Page 86 of One Year Ago in Spain
She looked away and at her phone instead. It had enough battery power now that Claire could check her texts, and sure enough, there had been several from Yolanda. The last one said, “I’m so sorry. There was nothing I could do.”
Maybe Matías was right. It didn’t getthatmuch better once you made partner. You climbed to the top of the associate ladder just to be hoisted up to the bottom rung of the partner one. Sure, Yolanda made more money now, but she was still too scared to start a family because all the major clients were “owned” by the senior partners, and the juniors were basically just there to work for them. Not much different from being an associate, except with better pay.
“I like the substance of what I do too much to quit, though,” Claire said. “I’ll just…have to prove myself again when I get back to New York.”
“Hmm,” Matías said.
Claire raised a brow. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
“It didn’t sound like nothing.”
Matías sighed. “I think you’re probably better than that, Claire.”
“Better than what?”
“Than letting other people walk all over you, then thanking them and going back for more.”
“Wow. That…makes me sound pathetic.”
“You’re not—”
“No, thank you for that clarity. Do you have more hard truths to tell me? Because I seem to like that. You know, being cut down and then begging for more.”
“Claire…”
“You know, Matías, not everyone can be born an artistic phenom. Some of us have to work for what we want.”
“Excuse me? Iwork,Claire. Maybe most people don’t understand it, because they think art is something any AI or child can do since everyone used to paint in grade school, too. But it’snot. I have studied for years to master my technique and define my style. It takes me over five hundred hours to complete a single, standard-sized painting, and that doesn’t count the months I wait for the paint to fully dry before I varnish the piece, or the time I spend custom-building the frames for each painting. When I’m in my studio and I forget to eat, it’s not because I’m an empty-headed, flighty artist. It’s because I am consumed by my work, because I care so damn much about making it right.
“You, on the other hand, confuse the love of what you do with the love of where you work. You think you’re brave, Claire, for being able to take the shit your partners—your supposed futurecolleagues—heap on you. But there’s a different kind ofbrave, too, and that’s the ability to face the truth, even if it’s uncomfortable.”
Claire scoffed. “Oh, that’s rich, coming from you. You’re not even real.”
He stared at her, brows furrowed. “I beg your pardon?”
Fuck.She hadn’t meant to let that slip, to make a reference to his soul’s inability to deal with what was really happening. But in the heat of the argument, it had slipped out. “Forget it.”
Matías’s hands tugged at his hair again, and Claire worried if she’d gone too far.
But this Matías didn’t get light-headed like he had when she’d kissed him in the studio. Instead, he threw his arms up in the air.
“No, Idon’twant to forget about it,” he said. “I was starting to fall for you, but maybe it’s better that we say what we have to say now. Then we won’t have to waste time together when we’re in New York.”
The blood drained from Claire’s face. “Matías…”
“Actually, I think I have already heard enough,” he said, getting up from the carpet. “It was nice meeting you, Claire. I’ll see myself out.”
“Matías, wait!”
He walked to the door without looking back and vanished through it.
“No, come back!” Claire rubbed on the spot on her palm. “I need you, Matías! And you need me, too. You just don’t know it, please…”
The hotel phone rang.
“Matías?” she answered, full of nonsensical hope. Because how could a soul call her on a real telephone?
