“They wouldn’t look like this. The truck. The hat. There’s a particular way Americans hold their shoulders.”
“Like how?” she asks, fascinated.
“It can’t be described. You’d see the difference if you ever…” He trails off.
If she ever came to England.
She doesn’t want to spend these weeks missing him before he’s gone, so she turns to the drawings of Beauty. His landscapes are good, and his Ripley series makes her ache, but these have a life all their own.
“I’d love to see your fantasy work. Your dragons.”
“I don’t do that anymore. It’s been—I don’t know. Years, maybe.”
“What? James,” she says, dismayed. “This is your best work. And I don’t mean just technically good. It’semotionallygood. People would pay money for the way your art could make them feel.”
“I’m meant to give myself to science, Ripley. To facts. This is atrivial thing I do for fun. Or, rather, Iusedto do it,” he corrects himself. He sounds like the impression of his father he did back at the museum.
Ripley strokes the edge of the page, Beauty’s bright, curious eye glinting back at her. She wonders if James’s father has ever truly seen his son.
Probably not. He’s a chemist who only knows how to set up a reaction, then measure how much of the desired product he’s made.
“I don’t know if your dad knew this,” Ripley says slowly, “but my dad taught me that people don’t love dinosaurs because of science. Facts alone don’t do it—we love dinosaurs because they make usfeelthings. Awe. Fear. A sense of being able to touch a lost world. A visceral understanding of the fragility of life, of how easily our world can tip into mass extinction. And I don’t think facts are doing it for you either, James. You’re blocked because you can’t go on with your life withoutfeeling.And I think you know it.”
Underneath her, his body tenses. “If my art were important, it might be different, but galleries don’t want what I make. My father would almost certainly freeze my trust. I would lose my ability to help Daisy.”
“Or you’d decide that galleries don’t get to define you and you’d become a famous commercial illustrator with a bunch of fuck-you money of your own.”
He arches a sardonic brow. “A very common career trajectory for artists, I understand.”
She closes the book and hands it to him. “I’m sure your dad and your department head and I don’t know who all else would tell you to stick to the facts. It’s better for them. But is it better for you? Would Daisy want your money if she knew what it cost you?”
He stares at the sketchbook like it might be venomous. She leans over and kisses him so she can feel his cheekbone under her lips and remember it when she’s old.
“I’m going to get us some coffee.”
A cup of coffee in each hand, Ripley walks back to the cabin with exaggerated care. She’s floating in the exhausted, near-psychedelic tranquility that comes after a lot of really excellent orgasms and not nearly enough sleep.
Get Beauty out of the ground, get her in the scanner, spend as much time with James as possible.It feels achievable.
Today, she’ll be friendlier to Mindy, because it’s important to James. Right now, she’ll bring him coffee in bed, then—
The door of James’s cabin swings open. Mindy steps onto the shallow porch.
“Ripley! Hey, you have a minute?” Mindy starts toward her, looking determined.
“Hi, Mindy,” Ripley says uncomfortably. She’s outside her cabin first thing in the morning with two mugs of coffee made extremely different ways, and Mindy’s no fool. Ripley might have ditched her rule about her name being linked with James’s, but he hasn’t saidhe’sready to go public.
“I wanted to say I’m sorry yesterday got weird. James gave me quite a lot of shit about it.”
“He does that. Hey, there’s breakfast in the lean-to if you want some,” Ripley says, trying to change the subject.
A smile breaks over Mindy’s face, and it’s like she’s a totally different person. “I would love to grab breakfast and talk about your next project.”
“Um, give me ten minutes?”
“That would be amazing. Here, let me get your door,” Mindy says, darting past her.
“Mindy, no—”
