Painting The BadBoy ✔

10 | The Art Exhibit

The hall wasn't very crowded, just around forty people. At the circumference of the rectangular room, there were numerous easels and frames set up to hold the paintings.

Men in suites and ladies in dresses walked around, mostly in pairs or groups, admiring the artwork.

The tones and styles varied, and so did the theme. The first painting my eyes fell upon was a battle scene; soldiers in a war-ravaged city. Dusty streets, abandoned stalls and cracked pavements.

The second one couldn't be more different. A forest; with the trees bathed in light and flowers in full bloom.

"Valencia, there you are." Franny half-ran over to me, engulfing me in a hug. She looked really pretty in a pale pink dress with spaghetti straps, her hair falling down over her shoulders.

Uncle Alex was behind her, with a group of men I hadn't seen before. "Gentlemen, I would like you to meet Valencia, Adam's daughter." The men were, like the rest, dressed in formal suits. Two out of the three had wine glasses in their hand.

"Pleasure, Valencia." Said one of them. He looked young, probably twenty-four or something. He had a boyish smile, and his hair was tied at the back of his head in a small ponytail.

"This is Gales," said Uncle Alex. "He painted the piece you were just looking at." He pointed at the picture of the forest.

"It's beautiful." I admired.

Uncle Alex introduced me to the other two men, who weren't artists but would be participating in the auction today.

Once they walked away, Franny took my arm, and guided me around the room. It was really big, with several dozen paintings. Franny told me only some of them would be auctioned today, and the rest were just for display.

We passed Mrs. Bordeaux, who was busy chatting up the hotel's general manager. Franny giggled, winking at the blushing lady.

It was hard to believe Franny would be thirty-six soon. Her childish habits had led me to think of her more as a sister than an aunt.

We passed by several more painters- an aging man with bushy eyebrows, an uptight French woman, a young brunette with huge glasses- and several others like them. Franny introduced me to most people, but I forgot their names as soon as I heard them.

The waiters passed by, with silver serving dishes full of those little crepes and fancy stuff that they usually served, along with white and red wine.

There were water-paintings of a moonlit sky, a cafe in Paris, a little girl on a swing under an oak tree. There were graphic paintings of weird shapes, the ones you couldn't decide if they were upside down on purpose, or kept that way on accident.

There was one which really caught my eye. Black clouds were sprawled against the night sky, snow drifting in the air and landing upon the leaves of fir trees. It was a very simple painting- yet so beautifully created that if you looked close enough, the darkness would look like an actual creature with a bolt of thunder for a heart.

Yeah, but that's not why it had caught my eye.

Something about it was familiar. And then it hit me- the poem I had read yesterday. The words were the very description, as if the painting was an actual representation of it.

"It's so beautiful." Franny mumbled from besides me. I looked up at her to see her gazing at the painting with awe. After several long seconds, she straightened up. "It's going to win a lot of money at the auction, that's for sure."

"Ma'am?" A waiter interrupted her. He offered her wine, and Franny accepted.

"Isn't that your third glass?" I asked.

"Fourth." She said. "Yeah, I shouldn't be getting drunk at an event like this." She handed him the glass back and muttered something about finding her husband before walking away.

"Something for you, miss?" he asked.

I shook my head. With a polite nod, he turned to the right, stalking off to the opposite direction.

I began to look around for familiar faces, knowing that the only ones I would find were probably Mrs. Bordeaux, or Uncle Alex. None of whom I wanted to talk to right now.

"So this really doesn't seem like your forte." Said a voice from behind me. I turned around to see that it was Gales.

"Why's that?" I asked, not impolitely. He motioned to the artwork with a wave of his hand. "The way you look at them." He said. "You think they're beautiful- who wouldn't- but you don't really see it. You get what I mean?"

"Totally." I said sarcastically. I tilted my head towards the French painter. "I've never been good at art."

"Now that I do believe." He laughed. "Your father couldn't make it today?"

"Sadly, no."

"And because-" He stopped when Uncle Alex called his name. Smiling at me apologetically, he walked away, telling me our conversation wasn't over yet.

But I was too busy looking at him, and looking around him, and trying to understand the paintings, that I hadn't noticed him, right in front of me, a few feet away.