Chapter 22
Rah gave me and Milan a ride to the graduate art showcase. It was nearly two weeks after the election and things felt eerily back to normal. Or rather, everyone was holding their breath until the inauguration, carrying on with daily life while daily life still existed.
Milan and I climbed from Rah’s truck onto the cold curb.
She cupped her cheeks with gloved hands.
The wind flapped my hair like a sailboat as I stared at the glowing arts center.
Something was wrong with me for coming after Tristan said we shouldn’t see each other, but I was too curious about Nia’s art to stay away.
I stuck my head back in Rah’s truck thinking if I brought another man, I wouldn’t seem like a stalker. “What are you doing now?”
“Home.” He said “home” like it tasted funny.
“Wanna come to this thing?”
He lugged his eyes up to the sleek spaceship of a building. “I’m not dressed for nothing like that.”
“I’m literally wearing bullshit I pulled from my hamper.
” This was an absolute lie. I was wearing a black turtleneck, a leather jacket, knee-high boots.
The moment Nia gave me that flyer, I’d agonized over what to wear, ripping every option from my body like a despairing middle schooler angling for their first kiss at the school dance.
He said, somberly, “You look nice.”
“You look nice too,” I told him.
Milan sidled up beside me, poking her head in the car. “You have any gummies?”
Rah seemed unconvinced. He reached into his glove compartment for a Ziploc bag. Milan tongued a sugary worm into her mouth, offering one to me. I shook my head. I couldn’t afford to mistake Tristan for a coconut again.
Rah sighed. “Lemme park first, aight?”
When he drove off, I knew he wasn’t coming back.
The showcase was on the second floor. Opera music wailed over tapered candles in one studio.
In another, the artist formed a mountain of dirt with their hands.
Down the hallway, women recited their sexual experiences in hushed voices over a speaker.
I stood at this last studio’s threshold, suspended.
Only when Milan patted my arm did I remember to move forward.
It was smaller inside than I’d expected, maybe because the recordings drifted through the doorway with the echoey largesse of an airier space.
Each recording corresponded with a portrait.
Milan and I stood before one, a woman turned to the side, eyes sweeping downward with a look of private shame.
The hairs stood on my forearms. The only other time I felt this internal windchill was in the presence of great writing.
Or great sex. A feeling that all the mysteries of life bent briefly into the light before retreating into the dark.
“This painting’s making me feel like shit,” Milan said.
We moved through the press of bodies: twenty-somethings in barrel jeans, sneakers destroyed by city sidewalks, puffing vapes indiscreetly before stuffing them into their coat pockets. A hand touched my mid-back. I stuttered forward like I’d been burned.
When I turned around, Nia was in a furry zebra-print bucket hat that somehow didn’t look ridiculous. Every time she appeared it felt like a surprise, like a person whose arrival you could never prepare for.
“Hiiii,” she sang.
“Hi!!!” I squeaked.
Milan slid me a look that said, Bitch, I didn’t even know your voice could go that high, then offered Nia a polite smile.
A girl in an olive trench coat grabbed Nia’s elbow and proceeded to shower her with praise.
Nia squeezed her hand (“OhmyGod, no, thanks for coming”).
The girl made a joke and Nia laughed, her head tipping back.
I had a perverse urge to finger the ripples of her throat.
Then Nia remembered us and said, “Do you guys want snacks?”
Before we could respond, she looped an arm through mine, ushering us toward the refreshments table.
I wondered if she was being especially attentive to me or if she was this involved with the other showcase-comers: passing them tiny plates, pouring them warm wine in plastic cups.
The thought that it might be the former sent a current of electricity through me.
Nia downed her wine quickly. “I’m about to speak. I’m glad you came, guys. Oh! And find me before you leave, Cat. I want to talk about that portrait.” She touched my collarbone, somewhat gratuitously, I thought, then walked away.
Milan said, “What was that?”
“What?”
She looked at me like I was an idiot. “This woman’s out here caressing your collarbone and shit.”
“She’s just being nice. I mean we’re, like, sort of on the way to becoming friends.”
“Bwahaha, okay, friends, right, right, right.”
I ignored her. A few feet away, someone was bent over hooking up a microphone.
I knew it was Tristan from the gentle scoliotic curve of his spine.
He rose from his crouch and said something to Nia.
She went toward him. Her back was to us, straight as an iron rod.
I hunched over the table like Quasimodo hoarding cheese cubes, trying not to watch them.
Tristan nodded as she spoke. Suddenly, his eyes fastened onto mine before dropping to Nia’s mouth again.
I started to sweat. They looked beautiful together.
Tristan untangled the mic and passed it to Nia. She stood at the front, dramatically kicking her foot over the cord, laughing self-consciously, but it was bound in ropes of confidence. The room laughed along. You could tell everyone loved her.
“Thanks for being here. Seriously, there are so many great studios tonight and I’m glad you stopped in mine. I hope if you have time you’ll see the others.”
Tristan leaned against a stool in the corner. His eyes caught mine a few times, but mostly his attention stayed on Nia.
“I’m calling this series Off Our Backs. I came up with the idea last fall?
And conducted most of the interviews in the spring and summer?
I wanted to paint portraits not based on the physical presence of these women and people with vulvas but based on their voices.
I gave myself limitations, like everything had to be communicated with their expressions: The entire story had to exist there.
“A few things before I shut up. All these portraits are for sale and the proceeds will go to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund.
We also have scripts for you to take home if you’re interested in calling your representative to demand a ceasefire.
I’m also happy to announce that West Bank writer Nour Nabulsi will be in conversation with Professor Ford in March.
And PLEASE take some cheese or I’ll eat it all. ”
As soon as she set down the microphone, people swarmed her.
Envy flickered through me, all those people there for her artwork, willing to pay money for it.
I’d never made money from anything I’d written, but that fact felt more mutable than ever now.
Milan’s script had inspired me. I was playing around with my parents’ story, dabbling in a different form.
I’d moved closer to a new understanding of what I was trying to do than I had in months.
Milan said she was going to the bathroom, which was code for calling Ryen. I was shoving another cheese cube in my mouth when Tristan appeared beside me.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“She invited me, remember?”
I thought he might be upset, but then he said, “It’s amazing, right?”
“Genius.” I hoped that hadn’t sounded sour.
He nodded, seeming in a slight haze.
I cradled my empty cup. “I’m gonna get some more wine.”
He stuttered, “I’ll c-come with you.”
Tristan uncorked a new bottle and refilled my cup. I hated how each time we interacted it was like our video game characters had died and we were starting from level one.
“What does she have to do with Palestine?” I blurted. What I wanted to ask was how did she know what to do? Why was she convinced she had any power to change what would not change?
“She co-leads the student group here.”
“That’s cool.”
He slipped an olive into his mouth. I watched it travel down his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
Nia’s laugh ballooned, full of air and shine, from across the room.
We locked eyes. She smiled, almost teasing, then turned away.
A new awareness bloomed inside me; just as I could locate Tristan’s spine bent over in a crowd, I could root out Nia’s laugh anywhere.
Glassy, tinkling. A sound I wanted to draw around me like a shawl.
I was going to let her paint me. The thought made me a bit delirious.
“I wish I had an art brain,” Tristan said.
“What?”
He cleared his throat. “I. Wish. I. Had. An. Art. Brain. They’re more…” He flexed his hand. It looked like a starfish being electrocuted. “Pliable.”
“So, susceptible to brainwashing.”
“The opposite actually. I think it’s rigid minds that are more vulnerable.”
This reminded me of something Jay would say. I felt twinned tenderness and guilt.
“What happened to wishing me the best?” I said.
“I still wish you the best.”
“But you came over to talk to me. I thought we weren’t doing that.”
“Well, I wasn’t going to ignore you.” He added, “You’re easy to talk to.”
I raised my cup to my lips. Tristan raised his, our eyes connecting over the rims.
Walking up to us, Milan said, “Look who came.”
Rah stepped inside, looking overwhelmed.
The band of his jeans slouched under his ass.
His shirt was un-ironed, his chains bright, obviously not gold.
I saw what he meant about being underdressed, and I hated myself for seeing it.
His eyes darted across the crowd. I put my hand in the air. He didn’t seem to relax when he saw me.
When he approached us, I said, a bit too loud, “I thought you left.”
“You asked me to come.”
“I know, I just thought you left.”
I felt Tristan’s eyes on me. I wondered if he remembered Rah from the restaurant. He brought his cup to his lips again even though we could all see nothing was in it.
“I actually think we’re leaving,” I said.
Rah said, “Cool. Let’s go.”
I hugged Tristan awkwardly with one arm. As we headed for the door, Nia called out. I spotted her striped animal hat on another head.
“You’re gone?” she asked.
“Yeah. This was amazing! Thanks for inviting me.”
She handed her cup to someone behind her. This would’ve been egregious had they not looked delighted to accept her trash. “Take my number.”
I passed her my phone. She was looking down at the buttons. “I promise I won’t ask anymore after this, but I think it’d be fun.”
“Okay.” I tried to sound like I’d just decided.
Nia looked up. Her eyes had an intensity that made you want to hide from and submit to their heat. “Okay?”
“Why not?”
She smiled that too-big smile. “I’ll call you.”
On the way out, I reached for one of the ceasefire scripts even though I basically didn’t have a representative who could do anything. Coming too close to my ear, Milan whispered, “Buying tickets for whatever shitshow you’re about to star in.”
I pinched her lips shut. She cackled through her clamped mouth.
A storm was climbing up the coast. On the walk to Rah’s car, Milan and I tilted into each other for body heat. I pulled the flaps of my jacket across my body. The wind felt like someone slapping me in the face with their belt.
“Bruh likes you.” The unlit cigarette in Rah’s mouth moved when he spoke. His lighter kept blowing out. I could tell it was agitating him.
“You don’t even know him,” I said.
“I know how niggas are.”
“So what if he does?” I snapped.
Rah shook his head like I was the disappointment of the century, speeding up his stride. Milan hung back with me. “Let him be mad, babe. He’s not your man.”
We muscled through the wind up a quaint residential street.
Christmas lights, prematurely hung, mocked us with their candy-colored cheer, ornaments glinting off green spruces in big, darkened windows.
Rah stared into the homes with morose bewilderment.
His truck was a rusty nail jutting out of a line of sleek electric cars. Something glittered on the concrete.
As we drew closer, I saw one of his windows had been smashed. “Fuck, what happened?”
Rah got in silently, sticking the key in the ignition.
Milan looked at me like, Are we really still driving with this man?
I dropped into the passenger’s seat, stiff and alert.
It was colder in the car than it was outside.
Milan fell into the back seat opposite the broken window, flicking away flecks of glass.
“I’d crash out if this was my car,” she muttered.
I stuffed my hands between my thighs and cautiously watched Rah’s profile. He looked resigned, like someone who expected bad things to happen. Chucking his cigarette still glowing onto the pavement, he lurched out of the parking space. We didn’t talk about the broken window again.