Beneath The Skin(90)

I hear her footsteps. Then, unexpectedly, her voice calmly touches my ears. “I didn’t come here to hate on your sulky parade. I came to join it.”

I turn my head slightly, quirking an eyebrow.

“Yeah, you heard me.” She rolls her eyes and squints through the window, like the sunlight bothers her. “I didn’t get in either.”

“Oh.”

Iris snorts. “Good for nothing bitches. They don’t know real art. They just pick the most commercial, the most safe, the most investor-impressing type of shit work that they can. How is that representative of the whole program? How is that representative of its students? They ought to pick a fair selection of every type of art out there, including the subversive, including the provocative, including the seditious, the insurrectionary, the inflammatory, the offensive.”

“What are you, a thesaurus?”

She shoots me a look. “What I’m saying is, they should’ve picked both our works. It’s your last year too, isn’t it? Aren’t you graduating in the spring?”

I sigh, rubbing at a spot on my arm, which oddly reminds me of how Brant would softly touch me there after sex, running his fingers up and down my arms while we were in his bed, or mine.

“I’ve got an idea.”

I meet her eyes. “What kind of idea?”

“But I can’t do it alone.” Her whole mouth tightens up, as if the next words she’s about to utter take all the effort in the known and unknown universe to produce. “I … need … your help.”

“Alright. For what?”

She taps the edge of my blank canvas. “We’re going to do our own little … ‘showcase’. Your work. My work. Hopefully many others too, if I can enlist those who will dare to be a bit … rebellious with us.”

I hesitate. “Rebellious?”

“What I have in mind isn’t exactly … legal, per se. I mean, it’s legal-legal. But it’s, um …” She tries to find the words, despite the growing look of concern on my face. “It’s … going to garner a lot of attention.”

“Hmm. Isn’t that the point?”

“Yes. And … it could potentially get us in trouble with the school. And it might even …”

“End our careers as we know it?” I offer sweetly.

Iris shrugs. Then her pretty little eyes turn dark. “I may not like you, Nell. Maybe since day one, I just couldn’t stand your work. But after being around it for so long, I’m starting to understand your particular brand of … getting in people’s faces. I’m starting to relate to it. After being overlooked for so long, you can say I’m acquiring a certain taste for … the loud … and the dangerous.”

“And you think I’m loud and dangerous?”

“I think you could own the world, if you tried.”

I squint at her, appraising her supposed (and rather sudden) bout of artistic courage. Can I trust her? Are we really seeing eye-to-eye, or is this some sort of unsubtle act of self-destruction that she’s skillfully inviting me to partake in?

“I want them to see us,” she emphasizes. “I want the whole campus to know our names. Nell … Iris … We could own them. Are you in?”

After a glance at my blank canvas, I feel the corners of my mouth pull up. Meeting her ruthless eyes, I give her a curt nod.





BRANT



“Dude. Are you shitting your pants right now?”

I let out all my breath at the mirror, adjusting my tie. “Do I look like a fuckin’ penguin with a stick up my ass? I feel like a penguin.”

“You look hot.”

“Calm your tits, Dmitri. I’m not gonna fuck you.” I dodge him swinging a fist into my arm for that comment. “Just kidding. I know you’re trying to fake a relationship with this imaginary Riley chick. Don’t mean to blow your gay cover.”

“She isn’t imaginary, you dickwad. She’s coming tonight. So’s Sam and Clayton and Dessie,” he goes on. “Everyone’s coming.”

I freeze. “Really? Everyone?”

“Yeah, dude! They all want to see your work.” Dmitri slaps my back, then leans into me. “Even Eric wants to come. I guess he was able to pencil you in between all his twink hookups.”

“Twink? You gay guys are into Twinkies? What do you do with them? Because you obviously ain’t eatin’ them.” I dodge another timely whack from him, laughing as I slip out of range. “Just kidding! Chill, bro. Shit, you’re so tense, you’d think it was your damn showcase we were attending tonight.”

Dmitri chuckles, shaking his head and righting his glasses which had gone crooked in his effort to hit me. “So, like … is Nell …?”