The Inspiration (21 page)

I smile, thinking about Max. He’s happiest when he’s focused on the creative process and relaxed enough to be himself. It must be a relief to spend a day with a friend without the spotlight of the art world focused on everything he does. This carefree, inspired side of him is a side of Max few people see.

He carries a plastic tray loaded with food—French dip sandwiches, little plates of macaroni salad, a slice of apple pie and two bottles of root beer.

“Just one piece of pie?”

“I thought we could share,” he says, smiling.

After we unload the tray, I take a bite of the sandwich.

“Mmm!” I moan and roll my eyes with pleasure.

“I know, great huh?” He laughs, looking delighted. “Wait until you try the pie.”

“You know all the good places, Max.”

“Well, when I was in high school, I had friends from all over the city, so I learned where all the cool places were. I’ll have to take you to Chinatown some day for dim sum.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Hey, at your studio, do you guys print artists that aren’t part of your gallery?”

“We do. Why? Are you thinking about making serigraph prints of your work?”

“Yeah, Dylan’s talked about it for the Barcelona show.” His eyes light up. “Hey, you said you’ve worked on the prints, right? Would you work on mine?”

“Oh, wouldn’t that be great! I’ll ask Adam if I can be involved.”

“Well, I’ll insist you’re a part of it.”

I give him a sly grin as I sip my soda. “I love it when you throw your weight around.”

“Yeah, I’m unrelenting. And just think, I can help. How fun would that be?”

“Loads…but you need to know what you’re getting into by helping. We screen the colors on one at a time, so it can take weeks before the final edition is printed. I’m not sure you’ll be able to stand me for that long.”

“I guess I’ll suffer for my art.” He winks.

When it’s time to tackle the pie, he waves his fork happily before sinking it into the crust.

“So, one thing I can’t figure out, Ava, is why you don’t have a boyfriend,” he says while fork fighting me for the next bite of apple pie.

“A boyfriend?” I tip my head, and arch my brows.

He gives me a sideways-glance and fights off a smile. “You know, a guy who’s your only one—who you’re involved with. The guy you’re madly in love with.”

“Oh, one of those,” I reply coyly. “I don’t know.”

“I mean, you’re a lot of fun when you’re not sending bitchy emails, and like you said once when you were taunting me…the guys are lined up for you.” He grins widely.

“Okay, let’s forget those emails. I promise not to send them anymore.” I look down and lick the apple goo off my fork. “I guess I’m emotionally stunted. I seem to have lost the ability to give my heart away.”

He looks down and pushes the plate away. “Do you get lonely?”

I shrug. “Do I seem lonely? I have more than enough going on to keep me happily occupied.”

“What about sex?” He looks into my eyes with an expression that is a little
too
curious.

“Ah, that’s what you’re digging at! You want to know if I have secret lovers at my beck and call.”

He raises his eyebrows and waits.

“I’ll never tell, Mr. Caswell. I’ll never tell.” I can’t believe I’m being such a tease. But just because I know too much about my new BFF’s sex life doesn’t mean he has to know about mine. Besides, it’s a lot less dynamic than his…unless you count Jonathan’s flirting.

“What about you, Max?” I quickly turn the tables. “You told me you weren’t into relationships. Do you think you’ll ever change your mind, or are you going to continue down the swinging-single path?”

“I don’t know. I guess time will tell,” he answers cryptically.

As we get in the car to head home, I feel sad that our day together is coming to an end. When we’re away from all the bullshit, Max and I really have fun together.

He’s quiet as he drives, and I wonder if he’s thinking the same thing.

I pick up his camera case from the floor, ask if I can check it out, and he nods. I zip it open, carefully remove it, and check out all the dials and modes. “This is a great camera,” I say as I look through the lens. “Where’d you get it?”

“Samy’s Camera. Why?”

“Oh, just missing my camera that was stolen in the robbery.” I can’t hide the sadness in my voice as I switch the camera to the view setting. “I’m trying to save up money to buy a new one. Do you mind if I look at what you shot today?”

He hesitates for a second and looks uncomfortable, and I almost retract the question, but then he quietly says, “Okay.”

I start clicking through the images. He’s shot a lot more than I would’ve guessed—not just the outside of the stores and the art we found, but candids of people shopping and close-ups of stacks of hats and toys.

“Do you always shoot this much?” I ask.

“Yeah, that’s how I like to work. It’s so easy to delete images after the fact, and I don’t want to miss something in the moment.”

As he’s talking, I begin to realize something. There are pictures of me…not just the ones I am aware of like when I paid for the paintings, but all kinds of shots, close-ups and long shots that he must’ve taken when we were on our own looking for things.

As I flip back and forth through the images, my heart speeds up because there’s something so intimate about what he’s done here. In one close-up of my face, I’m looking up and biting my lip. The illumination from the window brushes across my face from light to shadow, and I look…pretty. Is this how he sees me?

Why did he shoot all these pictures of me? Does it mean anything or am I letting my imagination get the better of me? I shut the camera off and quietly put it back in the case.

“Will you give me an advance preview of your paintings from this series when they’re done?”

He smiles and nods, watching me closely, but I don’t give anything away.

When we pull up to my house there isn’t any parking on the street, so he double parks while I unbuckle my seatbelt.

“Thanks, Max. I had a really great time.” I lean over and hug him. We both hold the hug a little longer than is necessary…I suppose because we don’t want the day to end. I pull away and open the door.

“Wait, Ava.” He reaches down for his camera case, takes out the camera and removes the tiny flash card. After he puts the card in his shirt pocket and puts another flash card in the camera, he hands the case and camera to me.

My mouth drops open. “What, Max?”

He smiles at me warmly. “I want you to have it. I’ll give you the manual and charging cord next time I see you.”

“But, it’s your camera,” I say with a gasp.

“Now, it’s yours. I want you to have it. Let’s not fight about it.”

I press my lips tightly together as I fight off my tears.

“Besides, I have to go to Samy’s next week, so I’ll just get another one then. I was already thinking about upgrading to the newer model, so it all works out.”

“But, this is an expensive camera.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here’s the deal…how about next week you take me out to Huntington Gardens in Pasadena? It’s great in the spring and I haven’t been there in a long time. So, bring your camera, I’ll bring my new camera and we’ll take some shots. Deal?”

I sit for a moment, holding the camera case tucked into me like a running back holds a freshly-caught football. This is not a fair trade. It’s almost too much, his being so nice to me. This side of him is too wonderful, and it takes my breath away. I fight back a wave of emotion.

I take a deep breath and calm myself. “Thank you, Max…thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome.”

I open the door and, as I step out, I turn to him once more.

“You know, if you keep being this nice, it’s going to be hard to get rid of me.”

“I’m counting on that,” he says quietly with a smile.

I sigh as I shut the door and watch him drive away until his truck is a tiny dot on the horizon.

“W
ell, Ava, your influence knows no bounds.” Adam announces at Monday morning’s meeting.

“Influence?” I ask, startled.

“Yes. Dylan called me this morning about printing an edition for Max Caswell. It may be the first in a series.”

More projects for the studio. “That’s good news, right?”

“Absolutely! We want to develop a reputation of printing younger artists as well as the established artists we built our reputation on. This is very good news.”

“So, what does this have to do with Ava?” Sean asks warily.

“Well, Caswell will do the project with us only if Ava’s involved in the printing,” Adam explains.

Sean looks irritated. He takes it as a personal affront.

“And…Caswell wants to be present during some of the printing. He may explore doing some remarques and manipulation on the prints,” Adam adds.

“Oh, Ava! Looks like you have a not-so-secret admirer!” Brian exclaims.

I make a face at Brian and try to deflect the assumptions. “No, we were just talking about serigraphy the other day, and I spoke very highly of the studio. He may’ve just assumed I’d be involved with the printing. I can tell him it isn’t necessary.”

“When did you have this talk?” Sean asks.

Adam ignores him and addresses me. “No, I want you to be there with Sean. If it makes Max more comfortable having you there, it only makes sense to do that. You usually help Sean anyway on the more complicated print runs. I have the original in my office, and I estimate it’s easily thirty colors.”

Adam looks at Sean. “I told Dylan, with our schedule, it would take you at least a week to do the color separations, but that we’d probably start printing next week. So, give me an update after you’ve analyzed it.”

Sean leans back defeated, but this won’t be the last time I’ll hear his opinion on this situation. I can only imagine his mood when we start the actual run with Max in the studio.
Fireworks, anyone?
I dread the idea of it, but hold onto the hope that it won’t be as bad as I’m imagining.

When the meeting ends, I help Brian hang three of Jess’s newest paintings. One of them is a huge canvas of Ba-roque Beat performing in Times Square, and it’s a riot of hot colors: flaming oranges, sultry reds and electric yellows. I’m thrilled, for as I study the crowd in the background, I realize she’s included all of us dancing that night in New York. We’re now immortalized in Jess’s painting.

I’m glad we gave her new work the prime spot in the gallery on the pristine white wall you face as soon as you step inside. I also like this location because, at night, the art is lit and visible through the floor-to-ceiling glass walls facing Robertson Blvd.

That afternoon, as I’m heading to Starbucks to refuel myself with caffeine, my cell phone rings.

“Hi, Jonathan. How was your trip?”

“Hello, Ava. It was good, thanks…very productive.” He sounds happy. “Have you made progress on the book?”

“I’ve finished two more sections. Shall I email them to you?”

“Yes…Look, I have some news that you will undoubtedly find unsettling, but don’t worry, we’ll figure out a way to manage it.”

My heart sinks. “Yes?”

“The museum in Barcelona called, and they want to move Max’s show up to July. It seems that they had a dramatic confrontation with the artist from the originally-scheduled show for this time, and they banned him from the museum. Leave it to the Spaniards to be so dramatic.”

My heart drops further. I am barely keeping up with the book demands as it is.

“This is completely unheard of in the museum world, but we can probably pull it off if we get the book to press in about four weeks. This will require putting your part of the project on an accelerated schedule. To accomplish this, I’m going to team you up with my best and brightest editor, Phoebe. She’ll help you achieve what right now seems impossible.”

I’m honestly too stunned to freak out. “So, you really think we can do this?” I ask, my voice steady and confident, betraying my significant degree of hesitancy.

“I know you can, Ava,” he states firmly. Whether he actually means it, or is saying it to boost my confidence, the resulting message is clear—where there’s a will, there’s a way. We’ll just have to get it done.

As I wait for his next directive, I hear someone speaking in the background. He pulls the phone away and replies, “Tell them I’ll be right there. Sorry, Ava. Listen, I need to go, and I’m looking at my schedule for the next two weeks and it’s completely crazy.” He lowers his voice. “But I’d like to see you. There’s an event at the Getty this Friday…if you’re free, I thought you could join me.”

“I’d like that,” I reply, not exactly sure what I want, but he’s caught me off guard. Attending an art opening at the Getty with Jonathan could be a tense situation. Because he’s so well-known in the art world, I’ll be under all kinds of scrutiny just being with him. It’s the kind of attention I usually try to avoid. It’s interesting that he doesn’t seem worried.

“Good. Let’s have dinner first and then head over. It’s not formal or casual, but dressy works.”