The Muse's Undoing

“You look cool,” Stuart says entering the living room. I’m wearing my usual. Khaki cargos, a black Henley, and Docs. It’s not the height of fashion, but it’s clean.

He, on the other hand, looks classy in designer jeans, a white untucked button-down, and a navy blazer. The look helps fill out his tall, lanky frame. Sometimes it seems like his head is too big for his body, but today it looks normal. The Marches are Irish—dark hair, pale skin, ruddy cheeks. Stuart wears wire-framed glasses that make him look both nerdy and unassuming. Conversely, Maggie is in some mossy green hippy flower child dress with her hair down and her contacts in. They couldn’t look less like a couple if they tried.

I wonder if it’s the slam poetry or the cello that helps her overlook the fact that he’s in “society.”

He’s a smitten kitten, still. Heart eyes and everything—like he landed Taylor Swift.

“Coffee?” Maggie asks as I crash onto one of the kitchen counter stools.

“I could use it.”

“Yep. Those circles under your eyes aren’t going to fix themselves.” She mixes me a mug the way I like it, with heavy cream and raw sugar.

Stuart takes a seat next to me, his phone out with a picture of my tree sculpture pulled up. He’s got it zoomed in on one of the words in the branches. “Settle a bet for us. Does this say penis?”

“Penance.” I say with a surprised laugh.

“I told you,” Maggie says.

“It looks like penis.”

“I have shitty handwriting.”

That makes Stuart laugh, too. “So I’ve been staring at this a long time. It’s about death, right?”

“More like the circle of life,” I tell him.

“Everybody looks like they’re dying though,” he says, zooming in on an etched face.

“They’re coming,” I say.

“Oh…” He zooms in on a few more faces. “Oh.”

“Why would I make a sculpture about death?”

He comes back with, “What even is art?”

“Art is life,” I say, sipping my coffee.

“I love this. I’m gonna show it to my boss and get him to buy it for the lobby.”

“How much should I charge?” I ask, being serious even if he isn’t.

“One point two, minimum.”

“That wouldn’t even cover materials,” I argue.

“He means million, Matty,” my sister says.

I laugh loudly at that, but they just stare at me. “It’s not worth that.” I gesture at the phone. “It’s practically porn.”

“No one knows how dirty your mind is,” Maggie says. “It could easily be seen as a metaphor for suffering and beauty or whatever.”

I need to write that down.

“Let me know what he says,” I say sarcastically to Stu.

“I will,” he says. “This is the best thing you’ve ever done. Although it probably should be in a gallery. That’d drive up the price. Get you some press.”