Page 27 of The Neighborly Thing To Do
“I do think the market has seen an uptick in business,” I say, smirking at the thought. “Alotof people are coming through hoping to catch up on the latest gossip.”
He chuckles. “See? We’re good for the local economy.”
I roll my eyes. “And how was your work today?” I ask. “You make progress?”
“A lot,” he agrees, eyes lighting up like they always do when I ask him about work. I love that he’s so passionate about what he does. “I should be finished in a few days. And then this piece will be moving to its new home, and I’ll be starting something else.”
“Is it sad or exciting to be done?” I ask, wondering how someone lets something go that they’ve spent so much time on.
He considers it. “More exciting, honestly,” he tells me. “If I’m proud of it, then I want to see it out in the world. Or, well, want to know it’s out in the world. I can’t go see it because of all this.” He waves a hand at his form. “Most of my sculptures sell to humans by default, because there are so many more of them. Can’t exactly go watch the installation process.”
“How does that work? If you can’t meet with the humans?”
“It was hard at first,” he admits. “I can’t exactly go to an art gallery. But I got lucky, and eventually people wanted my art, and the reclusive artist schtick works out alright. Not for everyone—some people still want to say they met the artist. But I do okay.”
“How do you even get the sculptures to people?” I ask.
“Tate and Petra act as my delivery service.” Tate and Petra are bear shifter twins, closer to my age than Finn’s. They do a lot of odd jobs around town. “They can pass in the human world fine. I pack them up, they load them in the truck, and deliver them wherever.”
It’s an efficient system, I’ll give him that. He’s thought it all out. “How far is the fox you’re working on going?”
“About two hours south of here. Why?”
“I could ride along with the twins when they deliver it. Take some pictures for you, talk to whoever it’s going to. It won’t be the same as you being there, obviously, but I thought it might be nice…” It sounds foolish now, though. I’m injecting myself in his life, acting like I can cure the fact that he doesn’t get to see his art once it goes to its final home. What, like some pictures are going to fix that?
I brace myself for him to let me down gently—Finn would only ever be gentle—when he smiles at me, sincere and soft in a way that’s unfamiliar. He smiles at me a lot for someone I so rarely saw smiling before all this, but this is different. This is almostbashful.
“You’d do that for me?”
“Yeah, of course.” This man is willing to bemarriedto me as a favor; going to see his work and take some pictures sounds like the least I can do for him. Honestly, it’d be pretty enjoyable.
“Do the twins take your pictures for you, then?” I ask.
“To prove delivery, yeah.”
I shake my head. “I mean for marketing purposes. You know, for your socials and website and that stuff?”
His brow furrows. “I don’t really do that.”
“How do you drum up business, then?” He not only is a faceless, reclusive artist, but he literally has no presence online either? How is he selling anything?
He shrugs. “Word of mouth, at this point.”
“That seems inefficient.” It’s out of my mouth before I can stop it, but then I realize how obnoxious it sounds. Yes, I have an idea, but he’s the expert at this. I should shut my mouth. “Sorry, don’t mind me.”
“No, tell me,” he invites, leaning forward.
We’ve both stopped eating, too busy watching each other across the picnic table. The sun is setting, turning the world a golden orange around us. It makes him look beautiful, glowing warm in a way I didn’t expect.
“Did you know I went to college for a semester and a half? Not very long, I know, but I was studying marketing. And I didn’t learn enough to be truly useful yet, but upping your social media presence is a good place to start.”
He blinks at me, clearly taking that all in, and then smiles slowly. “Hey Cassidy, want a job?” I scoff, but his expression gets more focused. “I’m serious. I’d love to have you do that for me.”
“I’m not qualified,” I protest.
“No,I’mnot qualified. You have an idea what you’re doing, which sounds great to me.”
“I don’t want to take your money.”
