Page 91 of There Are No Saints

I stare at him, mouth open. “You’re joking.”

Cole smiles thinly. “You know me better than that.”

That’s true. Cole is humorless. Which, paradoxically, makes his comment its own kind of joke.

“When did you find out?”

“She texted me an hour ago.”

I’m lightheaded. The swing from horror to elation is so extreme that I think I might be sick. I’ve never had twenty grand in my bank account in my whole life. I’ve never passed four digits.

“Cole . . .” I breathe. “Thank you.”

I’m well aware that the painting sold because Cole got me in that show. Because he enlisted Betsy Voss as my broker. Because he talked me up to everyone we met. The painting is good, but in the art world, somebody has to say it out loud. Cole pushed the first domino, and the rest fell in turn.

His smile is triumphant. “I don’t back a lame horse.”

I can’t help grinning back at him. “First I’m a sculpture, now I’m a horse?”

He raises one black slash of an eyebrow. “What do you want to be?”

“I want to be talented. Powerful. Respected. Successful. I want to be like you.”

“Do you?” he says quietly. “Do you really?”

“Isn’t that what you want?” I ask him. “You said you’d be my mentor. You’d make me in your image.”

Cole is silent, as if he’s never fully considered what that might mean.

Finally, he says, “The Artists Guild is throwing a Halloween party next Saturday. I want you to come with me.”

Unable to resist teasing him, I say, “That sounds suspiciously like a date . . .”

“It isn’t. Do you have a costume?”

“Yeah. I’ve been making one with Erin.”

“What is it?”

“Medusa.”

Cole nods. He likes that.

“What are you going to be?” I ask him.

“You’ll see on Saturday.”

* * *

25

Cole

With all the time I’ve been spending watching Mara, I’ve barely been paying attention to my own work.

Marcus York rings me up to “remind me” to submit my design for the sculpture in Corona Heights Park.

“Alastor Shaw sent me his early sketches,” York says, trying to stoke my competitive fire. “They were pretty impressive . . . but I’m sure you’ve got something even better percolating in that brain.”

---