Ten Feet Tall • •

[lacey aurelia hilton]

Lacey rarely ever left the gallery. She was usually buried underneath the work they kept stacked up for her. She was the Assistant Art Curator and though she wore the title with pride there were times she felt like there were jobs delegated to her purely because she wasn’t as experienced as some of her older colleagues. This was one of those times, but unlike normally, Lacey hadn’t minded so much when they pawned this off onto her. It was a chance to shine without being shadowed by the curators who had been around for a decade or more, had their claims to fame before them. It was an idea suggested by an intern who wore rings through both sides of his nose and very much thought himself a critique of art. He had overheard them discussing the best way to display the latest renaissance painting that had been left to the gallery in a private owner’s will. It was a very famous piece, an original, and they wanted to ensure it got the attention it deserved. That was when ‘pop up exhibition’ had been brought up, and when everyone blinked, the hipster who loved to hear his own voice spoke for ten minutes about how cool an idea it was.

So, with heightened security, two tour guides, and Lacey to oversee each event, the painting and a selection of the artist’s other work that the gallery owned began a tour of New York, popping up at famous locations for one night only. It had taken a lot of planning to prepare for and even more to pull off, but this was the last night. There was a party at the end of this back at the gallery once the exhibition was dismantled for the final time, and then tomorrow they would set about hanging the piece back in the red gallery where it would remain for the foreseeable future. It had been quite an experience, but Lacey was certain she had gone through every nice dress in her collection. This last one still had price tags on it, and she was out of new ideas for what to do with her hair, so she just dried it and let it hang straight down her back. Maybe she ought to have thought each night out a big more, especially since the show was closing at The Empire State Building.

She was there before it started, as always, to oversee the set up and to make sure that everything went to plan before those with tickets for the sell out event began to arrive. Lacey avoid the trays of champagne and picked up a sparkling grape juice at the bar. She never drank alcohol, but to work these things without a drink at all was strange, so she ordered something that always looked the part. Mingling in turn, she made her way around, putting on the smile and bigging up the gallery and her bosses like she had been told to do. It was important that everyone knew where this had come from and why they had decided to do this. She was going to be dreaming of this speech long after it was over. “Can I answer any questions you might have? I’m Lacey Hilton, Assistant Art Curator.” She asked moving onto the next set of guests and smiling politely. Some weren’t interested in hearing from her, but Lacey had been told to check in with everyone, and knowing her luck in life the one person she didn’t speak to would be the one to go back to the gallery and make a note of it with her bosses.

• • •

TAGGED! Damon Hugh Farley
WORDS! 611!
OUTFIT! Coy Curator!
LYRICS! C’mon - - - Panic At The Disco
NOTES! <3

[Damon Hugh Farley]

Damon wasn’t usually a man who stuck around his apartment when he wasn’t working, watching mind numbing television and developing a never ending boredom that couldn’t be erased. In fact, he was hardly ever home, having to make appearances and spread the name of the PR firm he worked for. These days he made more exceptions to that rule of using his home for sleeping and nearly nothing else but before Rowan had come to New York, that was basically all his apartment had been used for. He would entertain guests every once in a while, having a casual friend stay a night or two but the large space was mostly used as a show that he was doing well in life. He ate breakfast on the fly, grabbed lunch with clients and more often than not, dinner as well. He rushed from appointment to appointment and was lucky to sit at the desk he had in the sweet office he acquired after landing one of the biggest names on Broadway. 

He needed to be everywhere and love everything, even if he didn’t quite get why anyone did. To each their own as the saying went. And while Damon was good at spinning stories, he couldn’t always get behind other hobbies. Art was something he appreciated but didn’t always get though Rowan loved it. And he had two tickets to some gallery showing or something that he knew she would be interested in so he’d asked her and promised her that he wouldn’t be more a handful of steps away from her. It broke his heart what happened to his cousin but he was there to help her, try to bring her out a little more, get to see a bit more of the city she now lived in. It gave her a chance to dress up and have a little bit of fun. And it was something she loved. 

So the day of the event, Damon took the day to surprise Rowan with a hair appointment and a dress he’d seen and had known instantly that she would love. They might not have lived together but they were family and Damon did know what Rowan liked. There were times when she hadn’t want to do much of anything and Damon had surprised her with little things to try and coax her out of her new apartment. He ordered a car and helped Rowan out of it when they pulled up outside the Empire State Building. He wrapped her hand over his arm to reassure her and brought her up to where the event was taking place. It was full of people of course but that was the thing about New York parties; there were always people everywhere. Damon picked up a flute though he wasn’t going to drink when Rowan was with him, but he had to have something in his hands and smiled as a woman approached. “Thank you, Miss Hilton. I think my cousin here might have a few.” He said, smiling at the redhead next to him whom he thought might be buzzing with a dozen questions or more.

♦ ♦ ♦

Tag || lacey aurelia hilton
Words || 547
Clothes || Coming Soon
Music || You Make That Look Good --Scotty McCreery
Notes || <3

[lacey aurelia hilton]

Lacey hoped New York would hold a promising future for her. Seattle was not a place of good memories, not at all, and the last thing Lacey needed was another city to curse her with nightmares and people who blamed her for things beyond her control. She was resigned to the fact that her relationship with her brother was completely destroyed, but she couldn’t let the past take hold of her future and ruin it. It wasn’t what her parents would have wanted for her. Some days were harder than others, but Lacey did her best, and working as hard as she did helped a lot, too. She had her complaints about being left with so much paperwork that others didn’t want to do, but it was a hell of a lot better than the alternatives she didn’t dare think about.

Of course, no one in the city knew about the night terrors that still plagued Lacey. She had managed to keep them to herself. It was easy enough when she hadn’t had a successful date in a couple of years. She wasn’t the type to bring a stranger home, and every other guy had just faded into failure when dinner had been as limp as the side salad. Not that there had been too many. She had been focused on her studies and then her job. Now it just felt normal to go back to a quiet apartment, to slam the windows shut to block out the never ending sirens that flooded the city. Sirens were the only downside to living in New York. Lacey couldn’t stand them, had her television loud enough to block them out when she was awake, and kept her windows shut and locked when she was asleep in a desperately vain hope that they might not creep in to her and trigger the demons in her mind into visiting her dreams. She wished she had that much control over them.

Keeping busy did help though. Lacey lived a normal life. She didn’t jump at shadows on the street, or scream if someone tapped her on the shoulder. It was mostly just the night time when her fears came to torment her. When she was with people she was like everyone else; normal. Smiling, being polite and answering questions was the easy part for her. Plus, they paid her to do it, which was incentive to keep her on her feet when she really wanted to sit down for five minutes. She was good, however, at keeping her complaints to herself. She was also good at noticing when someone wasn’t all that comfortable. Her fellow redhead seemed to glance around and then shake her head, mumbling something about the bathroom and being right back before vanishing from sight. Lacey blinked after her, all thoughts of the show and the art gone from her mind. “Is she okay?” She asked with genuine concern for the young girl. “Do you want me to fetch her anything? Or, I can go and check on her if you like?” Lacey wasn’t the type to ignore someone who might need help, or be upset. She had too kind a heart sometimes, and even when her help was thrown back at her it didn’t deter her for the next time. She just couldn’t turn her back on someone, not even a stranger.

• • •

TAGGED! Damon Hugh Farley
WORDS! 565!
OUTFIT! Coy Curator!
LYRICS! C’mon - - - Panic At The Disco
NOTES! <3

[Damon Hugh Farley]

New York wasn't some second chance for Damon, it was his only chance. Sure, PR was something needed in just about any city anywhere but New York was the place to be. There or Los Angeles but the west coast held no appeal for Damon. He was a concrete jungle sort of man as it turned out. From small beginnings to running point on more than a dozen clients, Damon was quite proud of the progress he made. He wanted to be a partner in the firm, and he was well on his way there but he still also had a few more rungs of that ladder. Still he was happy to be where he was, excited to head into the office, wherever he might be calling an office that day. The best part about his job was that he could work from anywhere, as long as he got the job done, it didn't matter that he'd chosen to work outside the skyscraper office. His office had an entire wall of windows and he was some forty-eight stories up. His was the only desk on a side wall and not directly in front of the windows. Heights didn't normally bother the Southern boy but that far up, he could admit he got a bit of vertigo and preferred to stay away from the windows. Other people can enjoy the view he was afforded with the cozy, next corner neighbouring office.

If he were telling the truth about the night, he hadn't planned on inviting Rowan at first. He wanted her to get out there a bit more and knew she would be more inclined to go if he were with her but he had also thought it might have been too much. He should have probably gone with his gut on this one but thought no, he needed to ask and after thinking about it for all of twenty minutes, the exact time it took him to get back to his apartment, he knocked on her door instead of opening his own to ask. She'd been curious of course and Damon had liked seeing the spark in her eyes at the thought of the fancy gala. It had been enough for him to believe he'd done the right thing by suggesting she be his date for the evening.

Damon's eyes widened at his cousin's sudden exit. "I…" He started but stopped, not entirely sure what to say. "It's not… I don't know." He finally managed because he didn't know what to say, didn't know which words would make the most sense. He had been hoping this night out would turn out to be good for her but of course, he hadn't really taken in all the variables. "If you wouldn't mind. I can't exactly follow her into the ladies room." He asked with just a small bit of pleading in his voice. He hated that he couldn't help Rowan out. It drove him mental that he thought they were doing well, that she was getting better and then something would trigger her and she would become so overwhelmed that her first reaction to it all was running away. He hoped one day she wouldn't feel like she needed that escape.

♦ ♦ ♦

Tag || lacey aurelia hilton
Words || 540
Clothes || Coming Soon
Music || You Make That Look Good --Scotty McCreery
Notes || <3

[lacey aurelia hilton]

New York was a place of dreams for so many people, but for Lacey it was a city of art. She wanted to be there when the next explosion happened on the art scene. She wanted to protect those canvases and pieces that were left forgotten in storage rooms long after they were admired and hyped over. Art was timeless, but it was easily replaced with something else as life changed, and fashions gave way to something new. No one sat for the glorious oil paintings of the old days, and pop art was in less demand than she had ever known it to be. People walked right by it in a gallery sometimes, uncaring about the meaning or the craft behind it. There were no names determined to go down in history like Monet or Van Gogh. Everything was temporary, and some of the pretentious characters who were paid far more than her seemed to just accept that without problem or issue. Lacey considered art to be more than that, but she was forever laughed at for thinking that way.

She was used to being different. She might not look like it as she mingled in a room full of people who at the very least pretended to be interested in the art on show, but Lacey was. She had always been looked at differently because of the things she had seen, or how she thought about things. It wasn’t even something that she blinked at now. It had become so tiresome. She didn’t let it harden her heart or change the way she saw the world though. Lacey was still a creative soul who wanted the best for the people she cared about. All the heartache and cruel words in the world couldn’t keep her down. There was a passionate strength in her that made her get up time and time again.

Lace looked with wide worried eyes at the man before her. He seemed as lost as she felt for a long, tense moment, and she felt the anxiety tightening in her chest. She hated feeling helpless. She had to do something. “I’m on it.” She promised with a nod of her head as she placed her glass on the tray of a passing waiter, uncaring about anything but the plan forming in her head. Lacey quickly made her way across the room with flashes of a smile and polite ‘pardon mes’ before she paused at the wall just before the turn for the bathrooms. She apologised to the small group there, and then unsecured the painting on the wall space there. It earned her a few bemused looks, but enough people had been introduced to her already and she waved away a gentleman’s offer of help with a strained thank you, but no, and then balanced the piece in her arms carefully before shimmying her way to the ladies. If the young redhead couldn’t be around the art then maybe bringing some of the art to her could be helpful.

Lacey placed the piece on an unfolded towel she flicked out over the plush loveseat in the far too elegant ladies room, and then smoothed her hair back from her face. She beckoned her fellow redhead out slowly, beginning a well-rehearsed talk about the piece she had stolen from the wall. It was enough to coax Rowan out of the cubicle she was hiding in, and Lacey smile reassuringly at her. “If you want, you can stay with your cousin after all this is over, and look at everything when it’s quieter?” She offered. Sure there was the after party at the gallery, but Lacey didn’t mind missing that for someone who actually wanted to see the pieces hanging around the Empire State Building. She could say she was getting a head start on dismantling everything since she had the clearance to be there with the art. She spoke a little longer with Rowan, before letting her stay in the small office she had been using while all the set up was going on. It was silent in there, and Lacey had a few books on the artist for brushing up on her knowledge as the exhibition toured the city. It wasn’t much, but if it helped, it was better than nothing. Lacey quickly moved the art back to the empty space where it ought to be and then returned to Rowan’s cousin to tell him the plan she had proposed to the younger girl. “She’s having some quiet time in my temporary office back there. Is that okay? I offered to give her time to look and ask anything once the show is over.” Lacey said with a reassuring smile. She was happy to help, especially when she was helping someone who reminded her so much of herself years ago.

• • •

TAGGED! Damon Hugh Farley
WORDS! 811!
OUTFIT! Coy Curator!
LYRICS! C’mon - - - Panic At The Disco
NOTES! <3