cameras. Adelaide Lyu and Chelsea Leath stand on either side of her, flushed with pride in their pretty cocktail dresses and chattering between photos; Marianna Walters’s smile is brilliant, while an entire battery of flashes illuminates her dark skin. There are a few boys, whose names I never learned, shoved to the back and wearing ill-fitting suits.
Iliana stands to the left of everyone, barely smiling at all.
Her eyes dart between the cameras and Griffin at my side.
Something passes between Iliana and Griffin, and it isn’t until he shakes his head that she’s even able to turn her attention to the journalists standing in front of her.
Griffin and I meander to the next entry, submitted by a boy named Brian Maguire (based off the nameplate), whose entry is a series of scientific illustrations of native Tennessean river fish using pointillism—entire pieces of art comprised of millions of tiny dots. The dots are larger in some places and as tiny as the sharp end of a pin in others, dense to the point of black in some places and completely absent in others to suggest light.
This guy knows how his bread is buttered: Because of the simplicity of his work, he clearly sank money into creamy, thick, hand-pressed paper. Based on the microscopic dots on the page, his pens would have had to have been special ordered from somewhere like Japan. Or Germany. Nothing you’d even be able to find in a specialty shop on the internet.
Kiersten’s shimmering silk, Brian’s paper and pens.
My very British spring break figure-drawing intensives at the Royal College of Art, my connections, my loaded, culture-snobby parents who are very willing to do whatever it takes to thrust my career as an artist into existence.
Iliana has been so many things: Brutally honest. Achingly correct.
Bitter.
Jealous.
But last night, she was something I’ve never seen in her before: vulnerable.
It never occurred to me before how much these things actually cost: Parental support. Money for supplies. Money for entry fees. Money for travel. The benefit of knowing the right people since birth. I don’t doubt that I got into the festival all these years because I deserved it, but Iliana and Sarah have deserved it, too—they just didn’t have the same resources to get here.
I can’t stop myself from turning again to check on her. She gestures to her entry as she speaks into a tape recorder that has been thrust into her face. Kiersten stands next to her now, all smiles and polite nods. Her pink-and-purple cotton-candy hair is swept back into a respectable knot, and a simple black sheath dress hangs just past her knees. Sarah stands cast to the side, wearing Kiersten’s hallmark crystal-studded, pink leather jacket.
Every time Kiersten opens her mouth to speak, Iliana flinches as if she’s been slapped.
“I’ve never seen Iliana like this,” I say.
“She’s not herself tonight, that’s for sure,” Griffin says. “Have y’all had a chance to talk today?”
I shrug. “Some. I’ve realized that being nervous is just about the only thing that shuts her up.”
“Mmmm.” Griffin polishes the face of his watch on the front of his coat. “I guess a common enemy can solve just about every kind of conflict.”
“Common enemy?” I blink at him.
I have no idea what he’s talking about.
“Whoever ratted you out and tried to destroy her Capstone entry.” Griffin crosses his arms and continues: “Somebody here wanted you out of the running, and you know it wasn’t Iliana. So…”
He isn’t wrong.
Caught up in the moment, it had been so easy to put it to the back of my mind. I pan the line of semifinalists one more time, pausing on each face. The nervous twitch in each set of hands. Who didn’t want us here?
Iliana had been so sure it was Kiersten. Was she right?
Iliana’s here now, does it even matter?
Iliana’s crumpled, fragile paper-cuts sway over our heads like a cascade of autumn leaves. Iliana’s entry is the only one that moves, and it swings and shudders against each wave of people. It’s beautiful as a whole, but each individual card stands alone as a piece of work: fifty-two ink-dyed paper rectangles, warped and curled and delicate like lace.
It’s not the whole deck like she intended, but it’s close.
A small crowd has formed around me, their eyes moving with each sway of the paper moving over our heads. The patrons are as captivated as I am, maybe even more—they didn’t watch Iliana’s installation push into existence like I did.
They’re coming upon Iliana’s work fully formed, and it’s taking