Page 67 of The Heartbreakers
“You’re the girl, not me. How am I supposed to know? A sundress, maybe? You’re making this a bigger deal than it should be.”
JJ clearly didn’t understand the crisis I was experiencing, so I decided to use what little time Oliver had given me to tear through my suitcase. I didn’t own any dresses, but I’d packed a silver sequin top I stole from Cara. After tucking the shirt into my black skater skirt and pairing it with black heels—also Cara’s—I decided the outfit was as date-appropriate as I could get under such short notice.
As it turned out, Oliver wasn’t entirely senseless. He arranged for a car to pick me up outside our hotel at a quarter to, and fifteen minutes later the driver pulled up to the curb in a chic part of town where the streets were lined with fancy restaurants and posh boutiques.
“Hello?” I said, pulling open the door at 137 North Higgins.
Oliver was waiting just inside. He was wearing a slim black suit, no tie, over a white dress shirt with the top buttons undone, and his usual messy brown waves had been styled back. “You came.” There was an amazed smile on his face, almost as if he’d expected me to be a no-show and I’d surprised him.
“How could I not?” I asked.
His mouth parted like he was going to respond, but then he took another look at me, a head-to-toe look, and said, “Stella, you look perfect.”
“You think?” I asked, and had to look away from his stare. “I was worried that—”
“Perfect,” he assured me. I felt myself blush, and Oliver took my hand. “Come on. I want to show you something.”
He pulled open the inside door, and we stepped into a very long, very empty room with wooden floors and industrial-gray ceiling rafters. The walls were painted stark white, but every few feet a piece of art hung on display, a spotlight shining on each one. When I arrived, I’d been so nervous about what I was wearing that I didn’t notice we were meeting at an art gallery. I stepped away from Oliver and walked to the middle of the room, and then I turned in a slow circle, taking everything in.
“Do you like?” Oliver asked. He was standing where I had left him with a satisfied smirk on his face.
I did. I’d never given much thought to what would make a perfect date, but now I was struggling to think of anything better than being here. This wasn’t just your regular movie and dinner—it was special, because Oliver had considered what was important to me. We walked from piece to piece, stopping to talk about each one, and he decided an oil painting by some artist called DeBuile was his favorite. A silver fork and knife were glued to a canvas filled with random splotches of bright color. Oliver said he liked it because it reminded him of a food fight.
“Where is everyone?” I asked. We’d made it halfway through the gallery before I even noticed we were completely alone.
“The owner is in the back,” he said. “I rented out the place for the night so we could have some privacy.”
“Oh, right,” I said. He didn’t mean that kind of privacy. He meant so we could keep our relationship a secret.
“Look over here,” Oliver said before I could give his previous words much thought. He pointed to the end of the row of art, and I instantly recognized a vibrant photograph on the wall. “This is why we came.”
I stared up at one of Bianca’s pictures. It was the original print, but I was more stunned by the fact that I was looking at my favorite of all her pieces, something that Oliver never could’ve known. It wasn’t the first photo of hers I’d seen when introduced to her work, but it was the one I found most inspiring.
The subject was so simple: a little girl, maybe five or six, who was playing in the street during the middle of a summer shower. Her feet were bare and the look on her face said that nothing in the world was better than being covered up to her waist in mud. In her smile, I’d recognized the sort of carefree spirit that Cara, Drew, and I all had as kids. I hadn’t felt that way since Cara’s first diagnosis, and I realized I wanted it back, if only for the shortest of moments, so I could capture the feeling with my own camera before it was forever gone.
“I…” I started to say. I wanted to tell Oliver what this meant to me, but I was breathless and I kept thinking there was no possible way to finish my sentence, to use words to explain. They weren’t enough.
“You like it?” Oliver asked. “I was trying to decide where to go tonight, and then I read somewhere that this gallery had a Bianca piece. I called just to make sure.”
“Yes,” I said, finally able to speak. Oliver was oblivious to the fact that this particular picture was one of the special few that had inspired my passion for photography.
“Good,” he said like that was the only explanation he needed. “I’m glad.”
• • •
Dinner was at a local place called Amber India three doors down from the art gallery. They let us sneak in through the back, and there was a private dining room normally reserved for large parties where we could eat in peace. Before the waitress arrived with our food, I excused myself to wash my hands. When I was leaving the bathroom, I noticed a commotion at the front of the restaurant.
“Ladies, please!” The hostess was attempting to push back a group of twenty or so girls. “If you’re not here to eat, then you need to leave!”
I rushed back to our table. “Oliver,” I said, waving him over to the door. “You’d better come see this.”
“Crap,” he said after peeking out into the hall.
“How did they find you?” I asked in disbelief. It was like the girls had materialized out of thin air.
“Anyone in the restaurant who saw us could have tweeted about it,” he explained. He pulled out his wallet and dropped a few bills on the table. “It happens more often than you’d think.”
“Okay, so what do we do?”
