Obviously, Riley could. Riley had.
If Monique had had some project to occupy her, it wouldn’t have mattered as much. But just sitting here waiting for Riley, it
was absolutely impossible to stop wondering, turning over the possibilities in her mind, rejecting them all a dozen times—and still wondering. She tried distracting herself by catching up on the long list of movies she’d been meaning to see. Not a single one of them kept her attention for more than ten minutes. She cleaned her studio until it sparkled, organized her paints and brushes, tried on her new clothes in dozens of combinations—and nothing worked.
After a week of chewing her teeth, Monique had had enough. She went to her sparkling-clean, newly organized work area and began to work on a painting she’d wanted to try since grad school. It wasn’t a copy; it was an original work based on an abstract expressionist interpretation of West African symbology. She’d abandoned the idea long ago. It wasn’t contemporary, and it wasn’t something she could sell. But it was interesting to her, so she took out her old notes and began to sketch.
For three days she roughed out designs for the canvas, and for three days she rejected them. But on day four, something began to click. She had been playing with a trio of adinkra symbols. One of them looked a bit like two crossed, curved blades—but also a bit like a ceremonial mask. That gave her an idea, and she began evolving the adinkra until it began to take shape as a powerful abstract form. Looking through her sketches, Monique began to feel a small tickle of excitement. This could be good. She could see it on a large canvas, limned in black to give it more power, and then around it she could take some of the other symbols, evolve them to fit this new pattern, make them into a border for the main shape—
Happily working for herself for the first time in years, Monique began the canvas.
* * *
—
It had been several weeks since the last time I saw Monique. I had been busy, but that was no excuse. I knew her well enough to know how she would take it that I kept her hanging like that. She would be Actively Unhappy—meaning I’d have to be on my guard, or she just might smack me. And Monique punched, hard enough to ring your bell.
So I approached her carefully and quietly. She’d left the window open again, which I thought was pretty nice of her. I slid inside, and right away I saw her, working at her easel. It pissed me off a little. I mean, I know I should have found a way to check in with her so she didn’t go totally squirrely. But I still couldn’t believe she’d take another job when it might interfere with mine. And here she was working on a new project.
And so because I was pissed off, I decided to sneak up on her, which had not been my intention when I came in. I figured it would serve her right if I scared her into messing up the canvas. Probably just another fucking Cassatt or something anyway.
But when I got close enough to see what she was doing, I could tell it wasn’t anything like I’d seen her do before. She’d started to put in a big, powerful shape, right in the center of the canvas. It was obviously abstract, but something about it seemed sort of familiar. I moved closer, until I was right behind her, and looked closer. Two big dark lines crossed in the center. They had a kind of West African feeling to them that looked almost familiar—
“An adinkra!” I said as I finally recognized it. Monique jumped about three feet straight up. Very gratifying.
“Jesus FUCK, Riley!” she yelled when her feet were back on the floor. “I swear to Christ, I will kill you—!”
I know it makes me a bad person to take so much pleasure out of scaring the shit out of somebody—but Monique looked so damn hot when she was angry that I had to smile. Just in time I remembered her fists and stepped back. I’m pretty sure I heard her punch whistle as it went through the place where my head had been a second before.
“Hey, hey, take it easy,” I said, both hands raised palms up.
“I’ll take your fucking head off, scare me like that,” she said.
“I wasn’t going to,” I said. “But then I saw you working on something for somebody else and I thought—”
“For ME, asshole!” she said, and she took another swing that just missed. “I am painting for me because you left me sitting here chewing my goddamn fingernails and wondering what the fuck was going to happen, or even IF, and who knows when—”
“Jesus, slow down, I’m losing track here,” I said. “The painting is an original?”
“It will be,” she said, kind of sullen now. “If I ever get to finish it.”
“Well, if that’s what you want to do.” I shrugged. “I guess I can ask Tony Gao to do this job with me.”
“You do that and I really will kill you,” she said. “Goddamn it, I have been spinning my wheels for fucking weeks! Waiting for you to— Damn it, Riley, I turned down half a dozen jobs, and never a single fucking word from you!”
She was glaring, but she didn’t swing again. I thought it might be safe, and I stepped a little closer. “I’m really sorry, Monique,” I said, and I meant it. “Things got a little complicated?” I shrugged. “Never mind, all better. We’re ready to go.”
“Great! Wonderful! We’re fucking ready to fucking go!” Monique snarled. “Go on fucking what?!”
I felt a wave of excitement whip through me just thinking about it, and I closed my eyes and let myself feel it for a second.
“Riley, holy shit, come on,” Monique said. “You’re practically scaring me—I’ve never seen you like this. What the fuck is it?”
I opened my eyes, and I took her hand. A row of gooseflesh ran up her arm. Even gooseflesh looked good on this girl. “Monique,” I said. My voice sounded funny to me, like I’d swallowed something wrong. I didn’t care—this was going to happen. Everything I had planned, everything I had done to make the plan work—it was all in place, and I could see it happening, and it filled me up with a kind of wild joy like I hadn’t felt before. And when I had this final piece from Monique . . .
I shivered. She did, too. “Monique,” I said again, “we are about to make history. We are going to do something impossible, something so unlikely that there’s not a single goddamn person in the world, cop or thief, who could possibly imagine anybody doing it—not even me! Except—” I took a breath, and I could taste it, taste what we were about to do.
“Except what, Riley?” Monique said, and her voice had gone soft and husky, too.