To top it all off, the art felt a little too all over the place. The works in the gallery, a commodious space with garish overhead lights, were all Quentin’s early stuff, most of it created when he was first starting to make a name for himself. Some of the pieces had been commissioned by indie art museums and private collectors who’d spotted his talent before it went supernova. It was strange, but I couldn’t quite pin down Quentin’s style. His pieces ranged from shag carpets tacked onto moveable, singing walls to vintage cars plastered with colorful bumper stickers to giant, saturated photographs of women’s shoes to self-reflexive photo and video installations that attempted to capture the sinister aftertaste of the post-9/11 world of surveillance cameras and Big Brother. It made me think of the confusion that was probably on people’s faces back when counterculture folk hero Bob Dylan decided to rock out on electric guitar. The goulash of themes and styles was a little too schizophrenic for me.
“Oh shit, is that Chewbacca?” Kendra shrieked, pointing at a life-size effigy of the Star Wars character flanked by two inflatable blow-up dolls (anatomically correct ones, might I add) performing bizarre sexual acts on the blissed-out-looking Wookiee. I wondered what Han Solo would think.
“Shock value and a mishmash of commentary about American culture after the ’70s. It’s typical Generation X navel-gazing,” I complained.
“I have no idea what you just said, but WTF! Who let Chase Adams into this party?”
My heart nearly stopped at Kendra’s words. I turned and looked in the direction she was pointing, and sure enough, there he was, looking just like an angel from a Caravaggio painting. I felt little pinpricks behind the skin on my face, and a trickle of heat shot from my eyeballs all the way into the small of my belly, where little butterflies started to somersault and wreak general havoc.
Crazy, what a visceral effect this guy had on me, but looking at him was almost an artistic experience in and of itself. His hair was slicked back, and although it was the middle of October, his attire seemed to mock the idea of autumnal layers. He was wearing a gray T-shirt with a teddy bear on it (irony, I suppose), dark-wash jeans, purple-and-orange sneakers with the tongues sticking straight up, and a slightly wrinkled, lightweight blue blazer. It looked like he’d just thrown some clothes on slapdash—most likely, whatever was lying on the floor—yet he still managed to walk around with that same virtual halo over his head that I’d noticed the first time I saw him.
Everyone in the room paled next to him, including me (in my very carefully chosen, simple black-and-white sheath dress and thin gold necklace, which Kendra had described as “Audrey Hepburn chic”). I was evidently not the only one affected. At least a dozen females within close range were checking him out, and a svelte redheaded cougar and a Zooey Deschanel–looking hipster with glasses and big boobs made a beeline for him at the same time.
“Chase, whyyyyy didn’t you caaaaall meeeeeeeee? I had noooooo idea you were gonna beeeeee heeeeeere,” the Zooey chick said in a high, nasal voice, stretching out her vowels and batting her lashes at the same time. I wanted to throw up.
“Chase, darling, what are you up to these days? I’d love to see your new art. Are you still at the loft? I told my stylist all about your murals, and she was thinking they’d like to hire you to do one for them. Any interest? It could be just the thing you need to get your art launched to the next stratosphere. Think about it. George Clooney’s one of her clients.” The redhead was talking weirdly fast, perhaps in an attempt both to divert attention away from the boob girl and to keep Chase’s interest.
I rolled my eyes. Apparently, she didn’t know the guy that well if she was appealing to his desire for fame. As I made that observation, two things happened simultaneously. A small mob of girls who looked like they were about to swoon and faint circled Chase, vying for his attention—at the very moment he caught my eye.
My heart started beating double-time, even as I felt myself retracting from my body. Shit, I thought. He’s coming over!
Somehow, Chase had managed to beg off his little platoon of fans. He had a cocky smile on his perfect lips as he walked toward me.
“If it isn’t Goldilocks, and her baby boo, too!” He gave Kendra a cursory nod, at which point Kendra pierced me with an I’ll-leave-you-to-handle-this look and skedaddled off toward the wine bar.
Chase stepped closer to me, and I could smell whiskey on his breath, but as I inhaled, it was like I was breathing in a tantalizing and heady mixture of velvet and leather.
“What . . . what are you doing here?” I asked, dazed by his closeness and, as always, mildly irritated by his ability to strike me dumb and wordless.
“I’m guessing I’m here for the same reason as you—to see the man himself, Quentin Pierce.” Chase pronounced the artist’s name with such a sense of significance that I wondered whether he was serious or joking.
“You’re a fan?” I asked, trying to sound cool and disinterested.
He tilted his head to one side and sucked in his cheeks, like he was deciding whether or not to let me in on a little secret. I shifted my weight nervously. “I guess you could say . . . I have some regard for him, from way back before his work became a dog-and-pony show for all the Upper West Side flunkies.”
At that point, a video monitor close to my head turned on. Startled, I backed up so that I was practically on top of Chase. “Uh, sorry,” I said, embarrassed.
“I’d be all herky-jerky, too, if I was coming into contact with this shit for the first time,” he said drily.
The monitor flashed a few times before the screen alighted on an old interview with Quentin Pierce. I couldn’t tell who was interviewing him, but it was very cinema verité–style, with Quentin walking down an urban block and turning to the shaky camera every now and then with a comment. He was wearing a T-shirt with colorful graffiti spray-painted across it and torn, faded jeans, and his hair was scraggly and long. He even had a beard. I wouldn’t have known it was Quentin if it weren’t for the subtitle next to his face. “You know, man, whatever the peanut-gallery side commentary is trying to tell us, street art is here to stay. Banksy and Shepard Fairey have pretty much changed the art world for the better in a lasting way, so don’t believe the haters on the streets,” he said earnestly, as he took a drag from a cigarette and pointed out some murals on a street corner.
I raised an eyebrow. This was Quentin Pierce? It was a far cry from his current persona, which was fewer words and more voguing. I wasn’t all that up on fashion, but I’d say he was undergoing some kind of androgynous David Bowie phase at press time.
As if Chase had read my mind, he remarked, “That was Quentin circa 2005, way before he achieved megasuccess. Now it’s all played out. I mean, take a look at all this installation crap. Haters gonna hate and all, but let’s be honest—it just plain sucks. No innovation. Pedantic and boring. His early stuff, before any of the shit you see here, wasn’t trying to hit you over the head with a message. It was true to where he came from: the streets. It was a description of the world around him, but it was also a description of the world people like us are trying to create. None of that MTV bullshit. That’s why New York was rockin’ it in the heyday of graffiti. But then folks like Quentin traded in their tag names for big bucks from Wall Street or Hollywood—took the best parts of graffiti and sold their souls mass-marketing it to People magazine–reading drones. And now you see him back here, trying to reclaim street art like it’s some kinda gutter punk that just needs to be cleaned up a little to look presentable. Fuck that—he’s the reason anything street is so wack right now!”
I rolled my eyes. Here we go again, I thought. Chase was going to launch into one of his tirades about art. I barely knew the guy, but he was starting to sound like a broken record. “I thought you had ‘regard’ for Quentin,” I said.
Chase shrugged and got a slightly glazed-over look in his eyes. “For the person he used to be. He sure as hell isn’t that anymore.”
Chase massaged his neck slightly, and I
caught a glint of something bright in the light. My attention was drawn to a beautiful silver crescent moon around his neck. Funny, I hadn’t noticed it before.
Chase noticed where my attention had drifted and fingered the delicate pendant lightly. “It’s an apotropaic.”
“A what?”
He snorted slightly. “What, didn’t get that word when you took your SATs? It’s kind of an amulet, something to keep me safe from all the bad guys.” He leaned into me a little closer. I could smell his cologne, a deep and musky scent that made my knees turn to liquid. “Ward off the evil influences, rival taggers, shit like that.” He looked around at the artwork on the walls. “Hopefully it’ll make sure I never become a talentless hack whose business is all up on TMZ.”
“Those are fightin’ words for a guy who’s supposedly the next big bad-boy heartthrob, according to Variety,” I snapped. I didn’t care for Quentin’s work either, but Chase was really starting to get on my nerves. “I’m not understanding your beef with Quentin, given that you seem to be well on your way to stardom yourself.” I gestured to the growing crowd of lollygagging chicks closing in.
“Look at you—all jealous and shit!” Chase said amusedly, crossing his arms and stopping to consider me.
“What? I am so not jealous, Chase Adams. I’ve just been doing a little research . . . on current art movements in the city, is all.” My cheeks turned scarlet. I was stunned by the accusation, but I couldn’t exactly deny it. The fact that a small army of gorgeous women were wasting their time on this arrogant bastard should have made me feel sorry for them, but, strangely enough, I couldn’t help but wonder wistfully whom he’d be taking home tonight.
Chase chuckled almost good-naturedly. “The way you were checking me out a couple weeks ago, Goldilocks, I’m just surprised you’re not stalking me!”
“You are so full of yourself,” I said through gritted teeth, before turning my back on him to go look for Kendra.
Chase grabbed my elbow and pulled me back toward him. I gasped. My head was practically smashed against his chest, given how crowded the gallery had become in the last few minutes. I looked up, straight into Chase’s bottle-green eyes, and almost forgot how horrible he’d just been to me. He was just . . . so damn beautiful.
“Goldilocks, about the day when you and your lil’ homegirl came by?”
I frowned. “What about it?”
He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, he careened right into me, toppling the glass of red wine I’d been idly holding in my right hand (I didn’t really drink, but I didn’t want to look juvenile, either, so I’d taken the glass when Kendra had shoved it at me). I gasped as the entire contents splashed out and arced over onto my dress, spattering me with angry burgundy droplets.
“What the fuck, Chase?” Before I could react, a very angry-looking brunette with long, straight hair and a tight black-leather corset dress gave him another accusatory push.
“Jesus, Daisy, what’s your damage?” Chase yelled, not backing down.
“What’s my damage? What’s my damage, you frickin’ dickwad? As soon as I turn my back, you practically have your tongue down some other chick’s throat—and I’m sure, if you had it your way, something else, too.”
“Aww, man, Daisy. You know I don’t like it when you get vulgar.”
“My ass, Chase!” Tears of anger welled up in the girl’s overly eyeliner-laden eyes. “This is the last time I fall for your game. You won’t break my heart again!”
Daisy turned and walked away, leaving both Chase and me in a slight daze. Amazingly enough, the gaggle of girls around us seemed to close in even tighter after all the drama. Chase didn’t notice them. He turned to look at me, a strangely pained expression on his face, but when he noticed the wine all over my new designer dress, he broke out into a slightly loopy grin.
“Damn, my reputation precedes me, I guess. Cheers, Goldilocks. It’s kind of like graffiti—looks good on you.” At that, he headed off, presumably in search of Daisy.
I was fuming. Yet again, Chase Adams had managed to ruin an otherwise perfectly pleasant time for me. It was like I turned into a walking disaster whenever he was around. When Chase Adams wasn’t making my heart do backflips, he was making my blood boil.
This is way too much anger in one week for you, I told myself.
I looked around for napkins to wipe off the excess drippage, although by now I was resigned to the fact that my dress was ruined. So much for wearing it to date night with Harrison, I grumbled to myself.
At that moment, Kendra walked up to me and started to say something but then did a double take when she saw my outfit. “Nuh-uh!” she exclaimed. “That prick better not be responsible for the state of you right now.”
I sighed. “Actually, he is . . . at least inadvertently.”
“Want to head out? It turns out Quentin Pierce isn’t even here. They’re supposed to have some kind of Q and A with him over iChat later tonight. Thanks, but no thanks.”
I guess I’d already figured that our plans to romance the reclusive artist with my clear lack of interest or knowledge about street art would bottom out.
“So, are you going to tell me what happened with Chase? I want the details, woman! And who the hell were all those skanky girls around you?” Kendra looked behind her, mad-dogging the remaining cluster of Chase groupies.
I frowned as we made our exit. I could see Chase in a smoky corner, a cigarette between his lips, as he listened to Daisy, whose hands gesticulated wildly. His eyes darted toward me, the green of them piercing me like two perfect shards of glass. He took the cigarette between two fingers and blew out the smoke, his intense gaze never wavering. I turned away quickly. “I don’t know, but one thing is for sure: I am officially allergic to Chase Adams.”
Chapter Seven
It was past 2:00 a.m. Kendra was asleep, and I could hear her light snores, which had always seemed like music to my ears in my insomniac, espresso-addled state of the past few weeks. But as I sat with the covers nestled around my body, hunched over my MacBook Pro, sleep was the last thing on my mind.
The curatorship letter of interest was due tomorrow. Professor Claremont hadn’t given us much lead time, since she was asking for only a page, maximum, and also because Quentin had made an eleventh-hour decision to do the retrospective. It was already mid-October, and the plan was for it to open in early December, which meant I had to scramble if I still wanted to be in the running.
I had a bad case of writer’s block. But more than that, I was feeling dispirited by my encounters with the art world in my brief time in New York. Between the rude art snobbery of Chase Adams and the highfalutin narcissism of Quentin Pierce, I was lost. The world I had thought I’d be entering was a far cry from the whimsical Parisian cafés and salons of my high-school art books. Nobody was having civil discussions about beauty and the Muses, from what I could see. Everything was way more intense than I’d expected. The business of making and showing art was full of complicated politics and voices vying to be heard. I knew I had my own opinions, but they seemed embarrassingly simplistic compared with everyone else’s.
I looked over at the wastepaper basket next to my bed; in it was the dress I’d worn that night, a sad and crumpled reminder of my hopes and dreams . . . which seemed to be fading as fast as those wine stains were setting in.
I frowned. Get it together, Annie—quit with the melodrama, I scolded myself. You’re just as urbane and smart as all those art-school dropouts, especially Chase Adams.
All I had to do was figure out where I fit in the midst of it all. What made me special?
I had a sudden flashback to the time my mother bought our current house in Apple Creek. I was only twelve, and after years of shabby apartment living and my mom’s storing up all the money that didn’t go into my college fund, we bought a fixer-upper on the outskirts of town, close to a small wooded area with a creek and little trails that went into out-of-the-way gullies and secret picnic spots. I loved that we
were so close to nature, but the house itself needed a lot of TLC. When we first moved in, there was no insulation in the walls, and the windows and floors had to be completely redone. I even remember finding a small family of raccoons in the musty basement our first week there. The entire situation was a rude awakening about what it meant to make a home livable.
I immediately took responsibility for decorating. I went to the library and looked up color swatches in Martha Stewart Living, scouted flea markets and estate sales for handmade pottery and one-of-a-kind antiques, found exotic tchotchkes at the local Tibetan store, convinced my mom to splurge on the occasional giclée print by Chagall or Monet, knitted colorful throws cobbled together from yarn I’d found in the bargain bins at Marshalls, and even learned how to make mosaics and stained glass to add a little oomph to boring desk lamps and shabby-looking windows. We didn’t have a lot of money, but I was committed to the task of making our home beautiful, warm, and inspiring.
“Where other people saw a dump, Annie saw possibility,” my mom proudly told her friends, who always remarked on how unique and lively our home felt.
I widened my eyes. That was exactly what New York needed and was sorely lacking. There was art all over the place, but it felt mostly like a bunch of showpieces meant to impress a small, select group of tastemakers. The thing that was so awesome about art at museums like the Louvre was that most people could come to a consensus on the fact that the work was beautiful. Here, beauty didn’t seem to matter as much as the spectacle. And as much as the big city enthralled me and lit up my eyes with stars, I was damn near over the spectacle.
Good art was about making people, even those of us who lived in concrete jungles, stop to meditate on it. It would create not just an intellectual response but a felt sense that here was something special, something to be revered and awed by. My ideal art wouldn’t just catch the eye; it would also capture a viewer’s soul.
That’s when I got my burst of inspiration.
So Damn Beautiful (A New Adult Romance) Page 6
