“I’m glad you had your sister, for a time,” I said gently.
“Me, too.”
“I don’t have any siblings.”
His eyes—which had once again been resting on my opened art notebook—flicked to mine. “You must have been very lonely growing up.”
“I wasn’t.” It was the truth. “My imagination and my friends kept me company.” The only real problem with having no siblings was there was no one else around to distract my parents from me—and my many failings. But I wasn’t about to complain, given what he’d just shared. My dumb only-child guilt was more than Frederick needed to know.
We sat together in comfortable silence after that. Frederick’s eyes drifted once again to my art notebook, but his gaze was unfocused.
“I would like to hear more about your life, Cassie.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “I wish to know more about you. I wish . . . I wish to know everything.”
The quiet intensity of his tone shot straight through me. The atmosphere in the room seemed to shift, the nature of what we were to one another suddenly tilted on its axis.
I looked at my notebook, which had suddenly become the only safe place in the room for either of us to rest our eyes.
THIRTEEN
Mr. Frederick J. Fitzwilliam’s Google Search History
how do you kiss if it has been three hundred years since
how can you know if she wants to kiss you
is it a bad idea to kiss your roommate
is it bad to think about or have sex with your roommate
age gap relationships
best breath mints
* * *
[EMAIL DRAFT, UNSENT]
From: Cassie Greenberg [[email protected]]
To: David Gutierrez [[email protected]]
Subject: submission for Contemporary Society art show
Dear David,
I wish to submit for consideration my three-dimensional oil and plastics mixed-media piece, Manor House on a Placid Lake, for River North Gallery’s Contemporary Society art exhibition in March. The dimensions of the canvas itself are three feet by two feet, with a cellophane-and-tinsel sculpture attachment extending out from the canvas another ten inches.
I have attached five JPEG images of my completed piece to this email for your consideration. Pursuant to the parameters set out in the Request for Submissions, the finished piece will be available for display in your gallery upon request.
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Cassie S. Greenberg
By the time I got to the art studio, Sam and Scott were already there, standing in front of Manor House and staring at it with matching expressions I couldn’t parse.
They didn’t look horrified, at least. That was something.
I dropped my bag off at an empty cubicle and stood beside them. “Thanks so much for taking pictures for me,” I said to Scott. He had a fancy camera with a name I didn’t recognize and was a great amateur photographer. I was grateful he was available to do this. I was planning to submit to the River North Gallery art exhibition that evening, and while I’d already drafted my email to David, I needed to attach five pictures of my piece to it to be considered.
“It’s my pleasure.” Scott lifted his camera—worn suspended on a strap around his neck—without taking his eyes off what he was there to photograph. “Where should I . . . um.” He paused, then looked to Sam, wide-eyed, for help. Sam shook his head and chuckled quietly before turning back to whatever he was reading on his phone. “Where should I stand?”
I pointed to a spot about two feet away from where Manor House hung on the studio wall. “Start there. I think that’ll capture the light as it streams in through the window. Hopefully it’ll reflect off the tinsel-cellophane sculpture and really make the pictures pop.”
Scott’s mouth twitched. “Got it.”
“The manor house itself isn’t quite as large as I’d originally planned,” I mused. The explanation was probably unnecessary—Scott was a trooper to do this for me at all and probably didn’t really care. But I was excited about the finished project and needed to tell someone.
“Oh?” Scott moved around the piece, snapping a new picture every few seconds. “You’d initially wanted to make something bigger?”
“Sort of,” I admitted.
As I’d put the finishing touches on it over the past few days, my mind kept revisiting my conversation with Frederick about his past. In the process I’d inadvertently incorporated some of the details he’d shared about his old home. By the time I was finished with Manor House, the home it showed was smaller than what I’d originally planned, the plain wooden floors he’d described could be seen through the windows, and the roof had taken on a more thatched appearance than had been my original idea.
“The lake and the tinsel sculpture coming out of it are both bigger than I’d originally planned to compensate for the smaller house,” I added, as Scott continued to snap photos.
Scott grinned at me. “The plastic sculpture is the coolest part of it anyway.”
I couldn’t tell if he meant that or if he was just being nice. Either way, I definitely agreed.
“I hope the judges like it.”
What if they didn’t, though? I’d been so preoccupied with simply finishing this piece I hadn’t let myself think about what I’d do if it was rejected.
It would be okay, though. Eventually. It would suck in the short term, just like all the rejections I’d gotten over the past ten years had sucked. But I liked this piece, even if I was the only person who ever would. That had to count for something.
As Scott resumed taking pictures, I went back to the cubicle where I’d stashed my things and pulled out my laptop so I could review the email I’d drafted to David before I sent in my application.
And I nearly jumped out of my chair when I saw the email I’d just received.
From: Cressida Marks [[email protected]]
To: Cassie Greenberg [[email protected]]
Subject: Interview—Harmony Academy