Chapter 3
Three
KIERAN
These days, I spend more time in the studio than I do at home.
It’s in the loft of Mum’s warehouse, where her gallery stores artworks from their vast permanent collection so they can cycle through it.
One day, she said, my paintings will be part of that same collection—if I earn it.
Because Mum doesn’t care that I’m her son; when it comes to art, she means business.
She’s seen too many bright stars fizzle out just as quickly as they lit up in her three decades in the art scene.
She’s built her reputation on only platforming the best of the best, and I’m not exempt from the same criteria she uses to judge others with.
She keeps telling me that if I sell out my upcoming art exhibit at the end of summer at Galerie Riboulet, that hip new art space in Queens owned by a notoriously polyamorous French couple, I can use it to pitch to other galleries and get a better shot at landing bigger and bigger shows.
If Zubrzycki, the exclusive gallery owned by its namesake art collector, purchases one of my pieces, then she’ll know I’m ready to work with.
If I can just bring myself to paint something. Anything.
I’ve started and scrapped so many attempts.
Mum’s asked to see my progress so many times that I’m running out of reasons to put it off.
It’s been months, she said. Surely, I’d have something to show by now.
I haven’t been able to keep her from breathing down my neck every time I come home to shower and eat dinner, but so far she’s respected my fraudulent desire for secrecy and ‘maintaining the sacred space of the creator.’ Whatever the fuck that means.
I pulled it out of my ass last week when she called.
She seemed rather impressed by my pretension.
I’ve walked miles and miles around the city, day and night, in search of inspiration since then.
I’ve always been a night owl, working best in the wee hours of the night so no one can bother me, but it’s lonelier now, worse because the muse doesn’t keep me company.
Every time I think I’ll take to the canvas, the white space taunts me, reminds me of my impotence.
If I don’t nail this, the Riboulets won’t have me again—especially not when they’ve already announced me as part of their summer lineup.
And if the Riboulets won’t have me, then the other galleries won’t, which means Zubrzycki won’t buy me, and Mum won’t let me put on a show at her gallery.
I’ll be one of the many failures Mum’s witnessed in her time.
All my hard work will have been for naught.
I toss and I turn in the cot Mam had insisted on setting up for me in the studio, but still: nothing.
Mam is always on Mum’s ass about taking it easy on me, that a life spent in service of art is only a life half-lived without all of the other good stuff like family and friends.
But art is life, and because I haven’t been able to make art, I’ve had no life.
Not even a glimmer of an idea, a seed waiting to sprout. I have nothing at all.
Well, there is one thing. The only thing, these days.
It seems to be all I’m capable of sketching—has been the only thing I’ve been capable of sketching for a long, long time.
If I were more shameless, I would turn my sketches, these portraits, into proper paintings.
A full collection of the same thing. But as of now, I am only capable of being haunted by it.
By her.
“Knock knock.” Cisco leans against the doorframe, holding a thick cream envelope between two fingers. “Special delivery.”
I know what it is before he’s even tossed it to me.
Our whole friend group has been planning this trip all year.
It’s tradition. Every summer, we go on a trip together, and this year, Natalia is hosting us in her house in the Philippines.
This invite is just a formality. Everyone has already RSVP’d—everyone except me.
I don’t want to go. I’m still burned-out from last summer in California, when Erin hosted us in her father’s mansion in Beverly Hills.
It was fun seeing a million different celebrities in the flesh, but after the fifth party, it got stale.
At risk of generalizing and being reductive, I began to notice how little the women ate—they mainly pushed food around on their plates—and how ‘sleazy’ doesn’t even begin to describe a lot of the men in power.
Nobody cared about you unless they had something to gain from knowing you.
And everyone, regardless of whether they were a celebrity or not, did drugs.
And I mean everyone. Sobriety seemed novel to a lot of the people I met; then again, Erin might just run in a lot of strange circles.
I slide my pinky finger under the envelope’s flap to open it. Along with the invite is a perfumed glittery pink note that smells thickly of vanilla.
Say you’ll come. I’ll set up a private studio for you to work in. I know your mom’s hard on you. Consider this an escape plan. I promise we won’t distract you too much. - N.
Cisco smirks at me. “Now there’s a girl who pays attention, right?”
“You told her?” I try to keep my struggles with art to myself. Cisco only knows because when he’s not with his girlfriend, Chiara, he’s here bothering me. Any other time I would have kicked him straight out, but these days I’m grateful for the company.
“She asked me why you weren’t showing up to our hangouts,” he says. “I said you were busy with work.”
I hold the note up. “And the bit about my mum?”
“I may have mentioned that you’re in a bit of an art block, and that Sloane’s been putting more pressure on you lately.”
I groan. Cisco and I have an agreement when it comes to Natalia: the less she knows about me, the better.
I made the mistake of being too open early on in our friendship.
I’d misconstrued her warmth as platonic affection and told her all there was to tell about me: that I moved to New York to go to art school after my leaving cert, and that when Mam first visited me, she ran into her college roommate who she later married and turned into our other mum, forcing my sister, Felicity, to move with her.
That, before Mum, I didn’t know anyone else who loved art as much as I did, and that I always worried I was a proper fucking weirdo for being more interested in sitting in museums than going on dates.
Natalia took all of this in and thought it meant we were falling in love.
Don’t get me wrong: she’s beautiful. I can’t tell you why, exactly, but I know most people think she is. I just don’t feel anything for her.
“Come on, dude,” Cisco says, leaving his post by the door and dropping down on my cot next to me.
“You can’t live in a self-imposed exile for the rest of summer.
Didn’t you always say art is a reflection of life?
Your art’s got no life to reflect right now.
You need to get out there. Live a little. Then come back to it.”
“I don’t have time,” I tell him. “I’ve got deadlines.”
“And that time will come regardless,” he says.
“Wouldn’t you rather be in a tropical paradise than losing your mind in this damn room?
” Cisco glances around in barely concealed disgust. The studio’s far from a pigsty, but I have left some takeout boxes out from last night.
My joint is still tucked in the ashtray where I left it.
“Nat’s offering you a place to work,” he says, taking the note from me. “Away from this. Away from your moms. You need a change of scenery, Kie. Trust me.”
I snatch the note back and stuff it into the envelope. “I accept this invitation, and Natalia will think we’re going to be together by the end of this summer.”
“Would that really be so bad?”
I drop back against my cot. I close my eyes and picture myself in a relationship with Natalia.
Instead, I see the girl of my dreams, real and unreal, a Schrodinger’s cat of my own making.
No matter where in the world I go, I know she’ll be there—every night, without fail, the moment I drift off to sleep.
In the silence of my waking hours, too, if I let my guard down.
I’m ruined. The mere thought of her has ruined me for anyone else and I can’t keep running from this truth. Held up against any other girl, she is the perennial victor, a modern-day Helen of Troy as conjured by my sleepless mind.
The cot shifts under Cisco. “You’re going,” he says. I poke an eye open. He’s a terrible sight compared to the girl of my dreams.
“I can’t,” I say again. “I’m trapped here.”
Cisco snorts. “We’re going out for drinks tonight, and you’ll be there, and we’ll tell all of them you’re coming along. Natalia will handle all the logistics, so all you’ll have to do is pack and show up. I already gave her a list of your favorite paint brands.”
“How the hell do you know what my favorite paint brands are?”
He points to a pile of squished paint tubes by the window. “I pay attention, too, you know.”
* * *
“The prodigal son returns.” Mam kisses my cheek when I enter the kitchen where she’s preparing a pot roast for dinner. “Sloane! Kieran’s home!”
Mum emerges from the hall. “Good. I need to talk to you. The Riboulets called me this afternoon. They’ve been trying to reach you to ask for behind-the-scenes photos they can include as part of their promotions leading up to your show.
” Panic seizes me. It’s one thing to keep Mum at bay, another to fend the Riboulets off.
The walls are closing in on me, and I know it.
“I can arrange for a photographer to shadow you next week at the earliest, so I—”
“I won’t be here next week,” I blurt out.
“No?”
“And where do you think you’re going?” Mam chimes in.
God damn it. “It’s the summer,” I say. “Natalia’s hosting us in the Philippines.”
Mam likes Natalia. So does Mum. Both of them know of my friend group’s tradition, and given my history of being friendless all throughout high school, they do their best to stay out of it as their way of encouraging me to stay social.
“But—” Mum starts.
“Natalia’s arranging for me to have my own studio,” I cut her off. “It’s a tropical paradise there, Mum. The light should be better somehow. It’ll be different. New. I imagine it’ll be good for my work.” If my career in the arts doesn’t pan out, I definitely have a future in lying.
My mums exchange looks.
“I’ll make sure to send pictures,” I say. “For the Riboulets. And both of you.”
“This is all rather last minute, isn’t it?” Mam says. She’s the anxious type, a self-proclaimed Mama Bear who borders on overprotective. Most times, I think she thinks the world is just something to shield me and my sister from.
“Cisco just handed me my invite,” I say.
“Cisco came by?” Mam asks.
“At the studio.”
“You should be focused on your work when you’re at the studio,” Mum says. Mam must throw her a look, because she clears her throat and corrects herself. “I mean, it’s nice that he visits.”
“Very nice,” I echo. “So…I can go?”
Mam looks like she wants to say no, but Mum cuts her off.
“You’re a grown man, Kieran. You can do whatever you want.”
I get the sense that I’ve just jumped out of one frying pan and into another. But if I keep my distance and make sure that my actions can’t be interpreted as anything but platonic, I think I may just get through to the end of this summer without making anyone think I’m in love.