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“What would you call them, then?” Alana asked.
“Decorating enthusiasts,” Asher shot back. “They’re only doing art for the money.”
“And what are you doing it for?”
Asher laughed as he scratched his dark head. He then draped his arm rightward, pointing toward his studio. “You want to see what I do before you judge me so harshly?”
Alana hadn’t thought of herself as judging him. She’d simply asked a question. Still, he didn’t give her time to answer and skulked into his studio, with Alana walking slowly behind him. He didn’t stop to check to see if she’d followed.
Alana had heard bits and pieces of what Greta and Bernard said about Asher Tarkin’s work. They’d called it “inspired, if youthful, with the nihilism of Nietzsche.” Alana had never read Nietzsche, but she’d heard the name tossed around at the Copperfield dinner table since her childhood. Bernard favored him; Greta took him with a grain of salt.
What Alana hadn’t been prepared for was this: most of Asher’s paintings were self-portraits. The self-portraits were almost violent, with jagged black lines making sharp outlines of his face and dark black holes for the eyes. There was a feeling of sorrow and rage behind each portrait, one that made Alana’s heart thump knowingly.
Asher Tarkin clearly had demons. Alana, who’d currently brewed up a bunch of demons of her own, suddenly felt not-so-alone, if that was possible. She hadn’t thought it was.
Asher sat on the windowsill, his back to the beach beyond. Seagulls cawed out their horrible song.
“What do you think?” he finally asked.
Alana’s lips parted in surprise. She found herself actually wanting to impress him with some newfound appreciation for art.
“It’s um. It’s demented,” she said instead.
Asher crumpled with laughter, his hand smacking his knee. What she’d said had clearly pleased him. He’d wanted this reaction.
“Very good. Oh, that’s very good to hear.”
Alana stirred with confusion. “You want people to think you’re demented?”
Asher shrugged. “What do I care what people think of me?”
Alana, the cheerleader, beauty queen, and lead in the school musical, had no idea what to say. Popularity had been her lifeblood. Now she was nothing.
“You know,” Asher began.
Alana’s stomach froze with fear. “Don’t say it.”
Asher’s eyes twinkled. “You knew what I was going to say?”
Alana flipped her hair over her shoulder. She couldn’t take it anymore. “I should go.” She turned back and headed for the hallway that led her back to the family territory of The Copperfield House. What did she care about some brooding guy’s demented art?
“Wait.” Asher leaped from the windowsill. There was an urgency in his voice, something that forced her to turn around. He took three long steps toward her so that he stood straight in front of her, his black eyes pulling her in. “You are, though.”
Alana’s nostrils flared.Beautiful. He meant beautiful.
“I can’t even tell you how much that doesn’t matter,” Alana whispered.
Asher scoffed. “I can’t even tell you how much it does.” He ruffled his hands through his dark hair. There was an intensity in the air between them, as though a lightning bolt had just struck the house. “Stay for a while, will you?”
“Why?” Alana sounded like a teenager rather than the woman she would soon be.
“Because. As you can see, I rarely have the opportunity to paint anyone else but myself. The other artists here at the residency have too much other stuff to do. And besides, I rarely see anything inspiring in the way they hold their faces.”
Alana felt sucked into the black hole of this mysterious artist. Truthfully, she needed to believe in the stories he told her about the beauty of her face, as the reality of her life was currently a nightmare.
Asher instructed her to sit on a pillow near the window, where the light from the early evening spilled over her luxuriously.
“You look like you’re made of velvet in that light,” Asher whispered as he assembled his paints, his palette, and his canvas. The canvas was old, with one-half of a sketched painting already on it. Alana was almost insulted that he hadn’t bothered to get a fresh canvas.
