“Noah Davis. What was that painting?”
She blinked at me, aggressively tying her hair in a bun, her arms working with the violent energy of someone pounding dough. “Oh!The Narrator.” She flipped it open to the painting. “Now that I’m looking at it, you don’t look like her at all.”
I felt deflated. “Why’s it calledThe Narrator?”
“Who knows.”
This time the woman looked like she was falling asleep. Nia ran a hand over the book. My brain short-circuited: Now Tristan’s hand ran over my copy ofArt Monstersat the café. I thought about how they ranthose hands over each other, the thought lasting longer than I would’ve liked.
She said, “Don’t you love how sturdy art books are?”
I found a stool and sat. “Yeah but it feels so final. Like, once it’s in this nice book, that’s it.”
“Is it?”
“Is what?”
“Don’t people talk about it, make work in response? Doesn’t it keep going?”
“I guess. It doesn’t make it not painful to have to find some sort of resolution where there is none.” I hadn’t even known how deeply I feared this until then. How was I, for instance, supposed to end the novel about my parents, a story about stuckness, about a tension that never fully resolves?
Nia made a noise meant to convey sympathy. It was a pretty, inquisitive noise. I could tell she didn’t know what I was talking about.
“I hope you don’t mind,” she started, “but I might just sketch tonight. Do you care?”
I said no. She hopped onto her oak desk, sitting cross-legged. Grabbing a sketch pad, a charcoal pencil, she stared at me for a perplexed beat then put her head down. Dark hair parted down the center, sliver of scalp paler than the rest of her complexion. It was oddly intimate, those flashes of naked scalp. The sprinkle of white dandruff was possibly her one flaw. She reminded me of those artsy, outcast girls in school who spent the lunch period buried in their journals.
The soft scrape of her pencil was lulling. “You should do ASMR videos,” I said.
She seemed amused. “You like those?”
“They’re all right. I actually go to sleep watching voguing videos, as weird as that sounds.”
She laughed, extending her leg into the air.
Everything inside me fluttered.
Two hours passed like this: One of us spoke, the other responded, then we’d fall silent. Her gaze made me feel suspended in the air. I nearly went into mourning when she said she was done.
“Can I see or is that against the rules?”
“What rules?” She passed me her sketchbook. I studied her drawings. I looked striking, a bit startled, restless. “They’re just sketches,” she said. “I don’t think the painting will be like that, but I had to get those out of me first.”
“But I love them. They look like how I feel inside. Crazy how you did that.”
She pried the book from me. “Like I said, they’re sketches.”
I pulledArt Monstersfrom my tote. “I feel like you’d like this book.”
She took it, flipping back the flap, grinning. “I feel like you’re right.”
I watched as she delicately set it on the table. I never lent people my books, especially thirty-five-dollar hardbacks. But I wanted to give her something.
The mischievous smile tugging at her mouth then made it worth it.
Chapter 28
It was the week before winter break. For the 462nd time I checked my email—nothing from Janine. I abandoned hope of ever being her student as I staggered to my last class of the semester.
