Page 77 of Totally Played
“I will, though, because every time I say it, I almost don’t believe it’s real.”
“What is?”
“That you’re my boyfriend. I just feel so incredibly lucky to have met you.”
“Me, too.”
***
The night flies past super-fast, eating, dancing, meeting a hundred people whose names I have zero chance of remembering. They reopen the gallery after the speeches, and I tell Ash I’m just going to go for another short stroll, to get away from the noise for a bit. He offers to come with me, but Red is waving him over.
“I’m good on my own. I’ll just be a minute,” I say, and he kisses the back of my hand and heads over to join Red and what I expect are potential investors.
None of the team has succeeded in booking a meeting with any of the names Red gave out in the limo. Ash chuckled as we dug into the crème brûlée, celebrating himself for not wasting the night on work. Looks like he might not get out of here completely work-free.
I sit on a bench seat in front of one of my favorite artworks of the night. It’s an abstract in blue and white, which at first glance you would think is textured, but it’s completely flat. The artist has created the illusion of textures, and I think that’s what I lovemost about it. It looks like something, but it isn’t what it seems. Kind of like me. I laugh and a woman sits beside me.
“I’m not sure my late brother intended humor when he painted this, but I could be wrong. It was so different from his other work. It was his last before…” she says, and my stomach sinks.
“Sorry, I umm, I wasn’t laughing at it. I was…”
“Relax, dear.” She smiles, the lines of many years making that expression deeply etched in her face. “I, like most people, seem to have a sense of sadness from this piece. I’d love to know what you think.”
She looks up at the large canvas, her shoulders relaxing as her head tilts a little to one side. I follow her gaze and try to see the sadness she spoke of, but I don’t get it.
“I’m not an art person, I shouldn’t have—”
“Everyone is an art person. It made you feel something, please,” she repeats, turning to me. “Tell me what you see.”
I’ve been to probably three art galleries in my life, once in junior high, once with an ex-girlfriend who criticized every single one, as if she could do better, and tonight. With Ash.
“I don’t know what your brother was trying to paint, I just…”
“Go ahead.”
“I don’t feel sad when I look at it. I laughed, because I sort of saw me,” I explain, and she returns her gaze to the artwork, as do I.
“How so?”
“I’m a twin,” I start, hoping my explanation comes out in some way that might even be remotely understood. “We’re identical, and the best of friends, but it’s always been him and me, and while I don’t think people always meant to, they treated us like we were one person. Like, we didn’t exist without the other. It was only with each other that we felt really seen. Tony is my ride or die. He knows me better than anyone. Or I thought hedid. You see, I lived my life up until a few months ago thinking I knew who I was. Then I met Ash.”
“The very tall young man you were dancing with?” she asks, and I smile.
“Yeah. I met him, and suddenly everything I thought I knew about myself changed. I guess that’s what I see in the artwork. It’s like it’s showing us something that it thinks we want to see, but really, it’s something else entirely. That probably makes no sense.”
She stands and takes a few steps closer to the artwork, her head moving slightly as she moves her gaze over it.
“I’ve stared up at this work a hundred different times, thinking I knew it, knew him. But I never saw it that way.”
“I’m probably wrong,” I say, but she shakes her head.
“No, I love what you see. I never really noticed before, but up close, every stroke of the brush is clear, perfectly placed.” She steps back, still watching the artwork. “The further I am from it, the more the image blurs into textures that don’t really exist. The rough texture there, on the right, from back here looks like shards of metal or glass shining under a cold blue light, but up close, those same lines are soft, rounded tips, warmer hues. Thank you,” she says, turning to face me, her eyes glassy under the gallery lights.
“Did he create any of the others in here?” I ask, looking at the other works around the room.
“No. And this one is on loan for only another week.”
“I’m glad I got to see it.”
