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Yael
Age Twenty-one
This was stupid.
A terrible idea.
No one would come.
Or a lot of people would come, but they’d avoid my pieces.
Or laugh at them. Oh god, what if they laughed at them?
Why was I doing this? I wasn’t an artist. I was a good girl who majored in marketing, just like her mommy and daddy had insisted. The art classes I took were to help hone my creativity...that I would use in my eventual office job.
That was the story I’d sold to my parents when they questioned why they were shelling out cash for me to “waste my time.”
My dad would bathe in my humiliation tonight, and my mom would hug me gently and whisper, “I told you so.”
This was why I hadn’t told a soul about my gallery show. Not the boy I’d just started seeing. Not my roommate, Allie. Not my brother. Mo would support me, but he’d take my disappointment to heart, and I couldn’t bear to let him down.
Standing at the gallery door, I smoothed my hands over my black, silk, sheath dress, and took a deep breath. I wore my favorite red pumps and matching lipstick. I’d gotten my hair blown out in smooth waves. I knew I looked good, but I wondered if I looked right. Did I look New York art scene or New York upper crust?
The door swung open, and my art professor, Dr. Gaeman, stuck her head out. “Yael Aronson, I know panic when I see it. There’s no need for that, sugar. You’ve already sold two pieces and the night has barely begun. Come on now. Be the Yael who put asshole, Benji, in his place last week.”
I couldn’t stand up to my parents, but men who felt our art models were fair game because they posed nude for us? I could kick their asses without breaking a nail. Benji, this pretentious art house type who thought he was some big shit because his dad’s art had hung in the MOMA in the nineties, wouldn’t take no for an answer from Maura, the adorable woman who had modeled for us. When he got aggressive with her, I dug my spiky heel into his toes and told him his art was derivative and he’d never live up to his family name. I would have worried I’d gone too far if not for the slow clap Doctor Gaeman started and quickly spread through the whole class.
As she led me into the gallery, I channeled that Yael and held my head high, making eye contact with everyone I passed, as if I wasn’t a quivering, twenty-one-year-old kid on the inside.
The spacious room hummed with a crowd of art collectors hoping they would be the ones who discovered thenext big thing. White walls showcased paintings and charcoal drawings. Pedestals held sculptures, and the sleek floor was home to large installations.
Dr. Gaeman introduced me to the couple who’d bought my needlepoint portrayal of the Atlantic at sunrise. I’d worked on it for many hours the previous summer, getting up each morning at my parents’ Hamptons beach house and trekking down to the sand to watch the sun awaken, my sewing supplies tucked away discreetly in a bag.
I was whisked from important person to important person, introduced to gallery owners and other artists whose names and accomplishments left me lightheaded.
When I was informed my third piece had sold—meaningallmy pieces in the show had been sold—I had to excuse myself. Outside, I breathed New York in through my nose. It wasn’t fresh, but it was life. Bending at the knees, I worked to inflate my lungs, overwhelmed and slightly panicked. It took me some time to convince myself not to faint as I pushed the darkness from the edges of my vision.
I stood up straight, smoothing my hair, then twisted to go back inside, but someone coming down the sidewalk caught my eye.
He came.
Alex Murray strode toward me in a sleek, black, leather moto jacket, close-fitting gray jeans, and boots. His copper hair was tied back neatly, and his beard had been freshly trimmed. All the breath I’d just caught was expelled from my lungs by the missile that was the hot rocker locked on me.
When he got close enough to read my expression, his steps stuttered, then he was in front of me, dipping his head to get a good look at me.
“What happened?” His fingers caught my chin, exposing me to his worried eyes. “Yael,” he rasped.
“Hey, Alex,” I rasped back.
His palm opened, cupping my cheek. “Are you okay?”
This boy.This boy.I leaned into his touch even though I hadn’t seen him in months and we hadn’t had a true conversation beyond a few texts since the night of Charlie’s funeral.
When I said I hadn’t told a soul about tonight, that hadn’t been entirely true. In a fit of terror, I’d texted Alex the time and date of the show without any other message. He’d replied that he would try as hard as he could to show up, but Unrequited was touring and getting away might not be possible.
Yet here he was. In New York—mycity—looking like he belonged. I’d barely seen him over the last year the band had been on the road, but it felt like so much longer.
“I’m okay.”
