Beneath Beautiful

by Allison Rushby

“Should we?” Cameron offered her his arm.

  “One moment.” She reached out and adjusted his bowtie.

  He raised an eyebrow as she did so. “It was fine.”

  “I know,” she said, meeting his gaze. “But it's what you do, isn't it?”

  “Are you sure there won't be any photographers?” Cassie peered out the window of the town car as they pulled up outside a non-descript building back on the Upper West Side. She'd been pleased to find out that's where they were headed as at least this way, she could take her shoes off and run for her life back to Alys's if need be.

  “Most definitely no media,” Cameron answered her, sitting forward in his seat slightly as they readied to exit the car. “Some of Plum's investors wouldn't be keen, I'm sure, to advertise the fact that they're investing in her work. Not with all that fuss with the animal liberationists a few years back.”

  “Ah, yes. I see.” Cassie nodded, remembering that Plum and one of her investors had been doused with blood outside one of her exhibitions.

  “That's why she holds these very exclusive functions now.”

  Cassie wondered if Cameron was an investor himself, or was he here in the capacity of ex-whatever-he-was and a fellow modern artist, though she didn't want to ask. “There may be a photographer or two here in an official capacity, but, like I said, no media.”

  “Well, that's good then.” Cassie took a deep breath, worried about there being any photographers at all. Still, there was no point in making a fuss. She had chosen to do this—not just come tonight, but to sit for Cameron. There was an inherent risk, and she knew this full well.

  “Ready?” Cameron glanced at her.

  “Yes,” she said, brightly, thinking, No, not at all.

  Amazingly, however, the journey from the car to the inner sanctum of the building was uneventful, and Cassie was even beginning to feel reasonably adept at walking in her heels.

  “Just the man I've been waiting for.” Plum approached them as they were quickly ushered inside another room where people were milling around, drinks in hands. “I have more than several people waiting to talk to you. And Cassandra,” she turned to Cassie, stepping forward to kiss her on both cheeks, “lovely to see you again. Amazing dress. Vivienne Westwood. Very patriotic of you.”

  “Thank you.” Cassie attempted to keep her voice even, though all she could think about, of course, was Plum and her sister. “You look beautiful,” she told Plum in reply. And she did. On anyone else, black would be a safe choice, but on Plum, with her dark hair and deep red lips, it was the only choice.

  “I'm afraid I may have to steal Cameron away for a moment or two.” Plum smiled a smile at her that Cassie struggled to figure out. Was she being genuine? It was hard to tell. “I'd suggest you go and take a look.” She gestured toward the other end of the room. “Everyone's always shy at first, but it will become busy later on.”

  Standing slightly behind Plum's right shoulder, Cameron caught her eye and shook his head slightly. “Maybe you should have a walk around. Meet some people,” he suggested, firmly. “I won't be long.”

  Cassie watched him carefully, trying to establish exactly what was going on.

  “Everything all right?” Plum was on to them both in a second.

  “Of course.” Cameron nodded. “Now, who am I speaking to first?”

  “This way.” Plum started off and, as she did so, Cameron took the opportunity to lean in to Cassie's ear as he passed by.

  “Wait until I get back,” he said, his breath hot on her ear.

  Sensing all was not right Plum turned back, her smooth brow creased, and Cameron moved off once more.

  With a slight shrug, Cassie looked around her for a moment, and on locating the bar, headed for it, weaving her way through the crowd of elegantly dressed people. As their eyes skated over her, her dress felt like it was getting tighter by the minute. “A French martini, please,” she told the bartender the moment she was within earshot.

  “Good choice,” the man standing beside her said, introducing himself as Michael and a surname that Cassie didn't quite catch. “I work for Plum.”

  Cassie nodded. “Cassie Tavington.” She held out her hand.

  “Ah, so you're Cassandra! Marianne told me you'd be accompanying Cameron this evening.”

  Cassie gave him a shrewd look. “I haven't been Cassandra since I scribbled on the carpet underneath my father's desk with my crayons.”

  Michael laughed. “Cassie, then.”

  Cassie smiled back at him.

  “So, have you seen the installation yet?” Michael nodded toward the exhibition. “Are you familiar with Plum's work?”

  “I haven't, no, but I am familiar with her work. We went to university together. In a way.”

  “You'll know an installation is a new venture for Plum.”

  Cassie paused slightly. “And is she using the same materials?” She tried very hard to give the impression that this would be a good thing.

  “Oh, yes.” Michael nodded. “There's information about the piece on the wall that you must read before you enter, but it's a very personal experience. Really, I think this is going to be her best exhibition yet.”

  Cassie nodded, thinking as nice as Michael seemed, of course he was going to say this—he was on the payroll. “Well, I'm looking forward to it,” she said as the bartender finally placed her drink in front of her. She couldn't take a sip fast enough. The chilled glass was cold in her hand, and the sweet liquid burned down her throat. She had to stop herself from downing the thing in one go.

  “Plum tells me you're sitting for Cameron at the moment,” Michael continued.

  “Mmm . . .” Cassie said, in a non-committal fashion. A sign that read, let's not talk about this would have been handy.

  But Michael pressed on. “Any hints? I had a brief glimpse of Monica once. Amazing piece of work. I'm very much looking forward to his next exhibition.”

  “I'm not really sure how much I'm supposed to say,” Cassie replied, though the truth was she was beginning to think even she had minimal knowledge of what the art she was sitting for would finally look like. Uncomfortable with her conversational partner, her martini was disappearing spectacularly quickly.

  “Oh, I don't think there are many secrets between Plum and Cameron.” Michael smiled a knowing smile, and once more today, Cassie found a flare of anger lit inside her, though she wasn't entirely sure what made her more angry—the fact that Michael was suggesting there was still something between Plum and Cameron, or the fact that she cared that there might be.

  “Then I suppose Plum will already know all about it.” Cassie smiled sweetly, polishing off her drink way too fast. “It was lovely to talk,” she continued, “but I really must . . .”

  “Here, before you go.” Michael signaled to the bartender, who brought over a tray of drinks, and offered them to Cassie. She took the closest one, which looked to be a champagne cocktail, though she didn't really care at this point, as long as it was alcoholic and already poured into a glass.

  “Thank you,” she said, shaking his hand quickly, before slipping away.

  Not knowing anyone, Cassie began to make the trek—and it was a trek in the tight, sheath of a dress—toward Plum's installation. She was stopped twice along the way. Once by someone who mistook her for someone else, but they then had a lovely talk anyway, and once by an older, Englishman and his wife, who correctly picked her dress out as being a Vivienne Westwood. Cassie spoke to the pair for quite some time, though they both, as Oxford graduates, ribbed her mercilessly, of course. As they chatted, her glass somehow seemed to magically replenish itself yet again.

  Just as Cassie was about to excuse herself and continue on her way, Michael began to circulate, warning people that the installation would soon become busier, and that if they cared to experience it as it should be experienced, the time was now. “I believe I'll take my turn,” she told the couple.

  Taking a deep breath, she turned away from the couple and Michael, and m
ade her way directly toward it.

  The installation, in its own private room, loomed large under a spotlight. At first, Cassie let her eyes only skate over its façade, scared that she might have a similar reaction to the other day. Wait until I get back, Cameron had said, and now she knew why. Perhaps the several drinks had given her courage, however. Because other than feeling rather tipsy, she found herself otherwise fine, and gave herself the go-ahead to inspect the installation further.

  The installation was, as Michael had mentioned, comprised of the same materials—Plum's ever-present mix of copper, resin and blood, but this was not her usual large, solid resin rectangular block stood against the wall, or rested upon the floor, but an interactive piece, with four walls and a ceiling, in which the viewer was expected to walk inside and spend a few minutes contemplating the artwork.

  An assistant approached and handed Cassie a sheet of laminated paper, which explained the artist's vision. Over the next few minutes, she endeavored to read it, though the words swam before her eyes—not due to how much she had had to drink, but because it was a long and convoluted mash up of disjointed terms. What she took from it was the piece was meant to thrust the viewer into considering their own mortality, alone. Cassie tried very hard not to smirk as she read that the huge undertaking of considering your mortality should take apparently no more than three minutes, which is the timeframe visitors to Plum's exhibition would be allowed.

  After a while, the assistant came back to collect the paper, and informed Cassie that they would be ready for her shortly. She glanced behind her then, back into the busy, noisy party, but couldn't spot Cameron anywhere in the sea of black men's suits. Once, or twice, she thought she saw him, but then realised she was wrong. Turning back to face the installation, she felt the familiar surge of irritation that she'd felt earlier that day, fanned by Plum's spiriting his all-important self away. She knew she had a thin skin when it came to men not having time for her—her father had set the standard early—but really, why had Cameron brought her to this event only to throw her away at the very door?

  As she waited to enter Plum's installation, the glow of several drinks quickly wearing off, Cassie began to feel more and more foolish as each second ticked by. The reason Cameron had ditched her at the door was obvious. She was not important. Not like Plum. Not like Plum's investors. She was simply . . . well, the muse. Someone who, for a fleeting moment in time, had captured an artist's attention. She had only provided the inspiration for something that would most likely be a bigger, better, more important, more alive version of herself, even if it was inanimate and made of some sort of waxy plastic.

  Taking a deep breath in the hope of composing herself, Cassie wished Alys were here. Alys would be in heaven—art investors, Plum, Cameron, and surely all other kinds of interesting people besides. And while she knew she would be able to introduce Alys to all these people after she was finished sitting for Cameron, she longed to have her by her side right now. Especially as she knew Alys would have loved to laugh along with her about that three-minute time limit—Cassie knew she wasn't really a fan of Plum's work either.

  “We're ready for you now.” The assistant approached her once more and gestured toward the installation. “This way, please.”

  “Oh, thank you.” Cassie was startled out of her train of thought.

  The assistant led her inside the installation, and within just seconds she found herself standing alone in the small, enclosed room. It was lighter inside than she had expected, the spotlight outside shining down from above, and illuminating the ceiling and walls of the box with cascading shards of deep red light.

  Cassie turned in a slow circle, her head tilted upwards. All around—floor, ceiling, walls—she was surrounded by blood. She could almost smell it, and although she knew full well she couldn't touch the liquid, she reached out with one hand and tried to anyway, as she was sure everyone else before her had also done. Rich and thick and red, her eye searched for patterns and shapes and meaning in the captured life force that weren't there. And, as she looked on, Plum's creation pressed her to think about everything that had been . . . before. Of the animal captured, the bolt shot through its brain, bled out. Suddenly, she hated Plum even more for this—for making her stand here and face the fact that her actions had done this. Seen this live being killed, for she wasn't all that different to the animal encased in the walls around her. Oh, but Plum pounded all sorts of thoughts into her mind. First and foremost that she was also living and breathing, made of the same material, and that her time would come as well, albeit in a different way.

  Although her time was not yet up, Cassie, hand over her mouth, swiveled and attempted to leave. It was halfway through this movement, however, that she hit a solid wall and stumbled. It took her a moment to realise that it wasn't actually a wall of blood, but something truly alive.

  It was Cameron.

  “Are you all right?” He grabbed both her arms, steadying her. “I saw you headed this way and didn't want you going in alone. I told you that before.”

  Cassie took a long, shuddery breath. “Excuse me, but I'm supposed to be having a personal experience.”

  “Yes, I realise that.” Cassie could hear his smirk, even if it wasn't written all over his face. “I was told that most vociferously outside. And are you?” His brow creased with what looked like concern.

  What Cassie wanted to do was blurt something along the lines of “What do you care?” and run off. But something stopped her. Perhaps the realisation that she wasn't fifteen years old anymore, which seemed to be a fact that was being demonstrated to her on a daily basis lately. She was suddenly aware of the truth—she needed to grow up and face the world. To grow into her skin. Instead of running, Cassie made herself pause for a moment to think about why Cameron might care. To see things from his point of view. And when she did this, the answer became immediately obvious. He had come here to her because he needed her. Desperately. She was the muse. Not just the muse, as she had thought before, but the muse, which was, she saw now, everything.

  His everything.

  Without her, there was no sculpture.

  Cassie saw now quite clearly that she was not the inferior to what would be the eventual piece, but a living, breathing superior version of it. It was nothing without her. Just as Cameron was nothing without her, or Monica, or Freya. It was she who had the power. Not him. Not him at all. She was the muse. The intermediary of the gods. The feminine part of him—the yin to his yang. It was only through her that he could give this sculpture life. And if he wanted to do so she was, thus, his everything. To be fair, she realised now, he had told her this from the very start. That it was all down to her. Her choices decided what would be.

  All of this came flooding into her consciousness in one long, lucid thought. And as it did, Cassie found she stood taller. That she was able, maybe for the first time, to look Cameron in the eye as an equal. She was as powerful as he was. Even more powerful, more important, in this compressed, heady period of time that they would share together.

  Now, she stepped closer toward him. “I am having a personal experience,” she said, finally answering his question, her eyes not straying from his for a moment.

  He didn't look away initially, though it was he who broke eye contact first, his gaze straying down her neck to her shoulders. “May I?” he asked, and Cassie knew then that he had sensed the shift between them.

  Cassie inclined her head slightly, wondering if he would be able to feel her thumping heartbeat.

  Slowly, lazily, he lifted one hand to run a finger down her throat and along one collarbone. “I have been wanting to do that all evening.”

  Strange, but it was only now that Cassie realised he had asked her express permission every time he had touched her in his studio. So, it was true. It was her choice. All her choice. All of it.

  To be so very in control of something. Of him. The thought of it thrilled her as it coursed through her body.

  She moved toward him
again until they were nose to nose, their bodies tight. As one. They stood like this for some time, breath to breath.

  “And what happens now?” Cameron eventually asked, their faces close.

  “I haven't decided yet,” Cassie told him, entirely serious. She knew it could be whatever she wanted. Whatever she dared ask for. “As I understand it,” Cassie continued, “there are two schools of thought on the matter. Either we must come together for the piece, or we must not.”

  Again, Cameron didn't move a muscle, so fixated was he on her in the shower of red light.

  It was her decision to make. All her decision. The power was almost overwhelming.

  “But I don't know yet which is the right choice. For me. For the sculpture. I know what I want. What you want . . .”

  “What we've both wanted since you first looked up at me in the cemetery,” Cameron answered.

  “Yes.” She bravely held his gaze.

  “But you've held back.”

  “Yes,” she said again. “But is it the right thing? I don't know.” He was so close now, her lips were almost brushing his. It would be so easy to give in . . .

  The loud cough saw them both jump. “I am sorry, Mr. Callahan, but I must insist,” the voice of the assistant broke the spell.

  And just like Cinderella from the party, Cassie turned and was gone from her Prince. Outside, quite the crowd was milling about. Waiting, she supposed, for their own “experience” inside the installation. As she passed through amongst them was Plum, who caught her arm. Cassie, bolder now, immediately shook free of her grasp. “It was . . . an experience,” she said. “But I have to go.”

  Ignoring this, Plum blocked her path. “Before you go,” she said, “we must have a drink and that catch-up. Soon. I insist.” Undeterred, Cassie lifted the hem of her dress with one hand and darted around her. But as she left, she could feel Plum's gaze burn against her back in a way that suggested there were other people besides her in this situation with power.