The Masterpiecers (Masterful #1) (7 page)

I stare at what’s left: the hamster wheel, a desk with a stool and a thick leather-bound book, and a glass cube with two chairs facing each other. I hope I get the desk, but I don’t. It becomes Nathan’s. He must read the entire book. I’m jealous until I hear it’s an encyclopedia on plants and seeds.

J.J., unsurprisingly, is awarded the hamster cage. The whiskers gave it away.

“Chase and Ivy, you will look at each other for the next eight hours. You may blink, but no looking at anything or anyone else. Studies have shown it’s extraordinarily intimate when it lasts for four minutes,” Dominic says, which makes me grunt. “No one’s ever studied the effect of eight hours, though.”

I’m sure it will have the opposite effect. When I spot Lincoln toying with her bubble wands, I’m envious. Why didn’t they stick her in here with Chase? I walk ahead of him, threading myself through the thick crowd, and take a seat on one of the transparent chairs, bracing myself for complete boredom.

“Can I get a countdown?” I hear Dominic ask.

I stare around me one last time before I’m stuck with Chase’s pale face. The crowd starts counting down from ten to one. My gaze locks on Brook’s. He’s standing right outside our cube, his arms folded in front of his chest.

“Three…two…one…show time!”
everyone chants.

Cara seals the door of our cube, and then, it’s just me and Chase. There’s no more noise except that of my breath whooshing past my parted lips.

The first hour is the most painful. My eyes are sore, and my bottom, in spite of relentlessly shifting around in the plastic chair, smarts. My nostrils keep flaring from Chase’s oily, green smell that makes me think of muddy grass after a rainfall. But the physical agony is nothing compared to the displeasure of being scrutinized by him. His eyes feel like the sheets of icy rain that fall over Kokomo in autumn. I hope mine feel the same.

After the second hour, it gets easier because my vision has gone unfocused. I’ve shut down. My breathing has slowed and my soreness has receded. I stare unseeingly at Chase. My peripheral attention is on the world outside the glass cube. People point as they mill around our
stages
, and discuss our quiet showcases. One presence never shifts though: Brook.

When hour number three is announced, my stomach growls so loudly that I think Chase hears it. I will it to stop. It does by hour four. I feel light now. By hour five, I’m floating, more clear-headed than a Buddhist monk who’s been meditating his entire life. At least, that’s what I imagine meditating monks feel like. I have no clue.

Hour six, it gets easy. Staring into Chase’s dark irises is hypnotic.

Hour seven. Something strange happens. There’s shrieking. A lot of it. I’m so tempted to turn to see what’s going on. Maybe it’s some ploy to break us. The crowd around our box migrates to another part of the room.
Okay
…maybe it’s not a test. I strain to listen to the world outside. I make out Dominic’s voice and metal hitting the floor. The squealing resumes, and then it gets quiet again. Eerily so. I look at Chase—I mean really look at him—to see if he knows what’s happening, but his features are set in stone.

It’s finally hour eight. If I was floating three hours ago, now I have an out of body experience. I’m soaring over the glass ceiling, watching myself watch Chase. It’s overwhelming and extraordinary. I’m not sure if it’s my empty stomach or the silence, but this tranquil strength envelops me. It’s so powerful that I shiver, and so wonderful that I smile. And for the first time in months, I feel like everything is going to be okay again.

Chase looks stiffer than he did at the beginning. There’s tension in his arms and shoulders. Even his legs, which are splayed out in front of him, are as rigid as tree trunks. He hasn’t stirred in the past hour, yet there’s this vein on his temple that’s been pumping feverishly, as though his pulse were racing. My blood, on the other hand, is syrup, sluggishly sliding underneath my skin.

Loud music suddenly fills the vaulted room. It’s followed by Dominic’s voice announcing that the contest has been completed. Chase’s lips unbolt, and he rips his eyes off mine. I can almost feel the tear. He springs out of his chair and marches out of the glass cube without a word.

I’m offended.

“You may return to your tents and relax for an hour.” Dominic’s voice rings too loudly.

Chin up, I rise and thread myself through the applauding crowd, my irritation at Chase’s brisk exit dissipating. I don’t want to rest; I want to stay here and lap up the praise the spectators are distilling on me as I pass by them.

Someone grabs my elbow. At first, I smile, thinking it’s a fan, but then I spot Cara. “Lost your way?”

“I’m not tired.”

“Contestants can’t mingle.” She all but drags me to the stairs.

I shake her off with the energy brought on by the compliments. “That’s a stupid rule.”

“Yeah, but it’s a rule. Up we go,” she says.

I go up a few stairs, but turn back and take one last, longing look around. As my gaze surfs over the crowd, I catch sight of a man with dark hair and an orange tie. He’s watching me with great interest. Too much interest. Then again, I’m sort of a star now.

Chapter Nine

Aster

I’ve just spent several hours in front of a tiny television screen. My eyes are raw, my legs stiff, and I’m ravenous. The oatmeal might have tasted like cement, but it wasn’t, and there’s now a gaping void in my stomach. The food will suck tonight, like it sucks all the time, but I’m so hungry I don’t care. I could eat the polyester fill of my pillow. I head to the cafeteria along with the hordes of other inmates. I spot fiery red dreadlocks ahead of me, so I slow down. Maybe if I wait for Gill to sit first, she won’t join me.

I take my time gathering my meal. Finally, Gill sits next to fat Cheyenne and two other women who do not look particularly friendly. She catches me staring, so I turn my attention to the opposite side of the room where I find a table occupied solely by a white-haired woman whose advanced age leads me to believe she’s inoffensive. I place my tray next to hers and take a seat.

The mashed potatoes are lumpy, the piece of meat appears as appetizing as a shoe sole, and the boiled carrot, with its green leaf, resembles Herrick. I squash the tender orange flesh with the tines of my fork. My stomach growls, so I gobble it down along with the watery potatoes. I have more trouble with the meat. The blunt knife doesn’t even pierce the steak, so I pick it up and tear off chunks with my teeth.

My least favorite time of day comes after dinner. Ironically, it used to be my favorite back home: shower time. I sorely miss the privacy of my bathroom. Tightening a tiny, scratchy towel around my body and keeping my prison-issue flip-flops on, I head to the salmon-tiled communal shower where the grout has turned a nasty shade of tobacco.

Most of the prisoners use this time to socialize. Definitely not me. I’m in and out so quickly that I don’t press the shower button more than once for water. I still have foam on my thighs and calves. I sponge it up with the coarse towel and don my gray uniform.

“Can I be escorted back to the dayroom?” I ask the guard on duty.

She narrows her eyes.

“Officer Cooper got me special permission. It’s in my file,” I tell her.

“Is that so?”

I nod.

She holds out her palm. I stare at it so long, that she says, “A twenty will do.”

“Twenty what?”

“What do you think?”

“You want me to bribe you?”

“It’s called payment for services rendered.”

Right.
“I don’t have any money on me.”

“That’s a shame.”

“But Josh—I mean Officer Cooper got—”

She’s twisting her long neck left and right. “Don’t see
him
nowhere.”

My nostrils flare. My first reflex is to dig through my pocket for my cell phone. Then I remember that it was confiscated because I’m in fucking prison. The guard turns her back to me to survey the palette of naked bodies on display.

Desperation hits me so hard that an idea—probably an awful one—materializes in my brain. “I have a proposition for you,” I say, coming around to stand in front of her.

She cocks her head to the side. “I’m listening.”

“My sister’s competing in the Masterpiecers. You know, that show about—”

“I know it.” She scrutinizes my face. “That’s why you look familiar. You’re related to that girl, Lucky Little Eight, or whatever the media calls her.”

“Her name’s Ivy.”

“What’s your offer?”

“I’ll give you some of the prize money.”

“She hasn’t won yet.”

“But she will. I know my sister. She always gets what she wants.”

“How much are we talking?”

“A hundred dollars.”

She snorts. “Isn’t the prize a hundred thousand?”

“Yeah, but I’ll need bail money, and Ivy will want to keep some—”

“Five thousand.”

“Five thousand?” I choke out.

“Take it or leave it.”

My bargaining skills are nil, but I can’t just hand over five thousand bucks. Then again, we’re talking about imaginary money. Once I’m out, I’ll never see this woman again so she can hang on to her imaginary payday.

“For that price, I get permission to watch the show whenever I want.”

“Aren’t you a little wheeler and dealer? Fine. But—”

My mouth goes dry.

“If your sister gets disqualified,” she says, “you’ll still owe me the money.”

Cold sweat gathers on the nape of my neck. I remind myself that it’s pretend money, like the one Ivy and I bartered when we played on the faded Monopoly board my mother once brought back from the flea market. We’d had to make playdough houses and hotels, and cut and write our own chance cards and property deeds, but at least we had the board, the dice, the bills, and the metal tokens. It gave us something to do on dreary, rainy afternoons.

“Fine,” I finally say.

She smiles. “Kim!”

A short woman with a long, coarse braid trots over.

“Gotta escort a prisoner. Take over.”

The walk to the dayroom is quick and quiet in spite of the pointed looks the guard keeps firing my way. I wish she’d stop. I wish everyone would just stop looking at me.

She buzzes the door open. The TV’s already on. I can hear two commentators rehashing the day’s event.

“Hey, Redd,” she calls out as I hurry in.

“Yeah?”

A crooked smile lights up her face. “I always collect.”

When I nod, she leaves, and the anthem booms out of the stereo in time with the door banging shut.

“Welcome ba-ack!” Dominic singsongs. He’s holding his mic so close to his lips that it looks as though he’s French-kissing it. “Tonight is an unusual night, because, usually, there’s a vote among the judges and among the audience to decide who gets the boot. Tonight, we didn’t have to deliberate. Performance art wasn’t Maria’s forte. Or maybe it was the knitting…”

Laughter warbles out of the dark pit of people seated around the raised stone platform. It’s scornful, which makes me angry, but my anger recedes when I spot my sister. Her face resembles burnished copper, and her lips have been painted a bright red. When they curve into a smile, I feel an overwhelming sense of pride.

“That’s my sister,” I say to no one, but Ivy must hear me because she winks. I wink back, and then settle down to watch.

Chapter Ten

Ivy

“You’re late,” Leila says when I arrive at my station the next morning, yawning and stretching.

I didn’t fall asleep until really late—or maybe really early. With no windows and no clock, I couldn’t tell what time it was.

“Get in the chair. We have forty minutes left. Amy!” Leila’s shaking, even her slick-straight hair is vibrating.

“Herrick just arrived,” I point out.

“I don’t give a shit about Herrick. I give a shit about you. Why are your eyes so puffy? Didn’t you sleep?” From the way she mutters this, I take it she’s not asking. She pulls a little tube from her makeup trunk and rubs a dollop of its content across both my lids. It burns like ice.

“What the hell is that?” I exclaim.

“Hopefully, a miracle,” she says. “Now don’t move until I’m done.”

While Leila brushes and stabs my face with crayons and mascara wands, Amy blasts my locks with hot air. No one talks. Chase is at the next station getting primped. Although his gaze is locked on the mirror, the line of his shoulders tightens as though he senses I’m looking. Last night, over dinner, I was tempted to ask him what his problem was, but that would exhibit insecurities, and New York Ivy has
no
insecurities. Powder wafts into my right eye and it tears up. I blink, but it still waters.

Leila grumbles as she swabs my lash line with a Q-tip. “Look up.”

Finally, I’m ready. My hair has been slicked down. It reaches far below my shoulder blades and shines like spun gold. The amethyst powder on my lids makes my eyes appear bluer and hooded instead of swollen from lack of sleep.

“Tonight, six-thirty sharp. Not a minute later.” And then she’s gone.

“What’s her problem?” I ask Amy, who’s masticating her lip.

She gathers my hair in a high ponytail and wraps a ribbon around it. “Leila’s a perfectionist.”

“So am I. It doesn’t mean you have to be nasty with people.”

“Why aren’t you dressed yet?” Cara exclaims, stopping by my station.

“She’ll be ready in five minutes,” Amy tells her.

“Just hurry. I put your clothes in the dressing area.”

On the purple velvet pouf, my assistant has laid out a pair of light jeans, a pearl-colored shirt, and white sneakers. I pull on the jeans while Amy helps me with the blouse, careful that it doesn’t snag on the ribbon in my hair or pick up pigment from my skin. I tie up my sneakers and reemerge after a glimpse of myself in the floor-length mirror.

Cara is checking her bulky, neon-orange rubber wristwatch, the sort of watch I drooled over as a pre-teen. Now I aspire to sleeker ones, preferably metal and preferably brand-named. If I win the prize money, I’ll buy myself a diamond watch. And exotic fabrics from India. Maybe I’ll even go to India.