The One Where Justin Gets a Present

In the two months I was between assistants, I'd forgotten what it felt like to have an organized desk, a manageable inbox, and a heart rate below 120 beats per minute. Justin had been here for five weeks and I was still getting used to the idea that I could take a lunch break.

He was taking his at his desk one Friday, eating a sandwich while he skimmed through some files, when I checked in on him. Have you finished looking at the submissions for the July showcase? I asked him.

He nodded slowly. I have.

And your thoughts?

Obviously Cecily Lenninger is the frontrunner, he said. But I'm just...not responding as much to her more recent work. Do you think we could get her to agree to show some of the stuff she did last year? The figure study is tremendous, but these new pieces... He unearthed her file and looked through it, shaking his head. Yeah, I don't know. It's too self-conscious. It's trying really hard to stand the test of time.

Have you ever tried telling an artist to return to their previous style?

He laughed. So I'm guessing that's a no.

You'd think you were asking them to go back to fingerpainting.

Well...there's nothing wrong with this new stuff, Justin said. It's technically amazing. I still think she's the strongest submission we've seen. Maybe we convince her to show a mix of some of her newer and older stuff, like...tell her it's to show the progress of her work, or something.

I nodded. Draft an email.

On it. And the notes on the restoration of the Harrison piece are on your desk. It sounds like they're actually on schedule for once, so it should be getting here by the middle of next week.

You're a marvel, I told him.

He blushed. It's just paperwork.

Come see me before you go home today, okay? Something came in with our last shipment that I want to show you.

Justin glanced at his watch. Are you free to show me now?

Am I ever free?

He grinned sheepishly. Sorry. It’s just I’m supposed to meet Brian in Queens at six. I was hoping to get out of here on time today.

Ah, the mysterious Brian. I hadn’t met him, though I’d gotten a text from him a few weeks ago when Justin was sick. Outside of the small laugh Justin had given once when I asked if he was also an artist, I didn’t know much about him.

Well, there’s no rush, I said. I can show you tomorrow.

He groaned. No, now it’s going to drive me crazy. I’ll meet you after I close the office. In the studio?

Naturally. Years ago, when I was renovating the gallery, I turned the basement into several rooms of studio space. Artists always found something they wanted to change at the last minute, and between shows it functioned as storage. I’d told Justin it was his to use whenever he liked, and he often stayed late or came in on weekends. He told me Brian was delighted to finally have an apartment that didn’t reek of turpentine.

I met him downstairs after the day. We got a shipment of canvases for Amanda West to work on while she’s here, I explained. She was very specific about the measurements she wanted, and...well, I ordered them while you were sick, and either I made a mistake placing the order, or there was some miscommunication at the manufacturer, because...

I led him into the studio, and Justin turned and gave a startled laugh that reminded me of my son's: unfiltered, beautiful. Oh my God. How big is this?

Twelve feet by thirty-five.

I've never seen a blank canvas this big in my life, Justin said. God, it's beautiful. Amanda should have ordered this in the first place.

Well, she didn't, and she doesn't want it, I said.

He was walking from one end of it to the other, scanning it like it was already painted. What are you going to do with it?

I smiled. That's what I was going to ask you.

What?

I want you to have it, I said.

His eyes widened. Really?

Really.

Well, what kind of thing do you think I should—

Whatever you want, I said. It's not a commission. It's yours, whatever you want to do with it.

His eyes traced it from the floor to the ceiling. “Oh, wow,” he said out loud, softly.

Make something brilliant, I said.

He nodded and went over to his workspace in the corner and started sketching.

I waved my hand to get his attention. Don't you need to meet Brian?

He looked at me, then his paper, then his canvas, then back at his paper. Sure, he said vaguely.

**

I went in the morning to supervise another delivery and wasn't surprised to find Justin in the studio space. I waved at him and pointed to a bagel and he, hands full of brushes, said “Thank you, yes please.” The canvas was still blank.

He was in the process of dismantling what looked like a hundred paintbrushes. Part of the artistic process? I asked.

He laughed and put them down. I want a very wide brush with a million bristles, and since it doesn't seem like it exists, I'm making my own! I'm going to figure out some way to attach it to my arm and just kind of... He mimed swiping his arm through the air.

So you'll get the broad stroke without sacrificing the fine detail up close.

Exactly.

Very clever, I said. Have you been here all night?

He laughed. No, I made it home eventually. I definitely missed that reservation though.

How'd Brian take that?

Justin shrugged. He's used to me by now. He doesn't really get the allure of the world's biggest canvas, but...

Sounds like my first husband, I said.

Justin smiled faintly and decapitated another brush.

I took care of a few more chores around the office before I headed home. Derek was on the couch, playing some video game. He's twenty-three, but he lives at home because New York real estate is expensive and he's a bum.

We talked for a little about how that didn't look like he was working on his resume, and wasn't he supposed to ask Ms. McClasky about a position at her firm, and did he at least take the chicken out for dinner, and finally I said, You've been spending some time with Justin, right?

Yeah, I guess so. Justin had mentioned to me when I hired him that he didn't have a lot of Deaf friends in the city yet, and my son is, for all his faults, possibly the friendliest person in existence, so introducing them to each other was the natural choice. Since then, Derek had mentioned a few times that Justin joined their group to go to dinner or to a movie, and he was at the apartment last week with a crowd Derek hosted for a board game night.

Have you met his partner?

Derek nodded. He went out to dinner with us last week. Good signer for a hearing guy. He's like twice my age though. I don't know. Seems nice.

What does he do?

Some kind of business thing. And I am not asking him for a job.

I went to my office to answer some emails and thought about being married to Derek’s father, a businessman who constantly complained about artist’s whims and an industry based on anything he couldn’t categorize or quantify. I thought about that old quote, about Carrie Fisher and Paul Simon, though I couldn’t put my finger on who’s said it: you can have a flower and a gardener, whoever it was had explained, or you could have two gardeners, but Carrie and Paul were two flowers.

A sweet sentiment, but as far as I could tell, there had never been a gardener who really, truly wanted a flower, not once they looked down the road at how they wanted to spend their life. At the end of the day, all I’d really learned in my fifty-one years on this earth is there’s never anyone for us flowers but each other.

I hoped Justin would be okay.

I called Justin that evening to ask him about a piece to ask if he'd sent out an email to a gallery in Santa Barbara we were hoping to borrow a piece from, and laughed when I could tell from the background that he was still in the studio.

At some point I'm actually going to start painting! he said. He showed me the progress of his brush apparatus. And then once I'm done I'll sell this to a museum.

If this were MoMa you could show that too, I said.

He looked at me hesitantly. Too?

I waved a hand like it was nothing. Well, of course if it's good, we'll show it, I said, and I watched a smile break over his face like a wave on a beach.

He looked up at the canvas and said, We might need a bigger gallery.

I'm coming in tomorrow to start setting up for the Natalie Cloud exhibit, I said. Think you'll still be there?

I was joking, but his Probably in response seemed pretty straightforward.

You're still supposed to be taking it easy, I said. Don't forget.

I'm never telling you when I'm sick again, he said.

You didn't. Your boyfriend did.

There are exceptions to rules about taking it easy. Like enormous canvases. Even he understands that. Justin tapped his finger into some cerulean paint, testing the color.

I'm glad, I said.

**

I checked on Justin at about two PM on Sunday. He was signing to someone on his phone. I need to find a ladder, he said, and then paused, watching the screen. How the fuck else am I going to get up there? I'll be fine.

I stomped my foot on the floor—years of practice getting my son's attention—and Justin looked over.

Got to go, he signed to the phone, then turned to me and smiled. Different clothes! he said. See, I've been home.

And busy, too. There was paint on the canvas now, wide swaths of sweeping teals and midnight blues. That brush is really working out for you.

It's so fun. I'm about to search the other studios for a ladder, do you know where I can find one?

There's one in C, I think.

Perfect.

I went back upstairs to supervise the placement of the paintings, and hours later I was admiring one of the pieces when suddenly I heard footsteps out in the lobby. The gallery is closed on Sundays, unless we're having a special showing, but I'd forgotten to lock the front door after my intern had left for the day. I came out into the lobby and saw a man, dressed casually, carrying two paper bags. If he was coming to rob my gallery, he certainly didn't seem prepared.

“Can I help you?” he said.

“Hi.” He scrunched up his face. “I think I'm lost.”

“What are you looking for?”

“The studio space.” He juggled the bags into one arm and held out his hand. “Sorry. Brian Kinney.”

“Justin's Brian?”

“As long as you promise to never, ever say that in front of him, sure. You must be Mrs. Norbert.”

“Marie.”

“Marie. It's good to meet you finally. Sorry about the panicked four AM text the other week.”

“So Justin had you bring him food?”

'You really are making me sound whipped, aren't you?” He laughed a little. “No, he doesn't know I'm here. He gets caught up sometimes when he's working and forgets to eat, so...” He shrugged.

Well, if that wasn't just the sweetest. And not exactly less whipped than bringing food on request, but I knew better than to say anything. “Let me show you down to the studio.”

“Thank you.”

I took one of the bags from him and led him to the elevator. I pointed towards one of the rooms. “Justin's—”

“—the one singing off-key. I figured. He doesn't know he's doing it.” He opened the door and set the bag on one of the tables, then came over behind Justin and waited until he'd lifted his brush off the canvas before wrapping his arms around him from behind.

Justin laughed. “Hi.”

Brian turned him around. Hi.

What are you doing here?

Sunday's date night.

Sunday has never been anyone's date night.

Fine, then I needed to make sure you didn't have a seizure up on a ladder and break your head. There's egg rolls in the bag.

I love you! Justin hopped over to the table. Oh my God, this is exactly what I needed. He gestured for me to join him and, well, I couldn't say I wasn't hungry, and Brian nodded encouragingly, so the three of us made ourselves plates and sat around one of the tables and looked at Justin's work.

What do you think? Justin asked Brian.

I was expecting something blandly supportive, like I always got from my ex-husband, but Brian studied it for a long time without saying anything. Finally, he said, It reminds me a little of that one artist we saw when we were in Hong Kong. Huo?

Huo, yeah. I was thinking about the way the boats look at the Long Island City Landing. It was giving me kind of a Hong Kong vibe.

Brian nodded.

Do you think it's too derivative? Justin asked anxiously.

Brian thought, then shook his head. Having it this size and keeping the brush strokes this broad, makes it kind of...impossible to be derivative, as far as I know. The way you're keeping all the little brush strokes up close and still having that feel of one fluid motion.

Well. Color me impressed.

The detail work is going to take forever, Justin said. I've got to do all the lights on the boats, and from the windows across the water. But of course without making it look like a souvenir something someone does with spray paint in Times Square.

Brian laughed. Those things are cool! They use pie tins and shit. Innovative. You're just a snob.

You're the one bringing me eight dollar egg rolls.

Well, I'm not the one eating them.

Justin finished his drink, kissed Brian, and started mixing paint again. He stood with his back to us, studying his canvas, completely lost in his own world.

He's something else, isn't he? I asked Brian.

Brian smiled up at the painting, and said, He's a genius.

Well. Fuck me if they weren't two damn flowers.

I left them alone after that, but decided to come down a few hours later to lock up the studios on the off-chance they'd gone home. They hadn't, but they'd left the door open, and I could see the two of them pressed up close to each other on tiny bit of wall not occupied by the canvas.

I am a little disappointed, Brian says. This did seem like the perfect opportunity to finally cover ourselves in paint and fuck on a canvas.

Justin kissed him, deeply. Talk about derivative.

Somehow I doubt that would really bother me much.

Sure, not at the time. But then later, it's hanging in our apartment, you look at it one day, and you're just overcome by the lack of artistic ingenuity. You faint onto the couch, overwhelmed by how pedestrian you've allowed your décor to become. I find you drinking rosé and sobbing on the balcony.

You know me so well.

I know. Another kiss. I'm sorry I haven't been home much. I'm just...

Brian shook his head a little and guided Justin's jaw upwards, pulling him into a kiss that lasted much, much longer than the others. Justin sighed a little when Brian finally let him go.

Take your time, Brian said.