Chapter 8 Matías
Matías
Eleven Months Ago
Matías paced the length of the Rose Gallery over and over.
“Don’t worry,” Jason, the owner, said. “Your opening tonight will be a success. The RSVPs were excellent, and your work is incredible.”
Jason seemed confident. Not just his words, but also the way he stood, with shoulders back and relaxed, and his smile effortless. Part of Matías’s success as a painter stemmed from his ability to understand the minute details of the human form and what they meant—a small crease at the corner of the mouth, a slight flare of a nostril, a faint crescent bite mark on a knuckle. And what he read on Jason right now was tranquil confidence.
At least that’s one of us, Matías thought as he surveyed the wide-open space of the gallery. In just half an hour, the doors would open, and strangers would pour in to pass judgment on his work to the soundtrack of champagne bubbles and a Spanish band. He had held gallery showings before, of course, but the unfamiliar crowd had always been punctuated here and there by smiles from family members. The de León clan in Madrid was big and gregarious and unfailingly supportive, so not only would his mom, dad, sister, and brother be at every opening night, but also his abuela and a dozen or more aunts, uncles, or cousins. Not to mention friends from art school.
But here in New York, Matías was…new. He was barely moved into his apartment—his only chair right now was an upturned paint bucket—and he had just this morning received the key to his faculty office at the New York Academy of Art. He knew no one, other than the professional contacts he’d been emailing before he arrived, the people in the university administration, and Jason here at the Rose Gallery. And no one knew Matías.
“Do you mind if I make a quick phone call?” he asked Jason.
“Of course not,” Jason said with a congenial wave of his hand. “I’ve got a few last-minute things to check on anyway before we open the doors.”
As Jason walked toward the front of the gallery where the band and caterers were setting up, Matías dialed his sister. It was the middle of the night, but Aracely would pick up. She knew how jittery he’d been leading up to this exhibition.
Aracely answered on the first ring. “ Lo harás bien, ” she said without preamble. You will do great.
“I’m sorry to call so late,” Matías said. It was comforting, slipping into Spanish.
“I am hardly asleep yet,” Aracely said. “I just finished dinner not too long ago.”
Matías smiled at the reminder of home. American dinnertimes had been a bit of a shock to him. In Spain, he didn’t sit down to eat until 10 p.m. , and it was almost always with either his friends or family, so the meal wouldn’t wrap up until half past eleven. In New York, a lot of restaurants closed at 10 p.m. , and the ones that closed at eleven made it clear they didn’t like customers walking in the door at what would have been a normal Spanish dinner hour.
“What does the gallery look like?” Aracely asked.
“I’ll send you a photo.” Matías snapped a pic of the closest wall, hung with two of his larger pieces. He sent that photo and another of the gallery’s front window to Aracely.
“Oh, it’s beautiful,” she cooed. “Your New York skyline painting is so stunning. It will draw in passersby for sure.”
“Do you think anyone will buy anything tonight?” Matías asked, pacing again.
“I do,” Aracely said. “But it also doesn’t matter. Tonight is only the opening; it’s your entrance into the New York art world. People will get to know you, and even if they don’t buy tonight, your work is so impactful it will linger in their minds long after the party is over, and they will tell their friends, and more people will come to the gallery during regular hours, and you are going to be a star, Matías. So don’t worry. Tonight is not the end. Tonight is a beginning.”
“Tonight is a beginning,” he echoed.
“Yes,” Aracely said as she yawned. “I love you, and you are amazing, okay? Now go wow those Americans, hermanito .”
—
Two hours later, Matías’s dimples hurt from smiling so much, but it was a good problem to have. The attendance was, as Jason had promised, excellent, even if most of the guests didn’t quite understand Matías’s work.
“It’s so fun!” a woman in her fifties gushed to him while her ring of friends murmured in agreement.
“Your paintings remind me of Highlights magazine,” another of the women said.
“I’m sorry,” Matías said. “I am not familiar with Highlights ?”
“Oh, right, of course!” she said. “You probably don’t have that in Spain. It’s a darling magazine for children. Every issue comes with a hidden pictures game, which looks like an ordinary illustration, but then there are always wacky, unexpected drawings in them. Like, it’ll be a scene of two children playing a video game in front of a television, but when you look closer, you’ll discover there’s the outline of a spatula sketched into the girl’s hair, or that the curl of electrical cords on the carpet is in the shape of an octopus. It was one of my favorite things about the magazine when I was a kid!”
“That sounds…enchanting,” Matías said, his smile a little more forced now.
“Just like you are,” yet another of the women said. “I bet everyone in this room would love to take you home after this party.”
Matías laughed politely. “Well, unfortunately for them, the only things in this gallery going home with anyone are my paintings.”
They giggled, but at least it started them chattering about how they’d rank the pieces.
Which was not a discussion Matías wanted to stay for, because no artist wanted to hear how his work was graded on a curve. He put everything he had into each painting, and they were all different. Patrons were welcome to have their opinions, of course; Matías just didn’t need to hear them.
Thankfully, Jason was waving at him from near the front door.
“It was wonderful to chat with you all,” Matías said to the circle of women, “but the owner is summoning me, so I’m afraid I must take my leave. I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening.”
Matías wove his way through the crowd, which was thicker in this part of the gallery because it was near the bar and the band. The majority of the guests had already walked through the aisles looking at his paintings and were now just enjoying the free drinks.
A short distance in front of Matías, a young man shouted over the flamenco music to his companion, another blond man in his late twenties. “The gallery’s choice of artist is a surprise. Classical realism is so outmoded.”
“Maybe the owner is trying to be daring,” the second man said.
“Or stupid,” the first replied. “Nobody is going to buy this antiquated shit. Abstract art is so much more elevated.”
The second man caught sight of Matías and froze. Then he said, as if still in conversation, “Oh, you’re so funny when you’re sarcastic, honey. Um, why don’t we go get some more booze?” He whispered something hastily to his partner, then they fled to the bar.
Matías simply shrugged. He was more than familiar with the uphill battle of painting in a classical style, even if he did add an imaginative element to it. What they’d been saying wasn’t wrong, exactly; global tastes did lean toward the contemporary. But as his mom, Soledad, always told him, “That’s how you stand out, Mati. Because you’re different from the rest.”
His art wasn’t for everyone. Matías just needed to find the kind of person who appreciated it, who understood what he was trying to say.
The musicians finished their song, and as the audience clapped, the crowd parted.
There, in front of him, stood Jason, along with a woman in a white blouse and beige pencil skirt. Her brown hair was neatly pulled back into a bun, just a few loose tendrils curling to frame her face like satin ribbon. She looked more like she belonged in the hallowed halls of a university library than in the middle of an extravagant gallery opening.
She stood out because she was different from the rest.
“Matías de León,” Jason said, “I’d like you to meet a friend of mine, Claire Walker.”
“ Un placer . A pleasure,” Matías said, bowing a little as he reached for her hand.
Claire’s mouth parted, but no words came out.
Yolanda, Jason’s wife, appeared out of the crowd with two drinks. But when she saw Claire standing there—and snuck a quick, assessing look at Matías, which he did not miss—she winked at Jason and said, “Why doesn’t Matías give Claire a personal tour of some of his paintings in the back of the gallery? You know, since she arrived late and missed the introductory speech?”
“What a fantastic idea,” Jason said. Smoothly, he steered Claire and Matías through the throng of guests and deposited them near the path that would take them deeper into the gallery. But before Jason left, he leaned into Matías and said, “Sorry about this. Just humor my wife. This is her best friend.” And then he and Yolanda disappeared back into the crowd.
Claire laughed under her breath in a way she probably thought Matías couldn’t hear. But even if he hadn’t, he would’ve known she was nervous just by the way she subtly worried her lower lip—her teeth tugging, but barely, on the inside of that full, pink mouth—and the slight flush at the base of her throat, right where a simple pearl pendant rested. She was the opposite of the women from earlier, who’d wanted to take him home with them and devour him.
“I am so glad you could come tonight,” Matías said as they made their way deeper into the Rose Gallery. He didn’t, of course, know anything about her other than that she was Yolanda’s friend, and what he could read from her body language, but he did know that he didn’t want Claire to be nervous.
“You are? Why?” she blurted.
“I was worried no one would attend my gallery opening,” Matías said honestly. He didn’t like men who put out a facade of bravado; Matías preferred to lead with his heart, in both his art and his life. “But Jason has done a wonderful job with it. Are you having a nice evening?”
“Not until now.”
Her boldness caught him off guard, and he grinned. There she was. He’d suspected from the first moment he saw her that Claire wasn’t the meek type. She may have been more at home in a university library than at a gallery opening, but she didn’t have the posture of a mousy bookworm. More like a young professor who knew she was a rising star. She was aware of her potential, but not egotistical about it—perhaps because she understood that talent alone was not enough to guarantee success.
Matías led them to the back wall of the gallery. There were only two other guests farther down on this aisle, so he and Claire had this part of the exhibition to themselves. She was a head shorter than him, and when a waft of the light citrus scent of her shampoo hit him, he gasped.
Seville orange.
Like the famed Spanish oranges of home.
His heart thrummed a little faster, and for a few seconds, he forgot how they had gotten here alone. But then he remembered that Yolanda was trying to set them up, and that Matías was supposed to explain his paintings to Claire.
Suddenly, though, Matías felt his hold on the English language loosen. Which was strange, since he’d spoken it fluently for nearly three decades.
He cleared his throat. “Um…although Jason asked me to give a speech earlier tonight, I do not really like to talk about my work. I put everything I have to say into the art itself, you know? So, please.” He waved toward the paintings that hung around them.
Was that terribly awkward of him? He was supposed to be Claire’s guide, and he had embarked on this endeavor not wanting her to be nervous, but now he’d just thrust her straight into his work without so much as an explanation of classical realism or even a background of his years of training.
But as he’d guessed before, Claire wasn’t meek, just unaccustomed to the art world. As he watched her absorbing his work—taking her time with each one and giving it its due—he realized he’d been right to let her explore his paintings without the burden of his commentary.
And Matías could see the instant when Claire found the magic in each piece. She didn’t laugh loudly or point at it like almost everyone else had tonight. Rather, she simply smiled quietly and held the detail inside her for a moment, as if turning it over in her mind and contemplating not just the image of it, but the why of its existence in the first place.
When they arrived at the painting of the monk offering the planet Earth inside an orange peel, though, Claire couldn’t keep her reaction in.
“Oh my god, Matías,” she whispered. And in those four words, he knew that she understood everything he was trying to say.
Matías smiled then, brighter than he had all evening, and his dimples didn’t even hurt.
Tonight is a beginning.