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“Did she wear one of those short skirts again?”
I shut my eyes back. “Don’t think so.”
“Not interested, huh?”
My dream state dissipates, and I’m awake, with Maya’s round ass on my lower back and all her expectations like a blanket over us. I chew on inside of my cheek. I don’t know what to say. She thinks we’re—
My phone’s ring interrupts my train of thought—and Maya’s massage.
“What the fuck?”
I start to get up, and she gives a little huff. “Must be important.”
I grab the phone off the coffee table…flip it over. When I see the area code, a wash of heat moves through me.* * *Carolina wears a short skirt the next morning when I tell her that she’ll have another project supervisor in three days. Maya doesn’t know about the skirt, because after I got the call and asked her nicely to go home, she threw a fit and told me to go fuck myself.
This morning, she’s nowhere to be seen. When I see Hakim in the co-op’s coffee room, he lifts his brows and shakes his head and tells me that she quit the fucking co-op.
“Nice.”
I listen to the shit she told him—so he’d tell me, of course. Then I check on Carolina’s progress, grab my coat, and slip out the side door into an alley where I sometimes smoke the cigarettes I bum from other artists here. But I don’t have a cigarette, and it’s snowing a little…so I start to walk.
I keep my eyes on my boots and keep my hood over my head and try to just get lost. I know this area like I know my own hands, so it’s not easy…but when I look up, just for a second I can’t place myself in the city—and I can get a good, clean breath.
Then I notice the fucking Bible store on my right. That’s what it calls itself, too—“The Bible Store.”
I knock my boots off on the curb, stomp on the doormat, and step inside slowly, so I don’t disturb the tiny space. The shop is bathroom-sized and overflowing with books.
Behind the counter, a woman with pink hair looks up and smiles. “Can I help you?”
“Just looking around a little.”
I find his books easily. He’s published four—the most recent last year. The man I know smiles on the jacket. It’s a muted smile. A sort of I-know-I’m-famous-but-I’m-also-modest smile. It’s a smile that makes me feel like I just took a long hit of fire from my little bedtime vaporizer. Also like I just snorted a line. My hands begin to sweat around the book’s jacket.
“Oh…that one.” The shopkeeper is beside me, smiling down at me. She’s tall. “He’s one of my faves. Some people don’t like the ‘mass market’ element to his work—the relatable themes. But I think everything he says is worth reading. Well, everything he says and writes.”
“Okay—I’m sold.”
I buy the book, and she confides it’s been a slow few days. “Thirty percent off if you want to get another book.”
I get his first book, too, and step outside holding the paper sack I have to tuck into my coat so the snow doesn’t get it. It’s not snow anymore…more like sleet. I get to the intersection of a larger street and turn around. I walk back to the co-op, work on molding with Carolina, and cut out early.
I’ve got four more days in Manhattan. I’m not going to spend them in the studio.* * *Maybe I should text him, but I don’t. I don’t reach out in any way, and when I talk to Pearl Myers, I never ask why she contacted me. I don’t ask if he asked for me personally, or if she chose me because she knows he likes my art.
I know she knows he likes my art because her name was on the list of buyers at the exhibition in November 2017. I didn’t make the connection to Luke until she called to offer me the Evermore mural job a few days ago.
Now I know he bought On the Ocean at Night. She told me. It’s in his house. It’s in his room…and how the fuck does she know what’s inside his room?
Desperation claws inside me. Desire. This is such a terrible idea. I’m the co-founder of our co-op, and it’s doing really fucking well. I get some income that way, but more so, it keeps my name relevant and keeps commissions rolling in.
Hakim is fifty-one, and he’s well-known and well-reviewed. Well-liked, including by me. I shouldn’t leave him high and dry—not even for twelve weeks—not even if he insists that I should “go and do, man. That’s the meaning of the artist’s life.”
I’m putting myself out there in the worst way, and the truth is that I kind of hate it. Even as I want it—and I know I’m going to get it—part of me wants to run the other way, because how can it end well?
