“You got nipples, don’t you? Then you got titties. Now, are you ready to go, or you need more time?” She leans back in her seat, looking pleased with herself.
It’s so adorable I can’t find it in me to push her anymore, so I put some distance between us. “Ready.”
She gets up from her seat and I rush to hold the door open for her. “Thanks.”
“No problem. Follow me,” I say as I turn in the opposite direction we’re supposed to go.
Her brow arches and she scrunches her nose, making her dimples disappear. “Why?”
“You want us to do this documentary, right? Trust me, this will be worth it.”
I turn my back to her, feeling the heat of her gaze on my neck as I walk farther away.
When we reach the reception area, Bailey is sitting at her desk pretending she wasn’t watching to see when we’d emerge.
“Bailey, you need me for anything?” I call out to her.
Her response is a look of boredom and a middle finger, so I smirk and lead Dani away.
I take her to the main gallery area and start walking a path through all the art, stopping to ask her about certain pieces.
“What do you think of when you look at this painting? What do you feel?” I gesture toward the piece titled “Kill Me with Your Tears” by an artist named Ayanna Powell.
It’s an oil painting emulating a chronophotographic sequence of a man crying and a woman wiping his tears, the distinct painted frames freezing each phase of their rapid movement.
Dani studies the piece religiously. It’s a sight to behold the way her eyes focus solely on the woman and then solely on the man before taking them in together.
“I feel panicked,” she says.
I tilt my head, observing the piece. I’ve spoken to the artist herself and many people about this painting. Many have felt sorrow, anguish, and even joy, but no one has ever said they felt panicked when looking at it.
“Can I ask why?”
“It makes me feel like my time is running out. If you were to see this exchange in real life, it would look … sweet. It would seem soft, slow, and gentle. But seeing it this way, with every single detail of this simple gesture on full display, you can see how fast they’re moving. It’s a reminder of how quickly time is snatched away from us, even the little moments.”
We both freeze when she says “the little moments.” She probably thinks I forgot about the phrase she told me her grandmom used to say. If I didn’t think it’d send her running for the hills, I’d show her just how wrong she is. I’m trapped in this vicious cycle of trying to form a bond between the people we are now without reminding her of the people we were.
“That’s an interesting way of looking at it.”
Her eyes glance over the painting once more before she pushes her shoulders back and strolls on to the next one.
We walk through a few more pieces and installations, her takes on each growing more refreshing and captivating as we go. I brought her in here to try to get a peek at how her brain works. How she views the world and how she thinks the world views her, and I gained plenty of insight.
As we walk out of the gallery area and down to the ballroom, I enjoy the way she openly admires the space.
“This is really nice. So you rent this out for events?”
She knows this because Bailey told her, which is how the idea of hosting Tanya’s gala here came to life, but it occurs to me that she’s never actually seen it. She hasn’t been here since the quiet disaster that was opening night, and even then, she never made it this far into the building.
“Yeah. A few organizations have rented it out, and we’ve used it for workshops for kids and families, including some of the children from Our Place.”
Having the space to explore their interest in art at Our Place gave them the confidence to share those interests with their families and get them involved. Chi Chi’s legacy lives on in them and all the other kids finding their way because of Our Place.
Dani looks at me with a tight-lipped smile, her eyes shining with something unsaid.
“What’s that look?”
“Nothing,” she says, moving her eyes around the ballroom again.
