by Daryl Banner
I squint through the haze of lights and the invisible fog of perfume and self-importance that hangs in the air. No wonder Nell can’t stand her, I muse privately to myself. She stands for everything Nell hates.
“We nurture a carefully selected program through which the work of our students—as well as their individual strengths and weaknesses—are cultivated in such a way as to guarantee long-lasting careers in their chosen fields. What more could a school do but secure the futures of its eager students? And I see many futures in here. Many, many futures. No amount of—”
I’m distracted suddenly by a flash I see through the glass windows. Renée keeps talking on and on, but soon another head turns in the crowd. Then several more. Soon, scandalized murmurs and hushes scatter across the room.
“Excuse me,” Renée says into the microphone, giving it a gentle tap as her enormous eyelashes flutter dramatically with her every blink. “I am about to present my newest exhibit. As I am this year’s sponsor, I am … It is my r-responsibility to …”
But no one seems much interested in what she’s saying anymore. People have broken away from the crowd to get a better look at the flashes outside. For a second, I think it’s lightning, until I realize that the light is coming from the ground.
Renée, growing more annoyed by the second, sweeps her hand at the wall nearby. “The exhibit, through this doorway, is called From The Dawn, To The Day, Of The Mighty Moon. I hope you will appreciate the political irony I’ve exercised in showcasing the—”
I glance in the direction of the commotion outside, which has now gathered a mass of people by the windows, desperate to see what the hell’s going on. Amidst the crowd of people, I see Dmitri’s face turn to find mine, and he’s wearing an astonished look.
“Political irony,” Renée repeats, losing her composure. “Excuse me. My exhibit is through this doorway—Excuse me. Over here.”
I reach Dmitri and the others, who are trying their best to see what’s happening outside the windows. “What’s going on?” I ask.
“I have no idea,” mutters Dmitri.
“No clue,” agrees Sam, “though it doesn’t look good.”
“Should I call the police?” asks Riley, worried. “I should call the police.”
The murmurs of apprehension and the chatter overtake the room, drowning out any sad attempts Renée Brigand makes to reclaim the room’s attention. It’s all lost now to the show outside.
Frustrated with my lack of vision, I bend left and right, trying to see through the heads in the crowd. Impatient, I start cutting through the bodies, recklessly pushing my way to the front.
When I finally make it, the sight through the glass windows freezes my heart.
“Wow,” I whisper at the glass.
People are already piling out of the building, curious and drawn by the sights, so I follow, pulled by the excitement and the fascination. I walk the path that runs by the rest of the School of Art. It’s lined with torches and squatty braziers, illuminating the courtyard in dancing golden light.
What the actual hell is going on here?
I spot something peculiar hanging from a tree. My heart jumps because my very first thought is a morbid one: someone’s come out and hanged themselves. But when I draw closer, I realize that it’s a ceramic angel that hangs from the tree by a wire, its wings hanging separately, detached from the main body. When I get closer, I notice a sign affixed to the bark that reads: “REJECT: Satan Claws. CRITIQUE: The work as a whole seems aberrant and deliberately offensive.”
I hear laughter at my side, then realize there’s something else on the other side of the tree. It’s a little vignette made out of toys and what appear to be scrap metal and bottle caps depicting a clothed pig in a metal fortress, and he seems to be looking at a miniature iPhone. A sign above it says: “REJECT: The Fourth Little Pig. CRITIQUE: I just didn’t get what you were trying to say. The metaphor is too nail-on-the-head.”
When I turn, I realize every tree in the courtyard has a project of some kind resting beneath it. People from the art gallery have poured out into the night, curious and excited to visit all these new exhibits they weren’t planning to see.
Is this part of the showcase? Or is this something else entirely?
“Dude, what is happening?”
It’s Dmitri who’s caught up, bewildered by the sights. I shake my head. “I have no idea,” I admit. “But I think I like it.”
“Are these …?”
“The pieces that didn’t get into the showcase,” I say with a nod. “I’m figuring the same thing. Do you think all the students who …?”
“They had to have!” he answers before I’ve finished the question. “It must be some mass collaboration. Fuck, this is brilliant. And they’re showing the world their critiques. It’s like …”
“It’s like holding the judges accountable,” I finish for him.
Laughter rings out to our left. I pursue it, then find myself standing in front of a bed in the middle of the road. There are offputting stains all over the sheets, each with a photograph of a happy kid with a name written over his face and an occupation. A porn magazine and a bottle of lube are left out on the bed. Upon the headboard sits a placard that reads: “REJECT: My Family. CRITIQUE: Highly inappropriate, to glorify masturbation in such a grotesque way that neither sends us on a journey nor satisfies any semblance of artistic intent.”
“The judge missed the point,” Dmitri mutters.
I nod agreement. “I get it immediately. It’s like, the kids he could have had. All that wasted baby juice.”
“This is so gross.”
“But kinda deep.”
“And gross.”
I smirk at Dmitri, then throw an arm over his back. “Is this piece hittin’ a little too close to home, buddy?”
He swats my arm away, then finds his attention arrested by another piece nearby. I laugh, turning around and feeling overwhelmed with a strange, bubbling joy at what I’m experiencing. This whole thing is simply brilliant. I can’t stop chuckling inside, watching as all of the students get this opportunity to pay witness to the projects that never were and, in fact, get to enjoy them and judge for themselves.
To my surprise, I even see Renée Brigand strolling slowly along the path. At first, she appears very concerned, clutching a hand to her chest reservedly as she walks. Then, much like dipping a toe in the pool to check the water’s temperature, she leans toward a work of art under a tree—it appears to be a painting of a frowning skull—and I watch as a curious smile crosses her face. She looks up and reads the plaque nailed to the bark above it, then shakes her head, seemingly in pity, her fingers drawn to her mouth, covering it.
The unmistakable flashing lights of campus security start to invade this spontaneous showcase outside the building, likely called by the stuffy people who run the “official” showcase inside the building.
It’s near the tunnel that my eyes fall on a strikingly different piece of work. The brazier at its side seems to illuminate it a lot less than the other pieces in the courtyard, perhaps because of the brazier’s squatty shape or its distance from the work of art. Regardless, it seems to draw the least amount of attention, and yet I’m pulled to it with more fascination than any of the others.
I plant my feet before it. My skin runs cold, even standing by the fire as I am.
It’s a sculpture of a dog. A very, very big dog. Its head was removed at one point, but now it’s been carefully, meticulously, tediously sewn back on. No effort was made to hide the thread. Its face has suffered considerable, disturbing damage—maybe by a club, or a baseball bat, I can’t tell—but little zebra-print and rainbow-adorned children’s Band-Aids cover all of the head’s gaping holes, slashes, and disfigurements.
Hanging by a nail on the wall of the tunnel, somewhat apart from the sculpture, is a plaque that reads: “REJECT: Daddy Loves You.”
I swallow hard. My mouth runs dry.
The rest of it reads: “CRITIQUE: I will neve
r understand your obsession with removing the heads of your work. Perhaps if your work came from a place that was real—instead of some forced, artificial desire to be strange and dark and upsetting—your art would make us feel something.”
I stand there, frozen in place by the words. I feel a dreadful coldness wash over my body, running from that aching chasm in my chest to every finger and toe on my body.
She’s here, and I have to find her.
Chapter 24
Nell
Well, this isn’t exactly how I planned for it all to go down.
“It wasn’t supposed to catch fire!” hisses Iris, swatting at the paper sculpture with a broom.
“You’re literally fanning the flames,” I tell her tiredly.
“What a disaster!”
“Actually, I think it improves the piece.” I tilt my head, observing it. “I mean, for something you’ve titled Shipwreck …”
“Shut up and help me!”
“Alright.”
With the help of three other art students involved in our little act of rebellion here, we dowse the flames—but not before another fire takes root further down the walkway at another “exhibit” we’ve set up. One of the other students curses, rushing off to put it out.
“Maybe the torch idea was a bit …” a guy at our side starts, wincing.
“That’s the whole premise!” shouts Iris, infuriated. “Flames. Fire. Passion. Snuffing it out. Snuffing us out. Oh, shit,” she breathes with a look of terror in her eyes, cutting herself off. “They’re already looking at us. Everyone in the gallery.”
I turn my head, noticing all of the people pressed against the glass windows, staring out at the fiery wonder.
“We have to move quickly,” I announce unnecessarily.
“Then move! And quickly!” barks Iris.
Then I spin at the sound of a siren and spot light flashing in the distance. To my utter excitement—yeah, I know, I should be terrified, but really, I’m feeling twenty times more thrill than I am fear right now—I discover that the flickering lights are those of approaching campus security vehicles.
“Campus security,” Iris mutters. “We’ve done all we can do. It’s time to leave it up to chance. Run.”
“Run?” throws in another girl, her hands and mouth covered in burgundy paint, looking in the dark like some feral creature who’d just clawed a man’s chest open and eaten his heart raw.
“Yes! Fucking run!”
We bolt from our spots, scattering like flies at the drop of a rolled up newspaper, and abandon our attempts to put out any more stray fires. After running toward the tunnel, I realize that Iris and the others have torn off in a different direction, which gives me sudden cause to hesitate. Aren’t we better off running away together?
Before I enter the tunnel, I realize I can already see flashing lights bursting out from within its shadowy depths. Turning on my heel, I rush toward my secret door at the back of the School of Art, relieved to find it unlocked. Thank you for your negligence, Kelsey! I shut the door at my back, then charge across the dark space and hurry toward the safe one. Up the stairwell I go until I reach my favorite door on the whole campus. Pushing through it, I tumble onto the roof of the art building and crawl to the edge, tentatively peering over.
The view is astounding. I see the torches burning yellow and gold, little pockets of brilliance that give life to the otherwise featureless dark of the path that leads to the gallery wing of the school. Already, people are pouring out of its glass doors, slowly stalking around the exhibits we’ve set up everywhere, exploring. This is a dream come true, I realize, my heart hammering in my chest. I’ve never done anything like this before. I’ve never felt a part of something so … political. Is it right to call it political? All the art school has been since my first day as a freshman is a game of politics, of who-you-know, and of favoritism. Let’s shake up the game, our little ploy seems to scream. Let’s put the judges in their places and rip open the back curtains.
But really, I wasn’t planning to burn down the damn university. The braziers are supposed to scream “atmospheric”, not “pyromaniac”.
I hear the shuffling of feet. I turn my head, annoyed for a second because all my hair blows into my face, blocking my view. When I pull it away like a curtain, my breath catches in my throat.
Brant stands there in a tuxedo. Neck to toe tuxedo. It’s fitted so perfectly to his body that I can literally see his pecs protruding from the shirt and his thighs flex in his tuxedo pants when he slowly crosses the roof, approaching me with that crooked devil’s smirk on his face. And despite the utter classiness of his attire, his hair is a wicked, sexy mess, reminding me of every time I’d pull on it when he buried his face between my legs, and how messy it’d look when he woke up beside me the next morning, sleepy-eyed and smiling drunkenly.
He thrusts his hands into his pockets, glances down at his shoes, then only flicks his eyes up at me, his forehead screwing up cutely.
I knew I missed him, but seeing him here in front of me on this rooftop melts everything bad or pained or awful inside me. It melts it all away and replaces it with something perfect.
“Hey,” he says quietly.
The sound of his voice reminds me instantly of how we left things. I feel a stab of sadness right away. I’ve fucked everything up, haven’t I?
“Hey,” I return anyway.
He comes a bit closer, three more steps. He takes a deep breath, then says, “Y’know … I’m not exactly afraid of heights, but … uh … It’s a really long fall, and you are super close to that ledge, and I’m not sure if you know this, but there’s a bunch of fire and artwork down there.”
“I know.”
“You … wouldn’t have happened to have anything to do with all that, would you?”
I shrug ambiguously, playing with him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh really?” Brant circles around the roof, drawing closer to me at the ledge. “Well, perhaps I can enlighten you. It seems like some art students … took to setting up their own End Of Year Showcase.”
“That’s what it seems like,” I agree. “I … hope it didn’t ruin the real one going on inside.”
Brant comes to rest near the edge, just beside me. He crouches down, the gravel of the rooftop crunching slightly beneath his shiny dress shoes. “If I’m perfectly honest, I think it’s the coolest damn thing I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen a lot of cool damn things,” he adds with a cocky smirk. “And … I’m not alone in that opinion. Do you see all the people down there?”
I take a short glance over the edge. “I can’t tell if they like it from up here. What are they saying?”
“They’re moved. They’re excited. They’re drawn in by the pieces, perhaps even more so than the twenty-two selected. Hell, you see that person right there? The one with the big ol’ feather comin’ out of her head? Even she’s impressed.”
I squint, trying to find the person he’s talking about. Then my eyes widen. “Is that Brigand??”
“I mean, she was a bit miffed at first. I guess you sorta lit all the torches during her big ‘Hey, congrats to the students, but let’s make this whole thing about me and my latest brilliant work’ speech. This whole …. courtyard display … it made her forget about her own damn ego for a second. She was giving an honest look at the pieces. Hell, I think she was even smiling.”
“Smiling …” A smile of my own twists my lips.
“And I saw your piece.”
I turn away and watch the people slowly moving between the different exhibits, the whole scene disrupted slightly by the flashing lights of a couple parked campus security vehicles. I wonder if even the campus security folk are looking at the exhibits, perhaps after they’ve determined that no one was in immediate danger.
I can’t really say anything, and Brant seems to sense that—in the brilliant way he seems to know exactly what I need at any hour of the day and in any state of mind—because he takes off his jack
et and lays it over my back, cuddling it into my sides. Then he lies down next to me, propped up on his elbows with our shoulders touching, as we both stare down at the scene below.
“I miss you,” he whispers.
I press my lips together, feeling pained about how I’d left things, the emptiness consuming me despite his efforts to show compassion. Do I really deserve his compassion?
“The truth is,” I start to say, then stop, clenching shut my eyes as I feel too much emotion rushing up to my face too quickly. For some reason, the last thing I want to do is cry, maybe because I know in an instant that he will try to console me and make me feel better, and that’s the last thing I deserve.
“Yeah?” he prompts me gently.
I blink away the tears that are trying to happen. “You have been … ceaselessly kind to me. Maybe when we first met, I just assumed it was your flirty way of getting me into bed. And a part of me wanted that too, but I knew that once you had your fun, you’d be gone. I couldn’t have that. There’s too much in my life that comes and goes. I’m so used to saying goodbye. Whenever I finish a piece of art, I suffer a little death, having to say goodbye and let it go. I couldn’t stomach another goodbye in my life. I was just biding my time until you’d had enough, and the fear consumed me.”
“I’m afraid too,” he returns. “I’m afraid of how I’m like around you. I’m afraid of what you do to me. I’ve never felt like this about anyone, Nell. You are the only person I’ve ever met who … makes me feel like a better person. Like someone who’s worth more than their dick. Like someone who’s worth more than their charming smile, or their sexy body, or—”
“Wow. Flattering ourselves, much?”
He shoots me a cocky grin. “Just stating facts, babe.”
My tension breaks, giggles raking my body as I try desperately to suppress them.
“If I may interject,” he goes on, “I’d, ah, like to say that I’m in a very similar situation with my feelings. Every girl I meet sorta just … passes through my life. No one stays, not even my exes. It’s become such a way of existence over the years that, like … I don’t even know what it feels like to have someone there at my side. Someone who will be there. Someone who doesn’t leave my bed in the morning. I … I really want someone there to wake up to. I want someone to share my shit with. I want someone to share my spicy egg scramble with every morning, to share my latest set of photos with, to take care of my spontaneous boners throughout the day …”