The Masterpiecers (Masterful #1)

by Olivia Wildenstein

  A shift in the air alerts me to a presence. It’s Nathan. His forehead glistens with sweat. Either he’s been running or he’s nervous. From the way he fidgets with his belt buckle, I decide it’s the latter. Another round of applause erupts somewhere in the museum. I tick off my fingers. Three. I think of what Lincoln said, about us chasing the same painting and start wandering off toward the din. Just in case. When I get to the gallery, I find J.J. beaming in front of a Persian rug. Yeah…I don’t think our riddles are linked.

  “Ivy? Did you solve yours?” Dominic asks. He’s standing right next to the graffiti artist.

  Josephine and Brook watch me, and so does the audience. One of the cameras is poised on my face.

  I put on a smile. “Almost.”

  Willing my knees not to shake, I walk out of the gallery and look at all of the paintings made with beeswax. I now understand the sneakers. The museum is a maze. I begin jogging, grazing the walls so that I can read the insignias without stopping. When I spot the word wax again, I stop to examine the subject matter: a self-portrait with no source of light. But still, I don’t move. I study it and something clicks. It’s textured, like the Dubuffet! Of course. That’s what wax does. It makes my quest easier now, as I only stop in front of paintings that have relief.

  A loud clamor resonates. Four. There are two spots left. I pick up the pace. There’s a painting that takes up an entire wall. It’s huge. And has tons of texture and color. I desperately try to locate something akin to luminaries or blood. But unless blood is neon pink and luminaries are dandelions, it’s not it. My stomach lets out an angry growl that mirrors how my mind is feeling.

  As I rip through yet another gallery, I hear a new commotion. Five! How is everyone done and not me? Their riddles must have been easier than mine! One spot to go. One spot. One. My rubber soles pound the floor. I cross Nathan’s path. His eyes are as bright as his cheeks. He’s running with a purpose. That’s when I begin to lose hope. I’m tempted to trip him, but that’s not going to help me.

  I watch him disappear into the adjacent room, his footsteps ringing like a ticking time bomb. I suck in a breath and focus on the artwork around me to snuff out the ticking. Nothing resembles a freaking light source. There’s a painting with a bunch of geometric shapes, there’s another that looks like some blown-up Japanese calligraphy, there’s a white flag, there’s a—

  I twist back toward the flag. It’s white, but textured. And there are stars on it. Stars are light sources, right? I dash to the plaque, heart crashing against my ribcage. Encaustic oil, newsprint, and charcoal. Many had to die to unite America. I have my blood and my luminaries…

  “What the hell is encaustic?” I say out loud.

  “Wax.”

  The only other person around is Chase, and he’s staring at another painting. Did I imagine his voice?

  “Wax?” I repeat.

  He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even look at me. Maybe it was some ruse to make me fail. Chase would never help me. Would he? I stare at the flag and think that it fits my riddle.

  A noise rises not far away. Nathan’s stupid sweaty face pops into my mind and I sprint toward the clamor.

  It has to be the flag.

  “I got it!” I yell the second I enter the gallery.

  I notice pity staining the onlookers’ faces. And then I notice Nathan standing beside Dominic, beaming like a stop sign.

  He got it before me.

  Chapter Eleven

  Aster

  Every inch of skin on my body burns as though it were being doused in acid.

  “Nathan. Your answer?” Dominic asks.

  The camera moves off Ivy’s face onto Nathan’s. I don’t care about his face. I care about Ivy’s. Only Ivy.

  “Looks like someone doesn’t win after all,” the long-necked guard says. Ever since I promised her the money, she’s been bursting into the dayroom to catch segments of the show.

  “It’s not over,” I tell her. It can’t be. Ivy’s the best.

  The camera slides back to her. She’s bleached all emotion from her face, but I know she’s unwell. I can feel it through our twin connection.

  “The Love Letter by Jean Honoré Fragonard,” Nathan says, his face as shiny as a glazed donut.

  Dominic shakes his head as though he has a fly buzzing around it. “No, Nathan. That’s not it.”

  It takes a few seconds for the smile to tumble off Nathan’s lips, as though each cell of skin is repositioning itself.

  “I’m sorry.” Dominic pats him on the back. “Ivy? What do you have for us?”

  She doesn’t move. I spring to the edge of the couch. “Come on, Ivy,” I whisper.

  Giraffe-neck smirks.

  “What’s the answer to your riddle, sweetheart?” Dominic asks.

  She moves forward, carving a path toward the master of ceremony. Once next to him, she says, “White Flag by Jasper Johns.” Her voice is steady.

  Dominic hisses, hiking up his lips and baring his teeth like a hyena.

  My hope shatters like the ornament Mom threw at my head during our last Christmas together.

  “Is that your final answer?” he asks.

  Her gaze coasts over the crowd, over me, but the rest of her face remains impassive. “Yes.”

  Dominic begins to clap, and then everyone claps, and I realize her answer was correct and Dominic was just being an asshole. My emotions are all over the place, like the shimmery painted glass fragments that embedded themselves in my skin. Nathan swipes his eyes. He’s crying. I want to care, but I don’t.

  The TV switches off.

  “What did you do that for?” I exclaim, twisting toward the guard. “It’s not done!”

  “For today, it is. Recreation time.”

  “I don’t want to go to the yard.”

  The guard smirks. “And I don’t want to babysit you, but I do it anyway.”

  “I’m paying you.”

  “I let you skip lunch already. Now get your ass to the yard before I do away with your little privilege.”

  I grind my teeth together and get up. The enclosed prison ground is full of people. Some are just hanging in groups on the grassy part; others are doing pull-ups on metal bars like caged monkeys. Half of them are crazy. I wonder if they arrived like this or if prison turned them into wackos.

  The temperature is sweltering. For a second, I tilt my face up to absorb the sun, but then it’s too hot. I look for shade, but there is none. Shade would be too much of a luxury. I walk over to a deserted strip of dusty pale sand and drop down. First I sit, but it’s awkward just sitting there, being stared at by the entire prison population, so I roll back and close my eyes, and replay today’s show.

  When I don’t feel the sting of the sun, I snap my lids up. Sure enough, Gill and Cheyenne are standing above me.

  “The princess finally joins us,” Cheyenne says.

  “Tired of watching your little game show?” Gill asks.

  “It’s done.”

  “Aww…did your pwetty little sister lose already?” Cheyenne asks.

  My jaw clenches. “No. Can you move? You’re blocking the sun.” I’d rather get sunburned, charred even, than endure another minute of scrutiny.

  “I’m blockin’ her sun,” Cheyenne repeats, distorting her voice. I don’t know if she thinks she sounds like me, but she doesn’t. She just sounds like an idiot. “Get any darker and you’ll turn black. That’s Firehead’s type.”

  Gill shoots her a look, which makes Cheyenne wobble away. I’m hoping Gill will go away too, but she doesn’t. Instead, she lies down next to me. I scoot a few inches away. It disrupts the sand that floats up like a dust moat and cakes my face.

  “Ever heard of personal space,” I mutter.

  “Chill. I’m not gonna jump you.”

  We don’t talk for a few minutes, but I can feel she’s there, her body vibrating inches away from mine. I roll up. She watches me, but doesn’t move.

  “You have sand in your hair,” she says.<
br />
  “Whatever. I’ll wash it out,” I say, patting it to get rid of any excess.

  I scan the yard. Women hang out in racial clusters. I realize I wouldn’t fit in anywhere. I’m too light for the African American group and too black for the whites. I stare at Gill, suddenly aware she must be breaking some code by hanging with a mixed girl.

  I tip my chin toward the group Cheyenne has returned to. “Shouldn’t you be with them?”

  “Why?”

  “You’re white.”

  She snorts. “I don’t believe in segregation.”

  For some reason, her answer makes me hate her a tiny bit less. “Because your ex was black.”

  She shrugs. “That’s part of it.”

  “What happened?”

  Gill turns to her side and props her head up on a bent arm. “Now you want to know?”

  “Actually, I don’t.” I rub my hands together and watch as a little puff of dust disperses in the air in front of me, glimmering in the bright sun.

  “She hurt me, so I hurt her,” Gill says.

  I stop rubbing my hands.

  “I found her hooking up with another chick. In our bed. I got mad. I threw the girl out, and then we had a fight and I left.”

  I frown. “And then?”

  “And then I went to the bar where I worked. It’s in a crap neighborhood, so the owner keeps a handgun under the register. I took it and went home. She was sleeping.”

  “And you shot her?” I exclaim.

  “No, I fucked her with the gun.” She gives me a wry smile. “Of course I shot her. She hurt me. She broke my heart.”

  I swallow. It feels as though the dust has coated my mouth and throat. “But now she’s gone.”

  “And she can never hurt me, or anyone else, ever again.”

  There’s something hard and shiny in Gill’s eyes, like congealed tears.

  “It wasn’t the first time she’d two-timed me, you know. She did it with a guy too. Said she was making sure she liked women best. I believed her.” She’s biting her bottom lip with her buckteeth. “You know what they say: ‘Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on you.’”

  “Isn’t it the other way around?”

  She narrows her eyes. “No. It’s just like I said it.”

  I drop it because arguing a quote is pointless.

  “Now you know my story. Out with yours.”

  Although I don’t want to talk about it again, I know she won’t let it go, so I tell her what I told everyone else.

  I don’t tell her the real story.

  Chapter Twelve

  Ivy

  After bidding farewell to Nathan, who left shortly after the evening announcement, we are sent back to our wing for dinner. I want to skip the meal, but I don’t think I could sleep yet. I’m way too wired—probably because I tasted the sour tang of elimination today.

  I take my seat at the table that is now set for six. There’s music tonight; it’s soft and throaty and fills the room. An animation is playing in the middle of the white glass top: a video of a graffiti artist creating deceptive murals full of trompe-l’oeil. As I watch him, my fingers itch with the fire to create. They long for my spools of thread and my collection of rainbow-hued fabrics. I rub my thumb and index finger together, feeling the slightly hardened skin, and ideas for new panoramas spring to mind.

  “So that was fun,” Lincoln says, her hazel eyes gleaming.

  Herrick pulls up the lapel of his purple velvet dinner jacket. “Yes. And easy.”

  A waiter deposits a fancy salad in front of me. Just a few leaves stick out from underneath a pile of cubed white cheese, diced beets, and halved cherry tomatoes.

  I sense Chase’s eyes on me. After feeling them for eight hours, I could feel them anywhere—probably even in a congested subway station. I look up from my plate and glare back.

  “Hey, Maxine, how’d you guess so quick?” J.J. asks, chewing with his mouth open. The salad dressing tinged pink from the beets is frothing around his neon white teeth. It’s disgusting, yet fascinating—and a good distraction from Chase.

  “I used to write riddles for candy companies. You know, the ones they print on the inside of the wrappers.”

  “How’d you get into that?” he asks.

  “An ex-boyfriend. He worked in marketing and got me the job,” she says, toying with the thin gold hoops hooked into her earlobes that reach her chin.

  “That’s cool.”

  “Yeah. But there’s not much use for it in the real world.”

  “Except for today,” J.J. says. He’s taken another bite, and again, his mouth is wide open.

  “Can you keep your mouth shut while you chew, J.J.?” Herrick asks.

  J.J. wipes his mouth with his wrist. “Should I be worried that you’re staring at my lips?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” Herrick says.

  “And here I was afraid the zipper of my tent would shoot up in the middle of the night and other zippers would shoot down.”

  “I wouldn’t say those things if I were you, J.J.,” Chase says. “You heard why contestant number eight got disqualified?”

  “Ivy got disqualified?”

  “Obviously not, surfer boy,” Lincoln says.

  “The one whose spot Ivy…took,” Chase says.

  “Pictures got him disqualified, not me,” I counter, my voice as sharp as the pointy blade of my seamripper.

  “What pictures?” J.J. asks.

  Lincoln pushes a curled lock of blonde hair behind her ear. “God, what planet are you from?”

  “I don’t follow the news.”

  “Really?” Maxine says.

  “If something’s important, I’ll hear about it.”

  “It’s pretty ironic, though, isn’t it?” Chase says, unfolding his arms.

  “That I don’t read the news?” J.J. asks, sponging the crumbled cheese with a piece of bread.

  “No, dickhead.” Lincoln rolls her eyes.

  “That a white supremacist was replaced by Ivy,” Chase says.

  I lock eyes with him. “Why?” I ask, daring him to voice his thoughts.

  He doesn’t, and silence settles over the room.

  After a long minute of heated glaring, I lean back. “I didn’t rig the competition. I was chosen. Based on my application. On my skill. But perhaps you did, Chase. After all, your brother’s a judge. How difficult could it have been for him to get Josephine and Dominic to endorse your application?”

  “You don’t know the first thing about me and my brother,” he says, his voice low and rough.

  “I know he got into the school, and you didn’t.”

  “Because he was older. He applied first.”

  I lean forward, the silver sequins of my shorts digging into my bare thighs. “Is that the reason, or is he just better than you?”

  Chase’s eyes grow dimmer, like pieces of sky filling with rainclouds. “Is that what Brook was telling you during the riddle hunt? That he’s better than me?”

  “Brook?” Lincoln pipes in. “You spoke to him during the test?”

  Chase nods. I’m tempted to kill him for bringing it up. I’m sure I would feel no remorse.

  “Cheating, Redd?” Lincoln asks.

  “Of course not!”

  “Then why were you talking with my brother?” Chase asks.

  And why did you give me the definition of encaustic? “We were talking about you,” I spit out.

  His thick eyebrows arch up.

  “Ooh…this is getting interesting,” Herrick says, tapping his shiny black nails on the tabletop.

  “Brook was telling me how badly you wanted to get into his school. Basically, he pleaded with me to let you win,” I say, stretching the truth, hoping Chase is too proud to check. “How’s that for fraternal love?” I scan the faces of my enemies. “Wouldn’t be surprised if he came to all of you at some point to ask you to go easy on Chase.”

  A hush falls over the table. Chase’s complexion has gone paler. For a secon
d, I think he’s going to leave, but he doesn’t. I don’t know if it’s because he’s hungry for the second course that’s just been brought out, or because he’s trying to prove a point.

  I spear a broccoli floret and place it on my tongue. Still looking at him, I chew. No one speaks. The clatter of forks and knives and the low music break the otherwise stifling silence. It’s only after the plates are cleared that someone speaks.

  “I wonder what they’ll have us do tomorrow.” Lincoln is plaiting her side pony, but doesn’t tie the ends, so when she releases them, her hair unravels and ricochets the subdued light from the sconces mounted on the canvas walls.

  “Maybe they’ll have us make something! That would be so dope,” J.J. says.

  “Not for me and Chase,” Maxine says, ever the considerate one. “Unless you know how to paint or something,” she adds, her cheeks flushing.

  “No,” he says. “But I’m sure they’d find something else for us to do. Maybe auction off what you make.”

  “Ever sold anything, Chase?” Herrick asks.

  He nods.

  J.J.’s laminated shirt gives his black eyes a feral gleam. “What?”

  “A thirty seven million dollar painting.”

  Intrigued, I sit up, my scratchy silver sequin shorts scraping my bare thighs again.

  “Thirty seven million?” Lincoln chokes out. Either a piece of the fancy multigrain and olive cracker she’s eating or the price tag went down the wrong way.

  Herrick places his elbows on the table and knots his fingers underneath his chin. “What was it?”

  Chase is leaning back with his arms crossed. “That’s classified.”

  “Oh, come on, dude, you can tell us,” J.J. says.

  Chase shakes his head. “You can’t reveal that sort of information, or you lose your clients. Confidentiality’s a primal rule of art dealing.”

  “Good thing I don’t want to deal then,” J.J. says.

  “How much did you make out of that sale?” I find myself asking.

  He raises his eyes to mine, his incredibly dense lashes sweeping up arrogantly. “My commission was ten percent.”