The table is covered in Sarah’s work. There are at least six different sketches in various stages of completion. They look like ideas, mostly, like she’s brainstorming. On one sheet of paper, there’s a hand with two fingers bandaged together. On another, there’s the curve of a woman’s neck, her hair pulled up, a string of pearls looped around then hanging down her back.
They’re incredibly realistic, but I love that in her finished work, she always makes it about more than that. There’s one on her website of a face and shoulders that look real enough to be a photograph, but then the rest of the person just…falls apart. Arms blur, hands dissolve into streaks of color and light. They aren’t all as abstract as that one, but so far, it’s my favorite. I won’t pretend to be an art critic, but it feels like she wants people to notice what shedoesn’tinclude on the canvas as much as what she does.
She told me via text that her meeting at the Rooke went as well as she could have hoped. The owner, who is from Georgia, is coming to her show in Atlanta at the end of March. If she likes what she sees, she wants to have a conversation about showing Sarah’s work at the Rooke.
I could tell from her message that Sarah’s trying to stay chill and not get her hopes up, but I think she has every right to reach for the stars.
She’s that talented.
I pick up the sketch of the hand and look a little closer. It could be a hockey player. Or any athlete, really. The roughness. The bruising. The wrapped fingers.
When I move to put it back on the table, my eyes catch on another sketch, one that was covered up before. My heart starts pounding as I swap the one in my hand for this one.
Sarah once told me she makes up the people she paints. But this sketch—it’s me.
My eyes. My jawline.
“Snoop,” Sarah says, her tone gently scolding. My eyes dart up, heat flooding my face as she gently tugs the paper from my hands.
“Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean?—”
“Don’t worry about it,” she says. “I left it out, so I can’t be mad you saw it.” She looks down at the sketch, then sets it back on the table. “I was just messing around. I really want to try using oil. See if I can capture the color of your eyes.”
“Are they different from other blue eyes?”
“They’re totally different,” she says. “They almost look translucent in some light, but then, when you’re wearing navy blue—like, Jaguars navy blue—they shift into looking more like…ocean blue. So the goal would be to capture all the different shades they can look at the same time.”
“Sounds like you’ve spenta lotof time thinking about my eyes.”
She grins. “In astrictlyprofessional sense, I have.”
She holds my gaze for a long moment, and I suddenly feel like I’m tumbling down the side of a hill, gaining momentumso quickly, there’s no stopping where I’m headed. I love talking to this woman. I love what she does. I love how she makes me feel. I love that she has charcoal on her cheek right now, and it only makes her more beautiful. Morereal.
I told Theo my heart wasn’t involved yet, but right now, I’m not so sure that’s true. I’m at least on my way there.
That realization might have worried me five minutes ago. But those are my eyes she’s sketching, and that has to mean something.
She clears her throat. “Anyway, I’m going to show Charlie my glasses collection. Are you going to be around a while?”
“I’ve got a picnic date, actually.”
Sarah’s expression falters the slightest bit.
“With Charlie and Poppy,” I add.
“Ah,” she says, something like relief passing over her expression. “That sounds fun.”
“I get a juice box,” I say. “I’m totally stoked.”
“Miss Sarah?” Charlie asks. “Did you draw these pictures?”
“I sure did,” Sarah says. “And you know what helps me do it? Wearing my glasses.”
Charlie looks at the drawings for a long moment, then she nods, like she’s finally decided something. “Do you want to come to our picnic?”
Sarah smiles up at me. “Do I get a juice box too?”
“I can ask Poppy if she has an extra,” Charlie says. “But if she doesn’t, you can share with Uncle Carter.”
