so, do we like each other or not? // JENLISA

Chapter 1

The brown canvas was one of the worst she’d ever seen.

Lisa wrinkled her nose, taking in the paint strokes that were slapped haphazardly across the rough fabric. She could have sworn that when she’d first started coming to these events, there had been a lot more colour involved. Now everyone seemed to be favouring sludgy greens and greys that reminded her of pond water, and it was making it even harder to pretend to be enjoying herself.

Although, really, that was only half the problem. The other was that there was an overweight man chattering away in her ear, and he’d been there for the past 10 minutes.

Lisa took another sip of her champagne and tried not to flinch away from him. It had been a long time since she’d been dragged kicking and screaming under pain of contract termination to an event she had no interest in: ever since she and Jennie had fallen back into one another’s arms the previous year, there had been no expectation for her to show up to gallery openings; no need to spend all her wages on couture suits. But, maybe because she was a sucker, she did it anyway. The only difference was that she didn’t resent it anymore, and that made it a hell of a lot easier to tolerate the cluster of crooning, clucking men who had the collective earnings of a small African country.

Except, of course, for the guy who was still talking at her even though she hadn’t said a word since he’d first appeared.

“I’m just thrilled that rough brushstrokes are back in vogue,” he said, edging even closer. He was in his fifties and Lisa didn’t think they’d ever met before, although all these men did look exactly the same, so it was hard to say for sure.

Her usual method of getting rid of people like that was to stare pensively at the painting until they got the hint. This guy, though, was made of stronger stuff.

“And the perspective here,” he continued, reaching out like he was actually going to touch the canvas. The years of art-world etiquette that had been drilled into Lisa made her flinch automatically. “It’s just stunning.”

“Mm,” she eventually said. His cheeks visibly pinkened at her enthusiasm.

“The lack of colour is also something I’m really enjoying – it’s so brave.”

Finally, Lisa was reeled in. “Brave?”

“Oh, definitely. So often I come to these events and leave feeling like someone’s squeezed a lemon into my eyes.”

There was a long pause before Lisa asked, “From someone using green paint in a landscape?”

“Absolutely. I think the whole world would be better if it was just various shades of white.”

Ignoring the delightfully racist undertones in that little analysis, Lisa took a step back. “You know, I should go and find Jennie. I haven’t seen her in a while and if I leave her unsupervised for too long, she tends to buy entire exhibitions without thinking.”

That was a lie, but it worked: she was able to turn away before the man had even replied, and she quickly slipped through the crowd. She was wearing a dress that evening – a short black one that was too tight around her waist and made it impossible to eat anything, but had the added benefit of making her look irresistible to the only person in the room whose opinion she cared about.

It was a Tuesday, which meant it was unlikely they’d be out very late, and Lisa was already hoping she’d be lured back to the Upper East Side with promises of foot rubs and orgasms that only grew more mind-blowing as the months went on.