by Skye Warren
“My curtsy is literally the best curtsy, thank you very much.”
“Not that you’re a debutante. Just—” He waves a hand at the cabin, the whole yacht. “This whole thing. It’s kind of insane, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
That draws me farther into the room. I perch on the end of his bed, which is still neatly made after turndown service. “You didn’t grow up with the silver-spoon thing?”
He snorts. “The only thing silver we had was a ten-year-old Toyota Camry.”
“Then how did your mom bag my dad?” I say the question without thinking. There are too many wives in too many years for me to treat the marriages as anything sacred. Or love, for that matter. Daddy doesn’t even bother inviting me to the ceremony, though I never really know if that says more about the women or about me.
Christopher shrugs like he doesn’t take offense. “Mom came from money, but when she married my dad, they cut her off. He was a hard worker. A regular office job. A 401K. That kind of thing. Then he got cancer, and I… I don’t really begrudge her this. It’s what she wants.”
“That’s very understanding of you.”
“It’s not exactly a hardship,” he says. “Even if I do have to dive into cold water.”
“Thank you,” I say softly, meaning it more than words can convey. It’s a situation plenty of boys would have taken advantage of. The kind of boys who bring roofies to parties and get away with things because they can. The only kind of boys I’ve known until now.
He shakes his head, pushing aside my gratitude. “You wouldn’t have died. Probably.”
“I’m glad you’re good at the whole numbers business thing, because a career in motivational speaking is out of the question for you.”
He leans forward and opens his mouth, as if he’s going to say something important. And then he stops. When he finally speaks, it’s something I never would have expected. “You’re smart,” he says, and I laugh.
“What?”
“You’re smart, but you don’t want anyone to know.”
“I’m not smart, as my grades can definitely attest. We can’t all be valedictorian, can we?”
He laughs a little. “You are so full of shit.”
“Excuse me? My report cards are very clear on this issue. I am the absolute best at failing. If there were grades given for failing, I would get straight A’s.”
When I was in third grade, the teacher called my mother in for a conference and showed her my math workbook. I had used the numbers like an abstract paint-by-numbers, turning the pages into stained-glass drawings of flowers and puppies and this one grim reaper with its scythe made out of a column of fractions. It’s not that I can’t add or subtract or even do advanced derivatives. It’s that my mind will flit away like a butterfly in a meadow filled with flowers.
“Okay,” Christopher says. “But I know the truth.”
Frustration makes me huff, which is a lot safer than letting myself smile at him. “Fine, but I know the truth about you.”
One dark eyebrow rises. “What’s that?”
The insight hits me with the same clarity as I saw every page in that workbook, the possibility rising up out of the framework. “This whole thing. The insanity of the yacht and the silver spoon, you want it so bad it hurts. That’s why you study so hard. Because you want this life as bad as your mom, but you’re working for it in a different way.”
The silence descends on us, as heavy and cold as the water. His throat works. “That obvious, huh?”
My brain, usually good at comebacks, falls suddenly silent. There are things I could say to ease the moment: I didn’t mean it, I’m sure it’s not true. But those would be lies. We’re sitting in the cabin with only nakedness between us, the same way we were last night. “It doesn’t mean anything bad about you.” At least that much is true.
He laughs without humor. “It doesn’t mean I’m a greedy asshole?”
“Oh, for sure, you’re definitely a greedy asshole. Who isn’t? Everyone wants money. Very few are willing to work as hard as you to earn it.”
“Listen,” he says, seeming uncertain for once. “What you said about that guy. The one who owned the job website. The one who—”
“I shouldn’t have told you that,” I say, my cheeks burning like fire. “It was a moment of weakness. Which I seem to be having around you with unfortunate frequency.”
“Maybe we should tell your dad. He could make sure that—”
“Absolutely not. No offense, but you’ve been my stepbrother for like a month. You don’t know the history in my family. That guy is gone, and the best thing to do is leave it alone.”
My parents alternately hate each other and love each other, but that isn’t what breaks us. It’s the money that fractures us into a million sharp pieces.
Like the men in my life, money is only temporary.
And if I never want either of them, I won’t be disappointed when they’re gone.
Dear Christopher,
My mother married a German count, which is exactly as pretentious as it sounds. We’re moving to Frankfurt and that means a boarding school with new rules and lesson plans where I’m already going to be behind. I hope you don’t mind that I’m writing you, because I know we’re not technically related anymore.
PS. Who’s going to dive in and rescue me on spring break?
Dear Harper,
Thank you for writing to me, even if we aren’t related anymore. If it’s any consolation, you feel as much a sister to me as you did before. Which is to say, not much. I’m sorry to hear about the new boarding school. I hope they have lots of paint.
PS. Don’t sit on the rail at midnight, and whatever you do, don’t die.
Dear Christopher,
Germany is cold and guess what? They speak German. It’s hard to make friends when the only things I know how to say are “Yes, ma’am” and “Which way is the bathroom?” I’m super popular.
You will be pleased to know that while I did smoke a joint on the railing, I had my phone in my pocket in a waterproof case. So even if I had fallen in, which I didn’t, I could have called the yacht’s concierge line and gotten rescued. Three cheers for technology.
PS. My new stepbrother wears twenty pounds of cologne and has a goatee.
Dear Harper,
It’s kind of strange how different the second year is from the first. In the freshman classes they kept talking about weeding people out (which doesn’t mean what you think it does) and how hard it would be, but I felt like I had a handle on things. Now they’re acting like it’s straightforward and I’m staying up late every night banging my head against these textbooks.
I feel like I’m drowning here.
PS. If I had written this textbook, I deserve to be shot. With a silver bullet.
Dear Christopher,
You have an amazing brain, which is something I can state without any hesitation because you said I was smart—so obviously you have a clear and accurate understanding of the world. Plus, Daddy keeps talking about how you’re going to do great things.
And I’m not just saying that because you’re a vampire who wrote a shitty textbook.
PS. For the love of God, don’t die.
Dear Harper,
Finals damn near killed me, but I kept your letter on my desk. I figured as long as you had ordered me not to die, I had no choice but to listen. That’s how saving your life works, right? I never took etiquette class, so I’m just guessing here.
Your dad gave a speech at commencement and took me out to dinner. He said you were doing some kind of big art exhibit in New York City. That’s incredible.
PS. Why didn’t you tell me about it?
Dear Christopher,
That’s exactly how saving my life works, and congratulations on graduating!!! The only reason I applied to Smith College is my art professor. Her work is amazing. In my admissions essay I wrote about the Medusa painting. I thought they only made interns read those things, but Professor Mills found out and asked me t
o do an exhibit.
I thought about vandalizing the school and tearing out the wall of the gym, but shipping rates are ridiculous. So instead I’m doing a series of canvas paintings about the myth.
PS. I’m enclosing an invitation to the exhibit in case you can make it.
It seemed impossible that Christopher would spend his weekend traveling to New York City for a girl he knew for a week a couple years ago. The fact that we kept in touch felt surreal, almost a dream, like the night I fell into the bay. That we were stepsiblings, if only for a few months, made it more strange, not less. I couldn’t be sure what I wanted from him, not even in the privacy of my mind. What were the odds a man like him would be interested in a girl like me?
I never told Daddy that Christopher and I wrote letters. At first I wasn’t sure what he would think about it. And then it became weird to mention, as if I’d been keeping a secret. That’s what the letters were—a secret. An escape.
A lifeline, like the red and white round buoy.
The exhibit becomes bigger than I thought it would, once my mom finds out about it. She invites every friend and enemy she ever knew in New York City, and the whole thing blows up. It would have been nice to have a small show filled mostly with the art scene, people who would appreciate the work more than the champagne.
But I accepted my mother’s ambitions in society a long time ago. As Christopher said once, It’s not exactly a hardship. Even if I do have to dive into cold water.
All the pieces for the show are packed into foam-padded crates stacked along the foyer of the penthouse suite. Daddy’s paying the bill, of course. Mom’s last divorce gave her the smallest payout yet, which had less to do with a prenup and more to do with the man’s failure in the stock market. Only the main piece remains propped against the window, surrounded by tubes of paint and a disarray of brushes. I can’t seem to stop myself from dabbling at it, even though I’ve lost any perspective on whether I’m making it better or worse.
Mom breezes from her bedroom in a casual blouse of ivory silk and skinny jeans, the perpetual cloud of Chanel achingly familiar. “Oh, baby, are you still working on it? It’s perfect, you know.”
I twirl a dry paintbrush in my fingers. “This is the one they’ll write about.”
She comes and gives me a kiss on the forehead. “I’m so proud of you. Everyone is going to be blown away by your talent.”
Despite our weird money issues, I love my parents. Mom always supports me, and even if she can’t settle down to save her life, that only makes her human. Daddy is puzzled by everything I do, but he’s coming to the exhibit. Cancelled a business trip to Japan to be here.
The fact that they’ll be in the same room for two hours is cause for concern, but at least neither of them are married to someone else right now. That makes it ten percent less likely to devolve into a screaming match by the end.
I sigh, flopping back onto the oversize leather couch. “Don’t worry about me. I just need to stare at this for approximately twenty-four more hours, and then I never have to see it again.”
Mom checks her lipstick in a gold-leaf mirror. It’s already perfect, of course. “Are you sure? I can stay in tonight. Sandra and the girls will understand.”
“No, you should definitely go out. We haven’t been in NYC in forever.” It was back to LA after the relationship with the German count ended, and thank God for small favors.
She smiles. “You’re the best daughter.”
“I really am.” I blow her a kiss. “Now go have fun. That’s an order.”
After putting a few smudges of Atomic Red on my cheeks, she floats out the door. It will be good for her to meet her girlfriends, even if they are a pack of conniving hyenas. She hasn’t been this excited since before Robert the day trader asked her to marry him.
And besides, it wouldn’t help for her to hover over me. I really am going to drive myself crazy in the final hours leading up to the exhibit. This piece will get auctioned off at the end of the night, and the money will go to a charity to help victims of rape and abuse. There’s every chance that Daddy will be the highest bidder, not because he likes the painting but because money is the only way he knows how to show his support of my weird interests. Even knowing that, I can’t help but obsess over this piece.
The other pieces show Medusa in various stages of her life; with her three Gorgon sisters, beautiful and pristine, being held down by Poseidon, being cursed by Athena for the “crime” of being raped in her temple, her hair turned to snakes, her face turning every man to stone. You would think that’s enough tragedy for the Greeks, but then they had to behead her.
The other pieces tell the story of her life and death, but the centerpiece of the show is a simple portrait like the one that appeared on the wall of the gymnasium, sprung from my rage and fear and helplessness, the look in her eyes mirrored in every girl who walked the hallways with me.
I had only a few hours between when the custodians went home and when school staff arrived in the morning, which meant I had to work fast—and that was good; the time limit gave me the intensity I needed to complete the piece. The painting in front of me is good. Maybe even my best work, but there’s something missing. A sense of necessity. That I would have painted the wall of that gymnasium or died trying.
Maybe it’s impossible for something created to exhibit to match that intensity.
Or maybe I’ve just failed at art in a spectacularly public fashion.
My phone vibrates with a text from across the room. It’s probably Avery, my best friend from Smith College, who’s staying at a hotel in Times Square. If she offers to get drunk with me, that’s how I’ll be spending tonight, I already know.
It’s Christopher.
Two words and suddenly I can’t breathe. Is he texting me to wish me good luck the night before my big show? Does he even remember that it’s tomorrow? Or is this some random Christopher in a city that must have thousands of them, who somehow got my number and is now going to send me an unsolicited dick pic?
My hands are shaking, which I prefer to attribute to nerves about the upcoming show than about the fact that Christopher is texting me for the first time. Heyyyy, stranger.
There’s a full two minutes, during which my heart beats approximately twelve thousand times and I think of ten terrifying ways he might have been injured after texting me.
I’m at the airport about to get in a cab. Do you have plans for dinner or are you going to an uber hip artist spot where they drink kombucha and complain about capitalism?
A smile spreads over my face before I can stop it. He’s here in New York City. For me. And he’s possibly inviting me to dinner? The suite suddenly becomes a fun-house mirror, everything in all different shapes, leaving me dizzy and out of breath.
Actually I’m in my hotel room, thinking about slashing this painting, but they only sent up a butter knife with room service. After a moment I send another text, You can come hang out if you want. There’s no kombucha but we can raid the minibar.
No vandalism until I get there.
I might have a sensitive artist’s soul, but I’m still a girl.
A girl with an unfortunate, painful, and totally inappropriate crush.
Which means I spring up and raid my closet for something other than a paint-splattered tank top and ripped shorts. I pull a brush through my hair, which is about all I can do before falling back on my bed, wondering why I want to impress someone I barely know. It’s not like I’ve never been on a date before. I’ve been on lots of dates, with frat boys who think I’m going to fawn over them for knowing how to kick a ball or making a reference to Kant. Whatever.
I don’t think Christopher has ever tried to impress me. I also don’t think he wants to get me into bed. At least, he had me naked once and didn’t try anything. So where does that leave us? I’m not fifteen anymore, if that had ever been what kept him away from me. I’m eighteen now, and ironically more fully aware of my cluelessness as a sexual being than I was back then
.
It’s another hour until he knocks on the door.
And I definitely don’t run to the door or stand in front of it for two whole minutes, trying to catch my breath and pretend like I haven’t been waiting for him since he sent that text. Since before that, if I’m totally honest. Since I sent the invitation, pretending I didn’t care if he ignored it.
Since he dived in after me through the water, the first person to meet me where I was instead of where they wanted me to be.
When I open the door, he looks rumpled and travel-worn and so handsome after being on a plane that it’s indecent. “Hey, stranger,” he says softly, his eyes a sleek ocean surface at night. It’s been three years since I’ve seen him, and he looks harder and softer at the same time.
There are lots of ways I can say hello to him that will make me seem mature. Instead I throw my arms around his broad shoulders and press my face into his neck, breathing him in. “It’s the worst thing I’ve ever made, and everyone’s going to look at it, and I want to die.”
He stands stock-still for a moment, as if too surprised to even move. Then his arms wrap around me. He holds me like the whole world could batter us from every side and we would still be safe clinging together like this. He holds me like I’m running out of air and he knows the way to the surface. “It will be okay, Harper. I promise you.”
There are embarrassing tears on my lashes when I pull back. “This would be less humiliating if I were throwing an artistic tantrum and throwing things. Crying is so pedestrian.”
“I’m sure that vase would make a satisfying crash,” he offers gently.
The weird thing is I know he would let me throw it, if that’s what I needed. Or cry on his shoulder if that’s what I need instead. “Come inside,” I say, dragging him by the hand so he has to scramble to grab the handle of his carry-on before the heavy hotel door slams behind him.
I need a minute to compose myself, so I drop his hand and head for the minibar. There are tiny bottles of wine and rum and vodka. “Do you know how to make drinks?” I ask over the clink of little glass containers. “The only things I know how to make have the ingredients in the name, like rum and Coke or a whiskey sour.”