So Damn Beautiful (A New Adult Romance) (7 page)

I cringed. Why did Professor Claremont always
focus so heavily on the future? When I thought of the future, all I
could imagine were barren Martian landscapes and cold, empty space
stations. Maybe I was old-fashioned at heart, but I would have much
preferred to preserve the dying legacy of artists who weren’t cool
enough to be taught in most college classes anymore.

My heart sank a bit as Professor Claremont
went on with the details. From the buzz in the class, I could tell
people were more than just a little excited. And why wouldn’t they
be? This was less about making a name for themselves in the art
world than it was about starfucking one of the biggest celebrities
in modern history. I may have been ambitious, but I wasn’t about to
sell out my passion for real art by hopping on the bandwagon of
whatever seemed cool in the moment.

At the end of class, Kendra had already
walked out the door when Elsie approached me, her eyes narrowed
into cool blue slits. She almost looked like one of the angry urban
goddesses Quentin Pierce drew.

“So, I bet you’re going to apply for the
Quentin Pierce curatorship,” she said, her statement carrying the
hint of a threat.

I definitely wasn’t a pushover, but my last
experience with a bully had been when I was thirteen and Grace
McGovern, the most popular girl in school, had decided to terrorize
me for six months straight about my propensity for wearing slacks
with a crease straight down each pant leg (courtesy of my mom). I
had been stubborn about not buying into peer pressure, at least at
first, but my general MO after that had been to try to stay as much
on the down-low as possible, so as not to attract the attention of
mean girls like Grace and Elsie.

“You’re never going to get it—you already
know that, right?” Elsie snapped before I could say anything.

I gripped my book bag more tightly. I could
stomach petty remarks and even unasked-for hostility, but one thing
I couldn’t abide was a judgment about my ability to “get”
something, especially if that something had anything to do with
art.

“Not that your opinion matters, but what
makes you think I can’t?” I asked breezily.

Elsie tossed back her pretty, asymmetrically
cut hair and laughed. “Let’s face it, Blondie, Degas and Whistler
may have gotten you gold stars back in Nebraska or whatever
boondock hole you crawled out of, but you just don’t have what it
takes to make Quentin Pierce’s shortlist. So, unless you want to be
a complete laughingstock, I wouldn’t even bother trying.”

Before I could say anything, she flounced out
of the classroom, skinny jeans, bad attitude, and all.

My senses were buzzing. Elsie had thrown down
the gauntlet, and, as mousy as she might have thought I was, it was
hard for me to refuse a good challenge—especially when it came to
art.

Besides, nobody told Annie Green what she was
or wasn’t capable of. I knew that a curatorship like this wasn’t
about adhering to trends or creating reality TV–esque performance
art—it was about solid knowledge of what made a work of art
valuable and immortal. So, even if I had to muster up every last
bit of interest I had, I was going to wax poetic and hand something
convincing to Professor Claremont.

Why don’t college movies ever tell you
this
is what it’s like?
I thought, as I headed out the
door.

Kendra was waiting for me, a dubious look on
her face. “Did something just happen? Tell me you didn’t get into
it with Gothic Lolita. ’Cause if you did, I’ll kick her skinny
little ass from here to Brooklyn, and I don’t want to ruin my
pedicure.”

When I didn’t laugh, Kendra knew something
was up. “Seriously, what happened?”

I sighed. “I’m applying for the Quentin
Pierce curator position.”

Kendra raised one perfect eyebrow.
“
Pourquoi
? I mean, I think it’s awesome news, but I could
tell you totally lost interest when Claremont said the word that
shan’t be said—‘future,’ that is. You’re not into his stuff, so why
do you care?”

“Because Gothic Lolita added an extra
throwdown by emphasizing that hell will freeze over before I’m seen
as a serious candidate.”

Kendra snorted. “Bitch might have some street
cred on the Upper East Side, and I may not know art, but believe
you me, I know what makes for good press. Trust me, you’ve got
this, baby.”

I frowned. “How can you be so sure?”

She linked her arm in mine and smiled
sweetly. “Because I believe in you. And because we’ll take your
Cinderella story and make it golden.”

“Wait—what Cinderella story?”

“Trust me on this, Annie.”

I had no idea how I was going to pull off
getting the curatorship, especially since Professor Claremont had
been clear about where our personal tastes diverged. But this was
New York, the city of dreams coming true. If it could happen to
gutter punks like Chase Adams, why not for Annie Green?

“Do you see
him, Annie? Well, do you?”

“Kendra, can you please keep your voice
down?”

Kendra gave me a conciliatory pat and looked
around, searching for our man of the hour. “Annie, you know he’ll
be mobbed the second he steps in here. I mean, look at these
people! Money-grubbing fame wannabes, with a few important high
rollers thrown in for good measure.”

I looked around. If I’d felt out of place at
Harrison’s party, I was definitely a fish out of water here. We
were at a wine-and-cheese reception at some fancy SoHo gallery (so
fancy, in fact, it didn’t have a name or a marquee, just a posh
warehouse space with exposed ceilings and giant bay windows), and
it was in honor of none other than Quentin Pierce. He hadn’t
actually created much new “art,” since he’d been busy shooting
music videos in Los Angeles with acts like Radiohead and Nicki
Minaj. But word had gotten around he was back in town for the NYU
retrospective, so his old art friends—along with wealthy patrons
and major press, like the
New Yorker
and the
New York
Times—
hadn’t hesitated to hit him up.

Kendra and I were in an ocean of beautiful
people and those who were clearly just there to see and be seen.
(Apparently, there were movie stars in tow.) But Quentin Pierce was
nowhere to be found.

“This is stupid, Kendra. This guy’s a douche
bag. He probably won’t even show up, just to make some kind of
antiestablishment statement—pretty lame, considering he’s such a
vital part of the system he’s attempting to undermine.”

“Hey, don’t knock the system! BTW, movie and
rock gods wouldn’t exist if the little people didn’t need stars to
worship! Besides, you’re shit-talking my area of expertise,” Kendra
exclaimed. “Not to mention you’re supposed to be letting Professor
Claremont know you are now officially schooled on the fine line
between highbrow and lowbrow. I don’t know how you hope to get this
curatorship if you don’t even like the artist you’ll be working
for.”

I had to admit she had a point. And from what
I could see, even if Professor Claremont had hinted I was in the
running (as one of her “ambitious” first-year students), I still
felt like I was a ways off from impressing upon her just how much I
deserved the curatorship.

Actually, it had been Professor Claremont
who’d suggested just a couple days earlier that the students of her
Art 101 class check out the exhibit that Kendra and I were
currently at. It wasn’t open to the public, but the first ten
people to express interest could get on the guest list, considering
that she and Quentin were such good friends.

As soon as the announcement was made, Kendra
(who refrained from sitting next to me whenever Yannis
Papadapoulos, a sexy foreign-exchange student who could barely
speak English, decided to remember to show up to class) texted me:
“LET’S GET IN ON THIS, OK?”

I looked over at Elsie, who was probably
scheming about ways to bar my passage, given that everyone knew we
were head-to-head in this competition. Elsie wasn’t paying
attention to me, however, and had a characteristic frown on her
pretty face. She raised her hand and said, “Professor
Claremont?”

“Yes, Miss Donegan?”

“I’m not going to be able to make the show if
it’s in a couple days, because I have a family function to attend.
Do you know if there will be other opportunities to meet Quentin,
or at least to get some sort of insight into his presence in the
local scene? I’d really prefer to hear it from the horse’s mouth,
if you know what I’m saying.”

I looked down at my phone. Another text from
Kendra: “PRETTY FUNNY COMING FROM A HORSE’S ASS!”

I put my hand over my mouth to suppress a
giggle. But I had to hand it to Elsie. Her sense of entitlement had
reached a new high (or low, depending on who was judging).

Professor Claremont smiled—a little too
tightly, I thought. I was pretty sure that as ignorant as I
sometimes came across as, Elsie’s whiny and demanding attitude
wasn’t scoring her too many points with Professor Claremont,
either. “Don’t worry, Elsie, going to the show isn’t going to give
you a leg up on the competition. And you won’t be getting extra
credit for going—it’s just a suggestion I’m delivering in a very
voluble tone, given how much I love Quentin’s work. Also, I’m not
entirely sure if Quentin will be there, since I know he’s finishing
up some work on the West Coast and I haven’t been able to confirm
with him.”

From the looks of it in the warehouse,
Quentin had decided to pass up the wine and cheese in favor of
Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, or whatever celebrity’s image was in need
of some avant-garde jazzing up these days. More and more people
were streaming through the doors, but I didn’t spot Quentin
(although the only photographs I’d actually ever seen of him
pictured him in such ostentatious outfits and out-there haircuts
that I wasn’t sure I would have recognized him had he walked right
up to me; style-wise, he was about as versatile as a chameleon on
speed). I almost wished Elsie were here—it would have been morbidly
satisfying to watch her brown-nose the people she actually
did
know.

To top it all off, the art felt a little too
all over the place. The works in the gallery, a commodious space
with garish overhead lights, were all Quentin’s early stuff, most
of it created when he was first starting to make a name for
himself. Some of the pieces had been commissioned by indie art
museums and private collectors who’d spotted his talent before it
went supernova. It was strange, but I couldn’t quite pin down
Quentin’s style. His pieces ranged from shag carpets tacked onto
moveable, singing walls to vintage cars plastered with colorful
bumper stickers to giant, saturated photographs of women’s shoes to
self-reflexive photo and video installations that attempted to
capture the sinister aftertaste of the post-9/11 world of
surveillance cameras and Big Brother. It made me think of the
confusion that was probably on people’s faces back when
counterculture folk hero Bob Dylan decided to rock out on electric
guitar. The goulash of themes and styles was a little too
schizophrenic for me.

“Oh shit, is that Chewbacca?” Kendra
shrieked, pointing at a life-size effigy of the
Star Wars
character flanked by two inflatable blow-up dolls (anatomically
correct ones, might I add) performing bizarre sexual acts on the
blissed-out-looking Wookiee. I wondered what Han Solo would
think.

“Shock value and a mishmash of commentary
about American culture after the ’70s. It’s typical Generation X
navel-gazing,” I complained.

“I have no idea what you just said, but WTF!
Who let Chase Adams into this party?”

My heart nearly stopped at Kendra’s words. I
turned and looked in the direction she was pointing, and sure
enough, there he was, looking just like an angel from a Caravaggio
painting. I felt little pinpricks behind the skin on my face, and a
trickle of heat shot from my eyeballs all the way into the small of
my belly, where little butterflies started to somersault and wreak
general havoc.

Crazy, what a visceral effect this guy had on
me, but looking at him was almost an artistic experience in and of
itself. His hair was slicked back, and although it was the middle
of October, his attire seemed to mock the idea of autumnal layers.
He was wearing a gray T-shirt with a teddy bear on it (irony, I
suppose), dark-wash jeans, purple-and-orange sneakers with the
tongues sticking straight up, and a slightly wrinkled, lightweight
blue blazer. It looked like he’d just thrown some clothes on
slapdash—most likely, whatever was lying on the floor—yet he still
managed to walk around with that same virtual halo over his head
that I’d noticed the first time I saw him.

Everyone in the room paled next to him,
including me (in my very carefully chosen, simple black-and-white
sheath dress and thin gold necklace, which Kendra had described as
“Audrey Hepburn chic”). I was evidently not the only one affected.
At least a dozen females within close range were checking him out,
and a svelte redheaded cougar and a Zooey Deschanel–looking hipster
with glasses and big boobs made a beeline for him at the same
time.

“Chase, whyyyyy didn’t you caaaaall
meeeeeeeee? I had noooooo idea you were gonna beeeeee heeeeeere,”
the Zooey chick said in a high, nasal voice, stretching out her
vowels and batting her lashes at the same time. I wanted to throw
up.

“Chase, darling, what are you up to these
days? I’d love to see your new art. Are you still at the loft? I
told my stylist all about your murals, and she was thinking they’d
like to hire you to do one for them. Any interest? It could be just
the thing you need to get your art launched to the next
stratosphere. Think about it. George Clooney’s one of her clients.”
The redhead was talking weirdly fast, perhaps in an attempt both to
divert attention away from the boob girl and to keep Chase’s
interest.