Page 21 of Double or Nothing

“Reality,” I say. “The steadiness of all things is in the immovable bar of reality. Emotions, fire, fury, hope, love… reality is there through them all.”

She’s totally mute as she looks at me.

I examine her two other paintings. Different coloured versions of more splotches. All with golds and all three with that same kind of black streak through the centre.

“I love how the symbolism runs through your work,” I tell her. “Whatever that steadiness is, it holds a sacred truth.” Another pause. “It’s beautiful.”

Jesus Christ, I’m so full of shit.

Alice’s wide eyes are the things that are beautiful, not the splashes of paint on canvas. She’s used to keeping her poise, I can see that, but there’s a glimmer of someone else under the façade. Because that’s a lot of what this place is. It’s a façade. I’m not the only fake art lover in this room. The exhibition is heaving with the motherfuckers. What they really want is to screech their status from the ceiling.

Sure, they may buy a load of ridiculously expensive pieces to show off, and yeah, they’ll still stick them up on their walls for display, but will they ever look at them again? Really?

I’d estimate fifty-percent tops.

Eli would say twenty. Always the sceptic.

Time to switch it up a bit.

“Tell me, Alice. Now I’ve shared what your painting evokes in me, what does it evoke in you? What is the black line through the centre?”

“I thought you didn’t need the descriptive overlay?” Her eyelashes flutter.

“I don’t want any descriptive overlay. What I want is to know what it means to you. You’re the creator who brought it to life.”

She looks back and forth between me and the painting, but I don’t move my eyes from her. I may have started out as a bored joker in this place, kicking about while people talked art bullshit or business crap, but I find I do actually give a shit about what she has to say.

It weirds me out a little.

She points at the red one. “For me this represents fire. Flames uncontrolled.”

“And the gold?”

“The gold is the beauty that never contains it. It tries, but forces can’t be contained.”

Gold only ever means one thing for me. I hazard a guess that it means the same for her. She’s clearly from a wealthy background. She’d never be here if she wasn’t. Plus, she’s been shooting glances at Bryce’s business corner non-stop since they started up their meeting earlier.

“Money, you mean?” I ask. “The gold means money?”

Her breath hitches. “I, um.” She flusters. “It’s whatever the viewer wants to see. It means different things to different people.”

“But what does it mean to you?”

I don’t know why I’m pushing so hard, but I’m intrigued. Pulled in by the woman herself, not her gold foil.

She has me with those light eyes. The smile on her face.

“That’s too big a topic for a charity event.” She giggles. “That kind of talk would take all night long.”

“What about the black lines?” I ask her. “What are they?”

“What do you think they are?”

“I already told you,” I remind her. “Reality, ever present and immoveable.”

“Ah yes, so you did.”

I don’t know why I give a toss, but I do. I want to know what the black bloody lines are. Ridiculous, but true.