The gallery owner has been nothing but a source of encouragement. I’ve spoken his name so many times, if Zane weren’t comfortably aware of how much I adore him, he’d get jealous.
“And did you ask him?”
The question is serious, but the teasing note in his voice already tells me how he thinks I’ll answer. “Yes, I told him.”
My nerves have made me second guess myself a bazillion times since Gail’s first phone call. A thousand disparaging voices in my head tell me he doesn’t really like my work. An echo of every bully who said a mean word to me. A reminder that for each insult, my inner child took the statements and amplified them into gospel, doing far more damage.
“And what did he say?”
“That he isn’t in the business of losing money. He’s in the business of forging lifelong relationships with talented individuals so he can gouge them for an indecently large percentage of the profit.”
Zane’s eyes widen.
“I may be embellishing just the tiniest fraction.”
“Careful. That’s how the girlfriends of rich boys end up with their own galleries.”
A nice thought and a joke now, but someday… maybe.
“Enough about me,” I say, then proceed to show him a photo array that goes on for long minutes, starring me and my art. Finally, we come to the end and Zane steals the device away so I can’t make him sit through it a second time.
“What’ve you been doing all day apart from thinking?”
“You make it sound like thinking is wasted time when it’s the way I come up with all my best ideas. Like this…” He strokes my lengthening hair upwards and presses his mouth to the top of my spine, slowly sucking. “And this…” He drags my top all the way off my shoulder and does the same to the curve of my neck, sending out so many tingles that it feels like I’ve stuck my finger into a live socket.
“Mm-hm. That feels like a very good use of time,” I concede, then notice the paintings stacked against the side wall. “You’ve sorted your mum’s pieces?”
Zane’s father Paul has negotiated a two-month tour with the public galleries across New Zealand. If it’s successful, there are already plans to expand that across the Tasman, then potentially worldwide.
But with space limited, it means making decisions on what to include and how to position the different themes inside the work. When Paul realised his son had just as much insight as him, he delegated the bulk of the task. Since then, it’s consumed him, trying to get it right.
“You know it doesn’t need to be perfect, yeah?”
Zane shrugs. “I like the process. It’s interesting sorting them into groupings, then mixing and matching them to change the tone of the show.”
Any worries I might have harboured that he’s being frozen into indecision by the importance of the tour soon evaporate as he leads me through his thinking. We spend hours laying out different arrangements, testing how it would feel to wander through rooms, having each emotion build on the next.
It’s so hypnotic, it becomes soothing, and I’m shocked when my phone rings, breaking the spell.
“Clare!”
My bestie is currently overseas with her partners, a signature still pending on an anticipated sports contract as they leverage offers against each other to negotiate for the best terms.
Our plan to flat together while she attends uni and I attend art school has long been pushed aside by our developing interests.
It’s made more sense to me and my career to focus on developing works for the gallery rather than the Matthewson application, since becoming a saleable artist is the point of attending the college.
If I ever flounder or just want to expand beyond my current abilities, school will be there. Zane’s wealth means I don’t haveto make or break it with a one-off scholarship application. And if I begin selling—no,onceI begin selling—financing tuition payments should be within my means.
Clare has found her own calling, working with a sports promotion team, and finding her flare for drama well matched to the occupation.
While my mother is content that I’m eschewing tertiary education to pursue business, Clare’s mother is far less enthusiastic. The stint overseas has helped their relationship to steady and once she sees her daughter flourish as I know my friend will, I’m sure she’ll be persuaded.
We chat enthusiastically, catching one another up on news until the twenty-hour time difference makes itself known. When I ring off, Zane is crouching on the floor, carefully wiping dust from an oil of him as a young child.
“You catch her up on all the excitement?”
“Of course.” I scrunch my nose a little.
