Page 60 of Icarus

“Beautiful, beautiful. Lighter on the border between body and space.” Mrs. Sims crossed the room, observing their pieces.

Icarus could see that Sorrel was extremely nervous. He kept rolling a pencil back and forth on the chair. It was a quiet but irritating noise.

“It’s fine.”

“Easy for you to say,” Sorrel snapped, then looked contrite.

Icarus smiled back at him. “Don’t worry about it. Already forgiven. We still on for the portrait tonight?”

“Yeah, we can go straight after.”

Mrs. Sims glided in their direction, standing behind Sorrel’s chair while he cringed.

“The metaphor is a bit heavy-handed, but overall a very solid piece. Try adding a bit more dimension to the shadow on the table and it should be A-plus work.”

She gazed at Icarus’s painting. “Beautiful work as always, Mr. Gallagher. Any interest in putting this one up in the hall or submitting it anywhere?”

“Nope!” Icarus said chipperly. “It’s going straight in the trash. Unless you have any objections.” He glanced at Sorrel, and Sorrel shrugged. Icarus always threw school art projects in the garbage. He didn’t need them. When you drew all the time, you really didn’t get attached to stuff you didn’t design with purpose.

Mrs. Sims shook her head. “Bring a horse to water,” she muttered and continued on her way.

“She hates when you do that,” Sorrel said.

Icarus started peeling the tape off the borders of the canvas. “She’s going to have to get over it.”

Draft

He followed Sorrel out into the parking lot and down a shady street with pretty bungalows. This part of town wasn’t the nice area where Mr. Black lived, but it definitely wasn’t anything to sneeze at.

Sorrel kept up a quiet conversation about the giant party they were planning for his grandmother, and Icarus listened. Asking him leading questions to make him talk more.

He was calm with Sorrel. It was like being in a Beatrix Potter novel with little squirrels doing laundry and rabbits mending fences. Sorrel didn’t ask anything of him, and as delightful as it was with Celestina and Luca, Sorrel didn’t pressure Icarus to do anything, he just trailed next to him timidly. It was relaxing.

Sorrel lived in a house that looked like a cottage, with white shutters and brown wood slats. It smelled like baking bread when they went in and ivy was climbing the windows.

Sorrel’s grandmother was ornery and demanding, but she had Sorrel’s dishwater eyes.

She sat, large and imposing, swaddled in a crochet blanket on a pink seersucker couch. Her white hair lit orange in the golden hour sun.

“Where did you find this one?” she asked her grandson, voice soft as the rushes.

Sorrel, who was sitting behind him eating chips and watching, just shrugged.

Icarus spent an hour filling in her hollows and crests in lead, then sprayed the paper with some heavy-duty hairspray borrowed from the bathroom.

Then he gently placed the paper in her trembling hand.

Her eyes flicked up at Sorrel, who went to the back of the room to figure things out in the kitchen.

“Salieri,” she said, jutting her chin at Sorrel.

One of Mozart’s rivals. A cruel word.

Icarus urgently didn’t like this woman.

“Haydn,” he countered. “It was lovely to meet you, ma’am.”

Sorrel’s grandmother leaned back to glare at him, but didn’t say another word.