I’ve agreed to meet Mikey at a gallery downtown after he gets off work. He’s drawn a map to a place not far from my building. At first, I consider not going. I’ll just feel awkward, and Bunny will probably be there, too, but then I decide to go. I only have one friend here, and he’s it, and maybe sometime I won’t feel like such a jerk around him. Casper would probably be proud of me for that. I change into another pair of overalls and a long-sleeved jersey shirt and slide my key and the lapis stone into my pocket.
The gallery is in the middle of the smallish downtown, not far from where I got off the Greyhound, on the third floor of a pink building wedged between a bar and a diner called the Grill. The gallery is narrow, crowded and deep with creaky floorboards and an aroma of dark wine and exotic cheese. There are a lot of older people dressed in black with silver jewelry and clean, styled hair. I’m glad I wore my hoodie over my overalls; I feel a little awkward and out of place here. It feels better to burrow in it, to know I can pull the hood up if I need to. I notice Mikey talking to Ariel in the corner. I breathe a sigh of relief: Bunny doesn’t seem to be anywhere around. They wave me over.
I look down at the bright jewels on Ariel’s sleek, flat sandals, so shiny next to my grubby boots. Did Ariel ever wear clunky clothes and hide her body? She seems eons away from anything like that. She was probably born sexy.
Ariel takes a sip of her wine. “Charlie! You’re here!”
Mikey says, “Hey, Charlie, glad you made it.” He socks me lightly on the shoulder. I give him a small smile. “This stuff is a trip, don’t you think?” He wanders away to look at the paintings.
Ariel leans down close to me, conspiratorially, like we’re best girlfriends or something. “What do you think, Charlie? My friend Antonio worked very hard on these.”
I look around carefully. They just seem like triangles and squares to me, painted in primary colors. I shrug. “They’re really bright.” I try to imagine what it would be like to have my drawings in a place like this, or any place, really. But who would come see a bunch of drawings and comics about loser kids? Or even the sketches I’ve been doing at night, alone in my room, of Mikey, of Riley? My dad?
“Boat paint.” Ariel takes another glass of wine from the buffet table. There are little pieces of bread in the shapes of hands. I nibble one. “It really shines, doesn’t it? I’m so glad he doesn’t burn his paintings anymore. So bad for his lungs, but he thought it necessary. He used to do that, you know, years ago, when we were both just frisky pups in the desert, smoking our brains out with hash and laying anybody who cracked a smile at us.”
I choke a little on the bread-hand.
“But,” she continues, examining the rings on her fingers, “he was in a Kiefer stage then. We all have our Kiefer stages, when we want to destroy ourselves in order to create. To see if that’s beautiful, too.”
She gestures across the room at a very handsome man with slick, blackish hair wound into a ponytail. He’s barefoot, wearing a gleaming gray suit and what looks like an immensely heavy turquoise necklace. “That’s him. Tony Padilla. He’s going to sell the shit out of these paintings. What about you? How is your drawing coming along? Sometimes I catch myself thinking of your drawing. That one, the man with the pills for teeth.”
“My dad.” It comes out before I can stop myself. I pinch my thigh. Stupid.
Ariel looks at me, her face softening a little. I wonder what she’s thinking.
“I see,” she says. She sips her wine. “Well, it was very good. All wrong, of course, but good. You’re not confident in that type of line work—I can tell. You need some classes. I’m teaching a workshop this July in my studio. Drawing and portraiture. Weekend warriors sort of thing for the retired set. It pays the bills, and I do love them. Unlike most of the students in my U classes, they try. They want. They don’t just assume that art belongs to them.”
“I don’t…I mean, I have a job now, but it’s just washing dishes. I don’t have any money. Sorry.”
“I know you have no money. I was once a starving artist, too. You can come and sit in. You can help me clean the studio after. How about that?” She swirls wine in her mouth, surveying the crowd of people. Her eyes move rapidly, lighting on one person, resting, then searching for another, like a bird looking for the perfect branch.
“I think, Charlie, you have talent. I do. But I don’t think you’ll get far until you examine yourself and study. Until you let yourself be your subject. That’s the exquisiteness of youth: you are allowed the luxury of vanity, of self-examination. Take it! Don’t be ashamed of yourself.”
I don’t understand half of what she just said and I know I should probably say thank you, but instead, what comes out in a rush is “Why are you being so nice to me? You don’t even know me.”
“Because when everything is said and done, Charlotte, the world runs on kindness. It simply has to, or we’d never be able to bear ourselves. It might not seem so to you now, but it will when you’re older.” Her voice is very fierce. She takes a large sip of her wine and looks straight at me.
She says, “And I do know you. I know you, Charlie.”
And for just that moment, I think I see a terrible cloud of sadness pass over her eyes.
But Mikey comes tumbling back, excited and out of breath, and Ariel’s face returns to being smooth and cool.
“I wish I had tons of money,” Mikey chatters. “I’d buy one of these. These are fucking cool.”
“Maybe that band you are always driving around will finally hit it big, Michael, and you can buy all the paintings you want.” Ariel laughs. “Charlie doesn’t like these paintings.”
“It’s not that!” I say quickly, feeling a little embarrassed. “It’s just…I like a story, I guess. I like faces, or people doing things. These seem kind of like just painting colors…to paint colors?” Talking like this makes me nervous. Nobody has ever really talked to me about art before, and I wonder if I’m saying all the wrong things.
Ariel gazes at me. “Colors by themselves can be a story, too, Charlie. Just a different kind. Come to my class. I’ll give Mikey the info. It was good, Charlie, to see you. Mikey, your rent is due, sweetheart.” She lays a hand on my arm and waves to someone across the room, drifting away.
Mikey raises his eyebrows. “Wow, Charlie, that’s cool. Ariel wants to teach you? That’s totally positive. Ariel Levertoff’s kind of a big deal, you know.” He beams at me and I let myself smile back, grateful to be caught in a good moment with him, even if it hurts a little to be so close to him. I make a mental note to look up Kiefer and Ariel Levertoff the next time I’m at the library.
He holds up two tiny bread-hands and we pretend to do battle. I don’t even care that some of the people in the gallery are staring at us like we’re just dumb kids, or that when he leaves tonight, it will be to go back to Bunny, probably, and stay the night with her. Ariel likes my drawings, she likes me, I think, and Mikey is with me. And after he walks me home, when I read the note taped to my apartment door, my heart feels even lighter, in a weird way: Come and wake me up. Five-thirty tomorrow. I promise I won’t bite this time. R
I hold the note in my hands, my skin tingling with warmth.
I left Mikey’s travel clock at his guesthouse when I moved. I’ve been relying on the sound of the other people to wake me up in time for work every morning, but suddenly, I don’t want to take a chance on being late or not having enough time. To talk to Riley tomorrow, when it’s just us.
Riley came and found me.
As I bound down the stairs to see if Leonard has a spare clock, I’m in a little bubble of warmth, just like I had with Ellis, a place I never thought I’d be again.
