“So, you’re obviously a photographer,” she says, glancing at the camera around my neck, which I’ve taken to keeping close like a security blanket. “Have I seen your work?”
“No. I’ve never shown anywhere.”
“Is it any good?”
I don’t know what to say. If you want to be a successful artist, especially in this city, you’d better believe your shit is good. I spent ten months after graduating from NYU trying to make it before my father-in-law shipped me off to business school. That, plus this past year, is the whole of my struggling-artist experience. I haven’t managed even a rejection letter from the major galleries. So far, it’s been jobs like senior class photos, real estate listings, and Upper East Side dog photography.
Yes, I took headshots of a poodle.
I shrug. “It’s my work.”
She hands me her coffee and sets her purse on the ground with athump. When she bends over to rummage through it, I look right down her blouse. Her bra is fire-engine red, and a siren call to my dick. That’s more what I expected to find in her, some attitude.
It hits me that she’s getting out a business card. Good. That’s a socially acceptable way to learn more about her.
But when she stands back up, she just has her notepad in hand again. She hoists her bag over her shoulder. “Nice to meet you.”
I’m not ready for goodbye—I haven’t even said hello. “Wait,” I say, but she hasn’t made a move to leave. “Can we exchange cards?”
She scratches her elbow. “Um.”
No response? I’ll take that as a yes. I pull out my card, a little miffed I haven’t updated it as I’ve been meaning to. I don’t care about finding work right now, I just want her to reciprocate. I hold it out. “Finn Cohen.”
She glances at it before sliding it from my hand. In the next few seconds, she studies my face. “Thanks. I left mine at home. On purpose. Sorry.”
Damn. I rub my chin. “How come?”
“People are always trying to use me at these things. Maybe that’s what you’re doing—”
Use her? I don’t even know her. “I’m not.”
She pauses. “I believe you. Anyway.”
“I didn’t catch your name.”
“I didn’t throw it.”
I try to figure out if she’s joking or serious. We smile at the same moment. She opens her mouth, but I never get to hear what she says.
“There you are,” a man says from the doorway.
She glances over. He’s shadowed, but he wears a suit and looks around our age.
“I have to go,” she says without looking at me. “Good luck with your stuff.”
I go to call her back. With the kind of heart she poured into the pages of her journal, she must miss it. The journal, maybe the heart too. But the man puts his arm around her and takes her back inside.
Forget her, she’s not yours, you’re not enough.
She isn’t who I’d pictured. She’s too put together—composed, without scars or mascara streaks or coal-colored hair. I expected storm clouds overhead, fidgeting fingers, lyrics in her movements.
Then again, what the fuck do I know?
I once expected an audibleclickwhen fate kicked in.
Sparks.
Ignition.
