“You like?”
“I really do, Kerry. You’re amazing. I can barely draw a stick figure, and you’ve got so many pieces here that have blown me away.”
“Well, thank you! That’s so sweet.” She leans in. “So, seriously, do you know if Jason is coming?”
I grin. “Are you two . . .”
She shrugs. “Maybe. I don’t know. We had so much fun at that birthday party, and he’s really a sweet guy. I think there might be something happening. I mean, you saw him in his princess dress? And the way he carried that little Cassie around on his shoulders half the time?”
“He was awesome with her, yeah.”
“I invited him. I thought maybe . . . I don’t know.” She crosses her arms and bites her lips. “He’s not going to show up.”
“He is going to show up.” I spin her around. “He already has.”
Jason is standing with Esben near an elaborate metal sculpture. It’s obvious that Esben is working very hard to keep him talking and not let him get away. Poor Jason is scanning the room, then looking back at his friend briefly, but his attention is not on Esben right now.
“You better go break that up,” I suggest. “Your brother is going to talk until he runs out of breath and passes out unless you intervene.”
“Well, that might not be a bad thing. All right. I can do this.” She throws back her shoulders in confidence. But then she doesn’t move.
“Kerry! Go get him! If I had that hot body and a red dress painted on, I’d be strutting all over the place. Go. Get. Him.”
She shakes her hands to relax. “Okay. I’m doing this. Why is there no alcohol at this gig? Ugh.”
Jason’s face immediately lights up when he sees her. When she reaches the pair, I’m amused to see that Esben gives absolutely no indication that he’s going to leave them alone together, so I go over and insist that I’m starving and that we should hit the appetizer table in the other room. Begrudgingly, he agrees.
“Are you really hungry?” he asks as he hands me a plate.
“Starving. And I love these little . . .” I reach for a pair of mini tongs. “Well, whatever these are. Puffs of some sort. I might eat them all.”
I stack my plate with them until they threaten to topple over, and Esben starts laughing.
“Okay, fine. I get it. We’ll stay here and eat puffs and leave my sister alone.”
“Oh! Wait.” I set the plate on the end of the table and retrieve my phone, tasting one of these appetizers as I open my camera. “I should be taking pictures of this, right? Isn’t that a thing? Posting food pics?”
Esben is trying to control his laughter. “Well, sure. If you want. I mean, we are in a beautiful gallery full of a million potential shots, but if you want to post greasy puffs, that’s cool.”
“Oh. You do have a point.” I drop my hand. “Or I could take a picture of you. You’re much better looking than a puff.”
“I’m crazy flattered.”
“You should be. The puffs are filled with Brie, and they’re delicious.” I put my arm around his neck and stand close. “You, however, still taste better.” I kiss him quickly, then step back and make him pose for at least twenty pictures.
Then we spend a silly amount of time taking selfies, and he shows me how to post pictures and tag him on my new accounts. I also text some pictures to Steffi and proudly tell her that I am no longer a social-media virgin.
She texts back almost immediately. That’s not the type of virginity I was hoping you’d lose next, but still cool.
We wander around the gallery a bit more, and I pull Kerry aside so that I can get an update on Jason.
“He asked to take me out to dinner this week. For Italian! That’s a good sign. Romantic, right?”
“Definitely romantic.”
“Hey, where’d Esben go?” she asks.
“I’m not sure.”
We walk through the room and then check the other one. Then Kerry stops and stares into a small room off to one side we hadn’t gone into. Her face falls. “Damn.”
“What is it?” I ask. I step closer and see Esben looking at another painting.
It’s a very large canvas that takes up at least a quarter of the wall, but I can’t see it well from this angle. Kerry walks very slowly to her brother, and I start to follow and then decide to hang back at the entryway. Something is happening here, but I don’t know what.
He turns to her, and there is nothing but distress coming from him. He looks so terribly sad. “Kerry . . .”
She stops next to him and faces the painting. “This isn’t part of the show. This room is supposed to be closed off. I didn’t mean for you to see this.”
He puts one hand in his pocket and runs the other through his hair, undeniably agitated, shaking his head, seemingly at a loss. He turns to his sister. “Kerry,” he says again. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t say that. Please, don’t.”
With what I can only see as deep tenderness, Esben embraces his sister, holding her close and rubbing her back. “I am. I’m so sorry.”
I back away, feeling as though I’m witnessing something private. To distract myself, I head back to the main gallery, where I take pictures and post a few online; I even manage to successfully tag Kerry in the ones of her art. This does keep me busy, but it certainly does not make me forget that I have never seen Esben look so unhappy. This is beyond the upset of anything online that drives him to act. This is personal. For twenty minutes, I busy myself.
Then I feel Kerry’s hand on my shoulder. She is calm but serious. “Hey.”
“Are you all right?” I am very concerned about both her and Esben now.
“I am. But there’s a painting I didn’t realize would be hanging in that room. I should have checked. It’s something that I did for myself, and I never meant for him to see it.” She touches her hair and tries to smile. “I’d like Esben to talk to you. It’s my story to tell in many ways, but I’d like him to tell you, because it’s also very much his story.”
“Okay, but . . . if this is private, if it’s just between you two—”
“I want you to know. You’ll understand Esben more, and . . . you’re my friend, too, Allison, and I want you to hear this. But I’d like Esben to tell you. That will help him. You may need to push, but it’s important to me. Can you do that?”
I nod, confused, and hug her. She squeezes me back harder than I expected, and even though she remains calm, she does take a number of long, intense breaths.
“I am okay, Allison. I really am,” she says in my ear. “Please know that, and please get him to see that. So, make him talk to you. Promise me that you will.”
My stomach drops, and I know something is very wrong. I pull back to look at her directly. “I promise.”
“Now, I am going to enjoy the rest of my night.” She puts on a real smile. “Is hunky Jason still here?”
I point to the front of the room, where Jason is awkwardly buttoning and unbuttoning his blazer. “I don’t think he’s leaving any time soon.”
“God, he’s so hot,” she says.