All The Colors Of You || Bang Chan

Chapter Twenty - Perrie

It is 10.56 am and I am standing in front of the museum, staring up at its walls with wide eyes.
There a people, mostly families and groups of friends around my age, bustling in and out, chattering excitedly.
I am wearing my best pair of pants and a rose-petal pink blouse.
I put my hair into a bun at the nape of my neck, and I'm even wearing earrings.
I look about three years older than I am, but I wanted to impress.

I check my phone and smile.
Chan's text remains unopened on the sleeper screen of my phone, my eyes reading over every word of it again.
I can't wait for you to tell me all about your day! Call me when you're free, i'll be here :) xo
There is so much joy in him.
His words give me a boost of confidence and I finally shoulder my bag once more, before I walk through the doors of the museum.

"Hi, I'm here for Bai Lester," I say to the dark-haired woman at the front desk, "I'm Perrie Becket. I have an appointment, I think?"
"Of course," she says and taps a few buttons on the phone next to her desktop, "We've been expecting you, Miss Becket. Please follow me."
She starts walking and I follow.

Bai Lester is a man of average height with tanned skin and dark eyes. He's wearing a grey suit. His hair falls to his shoulders, but he's wearing it gelled back and out of his face.
When I enter the room, he stands from
his suit behind the desk and crosses the room to shake my hand.
"Perrie," he says and smiles with seemingly all his teeth, "What a pleasure to meet you! Has anyone offered you a drink yet? Snacks?"
"Uhm-..." I hesitate. "No, not yet."
He looks at the woman that brought me to the office.
"We'll take some sodas, please, and maybe some snacks. Cookies, if we have them. Thank you."

He turns to motion me towards two arm chairs across from each other by a window.
"Sit, please," he says and I do.
He takes an ipad from his desk and sits across from me, leaning back.
"So, Perrie, you know why you're here." Bai Lester says as he watches me shift nervously in my own seat. "The exhibition project. Tell me a bit about your art."
"My art?"
"Yeah," he nods and gestures around the room, "What's your art style, why do you paint? What are your inspirations and where do you want to go?"

"I paint on canvas," I start, "But I use oils and acrylics. Mostly acrylics, I mean, but sometimes oils, too. I paint whatever comes to mind. These days I paint a lot of abstracts. What I feel in the moment, you know?"
I feel stupid under his watchful eyes and swallow thickly before I continue.
"I'm inspired by the people around me and how they make me feel. I used to spend a lot of time alone, searching for people to connect with. Back then, I painted a lot of portraits. I did sketches, too. People I know-... or don't know. Sometimes I was outside and caught glimpses of certain moments, right? Like hugs or kisses or fights I wasn't even in. But it was so interesting to watch something so intimate and personal from an outside perspective."

I hesitate.
My words don't make any sense. I almost don't hear myself, it's like I am simply spewing anything that comes to mind, any thought I've ever had about my work.
"Now I paint what I feel. I've met someone who inspires a lot of good in me. He's become somewhat of a muse, I think. I paint whatever I feel when I'm with him. Or him, just him. My friends. My family. Love. Light. Happiness. I guess what really drives me - at the core of it all - are the people. Their beauty. And where I want to go is pretty simple. I want to go where any great artist wants to be. In a place like this. I want to be exhibited, I want people to notice me."

Bai Lester nods thoughtfully, sighs, and then he leans forward.
"Okay, here's the deal," he says, "Thirty pieces. Total creative freedom. It can be paintings, it can be sculptures. Whatever tickles your fancy, whatever you feel showcases your work the best. Let's talk funding. How do six thousand dollar sound to you?"
"Six?" All air escapes my lungs and I cough.
"Yes. For new utensils, storage rooms, workshop events, et cetera. If you want to design your display with it, go ahead. Light fixtures, music stations, cameras, whatever. Anything you need as long as you stay within the 6k budget."

Bai taps around on the screen of his ipad.
"We'd like to book you in for an eight week exhibition in two months time. The grand opening will be a formal event, but you're welcome to do your own guest list. Bring your friends, family, anyone you want."
He turns the ipad towards me and shows me a few graphs and numbers.
"We imagined this to be a sort of silent auction. There will be biddings for all your pieces, unless you want some of them to be unavailable. Forty percent of all proceeds will be going to the museum, the rest is yours to keep. There will be promotional deals going on - interviews, photo shoots, maybe a video - but that's not much to your concern."

He hands me the ipad and I scroll through the document he has opened. It's a contract, detailing everything he just told me.
It's heaven.
My fingertips itch to grab the ipen and just scribble my signature beneath the whole thing.
But I detain myself.
Instead of signing straight away, I lean back and say, "That sounds wonderful. But I'd like to go over it with my people, make sure I really think it through. Could you send me the details and I'll get back to you by tomorrow?"
"Of course," Bai Lester nods and takes the ipad back.

Shortly after, the woman from the entrance desk brings a tray with lime sodas and chocolate chip cookies.
I gulp down the glass as Bai Lester tells me about the museum institution. He talks about wanting to bring art closer to the younger generations. He talks about his own artistic influences.
He paints, too.
We chat for another hour, and then I grab my stuff and leave.

That night, Gloria and Ji come over for dinner at my apartment. I show them the document.
Ji pulls his glasses all the way down to the tip of his nose to read it.
"In two months?" Gloria widens her eyes. "Honey, are you sure? That is not a lot of time to make thirty new pieces."
"I don't have to make all thirty of them, I already have pieces I want to show. I only need around fifteen, maybe seventeen. That's doable."
Gloria sips on her glass of orange juice.
Ji hums, before standing from his seat and leaving my apartment wordlessly.

He comes back with a bottle of sparkling cherry cider.
"This calls for celebration. There's no way you're saying no to this thing."
They tell me how proud they are, how excited. I promise to invite them to the opening night.
Everything is good.