So Damn Beautiful (A New Adult Romance) (39 page)

The speechmaking portion of the show was
going to start in fifteen minutes, and my heart was racing as I
looked around for any signs of Chase. People were beginning to
cluster around the stanchions and yellow tape, wondering aloud what
would be revealed.

Chase, where are you?
I asked
silently, glancing at my phone for any new texts.

That was when Claudia, dressed in a slinky
black dress, walked up to me. She was with an unassuming-looking
guy, whose simple mustache and horn-rimmed glasses gave him a
professorial demeanor. “Annie!” she boomed happily. “Before it gets
too crazy around here, I wanted to introduce you to Quentin!”

I did a double take.
This
was the
famous Quentin Pierce? I had been expecting her to tell me he was
the head of the art department or something, given his modest and
somewhat subdued persona. Then again, Quentin Pierce’s persona
itself was a performance that was constantly in flux.

“Hi,” I said, not knowing exactly how I
should face the guy who’d betrayed my boyfriend so profoundly.

Quentin nodded stiffly and smiled at me, but
his eyes darted back and forth and his attention was clearly
occupied by other things.

Oh, I don’t warrant any attention? There
must be celebrities in our midst tonight
, I told myself
wryly.

“I was the committee member who commissioned
Chase Adams,” I said in a clipped tone, attempting to draw his
attention back to me.

It worked. Quentin’s eyes lit up with
surprise, and his focus zeroed in completely on me.

“Chase and I go way back—it’ll be nice to see
what he’s been up to in the last few years. I’ve been hearing a lot
about him lately. At the very least, it seems like he still has a
good sense of humor.”

My blood was boiling. He sounded sincere
enough, but I could sense a smug superiority below the surface of
his words.

Before I could respond, Claudia whisked him
away to a cadre of well-dressed men and women. And that was when
Chase came into the garden. My eyes gravitated toward him
instantly, and our gazes met. He was wearing a black dress shirt,
black pants, black shoes, and a black blazer. His face was like a
slab of perfectly chiseled marble, and, as usual, his intense green
eyes made my stomach do backflips. He was effortlessly suave and
beautiful, and more than a few people’s heads turned to admire him
as he walked over to me. Amazingly, Quentin didn’t notice.

Chase and I gave each other a wordless nod,
and everything that happened after that felt like slow motion.
Without announcement, he went over to his piece, took the
stanchions away, cut the yellow tape, and pulled the tarp off in
one motion.

I gasped at what I saw. He hadn’t told me
what the final project was going to be, so while I had been
expecting to have my breath taken away, the spectacle facing me
wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind.

It wasn’t a mural. It was an elaborate
installation, complete with a urinal, toilet stall, and trompe
l’oeil mirror. It was beautiful and colorful, crude and creepy, all
at once. Every surface was sprayed with paint and covered in angry
scrawls of graffiti that resembled just about any public restroom
you would likely see in New York City. The strange and vivid scene
was almost lifelike, from the floating cesspool of yellow liquid in
the urinal to the damp-looking roll of toilet paper streaming onto
the floor, alongside fake syringes glued to the mottled tile. The
more elaborate graffiti images, which were recognizably beautiful,
were flanked by ugly caricatures of Quentin Pierce, alongside
source images culled from popular magazines.

The installation had the appearance of being
both dramatically weathered and detailed, as if we were witnessing
a space that had been home to years and years of choleric
statement-making. Resolute platitudes like “Dream big” and “Don’t
let the bastards get you down” bled in gobs of paint down the
surface of the mirror and sink, right next to barefaced put-downs
like “Quentin Pierce is a hack” in permanent marker. It was like
Chase had teleported one of the portable bathrooms of New York City
into the sculpture garden—and it was simultaneously shocking,
gruesome, and transcendent.

People quickly gathered in large numbers to
ooh and aah over the piece. Some were visibly disgusted, but most
of them were transfixed. “It’s weirdly stunning and so intimate,”
one woman commented. “It’s amazing they’d get something so
incongruous to be installed in a place like this, but I love
it.”

A man in a polka-dot suit agreed. “What an
incredible statement, especially when you think of the historical
importance of public restrooms in our culture as spaces of vital
creative exchange and forbidden communications between strangers of
different classes and social persuasions!”

I heard a bunch of other enthusiastic
endorsements of Chase’s work. “A biting critique of corporate
culture . . .” “The insults on the wall show us how the seeds of
anarchist uprisings get planted—this is such a great example of
resistance . . .” “Funny, self-reflexive, and subversive . . .”

I was so dumbfounded that I didn’t know if I
could be quite so articulate about what I felt and thought. On the
one hand, this seemed to be a giant “fuck you” to the powers that
be, including Quentin and his wealthy celebrity friends, but on the
other hand, it was way too thought-provoking (and
conversation-rousing) to have been made purely for shock value.

Several media folks came up to Chase and
began snapping photos of him alongside the piece. As interviewers
mobbed him, I could hear him say, “It wasn’t all me, actually. The
amazing Annie Green commissioned me for the piece.” He looked over
at me, and I nodded. I’d already given him the go-ahead to mention
me, but I felt a little odd taking credit for Chase’s work.

More people began to cluster around me and
ask me what I thought about Chase’s “incredible act of protest,”
but before I could get into it, Claudia yanked me over to an
aghast-looking Quentin.

“What the fuck
is
this?” His geniality
from just a few minutes before had disappeared completely, and his
face was gnarled into an ugly expression. But after all I’d been
through, I wasn’t intimidated.

“It’s the piece I commissioned,” I said
coolly.

“Annie, this is totally out of line!” Claudia
hissed, looking apprehensively at Quentin. “This is
not
what
we asked for!”

Quentin scowled at me. “If this is your idea
of a joke, you are fucking finished in this city. You can kiss any
job within a hundred miles of the gallery world good-bye.”

I could feel my heart sink a little bit, but
then I heard Chase’s familiar voice.

“Hello, old friend.” I turned around and
there he was, a triumphant little smile on his beautiful face.

Quentin narrowed his eyes and got right up in
Chase’s face. “You ungrateful little turd,” he said in a low voice,
poking at Chase’s chest with his finger. “I took a chance on you,
and
this
is how you repay me?”

“Ungrateful?” Chase scoffed. “This, coming
from the guy who’s built his entire career on ripping off
artists—starting with a fifteen-year-old gutter punk? I’m curious
as to whether you ever stopped to bow before the altar of all the
people you stole from, including me.”

The small enclave of curious bystanders had
increased exponentially in the last few minutes.

“You’re still a gutter punk,” Quentin said.
“I should’ve known you were a lost cause from the moment I set eyes
on you. I’m calling security to boot you the hell out of here.”

“He’s not going anywhere!” I insisted.

Claudia gave me a wide-eyed look that denoted
both alarm and anger. “Annie, I’m warning you . . .”

“Make sure they’re both gone by the time I
get back, or you’re out of a fucking job,” Quentin said to Claudia
before stalking off.

“Annie, I don’t know what you’re playing at
here, but this is serious,” Claudia remonstrated, grabbing my
arm.

I pulled away from her grasp. “This was my
commission, fair and square, and it
stays
—or else I take it
to the trustees themselves,” I said firmly. She stared at me, gave
a shriek of frustration, and ran off—presumably to get the security
guards.

I looked at Chase, who was frowning.

“After all these years, the asshole still
can’t admit what he did, what he took from me,” he said, shaking
his head.

“Chase, it’s not worth it—he’s never going to
be able to admit what he did, but at least people still heard. And
at least we still have a chance to let them know who he really
is.”

I walked boldly over to the mic on the
makeshift stage before Chase could respond. Chase, who was known
for being a hothead, might not have his accusations taken
seriously, but perhaps this was one instance where people would be
more likely to listen to an innocent-looking, doe-eyed midwestern
girl.

I grabbed the mic. “Excuse me, everyone, I
just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Annie Green, and I am
one of the student curators for the
New New York
show.” The
sculpture garden exploded in applause, much to my relief. I took a
deep breath and closed my eyes. I didn’t know what I was going to
say, but I knew this was my only chance.

The garden fell into silence as I launched
into my speech. “I’m a freshman art-history major, and I grew up in
the Midwest, so I was like a kid in a candy store when I got here.
I’d always loved art, but I realized I didn’t know all there was to
know about some of the most important art movements in modern
history, many of which started right in our own backyard. I’ve been
privileged to become acquainted with the work of luminaries like
Andy Warhol, Diane Arbus, and Keith Haring—all of whom worked in
dramatically different artistic vocabularies, but all of whom left
an indelible imprint on this city and, in fact, the rest of the
world.”

I looked over at Quentin, who was seething
silently in the audience. “And then there is Quentin Pierce,
possibly the most famous artist in the world. If it weren’t for
him, I wouldn’t be standing here. He is the one who put his faith
in a handful of students to commission new works by up-and-coming
artists, so let’s give him a round of applause.”

People began to clap enthusiastically, and I
continued. “Thanks to Quentin, I’ve seen a side of the New York art
scene I’d never known existed—a side I have discovered is ugly,
venal, pretentious, and empty.” A buzz of astonishment went through
the audience.

“Yes, Quentin Pierce has fame, and he has
notoriety, but has he really made a significant piece of art since
he came into the public eye five years ago? Five years ago, when he
usurped the
Street Is Life
series that was conceived of by
then-fifteen-year-old Chase Adams . . . and passed off the work as
his own?”

The crowd went crazy. “Oh my God, I remember
that series! I think I bought one of the pieces!” a heavyset woman
near me exclaimed.

Quentin was gesturing to someone to cut the
sound system to keep me from going on, but as security officers
lunged toward me, they were intercepted by a small mob of angry
guests, who managed to keep them at bay. “Let her speak!”

I took a deep breath, and although my heart
was beating, the look of pure adoration in Chase’s eyes kept me
strong and steady. “In the process of working on this project with
Chase Adams, I’ve learned a lot of things. I’ve learned about
honor, integrity, passion, and the willingness to risk your life
for your art. I’ve learned that truly innovative, mind-blowing art
isn’t emerging from the places you’d expect—it isn’t coming from
the scene of self-constructed mystery and exclusivity that Quentin
Pierce has extolled for years. No. It is instead coming right from
these streets, from the places Mr. Pierce has paid plenty of lip
service to but from which he ran far, far away without looking
back.”

I looked at Chase as I spoke my next words.
“I’ve learned that New York City is a wonderland. It’s vibrant and
full of places of hidden beauty—beauty that gets straight to the
heart of why this is such a magical place and people like me are
drawn from far and wide. We just don’t stop to recognize that the
real beauty isn’t in the spectacles that people like Mr. Pierce
provide; it’s in the stuff we ignore or take for granted or malign
altogether because the letter of the law tells us to.

“People like Chase and his crew have no
incentive for fame. Many of these artists don’t come from money,
and they won’t be making a small fortune from their work anytime
soon. They do it simply for the love of it. And they live by a code
of honor we don’t often experience in our day-to-day lives, a code
that is about loyalty and cooperation, not competition and
backbiting. You can take a walk through Chelsea or go uptown if you
want more of the stuff that galleries are filling up with. In fact,
there are many pieces that take the language of graffiti and try to
call it their own.

“But the truth is, when Mr. Pierce and other
artists borrow and steal from the ones who are actually out on the
line and making art that stands the risk of getting them arrested,
they are making a mockery of this work. They are taking this work
out of context. Moreover, they are removing it from the magic of
its origins, from the concealed alleyways and crumbling sidewalks
of the most beautiful city in the world.” I smiled at Chase.
“Thanks, Chase Adams, for keeping it real, for showing me that the
streets are where it’s at. The real New York City cannot be
contained in a gallery, and this is what I hope Chase’s piece,
which he has so generously contributed, reveals.”

A deafening roar of applause practically
swept me off the stage. Chase walked over immediately and whisked
me into his strong arms.