Page 67 of You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty

Feyi glanced around at how half the restaurant kept sneaking adoring looks at Pooja. “I think you’re killing at that, Mrs. Chatterjee.”

Pooja’s laugh was like a crystal bell breaking through the room. She cut a piece of her sea bass and waved her knife at Feyi. “Do you have any more questions for me?”

“Um, yes. I work in blood a lot, and it’s quite a fugitive pigment. Is that a concern for you?”

“Not at all.” Pooja gestured for more wine, and three people scrambled into action. “I loved what you said in your artist talk with Yagazie Emezi about decay and the ephemerality of the work. I think it keeps it from being … static. To have a natural process viewed as a corruption of the work seems so controlling, don’t you think?”

“I think people desire permanence,” Feyi replied. This wasn’t the conversation she’d expected to have with Pooja, but it was a delightfully pleasant surprise. “An archive that lasts.”

“Well, we know all too well how futile such a desire can be, don’t we?” Pooja laughed, a sharp shadow slinking under her words, and for a moment, Feyi genuinely wondered what kind of man Sanjeet Chatterjee was, to love a woman who was this brilliant and furious and alive.

Pooja leaned forward, her dark hair swinging sharp at her jawline. There was a darkness in her eyes that ran fathoms deep, and Feyi couldn’t understand how she had missed it before.

“Give me an archive of madness that rots, Ms. Adekola. I wouldn’t mind it one bit.”

The waiter appeared with their wine, and Pooja sat back in her chair, smiling as she finished off the last of her sea bass. Feyi picked up her fork and started thinking about what she could make for this woman who had a dead little girl seeding madness in the hollow of her heart.

• • •

After their lunch, Feyi decided to go check out a bookstore around the corner, thinking she’d sit and do some writing about where she wanted to go with Pooja’s commission. She had just spotted it down the block when her phone rang.

“Denlis!” she answered. “How’s it going? I’m just in town.”

The security guard’s voice boomed through her earbuds. “Good, because I was about to tell yuh to come down here. It’s your boyfriend.”

It took Feyi a minute. “Nasir? What’s he doing there?” She listened to Denlis as he explained what was going on, then Feyi nodded even though he couldn’t see it, anger pulling the back of her neck tight. “I’ll be right there,” she said, turning to head in the opposite direction. The museum was only a few blocks away. She called Alim as she was walking and had to fight to keep her voice level when he picked up.

“I have to handle something at the exhibit,” she said immediately. “Could you wait for me at the bookstore when you’re done with Mr. Phillip?”

“Of course. Is everything all right, Feyi? I could pick you up from the museum.”

“No, no.” She debated for a quick second whether to tell him or not. “It’s Nasir,” she said. He might as well know. “The security guard called me—apparently he showed up and is making some kind of scene there.”

“What?” Tension sang like a naked wire through Alim’s voice. “I’m coming down there, Feyi.”

“No, let me handle this.”

“Feyi—”

“It’s my work he’s fucking with.” The anger was hot under her skin. “This is between me and Nasir, Alim. Let me handle it.”

Alim took a breath, and she could tell he was fighting not to get involved, but Feyi wasn’t in the mood to wait for him to listen to her.

“Do not come down here,” she ordered. “I will text you when I’m back at the bookstore.” She hung up the phone as she jogged up the stairs to the museum, hanging a left at the lobby and down the corridor to Denlis’s office. He opened the door as soon as she knocked, then let her in, shaking his head.

“Ei, he real upset, bwoy.”

Nasir was sitting on a metal chair on the other side of the room, his head in his hands and his elbows resting on his knees. Feyi looked down at him and then back up at Denlis.

“Did he do anything to the piece?”

“Nah, I think I got him in time.”

“I wasn’t going to fucking touch your work,” Nasir snapped, not looking up at her. “The program said they were doing artist walkthroughs—I just wanted to see if you were here so I didn’t have to go up the fucking mountain.”

Denlis put a hand on his belt and frowned down at Nasir. “Doh yuh live up that mountain? Why yuh can’t go there?”

Nasir coughed out an ugly laugh. “My father lives there, not me,” he said, then threw a baleful glare at Feyi. “Ask her.”