Page 54 of Don't Tell Me How It Ends
“Nothing. Everything. There’s so much going on out here. So much inspiration if you pay attention. I’m just paying attention.”
“Should I expect your next piece to be an ode to that street vendor?”
Ro laughs, and I claim the breathy sound as a victory.
“It’s not that literal. It’s more about the energy of a place. The texture of it. How it feels to be here, now. All of it sits up here,” he says, tapping his head. “Becoming whatever it’s gonna be.”
Ro leans into me, and past the heat of his bare arm on mine, I try to focus on his words. He points as he speaks so I can see what he does.
“Those lines of that old building. That shadow, there, under the busted streetlamp. The curve of that door. All these paper-thin blades of grass shooting up around this hydrant. Because life’s always gonna force its way through.”
He pauses, and without permission, my heels rise from the cement. My toes working to get a little closer to whatever his next words will be.
Ro reaches a hand out toward my face, and I don’t know if my feet will ever land on solid ground again.
“The way this curl moves with every step you take when youthink we’re late.” His fingers never meet my skin before he lowers his hand, letting it drop back down to his side. “I wanna remember it all. And one day, I’ll paint it. In ways I can’t even recognize. But it starts here,” he says, gesturing to the city around us. “If you pay attention.”
“You’re so lucky you get to see the world like that.” I wish I could crawl inside Ro tofeelthe way he does. “I don’t think my brain works that way.”
“It’s mostly conditioning,” he tells me. “Practice.”
I nod in near understanding, but I want to hear it in his words, so I can hear it exactly.
“I remember being a kid—my teachers used to tell me to stay focused. Stay on task. Finish fast, finish first. They’d praise me when I got from point A to point B with as little interruption as possible. But I don’t think it’s about how much you can get done in the shortest amount of time, all at the same time. The beauty’s in the detours. Life’s in the detours. Those moments in between the things we’re told to care about. But it’s hard to train your brain to go against what you’ve been taught. It’s hard to slow down. It not a talent you justhave.It’s a discipline. A resistance.”
That familiar calm washes over me as I watch Ro’s hand dangle at his side. I don’t think I would’ve noticed it just moments ago, when I was racing down the block like the world was on fire. Running scared so I didn’t become somebody else’s inconvenience.
I would’ve missed it.
Missed seeing his long, delicate fingers curled around the thick summer air, heavy with promise. His hand, palming vacant space, waiting to be filled.
Seeing,though, is only half of it. Because I still don’t let myself reach out to fill the space between his fingers with my own. Ihesitate just a second too long, until a couple spills out of the studio, and the moment passes us by.
Ro catches the door to hold it open for me, and I clasp my own hands together to fill the sudden loss of our connection. Shrugging off my disappointment as I pass him to enter.
“Maybe the world would be better if it were run by artists,” I say as I step inside.
And the bass of his voice rattles the air at my back when he whispers, “Maybe one day we’ll get to find out.”
—
I didn’t know I had an image of what we’d be walking into tonight, but I must’ve, because as soon as we’re inside, I realize just how wrong I’d been.
This studio isn’t the sterile white art cliché of my imagination. There are no suited-up cater waiters passing tiny glasses of boiled shrimp and cocktail sauce. Instead, it’s a neon-lit halal street truck that had to have been deconstructed and rebuilt inside to fit through the doors. There’s no delicate champagne flutes clinking along to classical music. The liquor is brown and the bass line is turned up. This place is real and alive, and it makes me feel alive too.
Heavy wood beams run overhead. Floor-to-ceiling windows perfectly framing the city like a postcard. The whole place and everyone in it is a work of art. But surrounded by elegantly wrapped turbans and slinky dresses, I suddenly feel veryConnecticut.
Ro’s hand finds the small of my back as he directs me farther into the space. Without pausing to think better of it, I settle into his touch. Throughout the day, I’ve become more used to his hands on me—always innocent, but growing more familiar.
I’ve also come to expect heads turning to seek Ro out as hepasses. It’s been like that all day, but it’s different here. People don’t just turn to observe him, they smile and nod in recognition.
A particularly enthusiastic voice shouting “Ayyye!” rises above the indiscriminate murmurs of the crowd.
Ro’s face lights up as a man with a well-oiled salt-and-pepper beard and black linen pants reaches past me to dap him up. “Wasn’t sure you’d make it out.”
“Ah, you know I wouldn’t miss it,” Ro says, stepping back to bring me into the conversation. “Kaia, this is Paul. He puts this exhibit on every year.”
“Hey,” I say, ignoring Paul’s obvious and prolonged appraisal of me. “It’s nice to meet you. This place is incredible.”
