I mix the plastic rose back into the flowers and leave it for someone to grab. Fate can take it from here. I’ve officially completed Red String Theory. The moment doesn’t feel as grand as I had hoped. No epiphanies come to me. Maybe my muse is stuck in traffic.
I feel no different until Mom asks how the fundraising is going. Now I feel anxious again.
“My pieces are hardly selling,” I admit. “I had higher expectations.”
Mom knowingly raises her eyebrows. “The higher the expectation, the lower you feel when reality doesn’t align.”
I kick at the sand with my sandal. “With half of the NASA payment, a few recently sold commissions, and what little savings I have, I’m sitting at, like, sixteen thousand dollars. That’s not even half of what I’ll probably need for the auction.”
“Have galleries or museums been in touch? Having the NASA name behind you should help. I can make some calls.”
“No, thank you,” I say a little too quickly. “I appreciate your offer, but I want to do this on my own.”
“Roo, there’s nothing wrong with asking for help.”
I reach for a daisy made of pull tabs and beverage caps to keep my hands busy. “I don’t want a handout or someone to pretend to like my work because you called in a favor. If—when—I can make money as a working artist, I want to know it was because of my talent and not because people agreed since you’re my mom. Because of who you are, if I accept even just one phone call, that will stay with me for my entire career.” I pull at the plastic flower petals one by one until the whole thing falls apart in my hands. “You have confidence because you know your success is because of you.”
“It’s because I went big. I took risks. Sometimes it worked, othertimes it didn’t,” Mom says, adjusting part of my bangs that are sticking straight up from the wind. “You can play it safe or go after what you want. These days it’s harder to stand out. You have to get yourself noticed.”
I make a face. “That’s what I’m trying to do with my large installations.”
“Even if you do everything completely on your own, there will be people who think you got to where you are because of your name,” Mom says. “They might even think that’s how you got your current gig, even though we know that’s not true.”
I move the deconstructed daisy parts from one hand to the other. “But to be fair, I wouldn’t have ever been in the position to doEntangledwithout my previous experiences, going to art school, or being exposed to art and traveling with you. I had time to create, to even think that I could do art as a career. I am privileged. I’ll never deny that.”
“That’s important to recognize. I worked hard and made connections for myself, but also for you. If you won’t accept that, then I hope you’ll hear my advice,” Mom says as she looks out in the distance. “I don’t regret my work. Everything I’ve done had its time and place.”
“It paid off for you.”
“It doesn’t for everyone.” Mom turns back to me. “You know, when you pulled that paintbrush as a baby, the first emotion I felt wasn’t excitement or pride. I felt dread,” she divulges. “Not because I didn’t want you to be an artist or that I didn’t think you would be one of a kind, but because this industry can be unrelenting, especially for women. Ageism is real. Sexism is real. Our work is still valued less than men’s, touring is stimulating but exhausting, and it can be hard to be away from home for long periods of time.”
I let her words wash over me as I process them. “Really? Do you still feel dread?”
She frowns. “Mostly no. Slowly, over time, I saw how interested you actually were in art. How hard you worked to be good. It was then I felt hope, like you were really going to make a difference and do things your way. Part of me worried you were only ever interested in art because of me.”
“Maybe it was a combination of fate, you, and me. Fate was the seed, you helped me grow, and now I’m keeping that interest alive,” I say.
“You’re much more self-aware than I was at your age,” she reveals. “You sure you still don’t want to go half and half on the auction?”
I shake my head. “If you give me money to take care of my problems, that defeats the entire point of me being in control of my own career. Besides, the last thing you should be doing is spending money on something you don’t even want.”
Mom twirls the fake lilac in her palm. “It’s a waste for either of us to spend money onBaby Being Born. The video has literally been out there for as long as you’ve been alive.”
“For a long time,Baby Being Borndefined me, and I would love for it not to also define my future. And right now it’s in private hands, but who knows who will buy it. And you know what that means.”
“That my work will increase in value,” Mom says bluntly. “Maybe I should come out of retirement.”
I let out a humorless laugh. “Let’s be honest. You never retired.”
Mom shrugs. “Inspiration did strike recently. I’ll probably never be able to stop.”
“I know,” I say, nudging her. “And thanks, but taking your money doesn’t feel right.”
“I’m not going to press it. I can’t force you to do anything,” Mom finally says.
The helicopter flies lower to the water, the waves below rippling outward. An extra-long rope is thrown from the side as Arlo leans out of the helicopter, a shadowy silhouette against the setting sun. The audience gasps as Arlo dives headfirst into the ocean. He grabs the end of the rope floating on the surface and ties it to something clipped to one of the yellow buoys dotting the surface of the water. He effortlessly swims the thirty feet or so back to shore and emerges from the waves.
“The ocean renews us, and we have a responsibility to renew itfromus,” Arlo says, ending the show with a parting statement. He signals something in the air, and the rope tightens, moving back up toward the helicopter. As the rotorcraft flies higher, the plastic flowers are pulled from the ocean, lifting higher and higher in the sky until every last one dangles in an upside-down bouquet held together by string. “Leave no trace. The fate of the ocean is in your hands. And yours. And yes, yours,” he continues, going one by one through the crowd until he reaches me and Mom.
