What My Flowers Said Ch. 01-03

*running late*

*how late?* I typed back.

*late late...sorry pens. look around. i'll find you*

I put my phone away, frowning. I really didn't feel up to any solo exploring. And this wasn't the first time Marie had left me in a lurch. Much as I loved her, when it came to keeping engagements she was eminently unreliable. I sighed. Well, at least it's warm.

All around me, conjoined dyads of graying men in well-tailored suits and statuesque women in dark, silk dresses stood in clusters, chatting, smiling, and sipping champagne. On the outskirts, a couple coteries of younger, wealthy-looking hipsters sulked around, all wearing hats, eccentric facial hair, and looks of nonpareil annoyance. A few newcomers brushed past me to the coat check, one woman patting the snow from her jacket right onto my toes. I shivered. My teeth started chattering. And now, it's not even warm. I grimaced.

Whatever confidence I'd mustered up for this ordeal during the journey over was swiftly dissipating. And I didn't want to wait around all night for Marie. Knowing her, she might never even show up. Back at the apartment, I had a sofa, a thick afghan blanket, some oolong tea, and a little stack of trashy romance novels waiting for me. Plus—the pièce de résistance—my flannel pajamas. Or I could stand around here all night in Madame's Mondrian dress, and pretend to be one of the paintings.

I forced a cheerless half-grin. Resolving to cut my losses and just head home, I returned the ticket for my coat, and was weighing whether to splurge on some cheap Indian takeout when I turned too quickly, and walked smack-dab into the iron sculpture, all but impaling myself on one of its protrusions.

"Oh, for the love of—" my jacket was snagged.

I tugged hard. A few stitches ripped, but it wouldn't give.

"Crisse de câlice de tabarnak!" I swore, appropriating the rude sacres from Québécois.

Eavesdropping on my obscenities, a lanky, russet-haired man nearby turned his head to investigate.

Oh God, my eyes widened as he approached. It's Peter.

"Penny?" he squinted.

I nodded, embarrassed.

I'd met Peter a few months ago when Marie brought back the muddled remnants of a wrap party to her place for a few final rounds. Peter, it turned out, had built the set. Marie soon vanished into her bedroom with a choreographer whose name escaped me. The party fizzled out, but Peter stayed. We talked, and drank up the choreographer's rum, and snickered at the racket they were making into the wee hours of the morning. By the time the sun came up we were friends, and I was both relieved and humiliated to see him now. He grinned and stepped nearer, gently releasing my coat from its skewer.

"Thanks, Peter," I mumbled, "I'm glad you're here. I think Marie might've bailed on me."

Privately, I wondered if his being there had anything to do with her cryptic 'surprise.' She loved playing matchmaker, particularly for people with—in her words—'crazy compatible zodiacs.' And ever since emerging with her nameless lover that morning to find Peter and me still up, sipping coffee on the sofa, she'd been pestering me with all kinds of intimate questions about him.

"Well, I had to be here," he shrugged, "to make sure no one hari-karies themself on my work."

He nodded to my barbed assailant.

"...You did this?" I asked, my eyes growing wide.

As I'd explained to Marie following several tortuous interrogations, set design aside, Peter Mulgrave was an authentic artist. At fourteen he'd started welding metal sculptures at his Father's salvage yard in Halifax. But this was the first piece of his I'd seen in person. It was impressive—and imposing.

"So, what's it supposed to be?" I baited him shyly, asking the question said to rankle postmodern sculptors.

"Can't you tell?" he grinned, "It's a coat rack."

I examined the thumb-sized hole in my jacket, "Pretty lousy coat rack."

"Yeah, sorry about that," he glanced me over for latent injuries, "But holy hell, Pens. Look at you," he stepped back to, and I felt my cheeks and chest begin to flush. "A De Stijl masterpiece," he teased, "escaped from the museum to hobnob with some art that isn't dead?"

"More or less," I shrugged, feeling self-conscious.

On the sly, I appraised him back. He wore a charcoal vest and brow-line glasses. His curly hair was cleanly cropped just above the jaw. He looked dashing, and urbane; like he'd just wandered out of a Fitzgerald novel, slicing open the pages as he went. Peter was clearly in his element, and it felt nice not having to pretend around him. He knew I wasn't rich, or edgy, or fashionable, or even all that fluent in French. And in spite of everything else around us, I started to relax.

"C'mon," he jerked of his chin, "I'll show you around."

I smiled sheepishly, and followed. We made our way along the edge of a dense throng, many swilling cocktails or champagne flutes. Peter nodded toward the center.

"That's Claude, the curator."

Marie's friend, I thought. He didn't seem to be missing her much. He was flanked on either side by dazzling, sandy-haired girls with plump, pouting lips. They looked like they could be sisters—maybe even twins.

"And the little guy he's talking to," Peter whispered, "Benoît Boucher. The art critic. Kind of a big deal around here."

I actually recognized Boucher from his headshot in the paper. Back at Madame's shop, his was the only column I'd stumbled through before flipping back to the classifieds.

Peter grinned, "Don't let him catch you staring, Pens. Your career might be over before it's started."

I nodded nervously, and we moved on. Rounding a corner, I realized the gallery was two, maybe three times larger than I originally thought. By Mile End standards, it was enormous.

"Pretty wild, eh?" Peter nudged me. "Claude really went all out. And he's got some serious players in here." He turned to look at me, "Honestly, I was kind of surprised he wanted one of mine."

I wasn't. Like Peter's sculpture, most of the works were stark, modern, and more than a little intense. I thought about my own smattering of oils pinned up at the cafe. By comparison, I felt mine were barely better than finger paints. I followed him clockwise around the gallery's perimeter as he pointed out his favorites, pausing here and there to introduce me to this or that artist, and passing over all the swarms of socialites. I was enjoying myself. I really was. But at the same time, it was hard not to dwell on how lost I felt. Each painter we passed seemed so sure of themself—so comfortable in their own skin. He waved to someone across the room, and turned back to me.

"So have you started that masterpiece yet?" He stuffed his hands in his pockets, "I remember you said you wanted to do something big."

My brow furrowed. I'd confided in Peter under the twin intoxications of sleep deprivation and alcohol that I wanted to go large-scale with my first real work. A big, beautiful, blank canvas; something with infinite potential, something with space for me to explore.

"No," I admitted, "Still waiting."

"Waiting for what?" he squinted.

"I don't know. The right moment?" I dropped my eyes, "My muse. Or inspiration. Or whatever. Furor poeticus... Something like lightning," I felt my cheeks heating, "Something that'll hit me, and tell me exactly what to do."

"Uh-huh," he nodded sardonically, "Got some bad news for you, Foster. It doesn't work that way." He took a step closer, "Believe me, I've been there. But I promise you, the best thing to do is just take what's in front of you, and run with it," he shrugged, "Might not be perfect, but it's a start. And you can always smooth out the edges as you go. That's how Rodin worked."

Maybe. I frowned. But not Camille. I knew I was naïve. I knew I didn't have his success, or experience. But I didn't much care for Peter sucking all the magic out of the process. I wanted my first piece to be strange and special—to maybe even a hurt a little—like losing your virginity. I don't know how exactly, but I felt it should shift, ever so slightly, something essential inside me; to change the lens on how I saw the world, and the way in which I fit into it.

Alright. So maybe you're really naïve, Penny.

Peter glanced from me to the rafters, and back again.

"You know, I'm actually working on something pretty big myself. Toughest piece I've ever done," he fidgeted, "You should stop by the studio sometime. I could use some help from someone like you."

"Someone like who?" I asked, still a bit miffed.

"You know, like an... art nerd."

I scoffed, "Didn't realize I came off that way."

"No, I just mean, like, someone who really knows the classics," he backpedaled, "I've never done anything like this before, Pens," there was a nervous energy in his voice, "For real. It'd mean a lot to me if you stopped by."

I cocked my head. He's out on a limb, I thought. But seriously, why me? I scanned the room, already forgetting two-thirds of the names he'd given me. Why me, when he's got a whole battalion of experts right here to choose from?

"Yeah. Sure," I turned back to him, nodding cautiously. "I um, I think I'd like that."

Peter smiled, and put his number into my phone as we continued our circuit. It was, I'll admit, a little strange for me to be in a room full of paintings about which I knew absolutely nothing—and all the more so to be lectured on them by someone my own age. Around the works of the Renaissance, the Impressionists, the Neo-Classicists, Academicists, Naturalists, Post-Impressionists, Expressionists, Realists, Surrealists, Fauvists, Futurists, Orphists, Cubists, or Romantics, I all-too-often could revert to my preteen self—a precocious and insufferable know-it-all. Had we been across the Parc du Mont-Royal at the fine arts museum, I might have rendered Peter whole. annotated volumes of commentary before we passed the ticket counter. But he made for a great tour guide—kind, and funny—and it actually felt nice to take the back seat for once, and just let him lead me. He handed back my phone just as it buzzed.

*seen anything you like, babe?*

It was Marie again. She must've spotted me with him, I thought, spinning, hoping to catch her. Even in heels, though, I couldn't see much. Apparently Amazonian supermodels were a key demographic in the Montreal contemporary art scene.

*where r u?* I typed.

Her reply popped up.

*on my way. i swear!*

I stared at the message, rereading it twice.

Weird. Guess she's not here. I knitted my brow. Marie could be such a space cadet. Peter was waiting patiently nearby, watching me, and smirking.

"Something up?" he asked.

I shrugged, "Guess not."

I knew I was just being paranoid, but whenever this happened, I couldn't help dreading for Marie. For the next few minutes, my mind wasn't really there at the gallery. Instead, I was imagining in ghastly detail how she was probably in the midst of being kidnapped; gagged, bound, and stuffed into a trunk by some deranged balletomane. Through her eyes, I saw his sinister smile, and the glint in his eye as he snapped the hatch shut.

Stop. Just stop. You're being ridiculous. I shook my head, trying to clear it. She isn't you, Penny. Marie knows how to handle herself.

I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling a little flare over the scar on my shoulder. And when I reopened them, I saw something so bizarre and so beautiful that I forgot all about Marie, about Peter, and even about myself. Alone on a rough brick wall, above a cluster of murmuring bodies, there hung a huge, arresting oil of a female nude. And she was definitely a nude—though her only coverings were a crystal choker, rendered with Vermeerian fidelity to the dance of shadow and light, and a little crimson drapery across her white thigh—there was nothing 'naked' about her. Her body was tense, and sinuous. Her red hair, like embers, seemed to scintillate through the paint, and extinguish itself in the ashy black. Like the Urbino Venus, her palm was cunningly placed. But what caught me up most was the moment, the split second in which she was captured. She was recumbent. And she was coming.

I blushed a deep, deep crimson, inching closer. I don't think I'd ever seen something—not even Bernini's Theresa—that crystallized the climax, all the agonies and the ecstasies, with such vicious and cutting clarity. If the Mona Lisa's smile was a subtle, sphinxian riddle, the look this woman wore was the Gordian knot. Like an O-face, I thought blasphemously, for the immaculate conception.

I edged even closer, and my eyes grew wider as I spotted the little golden cuffs around her wrists, and the chains to which they were fettered. Is she Andromeda? I squinted, rising perilously onto my tiptoes to read the placard.

'The Old Master / Evelyn X'

I bit my lip. Not Andromeda? With a little gasp, I realized the man over whose tweedy shoulder I was peering was none other than the venerable art critic, Benoit Boucher. He was speaking to a lithe, lovely woman with dark eyes and an adorable black pixie-cut. I lowered myself off my toes and listened.

"Magnifique, Mademoiselle. C'est différance incarnée. But by your title, I confess I am stumped. You must tell me. Which of the Old Masters inspired this? Titian? Correggio? Rubens, peut-être?"

"Alle und keinen, Monsieur," she smirked, pushing a sable thread of hair from her temple, "I was thinking of Auden's Musee des Beaux Arts."

"Ah, je vois, je vois," Boucher nodded wisely.

Oh wow. It's her... I stared at the girl, swelling with equal parts envy and adulation. I wanted to hear her speak again. Her voice had a tragic little lilt to it. Is she Irish? I wondered. She must be. No one else sounds so plain and so pretty. And her painting, my Christ—it was graceful, and terrible, and shocking all at once—and as I had with only a handful of others in my life, I could feel myself falling in love with it.

Evelyn X. I watched her for as long as I dared, only half-aware of how awkward it would be if she caught me staring. I couldn't help it. She just looked so demure; so pretty and poised. And so talented. She was everything I wished I could be. I glanced again to her painting, and then back to her.

Oh. Oh my God. My lips parted. I don't know how I'd missed it at first, but apart from her hair—and, of course, her blazing, brazen nudity—the girl in the painting was a mirror image of Evelyn X herself. A deep crease cut across my brow. I'm mean sure, there's plenty of precedent for scandalous self-portraits. But to do this one—to have that kind of daring, and audacity—I couldn't even to imagine it. I felt myself blush on her behalf, even though her own cheeks were porcelain-pale, and dropped my eyes, embarrassed as I backed away.

After the obelisk you might think I'd have learned my lesson. But again, not looking where I was headed, I backed up right against a silver-haired man in a trim, grey suit, knocking myself off balance, and splashing champagne over the edge of his glass. I heard it hiss like a serpent as it spattered on the floor.

"Prenez garde, mademoiselle," he caught me, "Est-ce que ça va?"

"Yeah. Yes, I'm fine, thank you," I stammered, "I'm sorry, sir. I just, um—I wasn't looking."

"No," he let go, answering in clipped, aristocratic English, "I dare say you were looking, my dear."

He nodded to the nude, lifting two fresh flutes of champagne from a tray as it passed. I felt my cheeks burn brighter.

"She's quite the creature, isn't she?" He reached out, offering me a glass.

I nodded bashfully, folding my hands to decline, "Yeah. I guess she is."

He wouldn't take no for an answer, and pressed closer until I grasped the stem of the glass. All the while he gazed past me, into the painting.

"Do you know what she reminds me of?" He sipped.

I shook my head, beginning to glimpse around for Peter.

"Cleopatra," he pointed, "bitten by the asp."

Cobra's kiss. It bit her breast, right?

My brow furrowed, "Maybe. My thought was Andromeda."

"Because of her chains?" He sniffed, his eyes darting down to the wrists, "I disagree. Cassiopea's daughter—she was a woman waiting for death, now wasn't she? A picture of silence, of stasis. But this poor creature here," he grinned wryly, "she's already met her end. Embraced it. Just look at her, my dear. The 'Dying Slave.' Suffering in extremis."

My stomach churned, and I gritted my teeth, growing more uncomfortable by the moment.

"I um, I'm not sure it's pain that she's feeling, sir," I murmured.

"Algolagnia," his dark eyes glinted, apparently intrigued, "Eros, Thanatos. Yes... Perhaps pleasure and pain are more closely woven than we care to admit. There is a reason, after all, that we call it la petite mort, no?" He swallowed another sip, and sighed, "Poor Evie's always had a penchant for entangling the two."

Evelyn? A tight knot formed in my throat, and for the first time since our collision, I raised my gaze, daring to fully face him. He was older, to be sure—probably my Father's age—but without a trace of softening, or sag in his face. Like a limestone cave, the trickle of time seemed to have just carved his features deeper, to make him more hollow, and sharp. Above his left eye, a deep, diagonal scar bisected the brow. I tried not to stare. I knew how it felt when somebody stared.

"You know her?" I murmured.

"Intimately," his eyes narrowed, leering over in the girl's direction, "Would you like for me to introduce you, Miss—?"

"...Rousseau," I shook my head nervously, wearing Marie's name for a mask as I backed away, "And thank you, Monsieur. But no. I should really be getting back to my friend."

"Bien sûr," he stared, a slim, unsettling grin still twisting the edges of his mouth, "Do watch your step tonight, my dear."

I nodded once more, and left him, shuddering as I wove my way out of the crowd. I wanted to find Peter—but even more so, I wanted to get away from him. Fast. Whoever he was, whatever game he was playing at, the guy creeped me right the fuck out.

I found Peter at the periphery, chatting casually with a couple photographers. Catching my eye, he excused himself, slipping his hands in his pockets as he approached.

"Hey stranger," he smirked, "Thought I lost you for a second."

I shook my head, sinking my incisors into my lip.

"You alright, Pens?" He touched my shoulder, knitting his brow, "you look a little pale."

"I'm good," I shrugged, setting the un-sipped champagne aside, "Let's just move on."

He held out for a moment, still wary, but didn't press me any further. I suppose he could tell I needed a distraction.

"As you wish, milady," he bowed theatrically, and offered his arm.

I put on a faux-smile. And just like that, we resumed our tour, strolling along toward the far wall. After that run-in, I was gladder than ever to have him for an escort, and it wasn't long all before he had me grinning again, and forgetting all about the unsettling Englishman. I guess that's the beauty and the curse of Peter's charm. It was amnestic, in a way. It made you forget more than it made you forgive.

"Brace yourself," he nudged me, "We're coming up on the back end. They always stick the weirdos near the fire exit."

I nodded, narrowing my eyes.

"Now, this guy says he's deconstructing the New England lighthouse portrait. Says he's picking up where Edward Hopper left off," he pursed his lips, "I think he's just got some big Freudian hang-ups."