Perceptions

Chapter One - Tiana

The painting was crooked.

Not enough that anybody else would have noticed, but I had been staring at it for the better part of ten minutes, and now it was all I could see.

I stepped onto the bottom rung of the ladder and tilted the frame slightly to the left.

Too far.

Back to the right.

I climbed down again and crossed the living room, careful not to trip over the half-open box sitting behind me. From the opposite wall, I studied the painting with my arms folded.

Better.

The piece had been one of my first serious purchases, an oil painting by a Cuban artist I discovered years ago in a tiny gallery tucked away from the tourist-heavy streets of Barcelona. I hadn’t gone into the gallery intending to buy anything. At the time, I’d barely considered myself a collector. I simply liked beautiful things with histories attached to them.

The woman in the painting had her back to the viewer. She stood at an open window in a white dress, one hand resting against the frame while the world outside her stretched into strokes of burnt orange, blue and green.

I’d stared at her for nearly forty minutes before asking the owner how much she cost.

Kevin had laughed when I told him.

Not because of the price. Kevin had never cared about the price of anything.

He thought it was funny that I’d gone out for lunch and come back with a painting.

My phone vibrated against the kitchen counter.

I didn’t have to look.

I looked anyway.

Kevin.

The screen went dark before I could decide whether I was annoyed with myself for checking.

I turned back toward the painting.

“Perfect.”

Whether I meant the frame or my decision not to answer him, I wasn’t sure.

My apartment was finally beginning to look like somebody lived there instead of somebody had been dropped off with forty-seven boxes and told good luck. The movers had handled the furniture, but I’d insisted on unpacking my art myself. There were certain things I didn’t trust in anybody else’s hands.

The sofa had arrived two days earlier, cream-colored and deep enough to disappear into with a glass of wine. I’d found the coffee table at an estate sale months before I moved, a dark wood piece with tiny imperfections along one corner that had made me want it more, not less. Two oversized plants sat near the windows, still deciding whether they liked their new home, and the rug underneath my feet had cost enough that I had stood in the store for fifteen minutes arguing with myself before buying it.

I could afford it.

That wasn’t the problem.

I was simply learning to ask myself whether I actually wanted something before I bought it.

That was new.

There had been a time when wanting something was enough.

My phone buzzed again.

This time, a text.

I left it where it was.

Instead, I walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. I wasn’t hungry, but opening the refrigerator gave my hands something to do.

Wine. Strawberries. Leftover Thai food. Three bottles of water. A container of olives I’d bought because I’d suddenly decided I was the kind of woman who kept good olives in her refrigerator.

I closed it.

The phone buzzed again.

“Jesus, Kevin.”

I picked it up.

You good?

Then, underneath it:

Tiana.

That one almost made me laugh.

Kevin had a way of texting my name when I didn’t answer him, as if perhaps I had forgotten who I was and needed reminding.

I set the phone facedown.

The problem with leaving somebody you still loved was that nobody told your body the relationship was over.

Your mind could make a decision. Your mouth could say it out loud. You could pack your things, sign a lease, redirect your mail, buy a sofa and hang your own paintings on your own walls.

And still know exactly what his name looked like lighting up your phone.

I had known Kevin long enough to recognize the progression.

The first call was casual.

The second meant he was irritated.

The text asking if I was good meant he was pretending this was about my well-being.

Using my full name meant his patience was thinning.

I smiled despite myself.

That irritated me more than the phone calls did.

The phone rang again.

I stared at it until it stopped.

Then I went back to my boxes.

By six o’clock, I’d unpacked two more paintings, reorganized a bookshelf I’d already organized yesterday and convinced myself that cereal was a perfectly respectable dinner.

At six-oh-seven, Sasha called.

Unlike Kevin, she got an answer.

“You better be dressed.”

I put the phone on speaker and carried it into my bedroom. “For what?”

“Don’t irritate me.”

“I’m asking a legitimate question.”

“And I’m giving you a legitimate warning.”

I opened my closet and stared at it. “Sasha.”

“Tiana.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“You’ve been in that apartment for how many days?”

“I’ve left.”

“Target does not count.”

“I went to Publix.”

“That made it worse.”

I laughed and sat on the edge of the bed.

There were clothes hanging in front of me that I hadn’t touched since the move. Some I’d bought myself. Some Kevin had bought. Some had simply appeared in our closet over the years because that was what happened when you spent enough time with someone. Eventually, you stopped remembering where everything came from.

“I don’t feel like being around people.”

“You don’t have to be around people. You have to be around me. Unfortunately, people may also be present.”

“Sasha.”

“Eight-thirty.”

“No.”

“Eight.”

“That’s earlier.”

“See? We negotiating.”

I shook my head.

She knew she had me before I said anything.

“Laveau,” she said.

I’d heard of it.

Everybody had.

Laveau had opened a little over a year ago and somehow managed to become one of those places people spoke about as if getting inside meant they’d accomplished something. I had seen pictures online but never gone. Velvet booths, dark wood, amber lighting. Expensive without looking desperate to prove it.

“I heard the drinks are overpriced.”

“You’ll survive.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Eight-thirty, T.”

The call ended before I could tell her no again.

I stared at my phone.

A notification sat underneath Sasha’s name.

Kevin: Call me.

I locked the screen.

“Eight-thirty,” I muttered.

Fine.

By nine-fifteen, I understood why people talked about Laveau.

It wasn’t the crowd.

Crowds were easy. Put attractive people in a room, turn the lights low enough and charge too much for liquor, and somebody would call it exclusive.

Laveau had been considered.

That was different.

I noticed it before Sasha finished giving our names to the hostess.

A large painting hung behind the bar, partially obscured by bottles and warm amber light. At first glance, it looked abstract, mostly deep reds and black, but the longer I studied it, the more figures emerged from the color. Bodies. Faces. Movement.

There was something vaguely familiar about the style. The elongated figures, the density of color, the way everyday life seemed to be tangled with something almost spiritual. I knew I had seen similar work before, probably in a gallery or buried somewhere in one of the exhibition catalogs stacked around my apartment, but I couldn’t place it.

That bothered me.

Not knowing usually made me curious. Almost knowing made me obsessive.

“Of course,” Sasha said beside me.

I glanced at her. “What?”

“We been in here forty-five seconds.”

“So?”

“And you’re looking at the walls.”

“That’s what they’re there for.”

“No, babe. The men are what they’re there for.”

I laughed. “You are deeply unserious.”

“And yet significantly happier than you right now.”

I gave her a look.

She kissed her teeth and hooked her arm through mine. “Come on.”

Our table sat near the back, close enough to the dance floor to feel the music without having to yell over it. Sasha ordered something with tequila. I chose wine, mostly because I didn’t trust cocktails that arrived smoking.

My phone vibrated inside my purse.

I ignored it.

For almost twenty minutes.

Then again.

And again.

Sasha noticed on the fourth one.

“You gonna answer that?”

“No.”

“Is it him?”

I took a sip of wine.

She nodded. “Right.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to.”

She didn’t push. That was one of the reasons I loved her.

There were people who treated a breakup like a sporting event. They needed somebody to be wrong. Somebody had to be trash. Somebody had to have cheated, lied, embarrassed you, done something terrible enough that your friends could hate them comfortably.

Kevin hadn’t given Sasha that luxury.

He hadn’t given me one either.

I reached for my glass.

“I need some air.”

Sasha studied me for half a second before pointing toward the side of the room. “There’s a terrace through there.”

“I’ll be back.”

The hallway was quieter than the main floor, although the bass still traveled through the walls. I followed it toward a set of glass doors and pushed one open.

Cool air met my skin.

“That’s private.”

I stopped.

A man stood several feet away near the railing.

I hadn’t noticed him when I stepped outside, which annoyed me. I noticed people.

He was tall, dressed simply in black, one hand resting around a glass. Nothing about him was particularly loud. No oversized jewelry. No ridiculous watch angled toward the light. No posture designed to make sure everybody in the room knew exactly how much space he believed he deserved.

Still, the terrace felt like his.

I glanced behind me at the door.

“There should probably be a sign.”

“There is.”

I looked again.

A small brass plaque sat directly beside the handle.

PRIVATE.

I smiled.

“That’s unfortunate.”

His mouth shifted slightly.

“Usually people apologize.”

“Usually people read signs.”

His eyes moved over me, not slowly enough to be disrespectful, but deliberately enough that I noticed.

I lifted my wine.

“I was distracted.”

“By?”

“The painting behind your bar.”

That changed something.

Not much.

But enough.

“You like it?”

“I don’t know yet.”

One eyebrow lifted.

I leaned against the opposite side of the railing, deciding that if he truly wanted me gone, he could say so.

“I haven’t seen it close enough.”

“Most people decide whether they like something before they understand it.”

“Most people aren’t buying art.”

“Are you?”

“Sometimes.”

His attention sharpened.

“Collector?”

“Something like that.”

“What kind?”

“Whatever makes me stop walking.”

That earned me the first real smile.

It was brief.

Interesting.

“That’s an expensive way to collect.”

“It can be.”

“You don’t have a preference?”

“I have preferences. I just don’t believe taste should become a prison.”

He looked at me for a moment longer than necessary.

“And the one inside?” he asked.

“The painting?”

He nodded.

I glanced toward the glass doors even though I couldn’t see the bar clearly from where we stood.

“I recognize something about it, but I can’t place it.”

“Recognize what?”

“The style, mostly. The figures. The colors. There’s something happening underneath what’s actually being painted.” I paused, searching my memory again. “Caribbean, maybe. But that’s as far as I’m willing to embarrass myself.”

A faint smile touched his mouth.

“Creole.”

I looked at him.

“The artist?”

“The work.”

Something clicked, though not completely.

“Creole,” I repeated.

He nodded. “Once you know what you’re looking at, you’ll see more of it.”

There was something in the way he said it that made me wonder whether we were still talking about the painting.

I glanced back toward the doors.

“Now I need to see it up close.”

“I figured you would.”

I smiled.

“Is that permission?”

“No.”

“Then we’re back where we started.”

His mouth curved again.

“Apparently.”

The door opened behind us.

A man stepped onto the terrace, saw him and immediately stopped.

“Romarius. They need you downstairs.”

So that was his name.

Romarius glanced toward him. “Give me a minute.”

The man nodded once and disappeared.

I looked back at Romarius.

Something about the exchange reorganized my first impression.

Not because the other man had called him by name.

Because he hadn’t asked.

He’d delivered the message and waited.

People behaved differently around power.

The loudest man in a room rarely interested me. Loud men wanted witnesses.

The quiet ones made me curious.

My phone vibrated inside my purse.

Romarius’s eyes dropped briefly toward the sound.

“Popular?”

“Persistent.”

“Difference?”

“One is wanted.”

His gaze returned to mine.

“And the other?”

I took another sip.

“Hasn’t accepted that he isn’t.”

That wasn’t entirely fair.

I knew it as soon as I said it.

Kevin understood perfectly well that I had left.

Understanding something and accepting it were different matters.

Romarius didn’t ask who I meant.

I appreciated that.

The phone buzzed again.

This time I didn’t reach for it.

“Your friend is probably wondering where you went,” he said.

“Probably.”

“And you’re still on my private terrace.”

“You haven’t asked me to leave.”

“I told you it was private.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then he laughed.

Quietly.

I liked the sound more than I should have.

I straightened from the railing.

“I’ll let you get back to whatever they need you for downstairs.”

His gaze followed me toward the door.

“Tiana.”

I stopped.

I hadn’t told him my name.

He nodded toward the glass.

Through it, I could see Sasha standing at the end of the hallway, waving dramatically at me while mouthing my name.

I laughed.

“Very impressive.”

“I have my moments.”

I reached for the door.

“Goodnight, Romarius.”

“Goodnight, Tiana.”

When I returned to the table, Sasha immediately leaned toward me.

“Who was that?”

“A man whose terrace I accidentally trespassed on.”

“That was Romarius.”

“So I’ve been told.”

She stared at me.

“What?”

“You really don’t know who that is?”

I looked toward the hallway.

Romarius was gone.

“No.”

Sasha opened her mouth, but I shook my head.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Give me his résumé.”

She grinned. “I wasn’t.”

“You absolutely were.”

“Fine.”

She lifted her drink.

I reached into my purse for my phone.

Six missed calls.

Three texts.

The latest was from Kevin.

I’m coming by.

I stared at it.

For the first time that evening, the knot in my chest returned.

Not fear.

Never fear.

Something far more difficult.

Familiarity.

There was a version of my life where Kevin saying he was coming by required no response because wherever I was, whatever I was doing, he belonged there.

That life was over.

I typed slowly.

Don’t.

Three dots appeared almost immediately.

I didn’t wait to see what came next.

I turned my phone facedown on the table and reached for my wine.

Sasha was already watching me.

“You okay?”

I looked across the club, past the moving bodies and candlelight, toward the painting behind the bar.

The figures inside it looked different from this angle.

I still couldn’t decide whether I liked it.

“I will be.”

And for now, that was enough.