For a little while I just floated, drink in hand, basking in reflected relevance, accepting hugs and congratulations from friends, acquaintances, and total strangers. It was like I’d won something, which I suppose from a romantic perspective I kind of had.
Eventually I found Priya, tucked in an alcove, next to a mural depicting The Birth of Venus as a hot, naked twink. She was with Theresa and Andi and deep in conversation with someone I thought was the gallery owner—a tall woman with a shaved head, who looked like she’d been in the art game long enough to give no fucks.
“Thank you for my party,” I said in a rush of un-me-like ebullience.
“Whatever,” Priya replied. “You know I think marriage is bollocks.
But if it makes you happy, fine.”
“Nuanced as ever,” observed Theresa, who had put aside her usual academic chic for a little black cocktail dress that still managed to make me feel like I was late for a lecture.
Priya, though, looked like Priya, rainbow-laced Docs and all.
“Hey, there’s a reason I work in a visual medium.”
“And while I mostly agree on the patriarchal-bollocks-that-should-have-gone-out-with-the-Dark-Ages front”—this was Andi, an intense woman with bleached-blond swept-back hair wearing one of those tank tops that only a very specific sort of person could get away with—“isn’t it an important de jure equality thing? I mean I don’t want us to get married”—she made a kind of circular nod indicating her partners—“but I do think we should be allowed to.”
The gallery owner flashed a ring. “Married woman over here, fine with it.”
“You’re all against me.” Priya rolled her eyes. “Oh, and Luc, this is Abena. This is her place.”
“Thanks,” I told her reflexively, “this is a really great venue.”
“It’s not a venue, mate.” She didn’t seem offended, more like she wanted to make a point. “It’s a gallery. But be honest, would you be here if there wasn’t also a party in it?”
My vicarious coolness began leaking out. “No?”
She gave a vindicated nod. “Do the artists a favour. Try to actually look at a couple of pieces. And if you spill a drink on something, you buy it.”
I cast a guilty eye at The Birth of Twink Venus and tried to think of something appreciative to say. “Well, this is, um…nice?”
And suddenly I wished Oliver was with me. He’d have had something to say about a naked guy on a shell, about how it was, like, a commentary on the constructed nature of…beauty or something.
“It’s,” I tried, “like, a commentary on the… Like. Constructed nature of beauty.”
Priya put a hand on my shoulder. “Luc, we’ve known each other for ten years, and the most insightful thing you’ve ever said about a piece of my work was ‘Wow, isn’t it big.’ And that’s still more insightful than what you said just now.”
“So it’s not a…whatever I just said?” I asked.
“Oh, it probably is.” That was Theresa, taking a delicate sip from her glass of prosecco. “But it’s very gauche to say so.”
“It’s art,” said Priya. “It’s not a crossword puzzle. It’s not supposed to have an answer. It’s about what it makes you think and how it makes you feel.”
I glared at Twink Venus’s tiny penis. “It’s making me feel I have inadequate opinions about art.”
Andi grinned. “Yeah, that’s the other thing art is about. It’s about making you feel bad because you didn’t go to the right school.”
“I went to a fucking comprehensive,” put in Priya. “Just like you.”
“Yeah.” Folding her arms, Andi gave Priya a hard stare. “Then I went and got a job in a pub, while you went to art college.”
Priya glowered back in a way that felt more sexual tensiony than I was really comfortable noticing. “Why am I even dating you?”
“Because I’m amazing in bed,” Andi told her.
“Oh, not you as well.” I gave a groan. “Do you ever actually have sex, or do you just boast to each other about how great you are?”
Theresa made an I-don’t-know-these-people gesture with her free hand. “Ignore it, Luc. It’s their thing.”
Andi and Priya were still doing their sex glare at each other, and it was heating up the space. I turned to Abena. “Are you beginning to feel like a fourth-slash-fifth wheel?”