“She’s sort of my agent.”
“Your agent? What are you, a movie star?”
“I’m not a movie star,” he replied, sipping from his drink. “I play football.”
“Football? In England?”
“It’s not your football,” he mentioned offhandedly. “You’d call it soccer. But to the rest of the world, what I play is called football.”
“I see,” I replied.
“You sound disappointed,” Lex observed.
“You’re one of those meathead sports players,” I told him. “I could never stand athletes. They’re always just so full of themselves. Always thinking they need to dominate everything around themselves.”
Lex thought on that for a moment, but he didn’t respond, which I found rather telling.
“So, what are you doing in America, then?” I asked, surprised that I even really cared. “You’re a long way from England.”
“Just passing through.”
“I think you mentioned that before,” I recalled. “And you brought your agent? On a quick jaunt through New Orleans?”
“She can never turn down a good trip. Always loves to get out of England as often as she can. She has to stay close to me, especially when I’m playing internationally.”
He suddenly looked disappointed with himself, as if he’d fumbled and revealed some major detail to me.
“You play other countries?”
“Sometimes,” he responded coolly.
“Well, you must be a big deal, then.”
Lex smiled wistfully. “Nah… just a guy.”
We sat in silence for a moment, sipping from our drinks while we thought on things.
“I heard something about a contract this morning. What kind of contract?”
“Just some promotional thing,” Lex replied absentmindedly. “Jess swung by to tell me that there’s another player that’s in the running for it, so I might miss out on it.”
“Is it important?” I asked.
He chose his words carefully.
“It’s very important to me.”
I didn’t particularly understand, but I nodded anyway. It seemed like the appropriate thing to do, given the circumstances.
“So, what do you do?” He asked.
“I paint,” I answered noncommittally.
“You paint? Any good?”
“A little,” I told him modestly.
He nodded, and the silence resumed between the two of us. I was starting to regret coming back here and seeing him again…
“I was given an academic scholarship for painting when I was younger,” I eventually added. “Had the opportunity to go on an artist’s retreat… holed myself away in a cottage in Finland for a year to study myself and my craft.”
“That’s interesting,” he replied, turning his gaze to face me. “You must be plenty good to score something like that.”
“Maybe I am,” I confidently told him. “I’ve been selling my own paintings since I was fourteen. A couple of years later, I was supporting myself entirely through my artwork.”
“Have anything up in the galleries?” he asked.
“Lots of my older stuff. My work is hanging in a dozen galleries here in town, including some of the more respected museums. I’m a little harder to find outside of Louisiana, but some places carry my work. Some state museums in New England, a few places out west… last count? Upwards of a hundred galleries carry at least something of mine.”
Lex considered this. “That’s impressive, Riley. Now that you mention it, I can see you sitting in front of an easel… You’re good with your hands…”
“Thanks,” I answered noncommittally, giving him a sideways glance and a bit of a smirk.
“So, what do your parents think of that?” He asked, casting me a studying glance as he sipped his glass of beer.
“My parents… aren’t exactly part of the equation,” I shrugged, holding back the emotions.
“Oh,” he commented. “I’m sorry to hear it. I don’t want to drudge up any painful memories…”
“My mother left when I was very young,” I told him, surprising myself. “As for my father, he died in a motorcycle accident a couple of years later.
“I can’t possibly imagine,” he sympathized.
I continued on. “I passed through foster care for a while until a family took me in. They supported my art, and were proud of me… but they were Ivy League material, and I wasn’t. When I decided to not follow in their footsteps, things got a bit… messy. So, when I came back from Finland, I was able to scrounge myself up a decent place to live, worked on my art, and here I am.”