The woman in the white dress made a noise in the back of her throat. “You have a sharp eye. Do you sculpt?”

“I draw,” I explained. “Portraits, mostly.”

“Well, I’d love to see your work sometime,” she said.

This is something people say all the time, when they find out that you’re an artist: I’d love to see your work. Which always feels to me a bit presumptuous. Sharing your work is like showing people a piece of you. An intimate piece. But with this woman, the request felt different.

“Me,” I said. “Why?”

Diana Robinson chuckled. “She’s the gallery owner.”

“Oh.” My eyes widened. “Oh. Well, I don’t have anything I could . . . I’m not a professional artist or anything. I’m not—”

“But you obviously will be,” the woman said. “Take my card.”

I was worried she was going to spill red wine on her white dress while she dug into her bag, but she didn’t. She handed me a simple, heavy card, where cleanly printed in silver letters was the name Eileen Watts, Watts Gallery, and her phone number and email address.

Later I taped the card to my bedroom wall, where I always look at it and think, Someday.

“What else?” Leo asked after the conversation with Diana and Eileen moved to other things and I kind of backed away.

“Else?”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “What other details did you notice?”

I bit my lip. “Let’s see. You have a mole on the side of your neck. Not anything big or hairy or gross, just a little dot halfway up on the left side.”

He turned his head and pulled back the collar of his hoodie to reveal the mole, just where I said it would be.

“Your second toe is a tiny bit longer than your big toe,” I said.

He grinned. I smiled, too, but I was embarrassed. Here I was describing parts of his body like I knew what was underneath his clothes.

“I promise I’m not a stalker,” I said. “I just pay attention to your mom’s work.”

“What else?” he said.

I laughed. It was the first time I’d ever used that laugh, the nervous one, which doesn’t really sound like me. I mentioned the cowlick.

“Do you want to come over to my house sometime?” Leo said then.

“Yes,” I squeaked.

God. I was so pathetic. I was so naive. I was so wrong.

Chapter 9

9