Page 70 of No Place Like You

“How old is she?” I ask, dipping my head down a little.

“Nineteen,” she answers. “She’s still really new to the scene, but she’s doing such amazing work.” Janet flags her toward us, and she breaks away from the crowd. “Avery,” she says when Avery reaches her side. “This is my brother Dexter and his girlfriend Lucy.”

Lucy eyes me when Janet says the word “girlfriend,” but that moment passes when Avery extends a nervous hand in our direction. Lucy takes it, offering a soft smile with her gentle handshake. “It’s nice to meet you,” she says calmly, without any overexcitement or intensity. “Janet has told us a lot about your work.”

Avery blushes a bit and looks at Janet.

“I actually asked Lucy to take some pictures tonight,” Janet says, reaching up to squeeze Avery’s arm. “Just something to document your first big show.”

Avery turns to Lucy and smiles. “Thank you,” she says gratefully.

“Of course,” Lucy answers. “And I’ll be in complete stealth mode,” she adds. “You won’t even know I’m here. Candid shots are my favorite. There’s such a genuine feeling to them, and I think it’d be perfect as a little memento for tonight.”

Avery looks relieved when Lucy tells her this. But before we can say anything else, Avery and Janet are pulled to another part of the gallery by more people. They walk away, and Lucy retrieves her camera from the bag hung over my shoulder. We don’t know exactly where Avery’s paintings are located, but we find them fairly quickly. Her name is labeled on them, and after some browsing, we discover that her paintings have a very specific style that translates into all of her work.

Lucy takes a few pictures, catching people admiring and discussing in soft gallery voices the style of Avery’s paintings and the color schematic she uses that’s a bit unconventional but striking in contrast. She gets a few of Avery talking to people in front of her paintings, laughing and chatting abit livelier, noticing that she’s growing a bit more comfortable and coming out of her shell as the night goes on.

Lucy’s a complete pro. She moves artfully, working around the lighting and chaos like it doesn’t deter her from getting the shot she’s looking for. When she quickly shows me a glimpse of her handiwork, she smiles proudly at my reaction. It looks stunning. With the gallery lights shining a spotlight on the main focal point, making it pop against the low shadows around it. But what stands out the most is the reaction of an onlooker admiring the artwork. She’s staring up at the piece of art like she’s been transfixed by the beauty of the colors and shapes, and it’s conveyed through the image Lucy captured like I was there to see it for myself.

As she moves along from painting to painting, she urges me to leave her be so she can work and even tasks me with bringing Janet a drink and a plate of some cheese and crackers from the small bar in the far corner. I do as I’m told and catch Janet just as she’s stepping away from making her rounds through the crowd.

“The boss said to bring you something,” I say, lifting a small glass of white wine and the plate.

She lowers her mask and keeps a watchful eye on the crowd around her. “And the boss being…”

“Lucy.”

“Ah, of course.” She nods and takes my offerings.

“Thanks for inviting us,” I say as I watch her practically inhale a cracker. Looks like she’s getting a bit of her appetite back. “Lucy’s having fun,” I add.

“Thank you for bringing her,” she says, nodding her head in Lucy’s direction, where she has her camera pointed at us. She pulls her face away from behind the lens and smiles. I gesture a small wave, and she wiggles her fingers at me. “I like her,Dex.”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“I like her a lot,” she adds.

We stay quiet, the weight of her words settling around us. I haven’t kept anything from my sister. She knows the agreement Lucy and I settled on, the impermanence of our situation and what feels like a contract that can’t be reversed or revisited. Yet when she tells me something so simple like how much she likes Lucy, not just for me but as a person, it feels like hope is weaved into her words. Like maybe we can hash out a new deal, one that won’t end with a slew of promises ready to be broken with thousands of miles between us.

“Avery won’t stop thanking me for having Lucy take her pictures,” Janet says, breaking our silence. “She’s really shy and didn’t want to keep pulling out her phone or stop people to take pictures with her, but this is her first show and she wanted to remember it. And Lucy’s really on stealth mode. I don’t think Avery’s even noticed that she has a little paparazzo lurking from the shadows.”

“Yeah,” I respond. “She’s pretty amazing.”

Lucy caught on to that, Avery’s shyness and her difficulty in approaching people for something as simple as a picture. That’s why she said she would go throughout the night unnoticed, so Avery didn’t have to worry about having a camera shoved in her face. She has this way of accepting people for who they are without pushing them beyond their comfort zone. She’s done that with me every time Janet’s illness is brought up, and now she’s doing it with a complete stranger. She didn’t force Avery into situations where she would have to take awkward pictures. And every time I’ve wanted to expose more of myself to her, it was on my terms, whatever I was comfortable offering. It’s no wonder things feel so effortless with her.

Janet finishes the last cube of cheese on her plate and looks around the room. “I’m going to finish up with some of the sales and head home.” I turn around to look at the span of the gallery and find the crowd of peoplehas dwindled down to only a handful lingering throughout some of the open spaces. “You guys should head home too.”

“How about you? We can wait.” The “we” slipped, and the significance of it passes through me with a hitch. An incredibly hard to ignore, yet brief hitch.

“Charles should be here any minute,” she says, looking down at her watch. “He had to stay at the office a little late. You know, to make up for some of the time he took off. But he said he’d meet me here to take me home.” Just then, we see Charles walk through the doors of the gallery and spot Janet. “Ah, speak of the devil.”

“Okay,” I answer, finding Lucy across the room chatting it up with a bartender while she waits on a drink. He smiles a little too widely at her, and she smiles back, tugging at the strap of her camera hanging around her neck. “I guess we’ll call it a night too,” I say to Janet while I keep my eyes across the room.

Janet’s gaze follows mine, and I can practically feel her shake her head next to me. “Alrighty, lover boy,” she says, patting my back. “Go get your girl.”

I press my lips together, not even bothering to hide my undeniable jealous side, and swoop down to hug my sister just as Charles approaches our side. I nod a quick hello in his direction and walk my way to the bar.

“You have to check out the Met while you’re here,” I hear the bartender tell Lucy with a bounce of excitement in his voice. His hands are braced along the counter he’s leaning against, and I fully notice the way his eyes trail the length of her body. “They have an amazing photography exhibit. As a photographer?—”

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