by Monroe, Max
“Tell me about it.” Luce sure as hell didn’t accommodate me when she saddled me with this phone call.
“What?”
“Never mind. What is it you want me to do for you?”
“An interview.”
Jesus Christ.
“I went to your exhibition on opening night, and I’d really love the opportunity to sit down with you.”
An in-person interview? Fuck, I can barely tolerate them on the phone.
“I’m not much for interviews.” I sigh heavily into the receiver. “And, no offense, but I doubt you’re going to ask me anything that hasn’t already been asked.”
“Well…” She pauses and clears her throat. “I mostly want to know why you’re painting portraits of my sister.”
I furrow my brow. “I’m sorry, what?”
“The girl in your painting could be my sister’s doppelgänger.”
Her words reach out and slap me across the face with déjà vu.
“Your sister’s doppelgänger?”
“Yes,” she answers without the slightest bit of nervousness or hesitation. “It’s nearly identical to her.”
“What did you say your name was?”
“Lily Davis,” she tells me, and a soft laugh leaves her lips. “I have a feeling your assistant will probably never forget my name with how many times I’ve called your studio over the past few days.”
“My assistant is incompetent at best,” I comment, and I’m rewarded with a middle finger right in front of my face.
My heart rate kicks up ten notches, and I’ve never been more interested in getting an interview on the books than I am right now.
“And what is your sister’s name?”
“Indy Davis.” She verifies what, deep down, I already know.
I wonder if she knows that just two days ago, her sister tracked me down at the gallery. And if Indy told her, what did she say?
Was she as affected as I was?
Is she still thinking about it like I am?
Hope bubbles inside of my chest, and I decide there is only one way to find out.
“Tomorrow night,” I say without hesitation. “I can fit in an interview over dinner. But do me a favor and make sure your questions are worth my time, yeah?”
“Holy shit,” she mutters more to herself than me. “I can do tomorrow.”
“There’s just one condition,” I add with a smile. If I’m doing another fucking interview, I’m going to make sure Lily Davis isn’t the only one who’s going to get something out of it.
I tell her where to be and what time to be there, and then I tell her what I want. And I end the call before she can say an opposing word.
A dick move? Yes. But the reward could be well worth the consequences.
Lucy stares up at me from her desk, her eyes squinted into tiny little lines.
I smile at her for the first time today.
“Good news, Luce. You’re un-fired.”
She laughs. “That’s good. Because I wasn’t leaving anyway.”
And then I go to work.
My muse is alive and well, and my color palette might as well be preordained.
“Hmm,” I mutter to myself as I survey my selection of paints. “I’m thinking indigo.”
Indy
The lunch bell rings, and just as the last eighth-grader leaves my classroom, my phone buzzes inside my desk.
Matt: How ya doing, baby? Hope your day is going good.
My day? Well, it leaves a lot to be desired.
Firstly, every single one of my morning classes was filled with boisterous, antsy kids, hopped up on Pixy-Stix speed and stir-crazy from the cold weather. I swear, if it’s been one day without recess, it may as well have been a million.
And secondly, the name Ansel Bray has been following me around all day.
It started this morning while I drank coffee in my kitchen, and it hasn’t let up since.
With Matt gone, I forwent CNN and put on E! News. All was normal as they talked about the Kardashians, but then, while I was distracted with getting my Eggos out of the toaster, they segued and ended up showing a picture of Ansel from five years ago, out with some model at a restaurant in Manhattan.
Two blocks into my walk to the subway station, I stopped at Pauly’s Newsstand to buy a pack of gum and came face-to-face with him again. On the front page of the freaking New York Post.
I kept my head down for the rest of the commute, but when I got to school, I let my guard down. Big mistake. Two steps into the faculty lounge and Sherry from the math department, propped unavoidably against the counter in front of the donuts, was reading said newspaper.
He is everywhere, all around me, and that doesn’t even include my own ridiculous thoughts.
Needless to say, I now know I never should’ve sought him out.
Coming face-to-face with Ansel Bray didn’t do anything but raise more questions, more intrigue, more of these fucking thoughts, and feelings I don’t understand.
Guilt churns in my gut when I realize that it was my boyfriend’s text that launched my current Ansel-driven crazy plane.
God, I’m the worst, and I don’t even understand why.
With a mental slap, I pour my focus back into the man on the other end of my phone.
Me: It’s going okay. How’s your trip?
Matt: So great that I just got word a large bank in Spain wants us to add a software consultation with them to our itinerary. It would extend my trip for another week or so, which sucks, but it’s almost too good to pass up.
I know Matt well enough to understand there’s no maybe about it. His three-week trip has just been extended.
Me: Sounds like everything is coming up roses, then.
Matt: It is, but I miss you. You wouldn’t by any chance want to take a week off from work to come visit me, would you? ;) I’ve heard Paris is lovely this time of year…
Me: LOL. Pretty sure Paris in February is just like New York in February. COLD. And you know I can’t take time off last minute in the middle of the school year.
Matt: I know, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask. Well, I’m going to head out and grab some dinner with Tom and Conrad. Another FaceTime call before you’re headed to work tomorrow morning?
Me: Sounds like a plan.
I set my phone back in my desk drawer and glance at the clock.
Thank God. Lunchtime.
I head for the faculty lounge as covertly as I can without employing an army crawl, and I snag my lunch from the fridge. I’m just about to make my getaway when Mary calls toward me, “You’re not going to eat with us today, sweetie?”
I shake my head. “Sorry, but I have way too much work to catch up on.”
A flat-out lie, but I’m pretty sure when it’s for self-preservation, it’s excused. With the way today has gone, I just need to hole up in my classroom, away from everyone and everything.
The instant I shut the door to my classroom, the breath I didn’t realize I was holding escapes my lungs, and my shoulders sag as I plop down into the chair behind my desk.
Remnants of kindergarteners are scattered across the center of my classroom, on the rainbow rug where we compose musical renditions of “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” and “The Wheels on the Bus,” but I don’t even consider cleaning up.
It can wait. My next class isn’t for another hour.
My phone vibrates inside the top drawer of my desk, and truthfully, a large part of me sees the merits of ignoring it. It’s just that the smaller part of me is yappy, like a little dog, and I can’t stand the sound of it.
Incoming Call Lily
I sigh, but I still manage to hit accept and force myself to answer.
“You’re coming to dinner with me tomorrow night.”
No hello or how are you. Just demands. So far, this phone call with my audacious sister is going just as I expected it would.
“What if I have plans?”
“Pffft,” Lily snorts. “Eating Chinese food and grad
ing papers while watching Netflix doesn’t count as plans. Plus, Matt is out of town. Surely, you want some company.”
“That’s not all I do,” I retort, and she laughs. A little too hysterically for my taste. I mean, it wasn’t that funny.
“You’re going with me.”
“Lil,” I whine.
“Consider it a girls’ night. Just the two of us. We haven’t done one of those in so long, Indy. C’mon, don’t be such a grouch!”
I don’t respond. I know from experience that anything I say will just give her a foundation on which to build her argument. I’m pretty sure she missed her calling as an attorney.
“Pretty please go with me?” she begs.
I sigh. She knows I won’t say no to her begging. Probably because she won’t stop until I agree, and it’s a lot better time management if I just give in at the start.
“Fine,” I mutter, “but I’m not getting dressed up.”
“At least brush your hair and put on a little makeup.”
“What’s it matter to you?” I question. “It’s not like I’m trying to impress anyone.”
She groans. “Just don’t dress like a complete slouch, okay? Pretty it up a bit. That’s what girls’ nights are for. To drink wine and tell ourselves how pretty and awesome we are.”
I squint my eyes. “You’re acting so weird right now.”
“Just be ready around six tomorrow night, okay?”
“Fine.”
“Love you! Bye!” She hangs up before I can get another word in.
I contemplate texting her and backing out of girls’ night the cowardly way, but I know it would be a huge waste of time and have the same ending—me going to dinner tomorrow night.
Ugh.
She’s lucky she’s my sister.
Nestled beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, we are cocooned by a sweeping view of the New York skyline and what feels like a million twinkle lights creating a path toward the front entrance of Bistro, the hip little restaurant my sister picked out for girls’ night.
Fucking girls’ night. It’s so cold, it might end in frostbite.
The temperature drops as we get closer to the water, and I tighten my pea coat around my body. I know I said anyone who doesn’t expect New York to be cold in the winter is a moron, but this is on a whole other level. The wind whips past my body and pricks at my bones.
“God, I’m freezing,” Lily mutters as we step up to the entrance. She opens the door with a heavy hand and gets us inside as quickly as possible.
Chatter and clanking cutlery and lively conversation fill the air. I shiver when the chilly outside breeze meets the warm cocoon of the restaurant in an electric swirl, and I rub my hands up and down my arms. “Maybe eating by the river wasn’t the best choice on a ten-degree day…”
“I know,” she says through chattering teeth. “But, in my defense, it wasn’t my choice.”
“What are you talking about?” I scrunch up my nose at her and laugh. “This whole damn evening was your choice. If it weren’t for you, I’d be at home, incredibly warm and in my pajamas.”
Lily ignores me entirely and steps toward the hostess desk. “I have a reservation for six thirty. It’s under Davis.”
The teenage hostess is fresh-faced, and her name tag reads Marley. She smiles her understanding and looks down at her clipboard. “For three, right?”
“Yep.” Lily nods.
“Three?” I look between Lily and myself, counting like one of my kindergarteners. One. Two. “I thought it was just the two of us?” I ask while the hostess grabs two menus.
“Well…that was kind of a lie…”
If she invited our Aunt Bethany, I’m leaving. It’s one thing to watch them verbally spar with each other inside the safety of my parents’ house, but it’s a whole other thing to take the freak show out in public.
I open my mouth to question her further, but I’m interrupted.
“Looks like the other person in your party is already here,” Marley says, and I glare at Brutus, the backstabbing sister formerly known as Lily.
“Who’s here, Lil?” I whisper, and she grimaces.
“Don’t be mad, okay?”
Marley gestures toward us with a polite hand. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll take you to your table.”
Lily averts her gaze entirely and follows Marley’s lead, giving me no other option but to do the same.
Past the bar area, through the main dining room, and toward a back room that has an incredible view of the river, we follow the hostess until she stops at a booth in the corner.
“Here you are,” she announces and sets our menus down on the table.
When Marley finally shuffles aside to head back toward the front of the restaurant, I damn near fall on my face. His honey-brown eyes twinkle like the reflections on the river behind him.
My heart starts training for a fucking marathon inside my chest.
Ansel Bray is here. Sitting at our table.
One. Two. Three.
Ansel
Inside the sapphire-blue depths of Indy’s eyes, I watch as recognition turns to shock and confusion. The woman standing beside her—the one I shamelessly bribed to get Indy here—smiles a million-dollar smile.
I stand up to greet them, and since Lily seems more amenable, I extend my hand toward her with a friendly curl of my lips. “I take it you’re Lily Davis.”
“I am. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you,” she says and shakes my hand with a firm grip before turning toward her sister. “Indy, I’d like you to meet Ansel Bray. This is the artist whose exhibition we saw at Aquavella.”
Indy worries her bottom lip with a nip of her teeth for a moment, and then two, and when the silence between us pushes past normal and veers right into awkward, Lily offers a discreet nudge into her sister’s arm.
Instantly, Indy blinks and clears her throat. “It’s…uh…nice to meet you,” she responds, acting like I’m a complete stranger, and shakes my outstretched hand.
So that’s how it’s going to be.
Obviously, she didn’t tell her sister about meeting me, and her sister didn’t clue her in on the details of this dinner. I, Ansel Bray, am the center of their Venn diagram of deceit.
And I’m not going to be the one to expose any of it.
“It’s nice to meet you, too,” I say instead. “Please, sit down.”
The girls settle into the seats across from mine, and after quickly studying the menu, Lily doesn’t hesitate to dive right into the meat of her interview. “So, tell me, are you painting my sister on purpose, or is it a coincidence?”
“Lily!” Indy snaps, her back stiffening and the muscles of her shoulders locking tight with tension. “What are you doing?”
Lily rolls her eyes. “Interviewing him. That’s why he’s here.”
I nearly laugh at Lily’s boldness, but Indy’s discomfort is far too palpable. So, instead, I offer a kind smile and rub my fingers across the five-day-old scruff on my chin.
“Well, while I can definitely see the resemblance, I don’t know the reason for it.”
It’s not a complete lie. I may have an overwhelming certainty that it’s Indy—and not just someone who looks like her—but I don’t know the reason.
“See, Indigo?” Lily nudges her sister. “Even the artist thinks you look like her.”
Indy tries to glare and fake a smile at the same time. It’s quite possibly one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen.
Lily, finally noticing just how uncomfortable Indy is, sighs heavily and puts her elbows on the table to lean toward me. “Okay. I have a bit of a confession to make…” She pauses and pouts slightly. “I may have told my sister a little white lie to get her here.”
Yeah, that’s pretty apparent.
I turn my gaze to Indy. “And where did you think you were going tonight?”
“To dinner,” she says, and one corner of her mouth turns down. “But I was told this was a girls’ night.”
The way her annoyance
reddens her cheeks makes me laugh. “Didn’t expect a cock in the henhouse?”
The flush in her cheeks deepens. “No.”
And what she really didn’t expect was me. An unspoken statement but true all the same.
“You wouldn’t have come along,” Lily argues. “And you being here was a condition of getting the interview!”
Ah, shit. Looks like the cat’s out of the bag.
“Is that how it went?” Instantly, Indy locks her gaze with mine. “Did you blackmail my sister?”
“Off the record?” I ask, and Lily nods, a smile curling the corners of her lips. “I’d really call this more extortion than blackmail.”
Lily laughs, and Indy’s blue eyes brighten as if she’s amused by my candid admission.
She keeps looking at me like that, and I might just adopt a life of crime.
Our server stops by the table with the wine I ordered before their arrival, pours everyone a glass, and writes down our dinner orders, and I use that time to steal glances in my real-life muse’s direction while Lily dives back into her list of questions.
Who are my inspirations?
What influences my color palette?
Have I always been artistic?
They’re a lot of the same questions I’ve been asked a thousand times, but I’m surprised to find myself enjoying it.
Lily is likable and endearingly pushy, and Indy’s lack of understanding of everything her sister is talking about is fun.
No doubt, it’d be different if she were the slightest bit self-conscious, but thanks to our smiles and the wine, Indy has embraced it completely.
In fact, since the initial awkwardness, there’s been an impressive amount of eye contact.
And fuck, if those beautiful blue eyes of hers don’t give me a rush. They speed up my heart and put a fire inside my belly. I could paint those eyes of hers over and over, stare into them for the rest of my life, and I don’t think it’d be enough.