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“All right. I’ll see you next week,” he says with the emotionless formality of someone scheduling an optometry appointment. I suppose it’s fitting, seeing how this isn’t a date. I’m not even sure what a person would categorize this as? Hanging out is too casual. It’s not like we’re friends. Doing something together in a nonromantic way? What even is that?
Everything about Roman Bellisario is a giant question mark. It’s only fitting that this is too.
“Sounds good,” I say, wrestling the eagerness from my voice with the might of ten thousand wild horses.
Ending the call, I flop backward onto my bed, staring at the lifeless ceiling fan and the crack in the plaster behind it. My stomach is filled with butterflies. Not the romantic kind, of course. More like the kind I get whenever we install a new collection at work or anytime I have the pleasure of meeting a personal favorite artist of mine.
Never in a million years could I have imagined I’d have the chance to visit Halcyon’s private studio . . . or that Roman Bellisario would be my personal tour guide for such an occasion.
I’d say stranger things have happened, but I don’t know that to be true. The last several days have been some of the oddest ones of my entire life.
Sitting up a minute later, I head to the hallway—feet light as air—and rap on the bathroom door.
“So . . . Roman just called,” I say, tracing my fingertips along a worn indentation in the door.
The sound of swishing water comes from the other side, like Margaux’s suddenly sitting up from a relaxed position.
“What’d you tell him?” she calls out.
I give her a quick rundown.
And I don’t stick around to listen to her wax and wane about what all could go wrong.
It’s a simple studio tour. It’s not a date; it’s an apology.
It’s all going to be fine.
Returning to my room, I pull up an old photo album on my phone from several years back, when we were fortunate enough to host a small Halcyon exhibit at my previous gallery.
Swiping through the images, I get lost in the sea of their beauty. Their punchy colors juxtaposed with their melancholic beauty. Print and paint combined with stencil combined with mixed media and provocative titles such as Trashy Ballerina, Missile to the Soul, Pretty Poison, and of course my all-time favorite—You or Someone like You.
I’m not sure what winning the lottery is like, but I imagine it feels something like this.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ROMAN
“Up there is fine, just past that bench,” I tell my driver, Antonio, when he drops Margaux and me off outside a former garment warehouse in the Lower East Side Monday afternoon.
It’s a hole-in-the-wall, off-the-radar space that’s been converted into lofts, rented by artists and the like for various creative endeavors. But with its plain gray facade and the mess of scaffolding along the sidewalk, it’s the kind of place most people don’t think twice about when they’re strolling past—which is one of the best things about it.
Artists can be anonymous here.
They can create without judgment, without onlookers, without unwanted attention.
Antonio parks alongside a small stretch of curb before jumping out to get the passenger door. Margaux climbs out first, tugging on the hem of her curve-hugging black lace dress when she reaches the sidewalk. It’s a little number that covers everything yet leaves little to the imagination at the same time. I can’t help but wonder if she wore this while she worked from home today or if she has a date after this.
“Wow,” she says as she peers up at the expanse of industrial windows, though I don’t think she’s being sarcastic. Going by the starstruck expression on her face, she’s completely in awe already, and we haven’t even made it inside.
I punch in a code on the exterior door. Margaux makes no attempt to look over my shoulder, a move I silently note and appreciate.
The lock beeps, and she follows me to the stairwell inside. We climb two floors before making our way to the lofts, trekking down a series of long, dimly lit hallways. The faint scent of paint thinner, sweat, time, and inspiration lingers in the air like a permanent fixture. Euro-techno music pumps from one of the spaces, and from another comes one-half of a stranger’s heated conversation.
I type in another code when we get to loft number seven—Halcyon’s studio.
The lock clicks open, and once inside, we’re greeted with a mélange of familiar aromas: oil paint, ink, gesso, and paper.
I flick on a nearby light switch before heading for the wall of windows, pulling back curtains to let some natural light flood the space.
A paint-splattered Bluetooth speaker rests in the corner, next to a wooden stool and an unfinished canvas piece resting on an easel.
Everything in here is exactly as it was three years ago—the day the music died, so to speak.
