Page 49 of The Art of Taking Second Chances

“What, no compliments, no felicitations?” I prodded.

“That’s because he knows Anthony Selfia is an overrated hack,” Tara blurted.

Amar shook his head at her, but I didn’t expect him to jump in and defend me because, as he’d once put it, he preferred to remain non-aligned in the face of our Cold War. Only not all our wars were cold.

“I can’t believe someone like you would say that!” I fumed at Tara. “How can you claim to run an art advisory firm and not appreciate Selfia?”

“Exactly. It’s my job to advise people against buying junk.”

“Junk? Junk?” I cried. “Did you just call my five-figure piece of art junk?”

“Five figures? Did you just throw that much money at that worthless hack? This is exactly why he’s overrated. People with a lot of money who know zilch about art blindly follow whatever the current hype is.”

The gloves were off. My face was hot as I retorted, “Oh, excuse the rest of us mortals, who didn’t graduate with high priestess degrees from eminent art schools! What did they teach you there? New rituals to offer reverence to the same old dead artists?”

“Don’t condemn the masters to compensate for your own shortcomings. You know, if Selfia was a woman, he would’ve been scoffed off the field years ago. When female artists dared to bring private emotions into art, they were condemned as airing dirty laundry in public, quite literally. Then artists like Selfia come along, rip off ideas and techniques, and are hailed as trailblazers!”

“It’s no different in literature,” Aarti interjected with her cool demeanor.

“Thank you, Aarti.” Tara offered her sweetest smile. “I’m glad one of you has good sense.”

“Don’t encourage her, sweetheart,” I said to Aarti. She consoled me with a nod, then exchanged a private look with Tara.

“Aarti’s right. When women wrote about their relationships and emotions, it was called domestic fiction.” She made air quotes. “When women write romance, it’s seen as fluff, drivel. When men write about female emotions, as they interpret them, they appear on bestseller lists. When women write about their desires, it’s vulgar. When men do it, it’s art. Women sketching their own bodies is blasphemy, when men do it…argh, men have been doing it for ages.”

“I can’t believe this.” I shook my head while clambering for a crisp response but came up empty.

“I have to agree with Tara on this,” Aarti said in a calm voice, then took an elegant sip of her wine.

“Let me get this straight, you think I value Selfia’s art only because he’s a man?” I fumed, hotter than the steaming rice on my plate.

“No, you value Selfia because you don’t know the difference between art and hype,” Tara said with a condescending smile.

“And you would know, wouldn’t you?” I banged down my spoon, violating every etiquette rule Mom had ever instilled in me. “You’d know the value of absolutely everything.”

“Yes, because I do it every day. It’s my job.” Tara’s conceited cool irked me even more than her angry retorts. “Do you have any idea how the art market works?”

“No, how would I? I only have the money to make or break that market.”

“Don’t be smug,” she said. “You and your ilk would be nowhere without us. All you have is money, but no taste, no aesthetic sense.”

“And you do, do you?”

“My resumé and net worth say I do,” she said and looked at Aarti. They exchanged a smile, raised their glasses, and sipped their freaking wine.

I snarled at Tara as my insides turned to lava. “Give it up, Rehani. You’re just another zombie following the dead crowd to nowhere.”

“Guys…” Amar drew our attention back to the table. “This is exactly why we couldn’t leave you alone in a room during college.”

I felt Aarti’s body stiffen at his words. “Is this how they’ve always been?”

“No, this is an escalation. They used to argue, but they were always respectful and considerate. Never devolved into personal slander. Now they both harbor huge egos,” Amar said while calmly helping himself to more chicken and rice.

He was the king of admonishments. You wouldn’t realize how hard you had been whipped until you went home and reflected on it. Only then would the cicatrices become evident—the scars you’d carry for life. I suddenly pitied his students.

“I’m sorry, that was rude of me,” Tara said, looking at Dad, then at Mom.

“Not at all, my dear.” Mom placed a hand on hers. “I learned something new today.”

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