by Kitsy Clare
Then I take a moment to think of what’s happening with Caz, how there’s so much white-hot energy there. It’s too intense to be fake—too real to keep playing around with two men’s hearts—with my own heart. It’s something I have to explore, however edgy or ill-advised.
“Is it just because I’m going to be over here for so long?” Erik asks through the awkward silence.
“That’s part of it.”
“What’s the other part?” His tone has turned suspicious. “Is it that guy you’re interning for?”
My insides feel like they’re bleeding. “Partly. Look, I’m confused, and it’s not fair to keep you hanging on. And you have Betsy—”
“Betsy?” His voice cuts into me like a sharp blade. “Don’t bring Betsy into this. We aren’t lovers. Really? Is that what you think?”
Guilt and melancholy rush through me, like a fever. “I don’t know, Erik. Maybe you need to be free to see what happens over there. A year is a long time. If it’s real, we’ll find each other again. Lately, you’ve seemed very distracted.”
“Okay, Sienna, if that’s what you want.” He’s already retreated.
That’s it? No fighting for me? I’d hoped that telling him wouldn’t be too hard, too frightfully painful. But this? He’s such a gentleman, perhaps too much so.
Whoever was talking to Erik comes in again. Her red, wavy hair almost touches the screen, but her face remains a mystery. “You need more time?” she asks, and I want to punch her right through my laptop, but I have no right to. I’m the one breaking up with Erik.
“Be off in a minute.” He gives the woman a pained but kind smile.
I feel sick. I’ve caused his sorrow, which makes me feel awful. But it also feels horribly right. “Erik, I’m so, so sorry,” I mumble. “I love you, I do, but a year is a long time, and we need space.”
“Bye, Sienna.” Erik’s cold tone and click off is so painfully final I have to remind myself I initiated this.
Afterward, I face-plant on Lydia’s fancy desk, wondering if I might be sick. My stomach is rolling around and my head is spinning. I take long, slow breaths and stay like that until someone knocks softly on the door.
“Sienna? Are you done?”
It’s Harper. Oh, lord, I need to pull myself together. I’m not at all ready to tell her what I just did. She’d be horrified.
I sit up quickly and smooth my hair. “Sure, I’m off. Come on in.”
When she sees me, her face is even more full of questions than before, but the vibes I’m putting out are like Caz’s—that iron grating, shut. So, she simply sits on the bed and stays quiet.
After a minute or two, I walk over and sit next to her. “Harper, you’ve been really nice to me, picking me up and all and letting me take a shower here.”
“Thank Lydia Hightower. It’s not my place. Hey, shall we cook some Thai? We actually got groceries before the storm. Good timing, huh?”
“Perfect. Uncanny.” My words sound unintentionally sarcastic. “I just have to get back. I need to check my place, survey the damage.” I’m dying to spill my guts to Harper, confess how much I’m feeling for Caz, how badly I’m aching inside about the breakup with Erik, but I’m afraid she has too many mixed feelings about Caz, too many misgivings about the strength of our friendship through all of this.
“It’s still in a total blackout downtown. Is that even safe?” When she turns and looks me in the eye, she must sense my turmoil, because she wraps her arms around me and folds me in. “It’s that bad, huh? I won’t even ask, just talk when you’re ready.” She pats my back and I lean into her, taking her strength in, needing my friend so badly.
“I’m sorry we’ve been at each other,” I mumble into her shoulder.
“I’m sorry, too. You know I love you, even if I may not approve of who you’re hanging out with.”
I stiffen slightly and try to soften my instinctive reaction. “I’ve got to follow my path, Harper, as clichéd as that sounds.”
“I know, I know.” She holds me at arm’s length. “I just want you to follow a good path.”
“I will.” Getting up, I gather my bags. Suddenly I feel so much better. Was that all I really needed? A heartfelt hug-it-out with my bestie?
She stands, too, affection and concern in her eyes. “Want me to drive you? It’s a long way down to the East Village from here.”
I shrug. “Thanks, but I’m hyper with energy. I need to get moving!” The irony hits me that I sound like Caz—his rejection of a generous ride—and my heart goes out to him for whatever quirk he was feeling at the time.
Dave and his aunt are equally as surprised at my sudden zeal for a long walk. But I can’t get out of there fast enough. They load me down with matchbooks, candles, fruit, cheese, and bread, and a powerful LED flashlight. Harper advises me to come right back if I get scared.
“Aw, you’re such a good mom,” I croon when we hug good-bye.
Walking downtown, past the main library with its stately lion sculptures, and farther down past the urban greenery of Tompkins Park, I’m filled with incandescent buoyancy. Who needs artificial light when you’re filled with the real stuff? As crazy and dangerous as Caz is, he’s my own experimental art, and I’m his. Who knows what will happen between us, but at least I’m free to find out.
11 CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sitting by my apartment window, I gaze out into the absolute night. The darkness feels protective, even exotic, wrapping around the city like fine black velvet. I can’t quite see the trees in the city garden across the street, but hints of their bare, curving branches are like dancing ebony gnomes. And, incredibly, since there’s no glow of streetlights to block out the sky, I see stars. Lots of them! This almost never happens in Manhattan.
While I’m reveling in my thoughts, my lights abruptly blink back on. And then the streetlights and the bodega lights on the corner. My fridge thrums, and my bedside clock chirps, its digital settings askew.
Darn, I was just starting to be unafraid of the dark. I’m heading to my bedroom to reset the clock when my cell on my bedside table starts its loud ringtone. Running the rest of the way, I wonder, could it be Caz?
I click it open and, for a moment, lose my voice. He talks first.
“Sienna?” At the sound of his husky bass, my heart jogs at a breakneck pace. “Sienna?” he asks, gentler this time. “You there?”
“Hi,” I croak out.
“Sorry I barked at you. Sorry I was so stubborn about not riding into Manhattan.” It’s highly unusual to hear Caz apologize. He’s changing so much I hardly recognize the insufferable egomaniac I first met.
But I don’t quite feel like letting him off the hook. “Why did you get so mad at me for suggesting we catch a ride to Manhattan? And cabs? It makes no sense, Caz.” There’s silence on the other end, and I’m afraid he’ll hang up on me. So I’ve become the aggressive nudge. We’ve flipped roles. “Any ideas about that?”
“Look, I didn’t call to be interrogated, Sienna. I called to invite you to an auction.”
“Huh?” In one phone call, he’s back to his zany artist self, and I’m back to playing catch up. “What auction, where?”
“Christie’s. I’ll pick you up tomorrow afternoon.”
“In your limo? I thought you didn’t drive.” I can’t resist pestering him.
He laughs. God, I love that sound. I love that he doesn’t hate me for giving him a hard time.
“See you tomorrow, at your place. Three p.m.” With that, he hangs up.
Forgetting my obsession with order, I dive into my color-coordinated closet and start tossing around clothes in the frantic hunt to find something divine to wear to Christie’s. I hoard my designer knock-off dresses in the back of the closet for very special occasions, and this one more than qualifies.
Should I rock the bohemian leopard-print pleated dress I treated myself to when Harper and I shopped at the Fifth Avenue boutiques? No, I should probably wear something more classic, like my little black Marc
Jacobs cocktail dress.
I decide on something that’s the perfect nexus of artsy and dressy: my form-fitting purple Gucci knockoff. I got it on sale last year and it’s so stunning, I haven’t dared wear it yet. This way, Caz can totally show me off to his high-end art peeps. God, who will be there? Jeff Koons? Chuck Close? Freaking Lady Gaga?
Oh my lord, I’ll be on the arm of Casper pinch-me Mason. I’ll be making my very public debut with a fantastically famous date—a stratosphere more renowned than even my...ex, Erik. Erik, oh, what have I done, breaking up with you? You were such a perfect gentleman. Though too much the gentleman somehow.
I gulp and try to stop my knees from quaking. Really? Am I actually letting myself fall for a stark raving lunatic?
***
The next morning, I have to do something, anything to distract myself from the madness of Caz’s afternoon arrival. Taking out one of my digital art prints, I examine it in a new light. Ha, literally in a new light.
Everything that Caz said about my work floods into memory: that it needs to have bite, be scary, be more formal; but that it is strong and beautiful—like me.
I remember what I told him, too. That his art should be real, heartfelt, not just be a jokey game.
With all of this heady knowledge percolating in me, I instinctively get out my oil paints. I haven’t used them since I graduated last spring. They’re still so against my orderly, clean-freak grain. How, afterward, I have to get the paint off my brushes with smelly turpentine and soiled paper towels, how the debris stains the sides of my trashcan. How the process itself can trigger an even more stubborn obsession for cleanliness.
But I want to take chances again. I need to challenge my compulsions, do something ballsy, tough, and creative. Like Caz was saying. It’s high time I really stretched myself again to an uncomfortable place. I know that’s how I grow.
So I haul my easel and supply bag from my closet and arrange small blobs of the colors around my oval palette.
I shudder at my first attempts at mixing the paint. It’s been months, and I’m rusty at it. I never seem to be able to get that palette clean enough, no matter how much I scrape at it with my palette knife. But if I’m going to call out Caz on his artistic insincerity, I need to challenge my own set ways, cuss at my own demons.
Loading my brush with a striking blue shade, I attack my orderly computer art. Shadowing in areas around the neat shapes I created digitally, I feather in areas of atmospheric clouds. I add dark areas, too, that look like rocks and caves and scary birds of prey. It’s freeing. I’m feeling less anxious about my work and about the upcoming date.
Standing back, I study what I’ve done. No doubting it, the mash-up of paint to digital print is original, fresh, and a new twist on me.
I’ve deepened my work, made it more soulful and haunting—like the sugar factory. When it’s done, I’ll show Caz. He’ll be proud. He may be irascible, narcissistic, a bully, sometimes, but he’s so right about my work and what I can do to take it to the next level.
Man, oh, man, is he perceptive.
12 CHAPTER TWELVE
I click-clack down my rickety apartment stairs as fast as I dare in my teetering snakeskin boots and swing the door open.
“You’re wearing that?” I screech. I hate the way I sound, but Caz can’t be serious! He’s in faded jeans, his work boots, splattered with spun sugar, and a wrinkled black shirt with no tie or jacket.
“You look great, too,” he quips and leans in for a kiss. I’m too shocked to stop him. And the kiss is spicy. Even one day without him has me missing him so much that I can’t wait to spend more time together. Even with him in wrinkled clothes.
True to Caz’s strange philosophy, he does not hail a cab, driven by a “terrible driver.” Instead, we ride the subway, and then hoof it. I’m glad I thought to put on soft socks before I squeezed into my new boots or my feet would already be sore as anything.
A block from Christie’s, Caz stops on the sidewalk and fishes in his briefcase for something. He pulls out two wigs and says, “Here, put one on.” The one he’s handing me has mousy brown hair arranged in waves. He puts on a shaggy black-haired wig and tucks his coppery locks under it. Then he dons some chunky sunglasses. I’m taken aback at how easily it disguises him, but why?
“I’ll pass on the wig, Caz.” I hand it back to him. “What’s going on? Have you lost your mind?”
In response, he chuckles like a loopy scientist. “I have a method to my madness. Okay, if you’re too chicken, but I need one. You’ll see why.” At this, we duck in. An officious-looking guy with a portable credit card scanner asks if we’re bidding. Caz mumbles, “No,” and we scurry past the art handlers who are in white shirts and black aprons, and the growing crowd of well-dressed people to the back of the room. We hightail it so fast, I don’t have a second to scan the crowd for famous faces.
Not exactly what I had in mind when I imagined making my grand entrance with Caz. Maybe I’m being taught a lesson. Don’t revel in others’ fame. Or something to that effect.
He slumps down in his seat like a dour teenager and starts to tenderly smooth my hair from my face. I’m confused about why he’s dressed in costume, but there’s no confusion over how hot I’m getting feeling his fingers slowly brushing against my cheekbone.
Finally, I have time to glance around the room. Against one wall is a long bank of auctioneers, tapping away on their laptops and talking insistently into their phones. I guess the bidding these days is global.
Crowding into the white-walled room with plush stone-gray carpeting, I spot Park Avenue art collector types dressed to the nines, and I think I see...are those the freaking Olsen twins up front wearing drapey, neo-hippie smocks?
Holy cannoli! I do recall reading somewhere that they’re in the set of young stars that collect art. I don’t gush about them to Caz—he’d probably roll his eyes and consider me some type of groupie. Besides, I’m too blissed out by the motion of his thumb on my inner palm to bother making small talk.
The hoity-toity buzz swells to a tense crescendo. People stop rustling their programs. Why? And then I see what the big deal is.
Up front, the black-aproned art handlers have moved in at least four Casper Mason pieces. One is a gigantic sugar cauldron drilled with hundreds of holes, the second is one of his shot-out sugar windows, the third and fourth are containers of colored sugar in see-through vats.
“Yours!” I squeak, and he shushes me with a finger over his mouth.
I crane my neck to take a closer look at the work all together. Very impressive! No doubt he’s a major talent. I can’t help it, though. Seeing the pieces lined up as a grouping reinforces my suspicion that Caz sees his work as a giant gimmick. It doesn’t bother me that he is having mischievous fun playing at being an art nobody. But the gimmicky part does. I wonder what’s serious for him? What makes his soul come alive? His heart beat with deep emotion? What brings him to tears?
The bidding has begun for the shattered sugar pane, and it’s blowing up to mind-boggling proportions. Caz is chuckling behind his hand and having so much fun being anonymous.
“Do I hear three million, five hundred thousand for the Casper Mason? Yes, up front with paddle number 40. Paddle number 121 bids three million seven hundred thousand, and paddle number 78 for four million.” Paddles are popping up and down like critters in a Whack-a-Mole game, and I can’t even begin to comprehend the cascading flow of money in this very storied room. Whoa, I’m sitting next to a guy who’s worth more than forty-five million dollars easy? My mind can’t wrap around that.
Casper glances over at me. Even through the heavily framed sunglasses, his delight is clear. And just like that, the reason for his disguise comes into blunt focus.
I cup my hand around his ear and say, “Okay, so the deal is, if you were sitting up front and everyone knew you were here, it would spoil the fun of being a voyeur to the absolute feeding frenzy over your work. Am I right?”
He doesn’t answer
out loud, but he gives me a thumbs-up.
And then he does whisper back, tickling my ear and sending chilly jolts of pleasure through me. “I wanted you to see the craziness of the art world as I know it—what a big-game hunt it is. Understand the greased cogs.”
I nod, thankful for his quirky tutelage. He leans over again. This time he surprises me with a kiss, nudging apart my willing lips to start a burning in me. His big hand enfolds mine, and he makes languid circles on my inner palm with his callused thumb.
As we kiss, the clamor of the bidding war becomes a distant chime in my ears. All I hear—want to hear—is Caz’s heavy breathing while he tilts my head back onto his shoulder and sends me to a higher place with his next inspired kiss.
“Let’s get out of here,” he says softly when we finally take a breath. I nod, my senses in overdrive, heart pattering, and my panties already wet.
He sneaks us through an interior door that leads to a winding hallway, lined with more expensive paintings in ornate gold-leaf frames. The guards nod casually to him, obviously secure in the fact that Caz belongs back there, but apparently not aware of precisely who he is. Caz knows this place intimately enough to ferry us masterfully through Christie’s inner sanctum and out again to the street.
On the way to the subway, he peels off his black wig and tosses it back in his briefcase. I’m speechless. What do you say to a man who’s comfortable wearing disguises? But his certainty, even in this role, turns me on. I guess celebrities need stuff like that. And he is one in the art world. We cuddle as the train speeds over the Williamsburg Bridge, with me firmly scrunched up against Caz and inhaling his candied-sugar scent.
In our trek down Broadway toward his art castle, there’s no way we can keep our hands off each other. He explores my posterior curves while I delight in stroking his firm biceps. Stopping a few times to wrap around each other, we enjoy delicious kisses. More than a few curious passersby pause to stare at our provocative PDA. Let them drool. He’s mine.