Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
The phone rang twice.
“Hello?” Logan’s voice sounded rough, like I’d woken him up.
I glanced at the clock over the microwave. Must be nice. “Were you sleeping?”
Logan yawned. “No.”
“Sounds like you were sleeping.”
“Well, I’m not now.”
I twirled the phone cord on my finger and leaned against the wall. “Is this your life? You make six figures while sleeping past noon?”
“I didn’t realize I was talking to my mom.”
I rolled my eyes even though he couldn’t see it. “I’m just jealous.” I could’ve slept in if I wanted, but my head was too full to stay in bed. “It’s Crystal, by the way.”
“Yeah. I know.”
My heart sped up. It was weird talking to him one-on-one like this. “I got your message.”
“Oh. I thought you were just calling for fun.” A smirk was audible in his voice, and I squeezed my eyes closed to erase the mental image of him lying shirtless in bed.
“Nope.” It took me a minute to remember why I called in the first place. “So, Saturday.”
“Yeah.”
I slid down the wall and sat on the floor in the doorway to the kitchen. “Are you serious that I’m invited to meet Norman Marcus?”
“Why do you keep saying that like he’s a god or something?”
“Because he is.”
Logan chuckled. “I didn’t know you were into sixty-year-olds.”
“Well, there’s a lot you don’t know about me. And he’s a total silver fox.”
“So is my dad. Are you into him, too?”
I laughed. “Depends. Does he own art galleries?”
From the rustle through the speaker, I gathered Logan was shifting on the bed. He grunted. “Not that I know of.”
“How did your dad become friends with Norman Marcus?”
“Just call him Norman.”
“No.”
“It’s weird that you keep saying his full name.”
I kicked my feet up on the opposite side of the doorframe. “Deal with it.”
Logan blew out a breath. “It’s my mom.”
“What?”
“My mom is friends with him, not my dad. She’s an artist.”
My mouth dropped open. Logan’s mom was an artist? How had that never come up before? “What’s her medium?”
“She paints, but it’s over this rough surface, kind of scuffed and destroyed. I don’t know how to describe it.”
I had a thousand questions. “Does she sell it? Or display it anywhere?”
“She sells to galleries, yeah. They’re in a few places in town.”
WHAT. Shar was going to get a talking to. She could’ve at least mentioned this before everything went down last winter. “That’s incredible. I’d love to see it.”
“Serious?”
“Yes, I’m being serious.” I shouldn’t have sounded so shocked. It was a fair question, considering I’d given him ninety percent sarcasm in all of our in-person conversations up to that point. But that was before he started speaking my language.
He blew out a breath against the phone receiver. “Okay.”
We both paused, and my heart got nervous and jumpy at the sudden silence. “So if your mom knows Norman Marcus—” I left in the last name just to mess with him, “how are you not giving him the respect he deserves? You must know who he is, and yet you want to call him buddy Norm—”
“I don’t really know who he is.”
I made a noise that was half gasp, half scoff.
“Logan, he’s the guy. Norman Marcus has been consulting for the Glenbow since before we could walk.
The man once petitioned for the National Gallery to feature a canola field painted by a man who was legally blind.
People quote his critiques like scripture.
My first year at Douglas, I skipped a midterm review to watch him speak at the Rozsa.
He’s—” Even without seeing Logan’s face, I could tell I was losing him.
I needed to make this more relevant. “He’s the Pavel Bure of the art world.
Everyone’s copying his moves and pretending they came up with them first.”
Silence. Then an “Oh, Shit,” from Logan.
“Yeah.”
“So this is a big deal.”
“Correct.” I pinched the bridge of my nose.
Maybe that was the key to life, never understanding the weight of your actions.
“Ignorance is bliss” and all that. Here Logan was, casually setting up breakfast with the man who curated Bodies Held.
Provocative rebar torsos hanging from steel cables.
I wrote an entire paper on it. That show rewired my brain.
“He just seems like a normal guy. He’s been around since I was in high school,” he went on. “My parents host these dinners. Charity and art events. I just thought he was rich.”
I laughed. “Well, he is that. Has he ever shown your mom’s work?”
“Yep. A couple of times. She has this new series she’s doing. I think he’s going to feature it in the new space.”
Hope fizzed in my chest. This was the opportunity of a lifetime. To have an in? To be able to meet Mr. Marcus through an artist he already appreciated?
Impostor syndrome immediately set in. What would I even say to him? Would I have anything to offer besides sweat equity?
I shifted on the floor. My left leg was going numb. “He’s not going to take me seriously.”
“Join the club.”
“What does that mean?”
Logan sighed. “Nothing.”
“Doesn’t sound like nothing.” I held my breath, wondering if he’d open up. Then chastised myself when I realized how much I wanted him to.
This was Logan. Selfish, egotistical, Logan. But as much as I tried to activate the anger I’d felt in the grocery store, I could barely get it to spark. He was doing something nice for me. For no reason. At least . . . not that I could see.
“So, what do you even bring to something like this? Do you show up with a briefcase or something?” Logan asked.
I snorted. “Do I seem like a briefcase person to you?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “What does a briefcase person look like?”
“Like Maddie.”
He barked a laugh. “Yeah. Fair.”
“I’ll bring slides,” I said, warming up now. “Photos, my sculpture pieces, maybe a one-page artist statement.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s like when reporters ask what kind of player you are and you say ‘I’m a team player, I trust all these guys.’”
Logan laughed out loud. “You watched that interview?”
“It wasn’t an option not to watch it. It was playing on every TV on campus.“
He sighed. “I meant what I said.”
“No you didn’t! You aren’t a team player, you want to bury the puck.”
“Maybe I’m not the same person I was last year.”
“Uh, maybe you are.” I wasn’t going to admit I’d watched one of his preseason games. It just happened to be on one night when I had the flu from hell. It was stranger than fiction to hear the commentators saying his name.
His laugh came back softer. “People can change, Crys. Uh, Crystal. Sorry. I didn’t—”
“My brother calls me Crys.”
There was another rustle of fabric against the speaker. “Do you like your brother?”
Was he joking? I waited for a chuckle but it didn’t come. The question made me pause. Had I ever considered whether I liked my siblings? “I think so.”
“You think?”
I launched into an explanation of how my brother always messed with me growing up.
There were plenty of times I hadn’t liked him, and he was still able to get under my skin with barely a look, but all of that was kind of exactly why I liked him.
We had all that history together. There was nobody else on earth who knew me like him.
Logan told me about the cousin he grew up with, the closest thing he had to a brother besides his hockey teammates. How he still felt like Rob was family, even though they barely talked anymore.
That reminded me of a spat with my sister, which then took me into a diatribe about my dad’s workshop, the place that sparked my love of art.
I had just scooched onto the edge of the carpet and flipped onto my stomach, propping my head on my free hand, when Jenna’s feet appeared in front of my nose.
I craned my neck to look up.
Her arms were crossed. “You’ve been on the phone for an hour.”
My brows pinched. “What?” Wait, when had she gotten home? I didn’t even hear the front door open and shut. I held the receiver to my shoulder. “Were you in your room?”
“No, I came in fifteen minutes ago.”
“Then how do you—”
“Because I tried to phone you from campus. They were giving out free pizza in the quad.”
I considered making some argument about how this was a second phone call, but thought better of it.
I flipped the phone back into place against my ear. “Hey, I have to go. My roommate needs the phone.”
“Oh, yeah. Sure. See you tomorrow.”
I scrambled up from the floor. “Wait, give me the details again.”
He rattled off the time and address, and I scrawled them on the notepad.
Logan waited, then asked, “How is everyone?”
“Uh, you mean the team?”
“Yeah. Or whoever. You know, just people at Douglas.”
I set the pen down on the counter. Did he sound a bit defensive? “I think everyone’s good.”
“Again with the thinking.”
I laughed. “I don’t see people as much as I did last year. You know, with Maddie and Chase and Shar and Rob—” I cut myself off, realizing I’d treaded into awkward territory. “You know how it is. They’re doing their thing.”
Logan grunted again. “Team’s doing well, at least.”
“Only a couple of games in. First tourney games are tomorrow.” I thought back to Rory, Axel, and Jake.
Maybe I should put more effort into those relationships.
I thought Jake was only a fling, but if he was here?
If I could get something going, and he got along with my friends?
Then I wouldn’t be a fifth wheel. We could actually triple date and—
“Crystal!” Jenna made an exasperated noise.
“Right. Okay, sorry, I’ve got to go.” We said our goodbyes, and when the dial tone buzzed in my ear, I clicked the phone back into place on the wall mount. I expected Jenna to swoop in and grab it, but instead, she still stood a few feet away, watching me.
“What?” I asked, not loving the smug look on her face.
“Who is he?”
“Uhhhh, just a friend.” By the triumphant gleam in her eye, I knew I’d hesitated too long.
“You said ‘your roommate.’”
“So?”
Her smirk curled at the edges. “Any friend would know your roommates' names. He’s new.”
I rolled my eyes and walked past her into the living room. “I make new friends all the time.”
“Not men! Who you talk to for an hour!” she called after me as I hustled into my room and shut the door behind me.
In hindsight, running away with my tail between my legs was probably not the best way to prove my innocence.
I flopped onto the bed and turned my alarm clock toward me. Had it really been an hour? The whole conversation had felt like five minutes.
I closed my eyes and blew out a breath. If I talked with Logan for an hour, I clearly wasn’t getting enough socialization. My stomach grumbled, making me regret that conversation for more than one reason. There was never a good excuse to miss free pizza.
BUT.
Tomorrow I was going to meet Norman Marcus.
I grinned at the ceiling. Logan shouldn’t have made a big deal out of it. When he was around, I was eternally bound to speak Norman’s full name.