Page 47 of All That We Are Together
I interiorized her words. Yes, life was like that sometimes, a succession of different ways of seeing the same thing that sometimes led to incomprehension.
“We should get to work.”
Leah followed me to the other end of the warehouse and started unwrapping her pieces. I had finally decided to bring almost all herunclassifiablepieces.
“What now?” she asked me.
“We need to think about the work as a whole, you know? When you’re placing the paintings around, you need them to show continuity, as if they were telling the visitors a story.”
“A logic…”
“Exactly, because that will affect their perception of them. If we put this painting next to that one, the person who looks at it will see light and then darkness right afterward. That’s saying something important. Describing a change. A happiness broken by a painful event, say. If we do the opposite, then it expresses something else: hope, overcoming. No one knows better than you what you were trying to say with each painting, and we need to create an attractive setup, one that communicates.”
Leah bit her lower lip, still contemplating her work, as if she didn’t really know where to begin. I made myself stop gawking at her and sat on the ground, asking her to follow suit.
“Let’s start at the beginning. We’ve got three rooms for your exhibition.” I pulled a piece of paper out of the folder I’d brought and handed it to her, a blueprint of the gallery. “In this room, the smallest one, we’ve only got space for three pieces, so they need to have an impact, right?”
“I hear you,” she whispered.
The next hour flew by.
We still hadn’t made a firm decision about the first room when Sam came in and asked if we wanted to have breakfast with her. We ended up ordering the usual at the café on the corner: coffee and toast with Vegemite. Sam talked nonstop about her husband, her kids, and the menu at the restaurant where she’d eaten the night before. The mood was casual, and she got Leah to relax.
“Speaking of menus, yesterday I got an idea for the exhibition. What if my brother took care of the food? We could ask him to do something savory.”
“That would be amazing!” Leah said with a dazzling smile. “Actually, I wouldn’t mind sticking with the sweet stuff, though.”
“Sweets at a gallery opening?” Sam said.
“Why not? We could toast with chocolate milkshakes!” I bit my lip to keep from grinning when I saw Sam’s stupefied expression as Leah got more and more riled up. “To hell with champagne. We could serve little pastries and cookies. Or even gummies!”
“I’m not sure about that,” Sam said.
“Let’s do it,” I interrupted her.
I loved how Leah didn’t want one of those snooty, refined exhibitions so many artists dream of. Not that one was better or worse, but this one was all her.
“I guess it’ll be original,” Sam conceded.
“Will you talk to Justin?” Leah asked.
“Yeah, I’ll go see him around noon. You want to come?”
Leah shifted uncomfortably in her seat and set down her coffee. “I promised your parents I’d have lunch with them.”
“So I’m like the girl at high school no one will ask to the prom. I guess I’ll cry,” I joked, and Sam nudged me with her elbow before getting up with the words, “I’ve got the check.”
Leah ran a finger over the handle of her cup and looked at me. I could feel tension flowing between us, but beneath that negativity, there was a gentleness still that continued to throb in our memories.
“Sorry. I think your mom felt it would be uncomfortable and decided to avoid it.”
“Sure.” I couldn’t take my eyes off her. “Is it for you?”
“Sometimes it is. Sometimes no.”
“Always so ambiguous.”
She smiled and stood up.