She didn't know what it meant. While the man beside her waxed lyrical about the ingenuousness of the artist in expressing their inner confusion over the world around them with the use of such a simple tool as a shoe, Katniss Everdeen still thought it just looked like a shoe. Not even a halfway interesting shoe - just a plain black flip-flop on a white background.
Dammit, she almost always ended up regretting it when Madge convinced her to come to these things. Without a doubt, she would ultimately feel completely and utterly out of her depth and be entirely out of place – and tonight was no different.
Throwing back the final sip of champagne from her glass - the only thing getting her through, if she was being perfectly honest - she moved away from The Shoe, circumventing her way around a group of people enthusiastically studying a sculpture in the form of the letter F, made only out of fluorescent light tubes. And while she tried to school her face as quickly as she possibly could, she knew there was a giant look of 'wtf?' currently gracing her features.
While Katniss could appreciate art, she was the first to admit that sometimes, she just simply didn't get it - and especially not exhibitions like this, where it was primarily modern and far beyond her comprehension of what the artist was trying to say. Give her a painting of some mountains or a bowl of fruit, even one of those pudgy cupid Renaissance babies. At least all of that she could easily understand.
Reaching for another glass of champagne from the tray of a roving waiter, and divesting herself of her empty glass, she scanned the room, looking for her best friend. Madge - only daughter of Senator Benedict Undersee - was a regular at these types of events. Her family was one of the largest art patrons in Panem, and there was rarely an art exhibition that she wasn't spotted at. Madge genuinely loved them; she loved the arts, had already made it clear her intentions of continuing the family tradition, and mixing it with her desire to open her own gallery one day.
The Senator and Mrs Undersee normally attended with her, but on the occasions they were out of town for work or vacation, Katniss was her requisite plus one. And as someone who hated crowds and hated the idea of small talk – both of which came as a given on nights like this - it was usually only the promise of a weekend away at the Undersee's sprawling lake house an hour north that got her over the line.
Finally spotting Madge in the corner of the room deep in conversation with a tall, dark-haired man, Katniss sighed. From the emphatic batting of her eyelashes, to the way her hand kept landing playfully on the man's arm whenever she laughed, Madge was clearly firmly ensconced at Flirtation Station. It was better to steer clear, pretend she knew what was going on in this place, and continue drinking her fair share of the bubbles. The last thing she wanted right now was to listen to Madge either hitting on the guy or the guy hitting on her. Or both.
Tugging her leather jacket closer to her and grateful that she'd brushed off Madge's vague suggestion of a dress and had gone with skinny jeans and boots - the AC was utterly freezing in here, didn't people know that winter was coming? - she headed through an open doorway into a room about half the size of the last, and, luckily, half as full. But what it was full of, she realised in surprise, was art that made sense to her.
Maybe this night wasn't going to be as big a bust as she thought.
Planting herself on one of the small, cubed stools that were dotted throughout the gallery, she stared up at a long canvas that swirled to life with the oranges, pinks, yellows, violets and blues of a deepening sunset. It reminded her of the view from the top of Mount Seam, the way the sun seemed to sink behind the surrounding hills slowly like it had all the time in the world, and then it was gone all at once.
That, along with a tempestuous ocean front that almost made her feel like she was caught in a gale force storm herself, and a sunny green meadow dotted with dandelions so lifelike they almost swayed in a non-existent breeze, were – in her opinion - the best three things in the entire place.
Except, she thought absently, maybe for the blond man who'd just walked in the room.
He was dressed casually, much like she was, in dark denim jeans, a dark grey button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a black wool coat hanging from his clenched left hand. His hair was tousled from either a pair of hands or the increasing wind outside, the faintest hint of a three day growth shaded his jaw and his eyes were stunningly blue and encased behind a pair of dark framed glasses.
Attractive, for sure. But he was probably a hipster anyway, and so not her type.
Turning her attention back to the painting in front of her, she took another sip of her champagne, listened vaguely as a group of people walked out, enthusiastically talking up the talents of one Peeta Mellark, clearly - from their words - the person responsible for the few pieces she thought were the best. At one woman's announcement that he was the absolute find of the century, Katniss snorted back a laugh, then almost choked on it when the blond guy sat down beside her, his left knee cracking slightly as he lowered himself to the leather seat. He let out a giant sigh, one more of contentment than annoyance.
After a few moments of silence where Katniss became increasingly aware of the subtle, masculine scent of his cologne, and the way his hands - wide of palm, with long elegant fingers - nervously flexed against his knees, he cleared his throat. "Pretty busy out in that other room, huh?" He said conversationally.
She shrugged, shot her gaze over to him quickly before looking away again. "Yeah. A little too busy for my liking."
"Not a fan of the crowds?"
"Not a fan of crowds, or crowds who go gaga over the letter F."
He laughed. "You saw that piece already, huh?"
"I can't say it was a favourite of mine," Katniss said wryly. "So apologies if it's at the top of your list."
"No apologies necessary," he told her. "But are you enjoying the rest of the show otherwise?" He stretched out his legs in front of him, his left heel drumming slightly against the concrete floor.
"It's alright," she conceded. It wasn't the worst show Madge had ever taken her to, so it wasn't a lie.
"Here with friends?"
"Just one. Madge Undersee."
His right eyebrow winged up. "Ahhhh, you're here with the important people."
Katniss snorted. "Sure. I'll have to tell her that."
"Well...she is, isn't she? Her family is a pretty big patron of the arts."
"I suppose they are." Mostly, Katniss - with her community college education and 'wrong side of the tracks' family history - tried to forget that. "But anyway, I'm just here with her because the Senator and Mrs Undersee are in DC for a benefit, and she needed a plus one."
"Lucky you. All you can drink champagne and fluorescent lighting. Sounds like a perfect date." He said it seriously, but she could see the corner of his mouth beginning to turn up slightly.
She blinked as the implication of his smirk sunk in. "You don't like the letter either!" she accused, and he shook his head, laughed loudly enough that a couple in the corner - studying a bronze sculpture of a woman, hair tumbling down her back as she reached for the sky above - shot them looks sharp enough to cut glass before stalking out.
Once they'd gone, he smiled again, and shrugged diplomatically. "I didn't say I didn't like it. But while I admit that it's not something that's particularly to my own taste, I can appreciate and respect the artist's vision, what they're trying to portray. They saw something in that letter, or in the lights, that the rest of us can't see. So I admire them for being able to see that, wanting to express it and going ahead and doing it."
Katniss stared at him for a moment before her shoulders slumped. "And now I sound like a total asshole," she grumbled.
"You don't, not at all," he assured her. "It's all in the eye of the beholder, the interests of the person, what they find appealing. Like how some people love listening to country music, and I'm always left feeling a little confused by it."
She folded her arms across her chest. "I know it's all subjective, I get that. And I know that what appeals to one person may not appeal to another, for sure." She unfolded one arm, pointed over her shoulder. "But I'm going to be completely honest when I say that The Shoe out there is never going to make it to my list of 'masterpieces'."
He laughed. "But it might make someone else's list of masterpieces."
Katniss shrugged. "Probably. I guess...this just isn't really my scene. Call me uncultured or whatever, but I suppose I'm just not very artistic. I don't have an eye for beauty or whatever."
"You make it sound like having one is a bad thing."
"Isn't it?" She turned slightly so that she could face him right on.
"Having an eye for beauty isn't a bad thing, or a weakness," he said, his blue eyes bright but serious behind the frames, and it hit her again how ridiculously attractive he was. "And regardless, not all of art is necessarily beautiful, and not all of it is meant to be pretty. It's meant to inspire, to make you think, to make you question, to make you feel." He sat forward on the small seat, rested his elbows on his knees as he looked at her even more intently. "Tell me, is there nothing here that speaks to you? On some kind of level?"
Katniss felt her stomach roll over nervously, felt her heart flutter in her chest. She didn't think that was a pick up line - it had been so long since she'd heard one, she probably wouldn't know what it was anyway - but even if it wasn't, it still had an effect on her.
But she couldn't exactly tell this perfect stranger that in the last five minutes he'd absolutely, 100% begun speaking to her on about twenty different levels. And not one of them were about the art on the walls.
"These ones are really good, I like them a lot," she managed to blurt out, gesturing towards the sunset, beach and meadow on the wall in front of them. "They look real, almost like if you touched them they would come to life and draw you in."
He grinned widely. "That's probably one of the best things you could say to an artist. See? I think you get it more than you think you do."
"Well then, lucky the artist isn't here then, otherwise I'd ruin my reputation of art plebian," Katniss replied with a smirk.
"Peeta?" The voice came from behind them and was hushed, a sharp hiss that Katniss assumed was meant to be subtle. Glancing over her shoulder, Katniss realised that the two of them were the only ones now in the room, and that standing at the entrance was a woman in a hot pink shift dress, with her strawberry blonde hair twisted up in an elaborate chignon.
"If you're looking for the artist, you're not going to find him here; it's just us," Katniss told her bluntly.
The woman's mouth dropped open. "Well, I never, what manners! And if it was meant to be a joke, it wasn't a very funny one." Her eye line shifted away from Katniss, to the guy beside her. "I've been looking for you everywhere - you shouldn't be hiding away in here, Peeta. Honestly."
Katniss' eyes widened, and her head snapped around. He - Peeta?! - glanced at her warily, before looking over at the blonde.
"I'm sorry, Effie, I wasn't aware you were looking for me."
"I want to introduce you to the curator, Mr Flickerman."
He shook his head. "You know I don't want to do that tonight."
She sighed, crossed the room so that she was standing beside them. She glanced at Katniss again dismissively before looking away. "Peeta, it's important that we begin to raise your profile, and we should start tonight."
This time, when he spoke, his voice was firm, an underlying steel to it. "Effie, we agreed. Saturday. Saturday night, at the public launch of the exhibition."
"Peeta-"
"No." He cut her off, and while it wasn't rude, it was blunt enough for the older woman's mouth to firm into a bloodless thin line. "Saturday."
"Fine," She huffed, then glanced down at her hand when her phone buzzed. Almost instantly, her face cleared up, her mouth shifting into a wide smile. "Well, I'll just go out there, let you do whatever it is you're doing in here. Caesar just let me know that Cinna has arrived and he's been promising me an introduction for weeks. If you leave before I do, please say goodbye." With that, she spun on her six inch toothpick heels, and tottered back out into the main gallery.
With her exit, the room was silent; the only thing Katniss could hear was the pounding of her heart in her ears.
"You're Peeta Mellark?" She finally bit out. She couldn't look at him; instead she stared down at her hands, at the way she'd clenched them together tightly in her lap.
"I am," he admitted quietly.
She felt the wave of shame wash over her as she ran through her head everything she'd said - the way she'd been so flippant and irreverent about the majority of the artwork, and worst of all, the way she'd complimented him on his own work. To his face.
"You just made a fool out of me," she snapped angrily as she lifted her head.
"No!" His eyes widened, and he shook his head emphatically. "No, I didn't mean to make you feel like that!"
"Well, you did. You sat here while I bitched about art, and you listened while that woman called you the find of the century?"
Peeta had the decency to blush. "I didn't plan it to happen that way, and I certainly didn't ask that woman to say something like that..." He trailed off, his voice full of chagrin when he spoke again. "It doesn't matter. I just wanted to come here incognito, listen to what people have to say when they're not just trying to kiss your ass because they know who you are."
She scoffed. "And the people here don't?"
"No." He shook his head. "I let my agent deal with the gallery and the curator while she was negotiating. I've never shown in this gallery before-" he paused for a moment, took in a deep breath. "-or at all. This is...this is actually my first full show."
Katniss' mouth dropped open, briefly glancing over to the paintings on the wall. "This is your first show? You're kidding."
"Not at all. And I'm shitting myself, basically. Nervous as hell. Ridiculously nervous." For the first time, she recognised the fear in his eyes, hidden behind the charm. He'd hidden it well, but now he'd mentioned it, it was all she could see. "It's kind of why I'm hiding out in here, with you. I didn't want them to know who I was, because I wanted to honestly hear how people felt about my work. No one ever gives you an honest review to your face when they know who you are. So I think...you've given me the most honest review I've ever received."
She ran her tongue across the front of her teeth. "After complaining about most of the art? I should be the last person you should listen to. I clearly know nothing."
"You were honest with me." Peeta reiterated. "I'd rather hear that, than someone pretend to be interested, and not really give a shit."
The anger and annoyance inside her had already started to fade, embarrassment becoming more prevalent. She could feel how red her cheeks were, but she was prepared to fight her way through it. "Well...I'm sorry. I was pretty flippant about the whole scene."
"Like I said before, no apologies are necessary," he said firmly. "I should apologise to you, for not being honest."
She shrugged. "You didn't know me, you didn't have to tell me who you were. You're not the first guy in my life who's not been honest with me."
"Well I can tell you now that they were all idiots - why anyone would not be honest with you is beyond me." Then he shook his head. "But you can include me on that list. I was stupid. Stupid with nerves, but stupid nonetheless."
When they both fell into an awkward silence, Katniss realised she'd already more than overstayed her welcome tonight. Making fun of the letter F, busybody agents, not understanding shoes, making a fool of herself in front of one of the artists...Nope, tonight, she was done.
"Well - I won't argue with that," she told him, rising to her feet. "But I think it's time for me to go home."
"No, please don't. I really am sorry." He stood, pushed his glasses up further on his nose and looked at her imploringly. "Look, let me make it up to you. There's a bar just around the corner - let me buy you a drink or a meal or something to apologise for not being upfront with you about who I was."
She rolled her eyes. "Like you said before, apologies aren't necessary; you don't need to do that. I just think it's time to go home."
This time, he reached out, rested his hand lightly on the back of her own. It was ridiculous the way the current - unexpected and sharp - danced up her arm and down her spine at his touch. "Please."
Katniss took in a deep breath, chewed on her bottom lip as she considered it. He was friendly, obviously talented, and did seem like a genuinely nice guy, just one whose nerves had gotten the better of him. He was funny, too.
And good looking.
Very good looking.
"Okay," she finally agreed, and he breathed out a sigh of relief, running a hand through his hair and sending it into further disarray. "But… only if you promise to tell me more about your paintings."
"Really?"
"Yeah, really."
Peeta grinned, wide and enthusiastically. "Deal."