Chapter 16
Sixteen
Pete meets me at Ivy’s garage the next day. We put on some music and start sorting through the scores of paintings I’ve amassed over the past few years. I had what I thought was my best work shipped from England when we moved here, but I’ve barely looked at it since then. It’s strange to study those pieces now. I see the technical proficiency in them, but there’s also something different about them from the pieces I’ve worked on in the States; a different feel, a different energy. Almost like they were painted by someone else.
Pete has a good eye, and he’s not emotionally attached the way I am, so he combs through the canvases faster, indicating two general types he thinks we should present to Fernanda—my English coastal landscapes and my New England architectural paintings.
“What’s that?” he asks, pointing to the canvas on the easel with the foam board covering it.
“Oh. Well. Something new.” I bite my bottom lip.
“Can I see?”
I can’t think of any sensible reason why he shouldn’t.
“It’s not quite finished,” I warn. I don’t know why I haven’t been able to complete it. I pull the cover away.
Kingston’s face looks back at us, three times life-size. Today the set of his lips seems knowing instead of contemplative.
Pete makes an aborted sound, then takes a couple of steps back from the painting. “It’s… not what I was expecting,” he says, glancing at me quickly. “Not that I was expecting anything. But wow, it’s—you have to show this to Fernanda, Toby.”
“Why? I don’t have anything else like it.”
“For one thing, it’s gorgeous.” Now he steps closer to the painting and peers intensely. “You know the way you have of making your buildings look more real than real? You’ve done the same magic trick with this. It’s Kingston, a Kingston that looks so real he could start talking to us. But it’s not a photograph. It’s remarkable.”
“I used some photos as a reference.” I show him the stack of them on the workbench. “I was just, I don’t know, taken up by it.”
“You haven’t done any other portraits?”
“I have, over the years.” I try to make it sound like it’s not a big deal, as if I tossed this one off in an afternoon, instead of being consumed by it for weeks. “But not lately. Just this one.”
I wonder if he can hear what I’m not saying. Just Kingston.
As if a handful of puzzle pieces all click together in his head at once, he swivels his neck quickly, like a bird, and eyes me steadily.
“Toby.”
“Pete.”
“Are you and Kingston—is that why you and Ivy—not that it’s any of my business, it’s just Kingston is one of my oldest friends and?—”
I rush to reassure him. “No, and no, and Van gave me this speech yesterday. Kingston and I are friends,” I say firmly. “And roommates, at the moment. And he has nothing to do with Ivy and me splitting up. That was a long time coming.”
He looks relieved, and I feel slightly disingenuous, but all of this is true. Yesterday, I vowed to put away those inconvenient feelings for Kingston. I’m trying my best.
We move on, finish sorting out the paintings, and I put the ones I won’t show Fernanda together in the corner.
“Nice of Ivy to let you keep this place,” Pete says while we tidy up.
“She’s a nice woman,” I say. “But I have been trying to find somewhere else. The Art Center doesn’t have any free studio space just now.”
“Hmmm. Let me think on it,” Pete says.
“You know, you don’t have to solve everyone’s problems for them,” I say. “You’ve already done so much for me.”
“What are friends for?” Pete says it so unironically that I have to laugh. “What?” he asks.
“You’re an odd duck, Pete. Most of the people I’ve met in the art world with your level of success are egotistical jerks, competitive and cutthroat. But you put your hand out to pull me up like it’s nothing.”
“You know I was burned,” he says simply, not sounding sorry for himself, or even angry. “And it took the support of Jack and Kingston and my friends at the Art Center and eventually Fernanda to not only put my art front and center again, but to really heal from those burns. I came to Rosedale to hide, to heal, but it didn’t really work until I let people help me. I guess I see myself in you, trying to do it on your own so hard you’re holding yourself back. But it’s not cheating to make friends, to make connections. That’s being part of a community. And if you never want to join that community and step outside of Rosedale, well, that’s fine. But I truly think you can handle it out there in the big, bad art world.”
“That’s quite a declaration,” I say, trying to stay professional and not break down at the simple kindness of being included in the community he’s describing.
“Accepting help isn’t the same as using people,” Pete says. “Believe me, I know the difference.”
“Thank you,” is all I can think to say.
And by Pete’s answering smile, I know that’s all he needs to hear.
I’m nervous the next morning getting ready for Fernanda’s visit. She’s taking the train in, and Pete’s going to pick her up at the Rosedale station. He’ll bring her directly to the studio and then we’re all going to the Greystone Inn’s dining room for a fancy lunch that I’ll have to put on a credit card but have already decided I absolutely cannot allow Pete to pay for.
“What is going on in there?” Kingston asks, knocking on my door. “It sounds like you’re tearing down a wall.”
“No.” I yank open the door and gesture to my bed, which has every article of clothing I own on it, except the baggy gray shirt and dark green boxers I’m currently wearing. The boxers I had on to sleep in—even with the air-con it’s been too warm to go to bed in much beyond underwear, especially with the heat generated by my feline companion. “I’m having a really hard time deciding what to wear and I got my suitcase down from the top of the closet to see if I had magically forgotten some perfect outfit in there and I dropped it.”
“What, you can’t decide between which black sweater and which pair of paint-covered jeans?” he deadpans.
“Kingston, not helping,” I wail.
He chuckles. “I don’t think it really matters. You’re an artist. Artists are always given a pass on their clothes. You could wear a traffic guard vest and she’d think you were making a statement.”
“But I don’t have a traffic guard vest,” I say. “I have wrinkled T-shirts.”
“Hey, it’s going to be okay,” he says, his voice soothing. “This isn’t about clothes, is it?”
“It is partly,” I say mulishly.
“It’s going to go fine. I’ve met Fernanda, and she’s actually just a regular human being, you know.”
“She’s an art agent,” I correct. “A powerful one.”
“Not a space alien,” he says firmly. “Now, how about these?” He goes to my bed and holds up my one pair of black jeans.
“Aren’t skinny jeans out?”
He rolls his eyes. “Now you care about fashion?”
“Fine.” I snatch the jeans from him. “What else?”
“Don’t you have a blazer somewhere?”
“It’s too hot.” I know I shouldn’t be complaining; my nerves are definitely getting the better of me.
“Hang on.” He disappears.
I’ve changed into clean underwear and the black jeans by the time he comes back holding three items on identical soft gray hangers.
He holds up a dress shirt in some thin material, a busy pattern of bright flowers that’s much more his style than mine, if I can claim to have any style at all. He shakes his head and switches it to the back of the options before I can even veto it. Then he lifts a T-shirt, plain white with a reproduction of an Andy Warhol lithograph on it. He keeps his T-shirts on hangers?
He misreads my expression and asks, “Too on the nose?”
“Too big—Kingston, your clothes aren’t going to fit me.”
“Why not? We’re practically the same height.”
I stare at him. “You can’t be serious. Your shoulders are like twice the breadth of mine.”
The other morning, when he came into the kitchen in only his pajama pants, I couldn’t help noticing that those shoulders, always hidden behind his carefully curated layers, were surprisingly powerful, his chest not bulging with muscle but more developed than my own thin frame. He has one of those inverted triangle builds that if I were a sculptor, I’d love to try to capture in marble. Perfect proportions and miles of smooth skin to run my hands over.
But I’m not a sculptor. And I’ve already trespassed against him by painting his portrait without permission.
“I think you’re underestimating yourself, or overestimating me,” he says casually. “Just try it, with this.” He hands me the last of his finds—a lightweight linen jacket, white as a narcissus flower. When I slip it off the hanger, I notice the store’s tag is still pinned to the sleeve and glimpse the price.
“You spent six hundred dollars on this? And you’ve never worn it?” I hastily try to shove it back into Kingston’s hands, but he laughs.
“It was on sale. I think. And I was saving it for a special occasion. It turns out I was saving it for your special occasion. Try it on. Please?”
Since I owe him way more than that, I nod and shut up. Off goes the gray shirt, on goes the Andy Warhol. It’s a little baggy, but when I slide the jacket on top, I don’t think anyone will be able to tell. The jacket itself feels like butter against my arms, and when I look in the mirror, I see someone hip and fashionable staring back.
I close my eyes. I’m such a fraud.
“What—you don’t like it? Because you look amazing,” Kingston says easily.
“No, it’s great.” I open my eyes. “Thanks for your help. You could have a second career as a stylist. I just—I’m not scared she’s not going to like my stuff. I’m scared she will like it. What if I’m not ready, not good enough, for what comes next?”
He comes up to me, and for a second I think he’s reaching for my hand, which causes my heart to speed up in surprise—in hope?—but he’s actually reaching for the tag. He carefully unhooks the microscopic safety pin holding the tag to the inner seam without touching me.
“Toby, take it one step at a time. You won’t know if you can handle it until you’re doing it. But you’ll never find out until you take that step. And I think you’re ready. Pete does, too. And if you need help, you’ve got it. We’ll be there for you, all right?”
He waits for me to nod. From this close I can see the swirling browns in his eyes, the individual hairs in his tidy new beard. It frames his full lips and all I’d have to do to feel them against mine would be to lean forward.
But that would be taking much more than I’ve been given, and so much more than I deserve.
“Thanks, Kingston,” I whisper. Louder, I add, “I’m ready.” I might not entirely believe it, but I owe it to him to pretend that I do.