Page 18 of Who’s Playing You (In The Nick of Time #1)
NICK SOBA
A fter finding a parking spot on the street, Scottie and I found ourselves wandering the Vassar College campus with the intention of going to the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center to see their exhibition. We wandered the campus kind of lost, but kind of on purpose.
“I think the Loeb is over there somewhere,” Scottie said as she pointed across the campus green. “Even though I’ve been here a few times, I always get turned around when I’m here and have to go to my maps to know which way to go,” she half-chuckled at herself.
“Do you want to check your maps app? Or we can just keep walking. It’s a really nice campus and I don’t mind being sort of lost with you,” I told her honestly.
She looked at me and gave me one of those genuine smiles.
She looked so adorable today, in some silky top and skinny jeans with strappy sandals. I loved seeing the curves of her legs, thighs and the hint of her ass that peeked out from below her flowy top, all on display just for me.
A gust of wind blew across the campus and it felt a bit like a warning of what was to come in the coming months, but the sun shining above continued to remind us it was in fact still summer.
Fall wasn’t very far off though, and I knew that before long we’d find ourselves in winter.
But until then, I loved getting these stolen moments with Scottie.
The warm August air filled our lungs and souls.
As the wind blew between us, her hair blew freely like a tornado all around her. She attempted to tame her locks, but failed miserably. She realized it and just started laughing as she gave up and let her arms drop to her sides. “I guess I should have brought a hair clip or worn a hat, huh?”
I turned to face her, eliminating the offending space between us, and smiled in disbelief that after all these years that I was finally here with her.
I raised my arms and with my large hands rescued her hair from the windstorm that wasn’t letting down, starting at the crown of her head, and gathering all her hair together at her nape.
“There, now I can see your beautiful face,” I said as I looked down at her. We were so close, with only inches separating us.
She looked up at me with a permanent smile that lit up her entire face while a slight pink tinted her cheeks, whether from the windburn or from my compliment, it didn’t much matter. In this moment it felt like she was mine.
Like she was meant to be.
I removed the baseball cap from my head, “Here, let’s get your hair through here,” I said as I moved to pull her ponytail through the hole above the back closure of the hat.
Her hair easily pulled through but she had flyaways sticking out every which way, framing her face.
I didn’t think it possible that she could look more beautiful, but standing so close to me and wearing something of mine, she was breathtaking.
“There. Much better,” I said as I let her hair go and took a slight step back to survey my handiwork. I pulled the bill down a fraction in a teasing manner.
She laughed in response and shyly responded, “Thanks.”
It felt like a lifetime passed while we just stood there, gazing into each other’s eyes, only broken by the boisterous laughter of some college kids approaching us on the pathway.
I immediately hated those little shit-heads for ruining our moment, because Scottie looked towards them.
I continued watching her every facial expression, and as she looked to me again she said, “Shall we?” And gestured across the green.
“Yeah, let’s,” I replied as we took a step in that direction. By the second step I reached my hand down and intertwined my fingers with hers. I heard her surprised intake of breath, but she didn’t flinch or pull away, in fact she looked up at me from under her lashes and beamed.
We crossed the quad, hand-in-hand, and I think this might just be the best day of my life.
Scottie and I had taken our time wandering from one room to another in the Loeb.
Their exhibits were actually quite impressive for such a small art center with such a wide variety of art on display, both in their permanent collection as well as for this particular exhibit they had.
Scottie and I had been impressed with the Picasso, but we really enjoyed seeing the Georgia O’Keefe piece.
And of course we liked the same things, because - yet again - we were soulmates.
The Medieval and Renaissance pieces on display took me quite by surprise, especially after Scottie curated the pieces for me and explained their significance to both history and art in general.
And that is in fact how our whole walk-about had gone. Scottie was my own personal curator. And I loved it. I had her entire attention solely focused on me and what we were doing.
She was in her element and she made the art shine brighter with how she talked about it. All of a sudden, after she described the piece and the story around it, it was like I saw it in a whole new light and saw parts of the piece that I hadn’t noticed before.
When we walked into the room that housed the Hudson River School of Art paintings, I was overcome with awe. “Scottie, wow! These are beautiful,” I said to her. She looked up at me from underneath the bill of my hat that still sat atop her head like a crown.
My queen.
“I know, right? Many of these artists lived and worked right here too, and weren’t just part of the School who would only visit and come here to work and paint for a hot minute.” She was being playful and that might be my favorite version of Scottie.
“Well it’s a beautiful region so I don’t blame them for wanting to just stay and draw from the inspiration every day,” I told her honestly, because in the few months that I’d been living in New Hope and exploring the Hudson Valley, I had fallen in love with its natural beauty which seemed to just seep into your very being.
Who needed Manhattan when you had all of this?
That’s a rhetorical question, bee tee dubbs.
As we walked from the first entry room into the back room, I stopped dead in my tracks. Taking up almost the entirety of the back wall was one painting.
It was huge.
It was dark, with two solitary rays of light. One at the center top, while the second was to the bottom right.
I stood, dumbfounded, in the doorway. Blocking it almost entirely.
Just staring.
Scottie had moved on and was examining the smaller paintings that aligned the wall to the room’s right. She caught sight of me halfway down the right wall, when she noticed she was alone.
From the corner of my eye I had followed her moving down the row of paintings, stopping slightly at each before moving on, so I caught when she looked to her right and when she didn’t immediately see me, she stopped and searched me out.
When she did that, I too faced her, but the painting had me entranced and my attention shifted back to this vast and imposing piece of artistic history. Scottie’s eyes went from me and followed my line of sight, and when she saw what I was looking at she said, “Oh, I see,” almost to herself.
She turned to face the room before looking to me again. She then walked to the center of the room and sat on the bench that faced the massive painting. “Come. Sit. Let me introduce you to the wonder that is George.”
I moved quickly and sat beside her, eating up the remainder of the bench. “George?”
“Oh yes, Mr. George Inness. What you see here before you is George’s painting called The Valley of the Shadow of Death . It’s quite imposing, isn’t it?”
I could feel my jaw just dropping in continued awe as I couldn’t help but stare at this mesmerizing piece. I briefly shot a look at Scottie who was looking at me, looking at the painting.
“It is spectacular. It moved me as soon as I laid eyes on it. Or rather…” I chuckled. “It didn’t move me, it stopped me. It literally stopped me dead in my tracks. I wasn’t even sure what I was looking at - I’m still not. There’s so much to see… the detail… the depth.”
As I looked at her, her smile just grew. “You’re right. George Inness’s work is quite extensive and is fraught with meaning where each brush stroke is done with intent.”
I was so in love with this woman. I was in total wonderment of her and her beauty and brain. I wanted to see the world through her eyes, and just sitting here with her and getting the privilege of hearing her talk about art was like a little slice of heaven.
My left hand moved of its own volition. It sought out her right hand and I intertwined our fingers. Now that I’d done it once, on our walk to the museum, it just felt natural.
It might be one of the first steps to the development of our physical relationship, but it just felt so fucking natural. Holding Scottie’s hand while sitting in something that felt like greatness before us.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Scottie look down at our hands, my thumb gently stroking her soft skin. “Tell me more about George Inness,” I almost whispered, not wanting to disturb the sanctity of what felt so precious.