“I think Eleanor wanted us to see it because she knows neither of us will say what we’re supposed to say.”
Her mouth curved. “Which is?”
“That it’s transcendent. Or meditative. Or speaks to the human condition.”
“Does it?”
“I have no idea. But I know why I’m here.”
“Eleanor invited you.”
“Devney mentioned you’d be here. I called Eleanor.”
Pink touched her cheeks. “Oh.”
He got her a white wine from a passing waiter and kept the red for himself.
“You look amazing.”
“You keep saying things like that.”
“Because you keep wearing dresses that make me forget how to think.”
She laughed.
The gallery was three rooms deep, and the third room was where the work got serious. The paintings gave way to sculpture: bronze figures pressed against one another, a wall installation of woven copper, and at the center of the room, a piece of twisted steel nearly seven feet tall, all sharp angles and nothing soft.
Tessa halted in front of it. “This one’s definitely angry.”
“I’d say defensive.”
“Same thing.”
“Not always. One’s a choice. One’s a reaction.”
“Which is this?”
He studied the piece. The way the metal jutted outward. Spikes where curves should’ve been. A center that was hollow on one side and sealed on the other, as if the artist had welded it shut to keep something in or out and never decided which.
“Reaction. Someone hurt it. This is what’s left.”
“You said that with confidence.”
“It’s a personality I’m familiar with.”
She glanced at him. “Yours.”
“Some days.”
“Today?”
“Today I’m working on it.”
She didn’t turn away, and neither did he.
The next piece was a bronze of two figures standing back-to-back, almost touching, but not. Tessa moved on to it. He stayed where he was for a beat, then followed.
She was close enough now that he could smell her shampoo when she leaned in to read the placard. Something herbal, clean. Underneath it, just her. He hadn’t stood this close to a woman and known what her shampoo smelled like since the last time he’d stood this close to her.
