it means for you. So if I told you what it means to me, I’d be robbing you of your own interpretation of it, because you’d never be able to look at it without hearing what I said about it.”
“Oh.” Marques looked at the sculpture again, though he didn’t seem quite focused. “That’s… I really like that.” He laughed softly. “I’m going to remember that the next time someone tells me my interpretation is wrong.”
“Hmph. As if they have any authority to say—” She stopped abruptly, then put up a finger. “Be right back. Don’t move.” Then she left the room, leaving us baffled and slack-jawed.
“That was different,” I mused.
“Right?” Marques’s attention went back to the sculpture. “Man. Can you believe this?” His eyes lit up all over again, and he said in a loud, excited whisper, “We’re in Zoe Neelan’s studio!”
I laughed. “Pretty amazing, isn’t it?”
“Oh my God, yeah.” He started walking around the sculpture again, looking it up and down. “I am so glad your dad sent me with you for this. I just… I can’t believe it.”
I was excited as hell to be in here too, but truth be told, it was Marques’s excitement that really had my heart going wild. He was just so cute. There were so many people in the art world who were stoically excited about this or that piece, and they’d wax poetic about all its depth and color and meaning and whatever, but I rarely ran into someone who got excited the way Marques did. Like, grinning from ear to ear, almost vibrating with glee, excited.
I’d never admitted it to anyone, but one of the reasons I loved hanging around the gallery was for the sheer pleasure of listening to Marques tell a potential buyer about a piece of art. He never tried to “sell” anything. He’d just wait until something caught someone’s eye, and if they asked him to tell them about the piece, he’d rave about it. Even if it was a piece he’d seen and described a hundred times before, he always came at it with that same euphoric attitude of, “Can you believe the absolute magic of this artist and what they did with this piece?”
It was no wonder his sales were spectacular and Dad basically fell all over himself to make sure Marques was happy and never wanted to work anywhere else. And from the sheer enthusiasm radiating off him right now, not to mention how he’d be able to tell people all about meeting Zoe and touring her studio, I doubted the pieces boxed up in the Trailblazer would go unsold for very long.
Footsteps came down the hall, and I turned just as Zoe burst back into the room, holding up a couple of pieces of paper. “Here! Next time someone tells you your interpretation is wrong?” She thrust one of the papers into his hand, and the other into mine.
I looked down at it, and she’d handwritten a certificate in black Sharpie:
Hear ye, hear ye, to whom it may concern, and all that jazz:
The bearer of this certificate is correct in his interpretation of my work, because interpretation of my work relies solely on the mind and emotions of the beholder. Leave them alone and don’t be a butthead.
Signed, notarized, sealed, etc.,
Zoe M. Neelan
I snorted.
Marques chuckled. “Oh my God. This is amazing.”
Zoe beamed, eyes sparkling with mischief. “That’ll set those prissy snobs straight.”
Ah, maybe it was a good thing she didn’t come to events. She’d probably give half the art world heart failure.
“This is really awesome,” he said. “Thank you. And thank you for your showing us your studio. This is…” He looked around again, shaking his head and staring at everything like he was in a daze.
She was in no hurry to kick us out, either, and he was in heaven. As she showed him every inch of the piece in progress, along with all the sketches and schematics, he was utterly adorable. He legitimately looked like a kid on Christmas.
I couldn’t help smiling as I watched. My other secret pleasure had always been surreptitiously watching him when some new art arrived at the gallery. He was a spectacularly talented artist himself, and whenever there was a new piece, he’d spend ages scrutinizing it from every angle. It was rare that something came in and didn’t mesmerize him for at least a little while, and if it was an exceptional piece, it could hold his attention for hours.
A year or so ago, there’d