I stare at him, mouth open. “You’re joking.”
Cole smiles thinly. “You know me better than that.”
That’s true. Cole is humorless. Which, paradoxically, makes his comment its own kind of joke.
“When did you find out?”
“She texted me an hour ago.”
I’m lightheaded. The swing from horror to elation is so extreme that I think I might be sick. I’ve never had twenty grand in my bank account in my whole life. I’ve never passed four digits.
“Cole . . .” I breathe. “Thank you.”
I’m well aware that the painting sold because Cole got me in that show. Because he enlisted Betsy Voss as my broker. Because he talked me up to everyone we met. The painting is good, but in the art world, somebody has to say it out loud. Cole pushed the first domino, and the rest fell in turn.
His smile is triumphant. “I don’t back a lame horse.”
I can’t help grinning back at him. “First I’m a sculpture, now I’m a horse?”
He raises one black slash of an eyebrow. “What do you want to be?”
“I want to be talented. Powerful. Respected. Successful. I want to be like you.”
“Do you?” he says quietly. “Do you really?”
“Isn’t that what you want?” I ask him. “You said you’d be my mentor. You’d make me in your image.”
Cole is silent, as if he’s never fully considered what that might mean.
Finally, he says, “The Artists Guild is throwing a Halloween party next Saturday. I want you to come with me.”
Unable to resist teasing him, I say, “That sounds suspiciously like a date . . .”
“It isn’t. Do you have a costume?”
“Yeah. I’ve been making one with Erin.”
“What is it?”
“Medusa.”
Cole nods. He likes that.
“What are you going to be?” I ask him.
“You’ll see on Saturday.”
25
Cole
With all the time I’ve been spending watching Mara, I’ve barely been paying attention to my own work.
Marcus York rings me up to “remind me” to submit my design for the sculpture in Corona Heights Park.
“Alastor Shaw sent me his early sketches,” York says, trying to stoke my competitive fire. “They were pretty impressive . . . but I’m sure you’ve got something even better percolating in that brain.”
Actually, I don’t.
I’m not uninterested in the project. It would be the largest piece I’ve ever done, which makes my mind run wild. However, this is one sculpture I won’t be able to build alone. I’m not sure how much I’d enjoy designing something I couldn’t manufacture myself.
I’ve always had a fascination with machines. Figuring out how to create the sculptures I see in my mind is half the fun. I’ve built more custom machinery than I have actual art. My studio is full of my own inventions.
Machines are complicated, but when built right, they work precisely as intended. They’re much more useful assistants than I could ever hire from the Artists Guild.
And unlike human assistants, I don’t mind sharing my space with them.
Mara’s been hinting that she wants to come to my studio.
I’m tempted to let her. I’d be curious to hear her opinion on several unfinished pieces that never quite took shape.
I’ve never shown them to anyone before. In fact, I wouldn’t like to admit that I have unfinished work—sculptures that I can’t complete to my liking. That I’ve made and remade several times, never finding satisfaction in their final form.
Mara sees the same imperfections that I do. She has that undefinable sense of balance, where she can tell when something’s off.
She’ll see what’s wrong with them. And maybe, she just might know how to make them right.
The thought of bringing Mara here gives me a burst of motivation. I throw all the dust covers off the machinery, oiling and tightening and polishing any pieces that need it.
My workspace is always clean, but I clean it again, sweeping the wide, wooden planks of the old chocolate factory, clearing space in the center of the room as if I were about to begin a new project.
You can still smell the lingering scent of cocoa from the tiny nibs that fell between the boards. On warm days, the bitter, buttery scent mixes with sawdust and steel to create one of my favorite perfumes.
Mara would notice it. She’s sensitive to scents. She could probably pick out the individual elements, naming each one. I wouldn’t even have to tell her this had been a chocolate factory once upon a time—she’d already know.