibility of love, and they were meant to remain secret. I didn’t know it before, but I know it now. I mean constellations? How trite. I don’t even know their names. I’m always confusing Cassiopeia with Perseus and they really look nothing alike.
My stomach drops. My hands tremble. I don’t know how I got into the UCLA art program. I don’t know how Violet—or anyone else—will find these paintings anything but amateurish.
“Open your eyes,” Mark hisses. “You are acting really weird.”
I didn’t even realize they were closed, but now I’m seeing pink again, and when I brave a glance at Violet I think I may see her smiling, but I’m not sure because the door chimes and a woman swishes in.
“Audra, you’re back!” Brad croons. “Look who showed up? It’s Kate Cleary!”
Audra’s hair is styled in a severe ponytail. Her eyeliner is catlike and everything she’s wearing is covered in fringe. She faces me, stoic.
“Look, Kate, didn’t I tell you she’d be thrilled? Here are the paintings, and they are even better in person!”
Violet steps aside to let Audra take her place before the table, where she studies them one by one and then gives a single nod before pulling her phone from her pocket.
“I knew you would just adore them!”
“The show’s tomorrow night,” Audra says. “What are you thinking about price?”
She’s looking at her phone, but when no one else answers I assume this question is meant for me.
“Oh,” I say. “I hadn’t even thought about it.”
“Please tell me they’re for sale. I can’t waste my time with artwork that isn’t for commerce.”
“No, that’s fine,” I say. “We can sell them. I just don’t know how much I should charge.”
Brad says, “Well, each of the Lin Chin crane boxes is three thousand, but—”
Audra snorts.
“Precisely,” he continues. “And Nic’s are eight hundred a drawing, though we agree they should all be sold to the same buyer. Breaking up that sequence would be worse than breaking up that couple! Anyone who disagrees is a homewrecker. Tabitha’s Word-That-Rhymes-With-Shunt pieces are each a grand, a steal considering that they’re high-concept and made of LED lights. Form meets function and all that. But Kate’s not exactly in Tabitha’s league.”
Audra rolls her eyes.
Even though they asked me to be a part of this show, I feel like they don’t want me in it. And that makes me want to back out, but how can I, now, when it would seem like it’s all about the money? I know that I’m no Jenny Holzer; I’m no Banksy. Nothing I’m doing is revolutionary. But are my paintings really worth so much less than lit-up slang for genitalia?
“Four hundred is the most we can ask for a virtual unknown,” Audra says. “And even that is a stretch.”
Against my will, my eyes begin to burn. I’m blinking fast, trying to keep the tears away. This whole idea was so stupid, and I am angry at Lehna, angry at myself, angry that after all the moments I dreamed up it’s now—when I am utterly humiliated—that Violet has entered my life.
“As her manager—” Mark begins, trying to save me.
“I’d like to buy them.”
Audra and Brad freeze. Their heads tilt in synchronized intrigue.
“All of them,” Violet says. “And I’m sorry, but I don’t buy paintings priced below five hundred apiece, so I insist on paying that amount. The extra hundred goes directly to the artist.”
“Well, technically the breakdown is fifty-fifty of the total amount,” Brad says.
But Audra holds up a hand and, with that, Brad is silenced.
“That’s very generous,” Audra says. “And I assume you’re comfortable with still having them hang in the show?”
“Oh, sure,” Violet says. “As a favor to you. Kate doesn’t exactly need the extra exposure.”
Audra’s mouth tenses, but only for a moment.
And now, instead of fighting back tears, I’m staring at Violet in amazement. Here she is, with her short, messy hair and the tiny scar by her eye. With the scarf Lehna told me about and the mouth I dream about at night. But also with a clear voice I hadn’t yet heard, and posture a little more slouchy than I’d imagined, and a slightly rounder face than in my tent photograph.
She is who I imagined and she is not who I imagined.
“One thing, though,” she says, her head cocked, looking at the blank pink wall where the paintings will be. “Do you have those red dots? The kind that mean the painting’s been sold?”
“We typically just mark the price sheet.”
Violet grimaces. “Oh, that’s disappointing.”
“We can get red dots,” Audra says.
* * *
We spill out of the gallery and onto the sidewalk, Mark and Violet and me. We make it around the corner before collapsing in laughter against the side of a building.
“My mom is going to kill me when she sees her credit card bill,” Violet groans. “At least she’s on a different continent, so my death is not imminent. Hey,” she says to Mark. “We didn’t formally meet. I’m Violet, Lehna’s cousin.”