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.”
“I’m Mark.”
“My manager,” I add.
“Right,” she says. “Manager.”
“Yeah,” Mark nods. “And Katie’s my SAT tutor.”
“Interesting arrangement.”
“It is indeed,” Mark says.
“I feel like celebrating my first major art investments. Who wants sushi?”
Mark and I raise our hands.