Chapter 15
The rest of the afternoon flies by, and before I know it, we’re running late for the show. I spend the whole ride to Harlem watching my phone, willing the traffic to ease up so we can make up some time. And apparently, I’m not subtle about it.
“Is it working?” Ro says, his eyes still straight ahead.
“Is what working?”
“That death stare you’re giving the clock. You figure out how to freeze time yet?”
“I can’t stand you,” I say, smiling big so he knows I’m joking. “I feel bad. I don’t want you to be late because you were trying to entertain me. And yes, for your information, it is working. Pretty sure I shaved thirty seconds off the clock. So, you are welcome.”
Ro laughs. “Well, I appreciate you looking out, but don’t worry about me. It’s an art show. The walls aren’t going anywhere. We could be an hour late and still be right on time.”
Luckily, we’re not an hour late, but we’re pushing it. You’d never know it though by watching Ro amble across 125th Street, looking around at everything and nothing at all, like it’s the most fascinating thing he’s seen all day.
“Don’t we need to get in there?” I ask, trying, unsuccessfully, to hurry him along. “What are you doing?”
Ro grabs my hand. He does it to slow me down, but even after we fall into step, he doesn’t immediately release me. My breath slows to match his lazy rhythm. Coming and going as evenly as Ro’s steps.
He continues scanning the street as we walk. No longer holding hands, but still together.
“What?” I ask, unable to deny my curiosity any longer.
“Nothing. Everything. There’s so much going on out here. So much inspiration if you pay attention. I’m just paying attention.”
“Should I expect your next piece to be an ode to that street vendor?”
Ro laughs, and I claim the breathy sound as a victory.
“It’s not that literal. It’s more about the energy of a place. The texture of it. How it feels to be here, now. All of it sits up here,” he says, tapping his head. “Becoming whatever it’s gonna be.”
Ro leans into me, and past the heat of his bare arm on mine, I try to focus on his words. He points as he speaks so I can see what he does.
“Those lines of that old building. That shadow, there, under the busted streetlamp. The curve of that door. All these paper-thin blades of grass shooting up around this hydrant. Because life’s always gonna force its way through.”
He pauses, and without permission, my heels rise from the cement. My toes working to get a little closer to whatever his next words will be.
Ro reaches a hand out toward my face, and I don’t know if my feet will ever land on solid ground again.
“The way this curl moves with every step you take when you think we’re late.
” His fingers never meet my skin before he lowers his hand, letting it drop back down to his side.
“I wanna remember it all. And one day, I’ll paint it.
In ways I can’t even recognize. But it starts here,” he says, gesturing to the city around us. “If you pay attention.”
“You’re so lucky you get to see the world like that.” I wish I could crawl inside Ro to feel the way he does. “I don’t think my brain works that way.”
“It’s mostly conditioning,” he tells me. “Practice.”
I nod in near understanding, but I want to hear it in his words, so I can hear it exactly.
“I remember being a kid—my teachers used to tell me to stay focused. Stay on task. Finish fast, finish first. They’d praise me when I got from point A to point B with as little interruption as possible.
But I don’t think it’s about how much you can get done in the shortest amount of time, all at the same time.
The beauty’s in the detours. Life’s in the detours.
Those moments in between the things we’re told to care about.
But it’s hard to train your brain to go against what you’ve been taught.
It’s hard to slow down. It not a talent you just have. It’s a discipline. A resistance.”
That familiar calm washes over me as I watch Ro’s hand dangle at his side. I don’t think I would’ve noticed it just moments ago, when I was racing down the block like the world was on fire. Running scared so I didn’t become somebody else’s inconvenience.
I would’ve missed it.
Missed seeing his long, delicate fingers curled around the thick summer air, heavy with promise. His hand, palming vacant space, waiting to be filled.
Seeing, though, is only half of it. Because I still don’t let myself reach out to fill the space between his fingers with my own. I hesitate just a second too long, until a couple spills out of the studio, and the moment passes us by.
Ro catches the door to hold it open for me, and I clasp my own hands together to fill the sudden loss of our connection. Shrugging off my disappointment as I pass him to enter.
“Maybe the world would be better if it were run by artists,” I say as I step inside.
And the bass of his voice rattles the air at my back when he whispers, “Maybe one day we’ll get to find out.”
—
I didn’t know I had an image of what we’d be walking into tonight, but I must’ve, because as soon as we’re inside, I realize just how wrong I’d been.
This studio isn’t the sterile white art cliché of my imagination.
There are no suited-up cater waiters passing tiny glasses of boiled shrimp and cocktail sauce.
Instead, it’s a neon-lit halal street truck that had to have been deconstructed and rebuilt inside to fit through the doors.
There’s no delicate champagne flutes clinking along to classical music.
The liquor is brown and the bass line is turned up.
This place is real and alive, and it makes me feel alive too.
Heavy wood beams run overhead. Floor-to-ceiling windows perfectly framing the city like a postcard. The whole place and everyone in it is a work of art. But surrounded by elegantly wrapped turbans and slinky dresses, I suddenly feel very Connecticut.
Ro’s hand finds the small of my back as he directs me farther into the space. Without pausing to think better of it, I settle into his touch. Throughout the day, I’ve become more used to his hands on me—always innocent, but growing more familiar.
I’ve also come to expect heads turning to seek Ro out as he passes. It’s been like that all day, but it’s different here. People don’t just turn to observe him, they smile and nod in recognition.
A particularly enthusiastic voice shouting “Ayyye!” rises above the indiscriminate murmurs of the crowd.
Ro’s face lights up as a man with a well-oiled salt-and-pepper beard and black linen pants reaches past me to dap him up. “Wasn’t sure you’d make it out.”
“Ah, you know I wouldn’t miss it,” Ro says, stepping back to bring me into the conversation. “Kaia, this is Paul. He puts this exhibit on every year.”
“Hey,” I say, ignoring Paul’s obvious and prolonged appraisal of me. “It’s nice to meet you. This place is incredible.”
“Dope, right? Unfortunately, it’s only ours for the night.”
Paul must see the confusion on my face.
“We’re at a different venue every time,” he explains. “It’s how we get new artists to come through. Helps us keep it fresh. That way we’re more accessible to young up-and-comers in different communities. We’re out in Greenpoint in a few weeks.”
“Oh, I love that,” I say, beginning to understand Paul’s appeal.
“It’s real cool,” he continues. “Been a lotta fun to watch this thing grow. And your boy here’s been with us since the beginning.” Paul clasps a hand onto Ro’s shoulder. “Since he was just a scrawny kid finger painting comic books with Mommy’s watercolors.”
“That’s not how I remember it,” Ro says, laughing. “But yeah, Paul’s the one who got me to take all this seriously. Brought me out for his shows, lined up some gallery consultancies so I could pay for a place I had no business renting. That part’s true. Everything else…”
“You come ready to work?” Paul asks, switching focus. “You know half these artists came out to see you.”
“Nah, man,” Ro says, inviting me back in with his eye contact. “We’re just here checking out what everyone else has goin’ on tonight.”
“Come on,” Paul says, pressing him. “Give ’em something easy.” Before Ro can turn him down again, Paul goes in for the kill. “I know you got your bag around here somewhere.”
Ro reaches for the back of his neck sheepishly. A little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
He nods toward the entrance. “Coat check.”
When Ro looks at me, the dimple popping on his cheek gives him away—he wants to do it.
“You cool if I throw a little paint at the wall? Just to get this guy off my back.”
“Of course,” I say, surprised by the change in our itinerary, but without a moment’s pause. “Do your thing.”
“I’ll keep her company while you’re gone,” Paul promises. “We won’t even miss you.”
Before he runs off, Ro pulls me into him and whispers, “I’d tell you to watch out for this guy, but if anything goes down, smart money’s on you.”
Without Ro between us, Paul and I struggle through a few attempts at surface conversation that all end with him telling me, “That’s what’s up.” I’m relieved when he steals two unnamed cocktails from a passing tray.
“Thanks for comin’ out,” he says, handing me a glass. “It’s good for Ro to have somebody with him at these things again. This industry’s wild, man. Watching him do it alone for so long was rough.”
I’m not usually much of a bourbon fan, but I’m grateful that sipping the drink offers an excuse for my silence. I’m here with Ro, but I’m not here with Ro.
Before Paul excuses himself to help set up Ro’s workstation, he hands me his jack-of-all-trades business card should I ever “need anything.” Though I’m not sure what I could really need from a Gallery Consultant/Community Outreach Specialist/Financial Adviser.
Not that I’m in any position to judge. If I printed off business cards of my own, my hyphenate would be something like Professional Deflector/Recent Day Drinker/Future Pyramid Scheme Bottom.
I start an aimless lap around the main room, for fear that if someone takes pity on the lonely girl biting her nails in the middle of the gallery, they’ll know I’m an outsider as soon as the conversation turns to mediums and I tell them I’m usually a small.
But when I’m only a few portraits into my perusal a funny thing happens: Pretending to focus on the art actually shifts my focus to the art. I forget to feel like I don’t belong.
There’s a natural flow to the room that I’m swept into. Momentum carries me past some, while I stop at others that refuse to be overlooked.
A still of an old Black woman alone at a bus stop leaves me rooted to the floor for what could be minutes or hours.
Had I not been paying attention, I might have considered her expression passive, blank even.
A simple image of a simple moment in time.
But thanks to Ro’s lesson outside, I am paying attention, so I see her, fully.
I see a longing in her eyes and sadness folded into every crease above her barely perceptible smile.
It’s a window into the life of a stranger, but it also feels like a mirror I can’t look away from.
Commotion on the far side of the gallery pulls me from my trance. I move toward the crowd forming at an installation on the opposite side of the room and freeze in my tracks when I’m close enough to find the source of the excitement.
Ro.
He’s facing the wall—the shirt he’d been wearing earlier left crumpled in the corner near his black leather tote.
His strong back and broad shoulders heave as he catches his breath in what used to be a white undershirt, now recklessly splattered with the spray from his brush.
There’s a layer of fresh sweat on his skin that leaves him glowing under the studio lights.
He’s art in his own right—a molten sculpture of liquefied bronze, taking its final shape.
It’s only when I finally force my eyes away from Ro that the canvas behind him comes into focus.
The instant it does, I forget everything and everyone else.
Just like he said, it’s impossible to pinpoint any discrete shapes or discernible figures, but I know I’m looking at our moment from the street outside.
I feel it. The energy and the texture of it.
And now I can see it too. Ro’s showing us the world through his eyes.
He’s showing me. And the beauty in his generosity and in the work itself steals the breath from my lungs, screwing a tightness in my chest.
It’s stunning, this thing he just created out of thin air. A painting that didn’t exist an hour ago, a painting I’ll know forever. Raw inspiration splayed against the wall with as much honesty as there is grace. A piece so perfectly Ro, on full display.
When the crowd offers its boisterous approval, Ro spins to face us, as if our presence surprises him. Like he’d forgotten he’d been working with an audience all along. For the briefest moment, I worry we’re intruding on something private, meant only to be shared between the art and the artist.
But then Ro finds me in the crowd, and the joy on his face does me in. His joy at sharing his world with me. His joy at my receiving it.
I join the rest of Ro’s admirers in their applause. Ro’s eyes, equal parts sure and shy, stay trained on me. And even in this crowded gallery, among a mass of bodies and noise under endless spotlights, I could swear it’s only him and me.
—
I want to go to Ro—to congratulate him and study his piece for any messages he might’ve left for me.
I want to be beside him, to share in the fervent energy pulsing from his skin, but bodies close in around him too quickly.
An influx of people desperate for a piece of him move into his orbit, and I’m left just outside of it, standing still.
At the far end of the room, Paul nods with obvious pride and respect for his friend. When he sees me watching, he raises his drink in my direction, and though I return the gesture, the cool liquid on my tongue burns hot as I remember my place in all this. This is not our moment. It’s Ro’s.
I’ve only taken a few steps toward the quieter side of the gallery when my phone pings.
10:17pm
Ro: I don’t see you.
Me: checking out some other work while you do your thing.
Me: That was incredible by the way!
Ro: Thank you. But come back.
Ro: Or I’ll come to you.
Me: No. You’re busy! I’ll find you when the crowd thins out.
Ro: You sure? I just need to talk to one BK curator. then we’ll go.
Ro: Hungry? Dinner?
Me: Yeah, but take your time. Seriously. I’m good.
And I am good. It’s the truth. But it’s not the whole truth.
Walking away from him just now had been the first lie I’d told Ro since I met him.
It’s more than a realization, it’s a warning. Because even more than I’d wanted to go to him, I’d wanted to be easy. And I know exactly when and why people start lying to be easier for each other.
It wasn’t supposed to be like that with Ro.