Survival of the Richest

by Skye Warren

  “Sour isn’t an ingredient,” he says, sounding distracted.

  “Of course it is,” I say, glancing back at him. And then freezing when I see he’s standing directly in front of Medusa, staring at her like she has the secrets of the universe in her eyes. “Oh.”

  “Goddamn, Harper. This is… there aren’t words.”

  My throat suddenly feels dry, and I have to force myself to swallow. I feel strangely buoyant as I stand and cross the few yards between us. “Disappointing? You can tell me.”

  He looks at me like I’m insane. “This is incredible. There’s so much talent, but it’s the way it makes you feel her rage and her vulnerability that’s incredible. It belongs in the museums next to O’Keeffe and Kahlo, and even then people would stop and stare at this.”

  “I didn’t know you knew about art,” I say lamely.

  He shrugs, looking embarrassed. “I don’t, but I spent my free credits taking Ancient Greek Symbolism and History of Portraiture and the Female Gaze after you told me about Medusa.”

  My mouth must be hanging open in a way that’s decidedly unladylike, but he couldn’t have surprised me more if he said he was going to give away all his worldly possessions and become a monk. “You did?”

  “I’m a long way from an expert, but in my amateur and totally biased opinion, this painting is amazing. You have nothing to worry about.”

  “Okay.”

  Dark eyes narrow. “You aren’t convinced.”

  “It’s not a bad painting, I’m not saying that. It’s just not the painting. The one I need to show considering I’m only doing this exhibit because of the one I painted on the gym wall.”

  “Is there a photograph we could enlarge?”

  I make a face. “No, that’s not the right way. I just need to show them…”

  “Spontaneity?”

  “Rage.”

  That slow smile again, the one I still remember clearly in my mind all these years later. It’s even more poignant now, knowing that he cares about me enough to take those classes. To visit me on my exhibit when he must have a million things more important to do. “Then let’s show them rage. Should we slash everyone’s tires while they’re looking at the exhibit?”

  “I like your dedication, but parking in New York City is a logistical nightmare already without adding in guerilla artistry to the mix.”

  “Fair,” he says. “So what do you have in mind?”

  “I want to paint something new for them. Something… real.”

  “Like while they watch? Performance art?”

  The idea dawns on me with a lurch and roll, the way the yacht moved beneath me. And then I’m falling with nothing to catch me. Only someone’s here to follow me down. “What if we went to the studio right now?”

  He looks exactly the right amount of scandalized. And being the pragmatist, he glances at his watch. “It’s midnight. How long do we have before they open?”

  “Long enough.”

  For a moment he studies me, and I think he’s wondering whether he’s going to go along with this crazy plan. Wondering more than me, anyway. If there’s one thing this man understands, it’s raw determination. He’ll be in it with me.

  A brief nod. “Breaking and entering it is.”

  That’s how we end up spending all night in a fancy SoHo art studio, its walls bare and white and waiting for the paintings that are stacked in my penthouse suite. That’s how I end up painting a Medusa in swirls of purple and teal and pink using a wooden folding chair as my step stool.

  I don’t know where they planned to put the centerpiece of the show. Probably somewhere front and center, where everyone would see it first. This one’s in the back of the studio. You have to look at every other painting first and turn the corner. And then she blazes at you in all her snake-fueled glory. She turns the viewer to stone, if Christopher’s look of awe is any indication.

  He turns to me, and I’m in awe of this, of him, of his bleary eyes and the smudges of paint from helping me. Of the expression of pride on his handsome face. How did we get here?

  “I don’t want to go,” I tell him.

  “We’ll be back in a few hours. But I’m pretty sure I should shower before then.” He touches his thumb to my cheek, and it comes away teal. “Probably you too.”

  “Should we leave them a note or something?”

  He hands me one of the paintbrushes, this one tinged with dark purple at the tip. “Sign it. That’s enough of a note.”

  I didn’t sign the one I painted in the gym, but I take the paintbrush and swirl my name into the bottom right of the painting, where one of the fierce snakes writhes. “How’s that?”

  “Perfect,” he says, his gaze locked on mine.

  My breath catches. “Thank you for helping me.”

  “No, thank you for letting me be part of this. I went to college with legends in the business world, and I’ve still never seen anything close to this.”

  “Careful, or I’ll start to think you’re complaining about capitalism.”

  He gives me the slow smile. “Never.”

  It’s devastating, that smile and that ambition. Devastating the way I can’t seem to look away from him, not even when he touches my cheek again. This time he isn’t wiping away paint. He cups my face and holds me still. His head lowers in slow degrees, giving me time to stop him.

  My body is incapable of moving right now. Even my lungs are frozen, my throat locked tight. Only my heart beats hard enough to hear. It pulses in my lips, waiting, waiting for him.

  I spent a good part of the past four hours painting lips that are the focal point of this piece—lips that are full of feminine beauty and eternal regret, of desire and revenge. I’ve worked through the meaning of every rise, every indent, translated the shadows, but now that I look at Christopher’s lips, with their masculine utility, I don’t know what any of it means. There’s a secret code written all over his skin, the message plain if only I could read it.

  His mouth meets mine, and for a moment the warmth stuns me. I can only stand there under the gentle press of him, feeling the heat spread through my face and down my neck. Down my stomach and into my legs.

  He touches his tongue against the seam of my lips—a question. And I open my mouth in answer, letting him sweep inside with sleep-drunk desire. We shouldn’t be doing this. There are so many reasons why this is wrong, but his hands on my waist feel impossibly right.

  A sound comes from me, a moan that would embarrass me if I were thinking. I’m only feeling. Only falling and letting him catch me, as if we’re meant to do that forever.

  His tongue slides against mine, and it’s so intimate I have to gasp. The rush of cool air in my mouth, when he had been so hot, wakes me from the strange slumber. I look into eyes dark and heavy-lidded and more shocked than my own.

  He takes a step back, letting his hands fall away. “Shit,” he says softly.

  I haven’t kissed very many boys in my life, not enough to hear all the things they might say after they do it, but this response seems particularly disheartening. As does the way he can’t seem to look me in the eyes. “Shit?”

  His throat works. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

  Why not? That’s what I want to ask. Something to soothe this tangle of hurt and hunger inside me. Instead I say, “Is this because Medusa’s watching? She’s actually not as innocent as she looks.”

  He shakes his head. “Don’t.”

  My laugh sounds a little maniacal. “It’s kind of weird that she looks innocent at all, right? That’s not what people usually say, like, ‘oh, she has that girl-next-door look with the snake hair.’ But there’s definitely something innocent about her.”

  “Harper.”

  “She’s not shocked because you kissed her.”

  “You,” he says gently. “I kissed you.”

  “And then you said shit, which I feel like I should tell you, in case you didn’t already know, is not the best thing for a girl’s self-esteem, mythic
al creature or otherwise.”

  “I’m not sorry I kissed you.”

  “Then why did you stop?”

  “Because you’re high on adrenaline right now. And paint fumes.”

  “You’re doing the whole white-knight thing again, aren’t you? Only this time you’re saving me from you. Boys who think they know better than me are very annoying.”

  “I don’t think if I had kissed you when you opened the hotel room door, you would have been nearly as receptive. Tell me that isn’t true, and I’ll kiss you until we both run out of breath.”

  I consider lying, because I want to know what happens when we’re both out of breath. But I’m a terrible liar, which is how I got caught for doing the painting in the gym even though I hadn’t signed my name. Besides, he’s right about one thing—I wouldn’t have let him kiss me if I hadn’t been delirious from lack of sleep. Does that make the kiss more real or less?

  In the end he leaves me on the sidewalk in New York City, a heavy-lidded bellhop standing with the door open, steam rising from grates in the flush of an industrial dawn.

  The studio loses their minds, chastising me over e-mail and talking about procedures way more than any place with the words “creative genius” in their Facebook bio should. Thankfully I sleep through most of that, and by the time I wake up at three p.m., Professor Mills has smoothed things over.

  I’m wearing a forest velvet Givenchy dress with a wrapped bodice. The head curator seems a little drunk by the time Mom and I show up. “I should have had more faith in you,” the curator tells me, eyes bright with excitement and secret champagne. “The phone has been off the hook. Everyone wants a ticket, but we’re sold out.”

  I give her a hug mostly because it looks like she needs one. “Thank you so much for giving me the chance to be here. I’m sorry if I stressed you out, but I just wanted to do a good job.”

  She bursts into tears and ends up crying into my velvet-clad shoulder about how shitty the New York art scene is and how this might actually save her. Mostly I get through that encounter by telling myself that it’s not really happening, that I fell asleep slumped against Medusa last night and now I’m still sleeping under Christopher’s watch.

  Professional art movers have already brought over the other pieces, which are being carefully hung beneath heavy spotlights. Caterers are setting up a table of hors d’oeuvre with cheese and olives and sesame-seed-covered pita chips to dip into truffle hummus.

  Daddy shows up a half hour before the doors will open and squeezes me tight. “I’m so proud of you, Harper. And so glad I got to see this.”

  The words strike me as odd, and I squeeze him back. “I’m sorry you had to cancel Japan… but also not sorry. It’s no 4.0, but it’s all I’ve got.”

  “I don’t care about your GPA.”

  That makes me roll my eyes. “Sure you don’t.”

  He cups my face in his hands. “I’m serious. The world is a crazy place, but you already know that. That’s why you painted that gymnasium in the first place. I just want you to be safe and secure, and if that means making grades and doing what society expects, that’s the only reason I’ve ever wanted that for you.”

  My heart squeezes tight, because I know that’s true. Maybe he wanted to understand me better. Maybe I would have liked to understand him better, but I always knew he wanted what was best for me. “Thank you, Daddy.”

  “Now give me a tour of this show before the whole world wants a piece of you.”

  So I show him around the paintings of Medusa’s life and death. Only when we get to the final piece do I find Mom standing there, staring at it as if transfixed.

  “Hell,” Daddy breathes.

  Mom turns back with a slight smile. Her dress is glimmering and couture, showing off a figure some twenty-year-olds would kill for. She’s always been a beautiful woman, but never a happy one. “Look at what our girl did.”

  Daddy clears his throat. “She’s… incomparable.”

  Only I don’t think he’s talking about me.

  And for a moment, with both my parents in the same place, not fighting, not throwing anything, with Christopher in the same city and planning to come to my show, everything is perfect. After my childhood I should have known that perfection is only ever an illusion. A shine you put on things that are too broken to ever be fixed.

  The room is packed by the time the curator drags me to the makeshift platform to give a little speech. I give a small wave to my professor, who looks so different in a black lace dress instead of the brown tweed suits she wears to class. Christopher leans against the back wall, looking impeccable in a suit but somehow distant from everyone.

  Someone who should belong but doesn’t.

  I’m not twenty-one yet, but Mom gave me a glass of champagne. It left my throat dry and scratchy, or at least that’s how it feels as I look out at mostly strangers. They’ve been exclaiming and complimenting my work since they showed up.

  My central piece is still up for auction.

  Those display walls are glorified plywood; they don’t even reach the ceiling. The curator was more than willing to take a chunk out of the maze for the publicity. The audience seem to like the whole surprise element of the main portrait, because the auction has already risen to crazy proportions even without Daddy bidding. I’m not sure if it’s really the painting they love or the story around it, but either way that’s a lot of money for charity.

  I grasp the microphone, pretending my hands aren’t slick with sweat. Pretending my voice doesn’t quaver. “The story goes that Athena cursed Medusa with hair made of snakes and a face so horrible it would turn men to stone. We are told that she did this as a just punishment, because she was so offended that Medusa was raped in her temple. Except how would that be just, to blame Medusa for something that she didn’t want and didn’t cause?”

  The crowd looks back at me, a little aghast, a lot uncomfortable that I would talk about this while they’re wearing diamonds that cost the same as a whole car.

  “I don’t think Athena cursed her, not really. I think she gave Medusa what she wanted most—weapons to protect herself with. Power, when it had been taken from her.”

  It strikes me then, how close Daddy and Mom are standing next to each other. As if they’re a couple, when they could barely stand to talk to each other to arrange visitation.

  “Do you know,” I ask the crowd, “that there is no recorded instance of her turning a woman to stone? Only men.”

  Christopher might be made from stone, that’s how still he is as he watches me with those mysterious black eyes. It’s like he’s holding his breath, and maybe he is. Waiting to see how the story ends, even if we think we already know.

  “In the end, it wasn’t enough. Men found a way to use her, taking her power for themselves, using her head to defeat their enemies. Medusa is a cautionary tale. She always has been, but I don’t think she’s warning us away from rage.” The last words I say directly to Christopher. “She’s warning us to use it better. To use it more. That’s our power, in the end.”

  The crowd claps for me while Daddy hoots and whistles, because he can’t help but show his support for me. It feels like absolute exhilaration, stepping down from the platform and accepting the handshakes and hugs from people around me.

  Mom squeezes me in a delicate hug, and Daddy puts his arms around us both. How long has it been since they hugged me at the same time? I can’t find a memory to place this with; it’s in a box all its own. And then they let me go—too soon.

  I find myself standing in front of Christopher, a lingering smile on my lips. Even my embarrassment over the rejection last night can’t touch me now. We may not kiss again, but this man is a friend. Maybe the best friend I ever had.

  “You blew them away,” he says.

  “You helped.”

  He shakes his head. “I’m not taking any credit for lock picking.”

  “It’s a very interesting skill. You’ll have to tell me where you picked it up.�
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  His mouth opens, but I don’t hear anything. There’s a rush in the crowd, a heavy jostle that leaves me unsteady on my green-velvet heels. For a minute I think they must have released fresh trays of champagne from the kitchen. Maybe filled with bonus diamonds?

  Until there’s a scream from behind me. I whirl to see my mother kneeling on the ground beside Daddy, who has his hand clutched to his heart, his eyes staring up at nothing.

  Something dark moves through me, a sense that I caused this somehow. With my paintings or my hopeless dreams. That this is my fault.

  “No,” I whisper, but I can tell from the sound of my mother’s mournful wail, like the sound you hear far away in an untamed desert, haunting and stark, that he’s gone.

  “Fuck,” Christopher says, the word harsh.

  My head feels light, and I realize in a split second of surprise that I’m going to faint. That my body would rather shut down than face what’s happening. I’m falling, again, and this time there are strong hands to catch me.

  The funeral takes place four days later in a historic cathedral in Boston. It’s a private affair, with only me and Mom and Christopher and a handful of very close business partners. One of them gives Mom a look of undisguised hunger and makes her promise to let him know if she needs anything. Another one of them gives the same look and extracts the same promise from me.

  I walk through the whole thing in a daze. Vaguely I’m aware that I’ve taken a leave of absence from school, that I should be dealing with grief. And maybe I could, if I could bring myself to really believe that it happened. Mostly I keep waiting to wake up.

  Keep waiting for a hand to reach into the water and pull me out.

  Christopher doesn’t approach me at the funeral.

  He doesn’t write any more letters.

  It’s like a second blow, his absence, a fatal one where my father’s death has maimed me. I try not to think about it, the same way I try not to think about Daddy.