Nathan looks at her, then at me, and suddenly I’m aware of the width of my shoulders and the possibility that my lipstick has migrated to my teeth. “You’ve got a sharp one,” he says, tipping an imaginary hat.
“She takes after her father,” I joke, and then immediately regret it.
Nathan doesn’t seem to notice. “I’m going to grab some more wine,” he says. “Would you like a glass?”
“Yes, please,” I reply, and this time my voice is steadier. Cassie shoots me a look—approval or amusement, I can’t tell—and vanishes, presumably to find more food.
I trail Nathan to the bar, watching the way he moves, deliberate but never slow, as if every muscle in his body is attuned to the idea of being useful. He pours two glasses, hands one to me. Our fingers brush for a fraction of a second, but it’s enough to send a jolt up my arm, so sharp I almost drop the glass. I try to recover with a joke. “I always thought artists were supposed to be tortured and reclusive. But you seem remarkably well-adjusted.”
He cocks his head. “I save my brooding for after hours. It keeps the paint from drying out.” He lifts his glass in a gentle salute.
“To brooding,” I say, tapping the rim against his. The wine is cheap, probably from the grocery store, but the sweetness of it is a shock after the briny air of the gallery.
Nathan leans against the wall, arms folded. “So, how’s the writing coming? Sara said you were working on a novel. Very ambitious.”
I wince, though I know he’s not being cruel. “Not as ambitious as you’d think.” I swirl the wine in my glass to give my hands something to do. “It’s more an exercise in futility at this point. I get a couple paragraphs down, and then the tide pulls them out again. Honestly, I thought I’d be further along by now.”
“You’ll find it,” he says, matter-of-fact. “Sometimes you just have to stand in the water and let it knock you over a few times.”
“Is that an Outer Banks proverb?”
He shrugs. “It is now.”
I laugh, and the tension dissolves a little. “You know, if you’re going to plagiarize regional wisdom, you should at least charge for it.”
“I’ll add it to your tab.”
From across the gallery, Cassie is deep in conversation with the woman in pearls, who’s listening with a patience I haven’t seen since my mother used to read me the Sunday comics. I take a sip of wine, letting the silence linger.
Nathan clears his throat. “You know, I was nervous about this. The opening, I mean. I haven’t done the public thing in a while.”
“Could have fooled me. You seem in your element.”
“That’s a lie. I kept waiting for someone to throw a drink or ask for their money back.”
“Maybe after the second glass,” I say, and he grins, wide and delighted.
We drift along the wall, stopping at another painting, a study of the sound at low tide, herons balanced in the shallows. The brushstrokes are urgent, almost desperate, and I find myself leaning in, trying to see how the illusion holds together.
“Do you miss Charlotte?” I ask, surprising myself.
“Not the city, really. More the routines, I suppose. And the people—friends, family, neighbors. It’s the familiar faces you get used to seeing every day that you miss most when they’re gone.”
I glance at him, curiosity tugging at me. I want to ask about his past, about what had driven him away from the familiarity of home to this secluded stretch of coast. But the question feels too intimate, too invasive for our casual conversation, so I let it hang in the air between us.
Someone else approaches, a neighbor or a casual friend, and Nathan excuses himself with a gentle touch to my elbow—a small, protective gesture that lingers long after he’s gone.
8
Diane
Cassie is a phantom limb. I still sense her presence even when she’s yards away, cataloging every painting as if she’s running a museum audit. There’s a knot of nervous energy inside me, the habitual worry that she’ll break something or say the wrong thing, but I watch her for a minute and realize she’s perfect, exactly herself, and the crowd has accepted her as ambient decor: a local kid with sand-scabbed knees and opinions about art.
Nathan returns with another round of wine. He tilts his glass in salute before settling beside me on a high-top table. The din of conversation is less intense here, and I let myself believe I could get used to this—the murmured speculation about technique, the gentle heat of alcohol, the awareness of someone else’s nearness.
“Your daughter’s a force of nature,” Nathan says, voice low enough that it’s meant only for me.
“Sorry, she gets that from me,” I reply, then laugh.