Cromulent

Chapter Seven

A girl glared at Liam after he dropped a teacup on the ground. He apologized with a nervous smile and paid for the cup. "Well, Jane hates you now," Landon said in regard to the glaring girl. I recognized her as one of the cheerleaders from our grade. Jane took Liam's money and stuffed it into the cash register.

She glanced at all of us. "Try not to break anything else, okay?" she suggested. We smiled and nodded. Avedon's was a lot more spacious than I recalled, but I figured that I had not been there in several years. There was the addition of a small bar on the right side of the establishment, tables in the center, and artwork displayed on the left and far ends of the place.

"I'll try my best," Liam replied. Landon elbowed him on the arm and smirked.

"Okay, I'm gonna talk to Angela and try and see what they did to Carson's artwork," Dakota said.

"Who's this 'Angela'?" Landon inquired, taking a sip of tea that he ordered from the bar.

"Neighbor-slash-Avedon's manager," Dakota replied, rolling her eyes as she had told us who Angela was at least three times before we had entered Avedon's. "I'll go find her. You guys peruse around and try and find out some valuable info."

"Can do," Landon said with a slight salute. He walked over to a table where a clique of particularly good-looking girls sat.

"Can he get his mind off of getting a date for two minutes?" Landon uttered.

"Probably not," I said with a shrug. "Try not to break anything else while you're here, okay babe?"

"You heard Jane," he replied with a chortle. "I can only do my best."

"Which means you'll probably end up breaking several more glasses and ruining pieces of artwork on your way over to another table," I replied.

"Oh, most definitely," he said with a dazzling grin. He kissed me on the forehead and added, "I'll take right side, maybe see from Jane what Carson was doing last time he was here."

"Sounds good," I replied. "I told Matthew that I would show up, so I'll go up and ask him about it. Try not to be suspicious."

"Damn. That means I can't loudly proclaim, 'Who here is the killer?'"

"Exactly." Liam made a puppy face at me and I laughed. "Okay, let's regroup soon."

"Go team!" he said, also saluting me just as Landon did. I laughed and sauntered over to some of the artwork, taking in the amazing feats that people had accomplished. It was a slow day today, so there weren't many people critiquing the works or offering to buy anything, but every other magnificent work of art had a swarm of people around it. There was an unusual amount of buzz around a girl sitting on a stool in the corner of the room. I couldn't see what work she was presenting due to the dense crowd around her, so I shrugged it off and continued my search for Matthew.

"Avery?" I heard. I turned and peaked my head over to see Matthew waving me over. "I wasn't sure if you were gonna show up. I was getting ready to leave."

"What, you don't trust me already? After all, it's me, Uh," I replied with a smile. He laughed. "So, what do you have here?"

"Um, this is a painting I was working on a while back and finally got around to finishing," he replied, gesturing to a depiction of a sunset. "And then I have this one that I entered into a contest...for a scholarship," added Matthew with a slight cough.

"How did that go?" I inquired, inspecting his work. It was a truly beautiful painting, one with brush strokes that seemed deliberately going in random directions. It took some squinting, but I soon realized it was a dirty hand holding a rose.