Confess(13)

“Come here.” I walk toward the front door, smiling at her innocence and curiosity. It gives me a nostalgic feeling reminiscent of the first night I opened over three years ago. She brings back a little of that excitement, and I wish it could always be like this.

When we reach the front door, I pull away one of the confessions so she can take a peek outside. I watch her eyes grow wide as she takes in the line of people that I know are standing at the door. It didn’t always used to be like this. Since the front-page feature last year, word of mouth has increased the amount of traffic I get, and I’ve been very lucky.

“Exclusivity,” she whispers, taking a step back.

I attach the confession back to the window. “What do you mean?”

“That’s why you do so well. Because you restrict the amount of days you’re open and you can only make so many paintings in a month. It makes your art worth more to people.”

“Are you saying I don’t do well because of my talent?” I smile when I say this so she knows I’m only teasing.

She shoves my shoulder playfully. “You know what I mean.”

I want her to shove my shoulder again, because I loved the way she smiled when she did it, but instead she turns and faces the open floor of the studio. She draws in a slow breath. It makes me wonder if seeing all the people outside has made her nervous.

“You ready?”

She nods and forces a smile. “Ready.”

I open the doors and the people begin pouring in. There’s a big crowd tonight and for the first several minutes, I worry that this will intimidate her. But regardless of how quiet and a little bit shy she seemed when she first showed up here, she’s the exact opposite now. She’s flourishing, as if she’s somehow in her element, when this probably isn’t a situation she’s ever been in before.

I wouldn’t know that from watching her, though.

For the first half hour, she mingles with the guests and discusses the art and some of the confessions. I recognize a few faces, but most of them are people I don’t know. She acts like she knows all of them. She eventually walks back to the counter when she sees someone pull the number five down. Number five correlates to the painting titled I went to China for two weeks without telling anyone. When I returned, no one noticed I’d been gone.

She smiles at me from across the room as she’s ringing up her first transaction. I continue to work the crowd, mingling, all the while watching her out of the corner of my eye. Tonight, everyone’s focus is on my art, but my focus is on her. She’s the most interesting piece in this entire room.

“Will your father be here tonight, Owen?”

I look away from her long enough to answer Judge Corley’s question with a shake of my head. “He couldn’t make it tonight,” I lie.

If I were a priority in his life, he would have made it.

“That’s a shame,” Judge Corley says. “I’m having my office redecorated, and he suggested I stop by to check out your work.”

Judge Corley is a man with a height of five feet six but an ego twice as tall. My father is a lawyer and spends a lot of time in the courthouse downtown, where Judge Corley’s office is. I know this because my father isn’t a fan of Judge Corley’s, and despite Judge Corley’s show of interest, I’m pretty sure he’s not a fan of my father’s.

“Surface friends” is what I call it. When your friendship is merely a fa?ade and you’re enemies on the inside. My father has a lot of surface friends. I think it’s a side effect of being a lawyer.

I don’t have any. I don’t want any.

“You have exceptional talent, although I’m not sure it’s quite my taste,” Judge Corley says, moving around me to view another painting.

An hour quickly passes. She’s been busy most of the time, and even when she isn’t, she finds something to do. She doesn’t just sit behind the counter and look bored like Palindrome Hannah did. Hannah perfected the art of boredom, filing her nails so much during the two showings she worked for me, I’m surprised she even had nails left by the end of it.

Auburn doesn’t look bored. She looks like she’s having fun. Whenever there isn’t someone at the counter, she’s up and mingling and smiling and laughing at the jokes that I know she thinks are lame.

She sees Judge Corley approach the table with a number. She smiles at him and says something, but he just grunts. When she looks down at the number, I see a frown form on her lips, but she quickly shoves it away with a fake smile. Her eyes briefly meet the painting titled You Don’t Exist, God . . ., and I immediately understand the look on her face. Judge Corley is buying the painting and she knows as well as I do that he doesn’t deserve it. I quickly make my way to the counter.