Chapter 33
Alyssa turned. Nick was standing there wearing a red shirt. He’d clearly bathed in handsome before driving over. “Alyssa.”
“Hey,” she said softly. “Are you okay? From the other day?”
“Sure,” he said. Then he turned to speak with a gorgeous brunette squeezing past him. Somebody’s wife, but she caught the snub.
“Well,” Alyssa said breezily to Filip, standing nearby, “where are the drinks?” He pointed, and she went to get a glass of white wine.
She found Vanessa and asked if she needed help with anything.
“I need you to sit down and enjoy your drink,” Vanessa said.
So Alyssa did. She found a spot in the family room, off the kitchen, where a couple of other women were sitting. She’d just settled in and introduced herself when their husbands showed up, one of them deep in a conversation with Nick. He sat down on the sofa opposite her, still talking to the guy. When he saw her, his gorgeous eyes pinched a little.
The guy’s wife said, “Nick, do you know Vanessa’s friend, Alyssa?”
Alyssa gave him a tiny smile. “Uh, yeah.”
He gave her a small jerk of his head. “I don’t think they hold up as well,” he said to the guy he’d walked over with. “And you have to sharpen them more often.” They kept talking about some brand of skates the other guy was endorsing. She didn’t expect him to nibble along her collarbone here in public—although she’d have let him if he’d tried—but he was being standoffish—rude even. And she hadn’t done anything to deserve this. Well, except give him the wrong contract.
Alyssa fell into conversation with the woman next to her—was it worth planting ornamental cabbage as late as it was already? Do you really need to put celery and carrots in when making chicken stock? How often do other people vacuum their sofas? Not often, right?
And then Nick’s friend wandered off in search of snacks, and the woman Alyssa was talking to excused herself to find the bathroom. Nick turned and looked at her with obvious reluctance, like a detective at a crime scene lifting a tarp. “So,” he said. “How have you been?”
She shrugged. “Fine. You?”
“Fine.” They were silent. Nick sipped his beer. Alyssa played with her bracelet. “I wish you’d said yes when I asked you out,” he finally said.
She stared at him, stunned. He couldn’t want to see her socially now. Could he? He was pissed about the ad, and they hadn’t spoken in weeks. He hadn’t looked very excited running into her here either.
“It didn’t seem like a good idea. Because of the situation with the agency.” Your contract. I used the wrong contract.
“Oh.” He tapped his fingers on his glass, and there was another long silence. “I thought you might call. After the emergency landing the other day.”
Ah. He had wanted her to check in. That explained part of his pissiness. “I didn’t even know about it,” she said. “Alyssa told me when she called about tonight.”
A look of hurt splashed across his face, and it occurred to her that he might have thought she followed the team more closely than she did. Maybe he hoped she wanted to, because of him. “I often see Red Wheels news,” she amended. “I’ve just been so busy.”
He gave her a small nod. Then, out of nowhere, he said, “Did I tell you that I saw Monet’s Rouen Cathedral exhibited once?”
“No.” She sat forward. This was interesting.
“It’s tight in on the building, right? So it should be all hard lines and sharp angles, but it’s not. It looks like a bar of soap that got left in the bath water.” He looked pleased with himself.
“It does not!”
“It does. It lacks definition.”
“I cannot believe you said that!”
“Van Gogh was by far the better Impressionist.”
“You take that back!” People were beginning to look at them, but she was not going to let that go.
He leaned forward. “Van Gogh has an energy. A sense of movement. Have you ever really looked at his clouds?”
“They’re too strong! They look like you’ve worked so hard your whole life, and then those stupid clouds come in and blow everything away. I mean, Wheat Field With Cypresses looks like the backdrop of The Wizard of Oz.” His jaw dropped, but she didn’t care. She felt mean—just as mean as he was being, going after Monet. “Like the set for a high school production of The Wizard of Oz.”
“Oh, that’s bullshit!” Nick said. André turned to Devin, who’d wandered over and stood behind him. “My parents fought a lot,” he whispered, “but even they never went after Wheat Field With Cypresses.” Devin cracked up. Alyssa shot them a look over her shoulder.
“I don’t like Monet. Nick said. “I’ve never liked Monet.” He leaned forward, his face hard and angry, biting his next words. “He doesn’t draw well.”
Alyssa knew she was shaking. She set her glass down because she didn’t need wine on her charcoal pants. “You like Kazimir Malevich’s Woodcutter, right?” She clearly remembered him talking about it, but she wanted to get him on the record. A crowd had gathered, and there were going to be plenty of witnesses to everything he’d said about Monet.
He nodded.
“It’s all line and no charm.” She shook her head. “It looks like Malevich made it for geometry class.”
“It’s a masterpiece!”
“It’s some guy cutting wood! He looks like the Tin Man,” she said, suddenly realizing it was kind of true. “You only like art that relates to The Wizard of Oz.” She laughed harshly.
His face darkened. “Monet painted water lilies during World War I. Talk about not reading the moment! All that misery going on—millions of soldiers dying, all the empty chairs at people’s tables—and he paints a bunch of fuzzy flowers.”
“He was trying to bring beauty to a hurting world!”
“He didn’t care how much the world hurt. And he was a liar too.” He jabbed a finger at her. “You can’t trust Monet.”
She drew her breath in. This was directed at her, not a dead French artist. Even angry she understood that.
“He’s trying to make it look like he’s painting something in the moment, right? Like this is how the river looks this one instant.”
“Yes, and it’s beautiful!” she said.
“But he didn’t paint all of it wet. Some of those quick impressions were actually done over a week. He let the paint dry between sessions.” She opened her mouth, but he held his hand up. “They’ve proved it with the brush strokes—whether the paint bled or not. They know if he was painting wet on wet and he wasn’t always.” He sat back in triumph.
“He can paint any way he wants,” she said, offended.
He sipped his beer. “You can’t trust Monet.”
“I don’t think they’re fighting about art,” Devin whispered. André nodded. Alyssa shot them another look and they clamped their mouths shut.
She stood, her mouth tight, and smoothed her black sweater. She was so glad she wasn’t wearing complicated wedges right then. “You have a poker tell. When you have a crappy hand you take a drink.” A half dozen guys groaned. This revelation was going to cost them some money on poker night. “You sip when you want to stall or you have nothing. You’re a sipper.” She leaned forward. “You were drinking just now because you know that’s all bullshit. Monet painted beautiful things, and there’s a place in the world for beauty. So you can take World War I and cram it up your butt.” She spun on her heel, blurry eyes turning the whole party of staring people into a watercolor.
Nick stood too. “Oh yeah? Well, I really liked Michelangelo, but some people only pretended to. People should be clear on their feelings about Michelangelo.”
She whirled on him. “I loved Michelangelo, but you clearly don’t trust … Monet. So what am I supposed to do?”
“This is why I don’t go to museums,” André said.
“Yeah, I’m not following this,” Devin whispered back, “but they both turned bright red. Did Michelangelo paint a lot of smut?” Alyssa wheeled on them. She’d had enough of their little asides. Maybe they thought this was funny, but she didn’t. Then she realized she was in Devin’s house and thought better of ripping into him.
She went to retrieve her jacket instead, but Vanessa met her with it, threw it over her shoulders, and then wrapped an arm around her as Alyssa walked toward the door. Everyone gave way as they pushed through. Behind them Leif said, “We get to talk about World War I and his butt, right? I mean, we’re not letting that go?”
“I don’t normally kinkshame,” André said, “but that’s excessive even by my standards.”
“They’re sleeping together, right?” the Czech forward, Jakub, said. “Nobody is this stupid with someone they’re not sleeping with.”
Vanessa squeezed Alyssa tighter, and they stepped out.
“I am so sorry,” Alyssa said. “I didn’t mean to make a scene.” She never wanted to make a scene. That was low class and embarrassing. Not something a woman in a tasteful pearl necklace would do.
“Alyssa …” Vanessa started, then trailed off. She squeezed her friend’s upper arm and just said, “I’m sorry about whatever happened back there. I’ll tell Devin to make Nick apologize.” She smiled.
Alyssa squeezed her eyes shut. “It’s complicated. But I am so, so sorry I ruined your party.”
Vanessa laughed. “This doesn’t even register. Do you have any idea the kinds of things these guys will do? I’ll tell you sometime about Rolf Ingersoll wedging a jet ski in a tree.” She shook her head. “Insulting Van Gogh doesn’t begin to compete.”
Alyssa gave a little laugh that was half sniff. “Yeah, but the other guys know how he feels about Monet now. They’ll probably trash-talk him a lot.”
Vanessa gave her shoulder a little rub. “I think you misunderstand team dynamics.” She smiled warmly, and Alyssa got in her car and pulled carefully out.