Page 35 of The Winter Princess
“There was a paper in your pocket so they—”
“I see it.”
I fold my coat over the back of the sofa. The toffee glaze on the cinnamon bun is glistening in the morning light. I fight the pull of it—and her—moving to the hot table, peeling tape, and taking up the mylar. The painting beneath it is in good shape. I shift it to a spot between some weighted boards until it acclimatizes. I wish I could accustom myself to Freja as easily.
I push a smoothing hand across the surface of the boards using careful movements. Too careful. I recalibrate. Casual. My gaze is neither shifting nor intent. My breath is measured. The distance between me and the desk is safely within conversational bounds but not close. The effort it’s been to find this spot is making me sweat.
She tears off a hunk of the bun and pops it into her mouth. “After a few minutes, you’ll forget I’m here,” she says. She lifts the paper plate, tilting it towards me. “This is really good.”
I deliberately add another weight to the boards, dimly aware of some battle going on within. A mocking grunt rises from my chest. A battle about breakfast. I surrender.
“Do you buy everybody off with baked goods?” I ask, taking a chair and rolling back my cuffs.
“It’s an innocent pastry,NeerVelasquez,” she says, removing the lid from her cup of coffee and blowing on it, vanilla-scented steam wafting off the liquid. My hand clenches, and I notice more than I want to. The deep green of her dress and the small navy-blue dots scattered over it. The careless bow at the high neck. The tiny beauty mark under her lips. These colors make me want to reach for a brush not merely to sweep away the decaying genius of dead masters but to make something of my own.
I want to sketch her.
I watch her in carefully timed glances. Freja doesn’t eat like I imagined a princess would, by daintily picking up her pastry with the protective tissue paper. She tears long strips of it, chewing with obvious contentment, licks the pad of her thumb, and tears off another hunk, nibbling around the ragged edges.
I demolish a bun quickly, giving her less time to notice my enjoyment. “What’s on the agenda this morning?” I ask, tipping my head back and looking at the ceiling.
“The good news is that you won’t have to work with Erik. I practiced taking short clips with my phone last night and watched a lot of videos. If we start small—maybe begin with an introduction—I can work my way up to other things.”
“I don’t need an introduction.”
She licks her thumb before frowning and scrubbing it with a napkin and tossing it into a wastebasket. “Don’t be silly.”
I head to the sink. “Sondmark isn’t going to be interested,” I say, knocking the faucet on with my elbow and plunging my sticky hands under the stream. I want distance between me and Freja, but she joins me, crowding the sink, shoulder, hip, and hands brushing mine. By some miracle, I don’t run. Instead, I pump the soap. She swipes it, palm sliding across mine, lathering up her own hands.
“What?” she says. I’ve frozen.
Swallowing, I pump the soap again. “You don’t need to introduce me. We’re supposed to highlight the art.”
She grabs a towel, hands it over for me to dry, and grabs another for herself. “NeerVelasquez—”
“Oskar,” I correct.
She nods. “Oskar.”
Vede.
I was building a wall.
She holds my gaze. “The point of all this is to get people into the museum. Have you seen the numbers on our post yesterday?”
“More than 700,000 views,” comes a voice at the door, breaking our concentration. “It wasinsaneexposure.”
The intern.
My eyes narrow. “How many of those came from Sondmark? How many will visit The Nat?”
“The takeaway here is that they liked you guys and I was, like, processing it,” Erik’s splayed hands rotate around his head, “when I realized we have to keep our focus narrow.” One of the hands splays at us. “You were giving us a whole Thora and Bjarke mood. We would be crazy not to use that.”
What?
Freja shifts. “Erik—”
Erik ignores her. “So I’m thinking that the other staff can do content, or whatever, but you guys should be, like, the hosts. My marketing professor calls itdelivering a narrative through-line.”
