Tipping The Scales: Knox (Mate Craze)(5)

“Doubt?” Rhi flipped the tag in my direction. “It’s only thirty bucks. If you don’t get it, I’m getting it.”

How the heck was it only thirty dollars? I went to enough gallery exhibits with Rhi in her quest to become a famous artist to know that the going rate of art this amazing was far outside my budget. Then again, this was a gas station and not a gallery, so maybe it was a mark-up?

“Mine.” I clutched it close as she attempted to retrieve it from me after my non-response to her comment. She didn’t want it, or so I assumed. Didn’t matter because I needed it. The thought of putting it down, no matter the cost, was too unsavory.

“Possessive much?”

“I meant I’m buying it, weirdo.” Not that her assessment was less than accurate. I was oddly possessive of the dragon in my hands. “Of course it’s not mine... yet.” I made a mental calculation of where the spare dollars would come from. Soup for lunch while on break it was. So worth it.

I didn’t really have thirty bucks to spare, but something snapped in me when she threatened to buy it. Which was insane. It was official, a year of all school, all the time was getting to me. Only one project and half a semester to go and I could, and would, take some well-earned and much needed time off.

We checked out without any more discussion of the matter. I think my weird freak out was disconcerting to my roommate of two plus years. I was always the level headed one, and she wasn’t, so to see me in all my non-normal self-glory this trip probably had her second guessing her decision to come. It wasn’t like she could even escape to shop. There was no mall anywhere close by. My guess was she was going to be taking pictures, reading on her e-reader, or one-clicking online the entire trip.

As I settled into the car for the last hour of our journey, I felt remarkably not guilty for buying the frivolous piece of art. It felt right to have it, almost as if it was meant to be mine.

“You know, that dragon you got is really beautifully designed. All of those sculptures were. They should really be in a gallery and not a gas station.”

“Alongside your pieces?” Actually, hers really should be. She had a way of seeing things no one else did. Her camera wasn’t just clicked at random. It had a focus that showed the world differently, and once she took that piece and collaged it into her multimedia masterpieces… impressive. Now if she could convince a gallery to take a chance on her.

“Quite possibly.” Rhi sounded far away. She got that way when her dreams seemed unattainable. She’d been rejected twice in the month before we left, and I guessed that seeing artwork as unique as hers, even if in very different ways, at a gas station was a slap in the face of her aspirations.

“They made some money, so maybe the gas station was the perfect place. I’m sure people saw the flier and purchased much bigger pieces,” I offered, hoping she’d see it as a business model and not as the best the artist could do.

“Advertising?” The long pause that followed told me all I needed to know. My premise had her thinking in a more positive way. A quick rebuttal followed any of my ideas that Rhi considered craptastic. “Hmmm. I didn’t think of it that way. Do you think my pieces would sell in a gas station?”

“I think your work would sell anywhere.” They truly were magnificent, they just needed to be seen by people and not in her closet, waiting for a showing.

“Says not one of the galleries I attempted to show at.”

“They’re blind and snooty.” She had showed them to Art Alley, and in a city like ours that meant pretentious row, and that was one thing Rhi never came across as… pretentious. “You capture nature as it is and then show all its promise. People will love that. I love that.” I wasn’t one for blowing smoke up people’s asses. I loved her work and looked forward to saying “I knew her when…” after she got famous. The only thing standing in Rhi’s way was her self-confidence, which always seemed to come around full circle to her parents.

“The galleries say it is nothing they can’t find elsewhere.”

“I call bullshit.” A sign for our destination came into view. Only thirty miles, which on the slow road we were taking could mean forty-five minutes, but still very close. We would reach there by nightfall, which had been my goal.

“Because you are the best roommate ever.” She squeezed my shoulder, her emotions too close to the surface.

“Or because I wanted to cuss.”

“Well, there is that.” She chuckled at her sad little joke. For some reason, Rhi found it odd I cussed so infrequently, although to be fair, much more now than when we met.

“Seriously though, your eye catches things the average person misses as they wander through the woods or sit in their own backyard. That makes them far from ordinary. Sure, anyone can look around and find a lady bug. That’s not what you do. You manage to capture, on film, a moment in time where the ladybug and the flower work in perfect harmony, and then you build around it so that others can see it as clearly as you do.”

“You saw that?” Her voice filled with wonder at one observation. I shook my head, pissed at all the professors, gallery owners, and family members who failed to support her all these years. She wasn’t high maintenance on this. With boys, clothes, and a boatload of other things, yes, but not on her art. She just needed words of affirmation from time to time and not all from me, her loner roomie.