Free Starry Night by Isabel Gillies

Bolt, the Olympic runner. He’s Jamaican. “Look at cha, Wren, all grown up!” He leaned back, clapped his hands, and laughed out loud. “Whooo, you look like a ripe peach, dear. Someone might pick you toNIGHT.” Bennet has been a guard at the museum for forty years. My father asks him where certain works are because Bennet knows the place better than anyone.
    â€œBennet!” I gave him the high five he was waiting for even though his peach comment made me flush.
    â€œGo have a good time tonight, little one. It’s a big pa-ty,” he said, leaning in and lifting his pointer finger up into the air. “Ha haaaaa!”
    When I was eight or nine, Bennet used to give me Life Savers when I came to visit Dad. He knew I liked cherry so he would sort through all the other colors with his thumb until he got to a bright red one. “Here’s one with your name on it,” he’d say, and press the hard candy into the palm of my hand. Even though I had the sweet red taste of a Swedish Fish left over in my mouth and I was too old for a special treat, the gigantic party ahead of me gave me a funny feeling in my gut, like maybe I wished for just a second I could be eight years old again and loose in the museum, running in my Tretorns and pigtails through the hallways, holding on to a sticky, melting Life Saver.
    â€œI’m going to find my parents and say hi,” Charlie said.
    â€œOkay, we’ll be in here, I guess, until we go in to dinner?” I said, looking at the girls.
    â€œRight, I’ll find you. Make sure to try the Peking duck rolls. My dad said they are insane.”
    â€œGood,” I said, looking into the sea of silks, furs, and clinking glasses. I scanned the waiters’ trays to see if I could identify the duck thing, and at the same time I looked for Nolan.
    â€œWhere is Oliver?” Padmavati said, not thinking, like I did, to mask her obsession by looking for a tray of roaming hors d’oeuvres.
    â€œVati.” Farah took her by the hands. “Listen to me, okay?” She was speaking to her like a life coach. “You look exceptional tonight. That pink color is doing something amazing to your skin and you are like eleven feet tall, but I am telling you, Oliver is never going to notice you if you are acting so puppy dog-ish. Never, ever, not ever.”
    â€œOh yeah, okay. So what should I do, look busy? But how? I don’t have my phone.”
    â€œNo, Vati,” I said, and fixed her dangly, sparkly Indian beaded earring that was twisted in a weird way. “Just be yourself. Hang with me. Let’s go see if there is anyone famous here or something.”
    â€œJust stick with me, guys, okay?” Vati said, and touched her earring.
    â€œTotally,” I vowed. And then everyone nodded their head, confirming that nobody would leave her side.
    â€œCome on, let’s do a circle and see if we can’t take a glass of champagne from one of the waiters. The bartenders probably won’t give us any,” Reagan said, leading us into the party.
    â€œI’m sure my parents will let us have a little champagne at dinner, you guys,” I said. Sometimes they do let me have a glass of wine at dinner, I guess because my father is European.
    â€œOh, Wren, come on! Look at this party!” Reagan said and hooked her arm in mine. “We need a glass of champagne immediately !”
    Photographers were asking to take people’s pictures (and then writing down their names, which meant they were important enough to be in the paper the next day), swank, literary-looking couples, artists, the mayor of New York, Troland Johnson, who was standing with the Met’s blog guy and Cy Dowd—the most prominent artist at the opening. The show had at least seven of his paintings in it, all of them new (all of them written about in New York magazine and Art World and The New York Times ). The idea behind the show was to present the