So Damn Beautiful (A New Adult Romance) (37 page)

Good-bye, Harrison Waters
, I said
silently.

Kyle waved cheerfully at us as we backed away
from all the mayhem. I offered a small smile and nod. I felt a
little strange leaving a group of minors to contend with Harrison
and his friends, but as Kyle went ballistic on Harrison’s
windshield, I trusted they’d be okay.

As we made our way toward East Twenty-Third
Street, curiosity got the best of me. “Chase, how did Kyle know you
were in trouble?”

Chase shrugged and gave me a mysterious
smile. “We have a psychic brotherly connection.”

“For real?”

“At least in part. To be honest, I had a
feeling Harrison and his stooges might be looking for one last
hurrah. Kyle and his crew skate along the East River some nights,
so I figured I’d give him a heads-up and let him know something
might go down. So he was on the lookout.”

“How could you possibly have known that would
happen?”

Chase shrugged. “I know guys like Harrison.
They’re not as nice as they make you believe they are.”

I felt somewhat shamefaced as I threw my arms
around Chase.

“Ouch.” He winced.

“Oh my God, I’m sorry! Does it hurt?”

He laughed. “It’s nothing some painkillers
and a stiff drink can’t cure.”

I gave him a tender kiss on his lips, being
sure not to graze his cuts or bruises. “I’m sorry, Chase. This is
all my fault.”

“You can’t help it, babe. You’re a
heartbreaker.”

I rolled my eyes. “I guess it takes one to
know one, huh?” I looked at him. “I promise to stay out of trouble
if you do.”

He slung one arm around my hip, hailing a cab
with the other. “Trust me, Goldilocks, at my core I’m a lover, not
a fighter.”

I looked up at my gorgeous boyfriend, who
seemed amazingly untarnished by the wounds and discolorations on
his face. I felt like I was seeing him for the first time. While I
was accustomed to being at least a little bowled over by his
devastating good looks, I now knew that his beauty went so much
deeper. I felt like I was gazing into the depths of his soul, and
what I saw was tender, good, and infinitely regenerative.

“I know you are, Chase. Believe me, I
know.”

Wednesday had rolled back around, and
after the drama of the past few days, I was reluctant to be in a
room with Elsie. After what had happened with Chase and Harrison,
the long-standing rivalry between us had come to a head. I wasn’t
sure how Elsie and I would manage to be in the same space
together.

“Okay, everything’s looking good on the art
front,” Claudia said, as she clacked away at her keyboard. “Hayden,
Shawn, and Elsie, all of your artists have contacted me to install
their pieces. As we all know, the official opening for the show is
in the sculpture garden, preceding the gallery opening, this
Saturday night.” She paused and looked at me. “Do I have to remind
you once again, Annie, that you’re treading on thin ice by
following your own set of rules and not conforming to any of
Quentin’s guidelines on how to work effectively with a saleable
artist?”

I winced at the word “saleable” and the way
this curatorship had descended from taking a visionary idea and
running with it into selling the works we were commissioning for a
pretty penny. But, given Chase’s story about Quentin Pierce, I
wasn’t surprised. The old Quentin no longer existed; he’d given way
to the behemoth of greed and meaningless pageantry. I bit my lower
lip.

“Like I said, Chase is something of an
outlier, and that’s what’s going to make this piece so special,” I
intoned.

Claudia rubbed her temples and closed her
eyes. “But you’re aware that by allowing Chase to install his work
right before the show, Quentin won’t be able to officially give it
his okay, right? This could be a big problem for all of us, Annie.
If it doesn’t gel with the overall aesthetic, and if Chase gives us
something that’s a mediocre piece of shit, heads will roll. I’m not
kidding.”

Elsie made a sound of exasperation. “I can’t
believe we’re doing this, Claudia,” she whined. “Chase Adams has
shown himself to be volatile and unstable.” She glared at me. “I
have some sources who’ve confirmed that he was taken into custody
by the police just days after being commissioned. Are we sure of
his ability to follow through on this? He could make all of us look
stupid. And, to be honest, I just don’t have much faith in his
delivering a bona fide work of art.” She looked at me, a rancorous
smile on her lips. “After all, word has it he isn’t very good at
finishing what he starts.”

I rolled my eyes. If that was a potshot at
Chase’s sexual prowess, Elsie wasn’t doing a very good job of
undercutting me. “That’s a lie and you know it, Elsie. Chase has
completed over eight hundred murals in the last two years alone. He
has the kind of excellence and follow-through that are rare for
most artists who are echelons above him.”

Elsie persisted, however. “Be that as it may,
we can’t afford to let Chase’s stereotypical artistic temper
sabotage our chances of a successful show. That’s why, Claudia, I
have a backup plan for the public-art component. My friend Ashley
Riker used to be a designer for Giant Robot, and she has this
awesome project where she’s creating subversive, life-size Disney
princesses where they’re, like, you know, in addiction-recovery
programs or heading up guerrilla warfare. I think she’d be an
amazing addition to the show, especially considering that female
representation in this art form is sadly lacking.”

I rolled my eyes. I knew female
representation was lacking, but I also knew there were better
female artists out there than Elsie's friend. Luckily, I didn’t
have to say anything, because Claudia quickly put Elsie in her
place. “That sounds . . . interesting, but I’ve never heard of
Ashley Riker, and part of the task here is to present world-class
artists who’ve already garnered a certain level of renown. Besides,
the Disney-princess thing sounds a little too formulaic, Elsie.
This isn’t Little League anymore. There are plenty of people making
a name for themselves as artists, but what sets them apart?” She
sighed and looked at me. “As much as I am averse to your artist’s
methods, Annie, he is going to be one of the elements that is going
to make Saturday a historic occasion. Besides, Quentin isn’t down
with changing the lineup this late in the game.”

Elsie leaned forward, her eyes shooting
sparks. “Are you sure, Claudia? I mean, can’t you ask him right
now?”

Claudia gave her a miserly smile. “I’m
already ahead of you, dear.” She glanced down at her laptop. “Oh,
Quentin says he knows Ashley personally.” She winced. “He also says
that if you think that’s life-changing art, you’re perfectly
correct—if your tastes tend toward the ignorant, ugly, and lurid,
and if your idea of subversion is copperplate handwriting.”

Hayden, Shawn, and I all collectively
recoiled.

“Ouch,” Shawn exclaimed.

“I think copperplate handwriting is elegant,
personally,” Hayden whispered to me.

I almost felt bad for Elsie, who suddenly
looked pale and feeble. The meeting was dismissed after thirty more
minutes of organizational details for Saturday (food and drink
donations, a proper sound system, and media management). As people
milled out of the room, I did the unthinkable—I approached
Elsie.

“Listen, I know on some level you care about
what the show is going to be like,” I said. She shoved her iPad
into her purse and turned her back to me, but I continued. “But I
just want to let you know that Chase’s piece is going to be great.
And it’s going to make all of us look like kick-ass curators.”

She turned to me, her lips pursed into a
straight line. “I couldn’t care less, Blondie. You’ve essentially
taken the one thing, the
one
thing, that matters to me and
made me look like a laughingstock. So whether Saturday is good or
bad, I don’t really give a shit. If you want to take credit for the
whole thing, go ahead. I’m not stopping you.”

I frowned. Seeing Elsie in a state of utter
defeat was almost disconcerting to me. I had actually been hoping
for more of a fight.

“Listen, it wasn’t my intention to take
anything away from you,” I insisted, following her out of the room.
“I’ve always told you that there’s enough room for both of us in
this game. You made
me
an enemy even though I never saw
you
that way.”

She turned at me and snapped, and I could see
tears falling down her face. “You may think my life is all caviar
and champagne, Blondie, but you don’t know the first thing about
me. I was raised to believe the only thing that mattered was art:
collecting it, knowing the people who made it, being the person who
could recognize something special, something rare, before anybody
else even noticed it.” She took a deep breath and swiped her tears
away with her sleeve. “Being the best has been my whole life. And
it might sound stupid to you, but you have no fucking idea how much
was riding on this curatorship for me, how much was at stake. But
now you’ve succeeded at making a complete and utter fool of me, in
front of my peers and in front of Quentin. So do me a favor and
don’t pretend to have some kind of heart of gold. You won, I lost,
and tomorrow’s another day—so please spare me the fake compassion,
because I’d rather wallow than be subjected to anyone’s pity.” She
pushed past me to the elevator.

What had just happened? Had Elsie seriously
turned this around to make
me
look like the villain here? I
shook my head and laughed in disbelief. The cantankerous witch I’d
come to know and hate really
was
just a spoiled little girl
at heart. I almost felt relieved to see that side of her,
especially since I didn’t want to believe anyone could be that mean
and hateful 24-7.

All the same, I wished Elsie knew she didn’t
have to view me as competition anymore. I’d always been certain the
art world was the place I belonged, but the scales were swiftly
tilting toward “no.” I knew I was just as competent as Elsie—there
was no doubt in my mind about that. However, I was disillusioned by
all the petty backbiting and backstabbing I’d experienced in the
past few weeks. Somehow, despite the dreams I’d nursed over the
past several years, I didn’t feel like I was meant for the
galleries or any kind of conventional institution. Admiring Picasso
from afar was one thing; having to deal with the politics of the
art scene was another entirely.

It felt strange to have the one great passion
of my life erased, seemingly overnight. I would have thought it
would be saddening for me, but I felt energized and alive as I made
my way to the subway. As I thought of Chase, a little smile played
over my lips.

Where I felt the dying embers of my old
ambitions, I could sense the embryo of something newer and more
exciting than I’d ever dreamed of growing, rapidly and steadfastly,
in their place.

Chase had a surprise for me the following
night, when he texted me to meet him at Hunts Point in the Bronx,
close to the freight-train yard. As I looked around at the hulking
cars, most of which were covered with graffiti, I felt a chill of
excitement and trepidation. I squeezed his hand tightly.

“What exactly are we doing here?” I asked in
a nervous stage whisper.

He smiled and kissed my cheek. “It’s about as
desolate as a graveyard here, Goldilocks—no need to talk like the
baby’s sleeping.”

I frowned. “Gee,
that
description
makes me feel so much better.”

I was wearing dark clothes, just as Chase had
instructed. Apparently, the train yard was in the roughest part of
town. It was a place where splotches of graffiti easily intersected
with what appeared to be bloodstains on the cement. As ever, Chase
laughed at my reticence. Given how decrepit and creepy the yard
was, I was surprised to see that he’d brought a bottle of champagne
in tow.

“Seems awfully romantic for . . . where are
we, exactly?” I said.

“The Hunts Point freight yard,” he responded.
“I’ve buddied up with the yard crew in the past, so I know which
trains are leaving where and when. This is a crew-change point, so
it’s easiest to hop a train right here.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? Hop a train?” I
was almost ready to turn back, especially after my near-death
experience in the subway tunnel a few weeks ago.

“Relax, Annie—it’s not dangerous.”

I scoffed. “I don’t see how tagging a moving
freight train isn’t dangerous. How do you do it in the first place?
Are you hanging upside down from the roof or something?”

“Nah, that’s some superhero shit,” he
laughed. “Nobody does it while the trains are moving. They do it in
layups like these, which are stationary and quiet and fairly easy
to hit. I used to do them in broad daylight back in the day. Subway
hits, though? That’s a military operation.”

“
Now
you tell me! So, why was that my
first little sojourn with you, then?” I asked, crossing my
arms.

He grinned, revealing his dimples. I couldn’t
be angry when I saw those dimples. “I wanted to see if you could
hang.”

I drew him closer and kissed him, softly and
slowly. The heat of the kiss seemed to make the air around us
shimmer momentarily. “How did I do?”

“You were superb, better than I expected,” he
said, slapping me on the ass. I gave out a little yelp as he pulled
me along and pointed out some of the trains around me, which were
bursting with colorful slogans, some of which felt a little
retro.

“Some of this dates back to the ’80s,” Chase
confirmed. “That was when emcees, breakboys, and graffiti writers
were popping up. Everyone wanted to get their paint on some steel
and be seen all over the place, but there weren’t a ton of urban
transportation systems outside New York City, so freight trains
became an obvious target. They’re not like the subways. You can see
there’s practically no security out here. You have a shitload of
famous freight writers putting up stuff that can be seen across the
country, like Cavs and Zephyr.”