So Damn Beautiful (A New Adult Romance) (6 page)

“He was . . . interesting,” I offered
lamely.

“Don’t mind Chip—he’s a giant teddy bear who,
unfortunately, is missing a critical filter whenever he gets a
buzz,” Harrison apologized.

“You’re actually apologizing for him? Rapey
much?” Elsie’s eyes widened, and she crossed her arms.

Harrison ignored her as he fished around in
his pocket for his phone. “Annie, in case you’re not around later,
I’d love to hang out—maybe catch a movie in Washington Square Park
one of these days?
Splendor in the Grass
is next Friday, if
you’re not busy. Give me your number, and I’ll text you.”

“Uh, yeah,” I said, as I gave him my digits.
Elsie fumed next to me, and I had to admit, as exhilarating as it
was to see her in this state of displeasure, it was also a little
weird to be asked out on a date in front of my arch nemesis.

“Awesome. If I don’t see you around later,
I’ll definitely be in touch. It was my utmost pleasure to meet you
tonight, Annie Green.” He drew his arms around me, which made me
catch my breath a little, but the hug was somewhat awkward, almost
like he was intentionally trying not to feel me up. But at the very
end, he leaned in a bit closer and whispered, “I’ll be seeing you
soon, I hope.”

I blushed yet again. I was probably redder
than the autumn leaves outside. Elsie frowned as Harrison gave her
a hug.

“Be good, El,” he said as he walked off.

“Why? Because you’ll tell my mom if I’m not?”
Elsie crossed her arms.

“Aunt Kate wouldn’t believe my stories about
her little princess anyway,” he yelled behind him, giving me one
last wave.

He left Elsie and me standing in tense
silence. I would probably have just walked off, but Harrison’s
final words made me curious. “Aunt Kate? Are you and Harrison . . .
cousins?”

Elsie rolled her eyes. “Not that it’s any of
your business, but yes. And that’s the only reason I’m here, not
because I’m some kind of fraternity-ho groupie.” Elsie gave me the
once-over. “You really outdid yourself tonight, didn’t you,
Blondie? Did you come here expecting to get some kind of handout
from my cousin?”

I felt like someone had slapped me across the
face. “A handout? Listen, Elsie, I didn’t even know who Harrison
was until tonight, so you’re way out of line.”

Elsie’s eyes narrowed. “He and other people
may not be hip to the Miss Country Dairy Maid game you’re running,
but mark my words, if you mess with Harrison, you’ll have
me
to answer to.”

I almost laughed at the intensity of her
words. “Seriously? I didn’t know I was stuck in a Brat Pack movie.
Your cousin’s a big boy. I think he can take care of himself.”

“You don’t get it. I’ve seen him fall for
your kind—doe-eyed innocents from the heartland. It makes him
morbidly nostalgic for his childhood—don’t ask me why—but these
little bitches who seem sweet as pie at first glance always end up
fucking him over, because he’s actually nice enough to want to make
them feel ‘at home.’ My cousin’s pathetic in his sentimentalism
from time to time, and I don’t like being his shoulder to cry
on.”

I rolled my eyes. Somehow I couldn’t imagine
Elsie’s being anyone’s shoulder to cry on. My blood was boiling.
Who did this bitch think she was? I’d never done as much as look at
her cross-eyed. I couldn’t understand her hatred of me, and,
frankly, I was sick of turning the other cheek.

“You know what, Elsie? I think you need to do
a better job of holding your liquor. Now, if you’ll excuse me, this
conversation is boring me.”

I turned on my heel, ready to leave.

“I’m warning you, Annie!” Elsie said, loudly
enough for people to turn and look at us. But I just left her
standing there, slack-jawed. The image was priceless, and I
couldn’t help but laugh to myself as I huffed off. I was on so much
fire that I barely noticed Kendra until I almost barreled into
her.

“What the hell, Annie? I was looking
everywhere for you! Were you talking to Harrison this whole time?
And by the way . . . ow!” Kendra rubbed her arm and glared at
me.

“I’ll tell you all about it later, but can we
leave now?”

“I guess so.” Kendra scowled as she looked
around. The open, Spanish-style balconies on the second floor were
teeming with more stuck-up-looking preppy types. While the company
wasn’t exactly what I’d call scintillating, I was still relieved. I
had more studying to do later that night, after all.

“This party is a total bomb,” Kendra
complained. “I thought there’d be more people here, but apparently
a bunch of the fraternity brothers are at some bar called the
Hi-Dive. You wanna head over there and check it out?”

“No, thanks. I’m really not in the mood for
it.”

“What is up with you, Annie? OMG, is that
Elsie
standing over there? Why the hell is she staring at
us?”

I sighed. “Fine, Ken, I’ll give you the
CliffsNotes version. Harrison Waters and Elsie Donegan are cousins,
apparently. So the world I live in just got more incestuous!”

Kendra gasped. “Shit, are you kidding? The
plot thickens! Why didn’t I know this?”

“I didn’t know it either, until
after
Harrison asked me out and Elsie had a conniption about it. You’d
think she was his jealous ex-girlfriend, the way she reacted.”

“Oh my gosh, Annie! You and Harrison hit it
off? That’s fucking rad, especially considering you were
pooh-poohing this party before we got here. What’s he like? What’s
his family worth? And is he really going to go into tobacco farming
after graduation?”

I laughed. “Breathe, Kendra, breathe!
Honestly, we didn’t talk that much before he had to leave, but he
was sweet, kind, funny, a good listener.” I noticed Kendra’s smug
I-told-you-so expression. “Okay, okay! You were right! Kendra
proves Annie wrong—you can check it off your bucket list now!”

Kendra slung her arm through mine. “I’m just
happy for you, that’s all. What are you guys doing on your
date?”

“He mentioned
Splendor in the Grass
playing at the park next week, and he suggested we go.”

“Sweet! I love Natalie Wood, but that movie’s
total cuddle-and-make-out material. Just wear a dress no bigger
than a postage stamp, and make sure you take a giant blanket for
when it gets X-rated.”

“Your mind is in the gutter. I barely know
him, Kendra. Let’s not get too carried away.”

As we walked toward the front door, Elsie
gave me one last grimace and flounced off.

Kendra pouted. “Poor Elsie—did she get her
feelings hurt? Gonna go drown her sorrows in a pint and a blow
job?”

“Come on, Kendra. I mean, I told her off, but
I feel kind of bad for her. The mean-rich-girl facade must get
exhausting. Who knows what her family life’s like?”

“I personally couldn’t care less, Annie.
She’s had her sights set on destroying you from day one, and my
bestie’s enemy is my enemy.” Kendra gave me a mock salute of
loyalty. “Damn, girl, I wish you would’ve texted me before telling
her off—I would’ve given my left boob to see it.”

“Honestly, I don’t even remember what I said.
It was very much a heat-of-the-moment thing. I don’t like getting
angry—it makes me feel like an asshole.”

“No way, Annie, don’t apologize. I can see
that the real you is starting to come out. You’re finally wielding
your can of badass, and I, for one, couldn’t be happier.”

I laughed at Kendra’s description as we
stepped outside. I breathed in a huge gulp of the crisp night air.
I could hear the faint din of people’s voices and the thudding bass
of dance music from the clubs and bars up the street. “Maybe you’re
right, Kendra. Shrugging off Miss Nice Girl might be a rite of
passage or something.”

“That’s the spirit. And will you at least let
me buy you a celebratory cocktail? Getting Harrison Waters to ask
you out within the first fifteen minutes of meeting him is no small
feat. I can officially say that you, Annie Green, are one lucky
slut.”

“I humbly bow to that distinction. And yeah,
a cocktail doesn’t sound half bad.” In the back of my head, I was
enumerating all the stuff I still had to do—study for midterms and
finish my term paper on postwar art, to name just a couple—but I
kept thinking back to what Harrison had said. “After all, Kendra,
you only live once.”

It was
all I could do to keep my heart from jumping out of my chest, but
Professor Claremont’s words were music to my ears.

“Quentin Pierce is going to be in town next
week!”

She was unusually chipper as she spoke the
words. Funnily enough, many of the students in the class—some of
whom couldn’t care less about artists like Chagall or even
Warhol—raised their heads from their desks and iPhones and started
to mutter to each other excitedly.

“OMG, are you serious?” Kendra hissed next to
me. I couldn’t help but smile. Despite the fact that Kendra wasn’t
exactly up on the latest trends in the art world (and despite the
fact that I admittedly wasn’t too keen on his work), just about
everybody knew who Quentin Pierce was. A thirtysomething who’d
taken the world by storm faster than Matthew Barney had in the
early 2000s, Pierce was a multigenre artist who had achieved
international stardom by doing ridiculously detailed drawings for
famous DJs at music festivals around the world. He’d supposedly
been fueled by LSD trips and torrid affairs with famous pop stars.
He also happened to be extremely reclusive and was well known for
his refusal to give interviews to anyone (except the occasional
exclusive for some obscure high-school newspaper).

He was best known for his
Masterpiece
Hoax
, a project in which he intentionally replicated famous
masterpieces (the kind you might find hanging in the Louvre)
through digital painting—and then tried to auction them off as the
real thing. He succeeded with the first few paintings, until some
art scholar confirmed they were all fakes, which was when Pierce
revealed it was all a giant performance—some kind of commentary on
the blurred lines between digital and nondigital art, I guess. I
didn’t see what the big deal was, but it seemed to work on other
people. In my mind, his art was abrasive and harsh, like an old
Nintendo game that had fallen into a Salvador Dalí painting. But he
was the most famous artist in, well, the world right now, so I was
willing to forgo my druthers for the time being.

“For those of you who are not familiar with
Quentin Pierce, he is one of our most important alumni in the arts
department here at NYU,” Professor Claremont went on. “His style
was generated from his fascination with dreams, esoteric knowledge,
and contemporary cognitive-science theories—specifically with
respect to the human brain and the way we communicate. Quentin’s
work is a remarkable visual commentary on the mysteries of our
world, so many of which remain hidden because they’re lodged in our
consciousness, rather than in full view. But I digress.

“Quentin is one of my dearest friends and
colleagues, and I am ecstatic to say he will be creating a
retrospective on some of the most important and influential artists
who created work here in New York City, with an emphasis on
underground art and public art and the kinds of movements that are
being seeded as we speak. However, he will not be doing this alone.
Four lucky students of mine will be joining him in organizing this
colossal event, which will be the first of its kind.”

“Say
what
?” Kendra whispered loudly.
“I want in on that!”

“Shhh.” I nudged her, eager to hear more.

“Now, as you all know, I teach everyone from
undergraduates to PhD candidates in art history, so there is going
to be quite a bit of competition for these positions. The president
of our school, as well as other prestigious alumni, will be closely
involved. Our student curators will specifically be responsible for
commissioning a series of new works by a small handful of
up-and-coming artists in the community. These will be part of a
permanent gallery in our department, as well as a sculpture garden
on campus. Needless to say, it is an extremely rare and
high-profile opportunity.”

The muttering in the room became louder.

“But Quentin isn’t interested in your
experience or how many credentials you’ve racked up so far. He’s
more interested in your ideas. Quentin asked me to select my best
and brightest, those students who have a clear and prescient vision
of the kind of art that is going to skyrocket us into the next
century.”

I swear, Professor Claremont looked straight
at me when she spoke her next words: “Which is why I’m extending
the invitation to apply to
all
my students, especially my
ambitious first-years.”

Then she broke eye contact and addressed the
entire class. “Now, most of you who have any kind of background in
the arts probably think it’s a world fraught with cronyism and
arbitrary trends, but I believe that it is based first and foremost
on vision—not simply the kind of vision required for an artist to
be successful, but also the kind that a curator or artist
representative must be gifted with. Because while the artist may
obtain the bulk of the recognition, a curator who is truly
excellent will be the one making the real waves and affecting
history for decades to come.”

“Oh no, a speech. Kill me now—or, better yet,
can we get back to Quentin?” Kendra said.

I ignored her and immediately shot up my
hand. “Professor Claremont, what exactly do we have to do to apply?
And when’s the deadline?”

People snickered at my enthusiasm, and my
cheeks instantly heated. I slowly lowered my arm as Professor
Claremont replied with a smile, “I was just getting around to that,
Miss Green. All I need from any interested candidate is a one-page
statement, no more and no less, telling me what you think is the
most important collective contribution of New York artists and what
you conceive of when you think of the contributions of future
artists in the community.”