ArtBoss_INT_MechCorrex_AMA.indd 1 4/26/18 5:38 PM ArtBoss_INT_MechCorrex_AMA.indd 6-7 4/26/18 5:38 PM 8/12 3:13 pm How can so much happen in three days? I’m here! I made it! The Dream! I lost my journal somewhere in LaGuardia, I can’t freaking believe it. I even called the airport to see if someone turned it in, but nope, so I’m starting new with this notebook. Now I’m drinking an iced coffee and writing on the subway train like I live here or something and I do because this is my life! This couple balancing against the train pole in front of me is in a fight. She just said, “What did you expect from a new hire? They’re never as good as they seem on paper” and he said, “Just once, I’d like you to have my back” and she said, “Nothing’s 1 ArtBoss_INT_MechCorrex_AMA.indd 8-1 4/26/18 5:38 PM what it seems, I told you that.” Now they’re glaring at each other (Let’s not even get into the fact that my original art piece that and he just turned away to his phone. DRAMA! had caught Carlyle’s attention had been destroyed. Not my fault. But, Kennedy, Carlyle’s assistant, knew what had happened Oh, so many good overhears and quotes just by being alive in and had promised to help me get back on track without Carlyle New York. I love all the accents and funny shit I’m hearing. ever knowing a single thing. Carlyle had hired me for that piece “Nothing’s what it seems.” –Woman on the train specifically and if he finds out I have to recreate it, plus multi- ples, from scratch, in less than a month (so help me), he could And I’m totally feeling that because everything is weirder than easily drop me. I can NOT let him know any of that—unless I I thought, both good and bad weird and not at all what I’ve been like the idea of returning to Texas with little chance of coming expecting! back or finding some other magical way to pay for school next The guy with the dark blond hair that I thought was Jamie Silas, semester. NO PRESSURE.) my future soul mate, at the airport? Nope! Just a guy waiting for Oh, and bringing enough clothes? Try again, I’ve already someone else. Mortifying. sweated through everything I own. Guess I have to shop. Staying in a big loft apartment? Not even. I mean, not like I was Poor me. promised that, I guess I just kinda assumed, and as Dad says, Everything has been a total bizarro version of what I thought. “Assume makes an ass out of U and me.” Yep, that’s me for sure. Tonight I go on a do-over date with Silas since our first the My apartment at the Webster Residence for Women (that’s what night I got here was a disaster. Hoping that things might go it’s called!) is super tiny and plain old weird, but um, I also kind better, but that whole online love connection thing? Yeah, I of love it. The look is sooo Metro-Retro. I came up with that. dunno. IRL, not sure either of us is feeling it. Yet. Scheduling an appt. with NYSCFA, the New York School of I need Kit and Enzo to be here to see all of this but that’s not Contemporary Fine Arts, my dream school that I’m finally going gonna happen so I texted them that I’m posting new sketches to attend in January, so long as I can get my financial aid figured online sothey can check out the local scene whenever they out? That’s what Helen Mundy, my aid advisor, said to do once want—and I can keep them all together for me, too, like a little I was here, but they are all backed up dealing with current #NYSeen city-sketching home-base collection. That’s me, the incoming students and that kind of made me feel like a loser. I real-deal real-local now. Ha. Kit, my OG bestie best of all times, can’t meet with Helen until September at least. No big deal, just said: Thank god. Been waiting for the Piper Perspective! and worrying my brain out until then. Enzo, my second-best bestie/greatest hometown heartbreak and Meeting Carlyle Campbell, the famous modern artist who had newly out main man, wrote: Brilliant! Loves it, Needs it! discovered my work online and asked me—ME!—to be his assis- tant developing art to accompany his first-ever fashion line? 2 3 ArtBoss_INT_MechCorrex_AMA.indd 2-3 4/26/18 5:38 PM to push against anyone, but I couldn’t get to one of the bars that 8/13 2:15 am were over our heads and he just kind of slid between me and this other dude and moved my hand to the bar and said, “Don’t Silas is scrawny and curved in, like if a human was a comma, worry, we only have a few stops,” which was the first Summer- his silhouette is all bow and he has sleek black hair and the Silas thing he’d done since I’d met him, which made me happy, greenest eyes and really, really pale skin, like watery skim milk. even though I was smushed between a guy shouting about how He’s got a cool super-sharp dimple, almost like a scar, that runs it was “too fucking hot,” which was true but don’t yell dude up his pale pink cheek. It was like meeting a real live Edward we’re all dealing with it, and another guy behind me who was Gorey character. I didn’t know how tonight would go, with just taking up way too much room just so he could balance himself the two of us, since Mo (the roommate) came the last time. At while reading an opened-up newspaper. So annoying. Obviously least Mo’s funny even if he’s kind of pretentious. He talks about he didn’t care about the rest of us squeezed in! Thank god not himself in the third person: “Mo doesn’t do that, Mo is happy all rides are squeezy-squeezy like that. to meet you.” The opposite of Silas, who’s real down on himself. “We’re eating at one of my favorite places,” Silas said. “But it’s Tonight, Si was wearing a thin black T-shirt, faded black not fancy.” jeans, black Converse, and a tan backpack when he met me in “WHAT? Why, I never!” I put my hand to my mouth like, front of the Web. I wore the black dress I wore on the plane— the horror! I Febreezed it first!—with my Adidas, and matte red lips. We looked pretty cool. I got him to laugh. Victory! Things weren’t tense over email this summer but in front of each other, we’re both real awkward. He looked down at the paper bag I had with me. “Do a little shopping?” “You know this is on me, right?” “You’ll have to wait and see.” I pulled it closer to me, careful not He said it in a way that was both a question and an answer. to crush it. I kept sneaking peeks at him. His dimple is cute. “What do you mean?” I thought I got what he was asking but I Maybe he’s cute. He is definitely friend-cute, but I don’t know if wasn’t sure. he is boyfriend-cute. All summer, I had known for sure that he was boyfriend-cute. Dang. “I don’t want to assume—” “I don’t want to assume either,” I said. We crossed the gold-yellow safety line painted on the train Then we goofed at each other, kind of waiting for the other platform and got on the A train. The line is the same shade of person to say the next thing. sunflower on the city cabs, marigold-mustard. There were so He finally said, “I don’t know how they do it in Texas, but I many people crammed in our subway car and I was trying not would like this to be a date.” 4 5 ArtBoss_INT_MechCorrex_AMA.indd 4-5 4/26/18 5:38 PM “Me too,” I said and reached for his arm. Maybe Si had never had A new Silas in two seconds flat: His smile was lit, dimple half a girlfriend before. Huh, I hadn’t imagined that until then. his cheek. We got to Tavern on Jane and the waiter appeared almost “Could it be—” He started to tear through the tissue paper and immediately. “Well if it isn’t Mr. Sunshine himself. I see you then sat back. “You didn’t.” put on your best T-shirt this evening, youngster.” “You said you wanted one!” “This is Piper,” he said, introducing me to Harvey. “I can’t believe it!” he said, pulling out the brand-spanking-new “What can I get started for you guys?” cowboy hat. I was pretty sure it was the exact midnight blue- black he liked. “Um . how are the spaghetti and meatballs?” I asked and he said, “Marvelous” and took my menu. Silas ordered a grilled “I can’t believe I have a genuine cowboy hat from Texas.” He put hanger steak with fries and Harvey went off to put in our order.