Page 26 of Let’s Give ‘Em Pumpkin to Talk About
Fourteen
A s promised, Sadie made herself scarce, but not for a whole week.
By the next day, she was greeting him cordially in the pumpkin patch, and soon after that she offered to help harvest the squash he was delivering to the local Burmese restaurant.
Then Yahtzee nights resumed. But it took another week until Josh could free his schedule for the museum.
Now they were on the road to Indy, bopping to the hits of today in Josh’s Civic.
Well, Josh was bopping. Sadie was unmoved by the music but otherwise seemed glad to be out for the day.
“Does it make you think less of me to know I’ve only been to the museum for the mini golf course?”
Sadie wrinkled her whole face, citrus sour.
“I guess that answers that,” Josh said. “Stu needed a competitor, and I can’t say no to mini golf.”
“Did you see the whole museum?”
He recalled the day in vivid detail, eliciting his wide grin. “What do you think?”
Sadie shook her head. “My father would want to see each and every piece of art he paid to look at.”
“All day, Sadie. All stinking day. After our round of golf, he insisted on inspecting everything. The boring church art I knew he didn’t care about. The old teapots! I was falling asleep on my feet.”
“And you agreed to come with me?”
“I didn’t think you’d be as bad as him.”
Sadie laughed maniacally. “I’m an artist, Josh!
I’m ten times worse! Not only do I want to see it all, I want to think about it.
And I’m one of those assholes that believes that if the museum is open until 6 p.m., I don’t have to be out the door until 6 p.m. I’m not going to be in, like, the depths of the museum.
I will work my way to the front, but don’t make me leave at 5:45. ”
“You paid for 6 p.m.,” he offered.
“It’s nice not having to explain some things to you because I know Stu already beat me to it.”
Was it weird that Stu’s curmudgeonliness had prepared him for Sadie’s surliness? It didn’t matter; he had a wild crush on this surly creature.
The last time they’d spent this much time together was the day of the tornado, when his crush surprised him with their first—and only—scorching kiss.
And then so much more. If he wanted to bring that sexy energy back, he needed to take them away from tedious domestic matters people shouldn’t have to work through so early in a relationship.
Not that they were dating. Even if today’s activity was extremely date-like.
He wouldn’t point it out. Sadie was like a cat, after all.
If you made it too obvious you were trying to play with them, they’d never pounce.
And as with cats, Josh had to believe that was simply her nature, and he still had a chance of gaining her affection.
What he wasn’t going to do was dial himself down.
He might be a little more thoughtful about how his problem-solving nature manifested, but he was going to be his full dorky self, and Sadie could appreciate it or not.
He thought this to himself as he turned up the radio when a song by one of his favorite pop songstresses, Dua Lipa, came on. Sadie shook her head. He sang louder.
When they got to the museum, Josh asked, “Do you have a preferred way to proceed through the museum?”
“Generally I start at the top and work my way down. Partially because I like contemporary art the most, so I make sure I give myself the maximum time to appreciate it. And then I’m near the door for closing. Sound reasonable?”
“Very strategic. I like it,” Josh replied, and they climbed the stairs to the floor that hosted the contemporary art.
The collection had pieces that delighted him to the core, like the Mobius Ship , a model boat built onto a wooden Mobius strip, a funny play on words and an intricately crafted construction worthy of close examination.
There were some other works that eluded his comprehension, though some of them held Sadie’s attention for minutes of silent contemplation.
“Last time I was here we didn’t spend a tremendous amount of time on this floor,” he confessed.
“A difference between me and my dad is his tendency to say ‘You call this art?’”
Josh could hear Stu’s exact intonation. “And you explain why?”
Sadie grimaced. “Not exactly. It’s more like, ‘Fine. I’ll go by myself and you go by yourself and we won’t discuss this ever again.’”
It was sad that the two of them couldn’t figure out how not to provoke each other, but that’s family for you.
He’d grown up with volatile parents. The better angels of their natures rarely prevailed, and they fought constantly.
He coped by tempering his own language and resolving to end their arguments.
He did try to help, not that they’d asked, and not that it worked.
Their eventual divorce brought a strained peace and the bittersweet triumph of buying a house for his mother when his father kept the family home.
His money smoothed that transition even if it didn’t ease the heartbreak.
Now his relationship with his parents was chilly and cordial.
Not a major focus in his life. It was hard to envision families with boisterous get-togethers and abundant affection.
Though with Sadie and Stu, that kind of twee fantasy seemed wrong.
Inauthentic. Love didn’t have to look like one specific thing.
The two walked through the galleries, with Josh asking questions about the pieces that caught Sadie’s eye. She offered interpretations that gave him some insight into how art could provoke thought in addition to evoking a mood, which was all he’d gotten out of it in the past.
Sadie stepped into one of the small galleries, a dimly lit space with white walls and a single gray rectangle painted onto one wall. “What do you think?”
“It’s a gray rectangle on one wall,” he said. “What am I supposed to think about this? That it’s some commentary on the subjectiveness of art? It’s a gray rectangle.”
“It’s not a rectangle.”
Josh took a deep breath. This was the most challenging piece he’d seen yet. Truly, what was he looking at? “You’re telling me it’s not a rectangle?”
“There’s more to it than that.”
He chuckled. “You know how some people say certain authors are writers’ writers? Maybe this is artists’ art. I don’t know what a gray rectangle can provoke in me. Am I supposed to imagine other gray rectangles in my life? Is it about television or something?”
“It’s not about television.” There was a sly smile on Sadie’s face, like she was keeping a secret, and a hint of flirtation in her voice.
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Josh said.
“There’s more, is all I’m saying.”
Josh spun around the room, looking for more. It was a small room, completely unremarkable. White walls. Lights that illuminated the gray rectangle. Where was the little placard telling him about the art? Shouldn’t it be right next to the gray rectangle?
“Is it even art? Why isn’t there a label?”
“The label is outside,” Sadie offered.
“That means this whole room is the art?” Josh made a circle around himself with his hands. Sadie nodded.
Now he was getting somewhere. If the whole room was the art, and they were inside it, it was meant to be experienced somehow.
They’d viewed other contemporary pieces with interactive elements.
There was a pane of glass held up by thousands of tiny plastic figurines, and you had to stand on it to truly see it.
Another piece instructed guests to make a particular shape with their body on a platform, so the person became part of the sculpture.
Maybe there were instructions on what they should do with this room on the label. But that felt like cheating.
“It’s participatory,” he mused. Sadie said nothing. He looked around him again, trying to notice anything else. It was literally a room with a gray rectangle painted on the wall. Fudge. He was stumped.
But Sadie was flirting with him, and that was far more important than this silly piece of art. The museum was quiet on this day. No one had even passed by this room in the time they’d been standing in it, save for a patrolling security guard.
How could he get Sadie to spill the secrets this art was keeping? Then he thought of that command she gave him over the phone, telling him that he should watch her use his sex toys.
“Tell me what to do,” he said in a low voice, holding her gaze steady.
The slight intake of breath she made reverberated in the small, empty room. It was pure music to him, and felt like turning a key in a well-oiled lock.
“You have to touch the rectangle,” she replied.