"Art don't sell unless you fuck every authority."

MELANIE MARTINEZ | SHOW & TELL

•

a a l i y a h

Sunday mornings were the only time during the week, where I had an excuse to be alone and recharge my social battery.

I was stuck in bed, sprawled underneath my silky white duvet as my sister and I caught up over the phone. Sleepy, my answers were gruntled, but it was nine in the morning here, Rafaela, on the other hand, was also sluggish, except it was 3 PM in London. If there was one person who could sleep for twelve hours and still be tired, it was my older sister.

"Are you ever going to come back and work here?" Rafaela asked me, as she did every single time we spoke.

I wasn't sure how often I had to make clear that I wasn't likely to work for my father's company back in Hamburg—ever. Unlike my sister, who was a marketing coordinator for Zarren Energy, I didn't want to live in the permanent shadow of my father. It was always Isaac Zarren, the solar engineer, the second richest man on Earth, the man who prolonged the conservation of earth, the man who brought solar power to over 180 countries. As much as I supported and idolized everything he had done, was it too much to ask to be my own person?

"I don't know." Was my answer every time. "I don't know what could happen in the future, so, maybe if I had a sudden change in heart or if something happened here in New York—but for now, I don't think so," I told her, groggily.

"Well, I miss you, you cow," she said. There weren't many people who used 'cow' as a term of endearment. My sister couldn't seem to forget my foul choice in Halloween costumes when I was in fifth grade.

"I miss you, too," I yawned and rolled over. Loose strands of hair fell out of my silk bonnet. "How's your kidney?"

She snickered, it was loud enough to stun me for a few seconds. "See, people don't beat around the bush anymore. Before, it was always 'How's your health looking?' and now people don't even bother the common courtesy."

"Only because you always wanted us to just be straightforward with you," I protested.

"Yeah, but, whatever. I'm fine. My dialysis showed that everything is looking normal and healthy for now," she said with a tired sigh. "I still have to take like five hundred pills every day, but I don't think that'll ever change."

"It fucking sucks," I croaked with a deepened frown. "I'm sorry."

"Aaliyah, stop! It's been five years, and you literally couldn't do anything about it," she scolded me. "Do you know how common kidney transplant rejections are?"

I shut my eyes, and my fingers reached the scar on my stomach that consistently reminded me that I couldn't be the one to save her.

"They are very common," she pressed. "You couldn't have stopped that."

"It doesn't feel like it," I dismissed. Sensing that Rafa wanted to speak further on it, I sat up and dragged the straps of my silk top off. "Rafa, I have something in an hour, gotta go, but we'll talk later."

"I'm just going to act like I don't know you're avoiding the topic," she groaned. "Bye."

Genuinely, I did have to meet Octavio in about two hours, but had I not hung Rafaela up, I would've heard things that I wasn't ready to listen to.

After my short, hot shower, I threw my ridiculously thick hair into its usual lazy ponytail, layered my lashes with fine mascara, and coated my lips with my apricot lipgloss. New York was mildly cold today, the air bitter and dry, but not severe enough to keep me from wearing my favorite white pleated skirt.

Shoving an apple into my mouth and flicking my black sunglasses over my eyes, I was ready to walk through the sluggish Sunday morning atmosphere.

• • •

Being back in his studio felt different this time. I lay across the floorboard on a white sheet of paper, with a stem of a rose across my breasts. He sat nearby with his stencil and a palette of paint. I was supposed to feel relaxed and focus on solely nothing but the art, but as soon as I remembered what I was really here for, I became a puppet on a set of strings, and Mikayla was the puppet master.

In any other situation, persuasive words would dance out of my mouth like a fifth language, yet I couldn't fathom the mere thought of what to say first. How could I go about convincing Octavio to spontaneously change his attitude towards public relations?

"How is it down there?" he asked.

I was staring directly at the ceiling, mystified by the orange, pink, red, and yellow nebulas Octavio painted. It was so dazzling that I couldn't believe that wasn't the first thing I saw when I walked entered the studio on the first day. So long as I could gaze up at the universe of his studio, I could withstand being here all day.

"Amazing. Actually, I never thought being on the floor could be an out-of-body experience," I said, my voice soft with awe and my eyes wide with admiration. "When and how did you paint this up here?"

He hummed in thought as if he was trying to remember. "Uh, a year ago, maybe. But, I didn't do it all at once; in fact, I didn't really know what I wanted it to be. I would just paint little by little when I felt like it, and somehow, it all came together pretty well."

I sighed. "Can't disagree with you on that one."

"Tell me more about yourself," Octavio said.

"What do you wanna know?"

"I like my paintings to reflect a story, so tell me, what's your story?"

"My story," I repeated to myself in a whisper. "I'm an assistant at a public relations firm."

It was a lie, unintended, but it was the closest thing I could mention about my profession that wouldn't set off red flags. So long as Octavio didn't think I was directly associated with clients as an 'assistant' he wouldn't build a barrier against me.

"Oh, really? OK...how is that?" He sounded taken aback as if it was the last thing he expected me to do. It really seemed to be the last thing anyone would expect me to be involved with, and I assumed that it was because I was in the limelight myself. No one expected a celebrity to be pulling strings behind the media too.

"It's—it's interesting to be on the sidelines and just watch things unfold, I guess." I wasn't looking at him, and I focused on the ceiling ahead. "I don't do much if I'm honest, I just give my boss her coffee every morning, run some phone calls for her, set up meetings. Being an assistant is like a trailer to what actually happens in a bigger role—you don't see the whole thing until you pay the price."

Octavio suddenly stopped painting, and from down here, I could see his eyebrows twist with piqued curiosity. He rested his elbows on his knees in a man spread and looked down at me.

"Pay the price..." he reiterated, thoughtfully. "What price?"

I bit my bottom lip. "The price of, essentially, devoting your life's work to—well—another person's image. Based on what I see in my boss, she is so busy running around and stressing about her clients that she doesn't have time for herself."

"She might not have time for herself, but the money is definitely a great incentive," he said. "And, it's not like she's just helping others for no cost at all. You have to pay a huge sum to have managers like that, and usually, before you see any results," he disagreed, his voice calm but edging on the defense.

"You're not wrong, but I guess it's a risk some are willing to take," I continued, and after a tacit pause, I rolled my head to the right so I could take a better look at him.

He was sporting a dark green long-sleeved shirt that was rolled up to his elbows, it was high enough to spot the small figures of ink along both of his arms. There were three or two small tattoos.

"Do you have a manager for your work?" I asked.

He shook his head, adamantly. "Nope."

"Why?"

Octavio scrunched his nose up like the idea had a horrid smell in itself. "I just don't think I need someone else to be profiting off my own work. It just doesn't feel right, and especially since they would tell me what to do, how to act, where to go..." he trailed off.

He picked up his paintbrush again. "I'd be a product to society."

I swallowed and shifted my dark blue jeans higher up my waist. I let him paint in silence for the next few minutes as millions of miles of thoughts ran through my head on a wild loop. A beam of light hit my eyes, and I flinched, looking in the opposite direction.

How many people has he drawn like this? And how was it that a grown man like him be so apathetic to nude women. Maybe he was gay...

I wanted to ask him badly, but I didn't know if it was even an appropriate question to ask. Either way, it was on the tip of my tongue, ready to be pushed off and sent into his ears.

"How do you do this?" I blurted.

Octavio looked at me. "Do what?"

"How do you paint naked women and, I dunno, not—"

"Not act like a horny ninth grader?" he interrupted me through a light-hearted laugh.

"Yes, exactly," I giggled, embarrassed by my own question.

"Growing up, my mom always told me that there's a time and a place for everything. I don't think someone's body is an exception to the rule," he began, and instead of his eyes flicking between me and the canvas in front of him, they steadied on me. Octavio smiled; it was small but magnified with a smile in his eyes. Crashing, churning, cerulean waves. "There's a time and a place to view the body sexually, but when I'm painting, I don't think it's the right time. I mean, to focus on the nature of art, you have to focus on the nature of the body, and hyper sexualizing it unnecessarily just seems a bit ridiculous to me."

"So it's not that you're not sexually attracted to women, but you just know when to be and when not to be," I clarified.

"Basically, you just wanted to know if I was gay," Octavio laughed and then shook his head. "I am not."

"That's good to hear," I murmured, barely realized that I thought out loud until a lopsided grin hung on his pink lips.

"Does that mean anything to you?" he teased playfully.

I pursued my lips out of pure embarrassment. "Depends. Should it?" I retorted with a playfully mischievous grin.

"As much as you want it to," he murmured and set his paintbrush and palette down on the thick wooden table next to him. Palming his hands together, he looked at me with satisfied eyes. "I think we're done for today. You're really good at staying still."

"I know," I replied sarcastically. "It's one of my greatest talents, next to breathing." Pulling my orange fuzzy sweater back on, I wrapped my curls around into a bun and wet my parched lips.

"And don't forget to add looking good," he added with a casual smile. "On the canvas, I mean."

"Oh, so not in person? Got it," I teased with a nod.

"Nope, definitely not in person," he retorted, his accent thick with sarcasm. A grin tugged at his lips, and his eyes shone on me. "So, when am I gonna see you again?"

I pointed at myself. "Me? Or the catfished version of me on your painting? The said painting that I still can't see."

"Both of you," he laughed, shaking his head. "Also, there is nothing even remotely catfish-esque about you."

With a broad smile, I shrugged dramatically. "Yeah."

He leaned against the doorframe, rubbing the back of his neck. "I think it'd be a better idea to exchange phone numbers, so we can keep in touch, you know?"

I looked away from his briefly before returning to his hopeful gaze. "Smooth. Are you trying to slide into my DMs?"

"You'll have to find out."