You're about to read John Rich & The Big Picture, a very funny story about a very anxious man hurtling towards his soulmate at 200 mph.
At 28, John Rich is the youngest cover artist in the illustrious history of The New York Review. This means, every week, he draws a portrait of some notable person and this portrait becomes the cover of this very prestigious magazine. But when John is tasked with drawing the supposedly vapid (and obviously gorgeous) action movie star, Tyler Hughes, he discovers that Tyler is the one person he cannot draw.
Updates weekly.
✏️ start reading >> here
✏️ latest chapter >> here
You can also read the story online here: okjohnrich.site ✏️
FAQ under the cut. ⬇️
When does The Big Picture update? John Rich & The Big Picture updates on Friday afternoons.
Will you release this as an e-book at some point? When I'm done, yes, I'll release this novel in .PDF and .EPUB format.
People keep talking about taxes. What are the taxes? If you enjoyed reading this novel, you are legally required to pay the Friend Tax by telling a friend. Use lots of emojis and sound like you're going insane. (This helps.) Similarly, if you laugh at anything, you have to tell me in a comment or tag me on social media. This is the Laugh Tax. By paying your taxes you help me and others construct a non-monetary socialist gift-based utopia.
Follow the author on bsky, instagram, tumblr (main), and tiktok.
For several minutes, all he could hear was the high-pitched whistle of a tea kettle, and all he could see was the steam pouring out of his ears. Brenner wouldn’t. Would he? He’d made plenty of threats, but actually doing it—he would. Of course he would. A guy like him had simply been waiting. The last cover artist for The New York Review? John had been staring into the bathroom mirror in shock, stunned. He blinked, shook his head, and the steam and whistling disappeared.
While he had been fuming, Hunter and Jenny were dissecting the soon-to-be released email draft of doom: Hunter scrolling and frowning, Jenny sniffing and pointing. He heard phrases like “new developments in The Review’s internal structure”, “termination of current cartoonists’ contracts” and “consolidation of illustration roles”—each batch of words more barbed and soulless and corporate than the last. Hunter said as much in her ranting.
“Jesus,” she concluded, and then looked at John. “…how are you?”
The two of them stared at him under the hum of the bathroom lights while Catarina wailed in the rotunda. He inhaled, adjusted his bow tie, and pushed open the bathroom door. “I’m gonna take a walk.”
Hunter frowned. “Right now? Where?”
“I dunno,” he said cheerily and was out the door.
Below on the ground floor, Catarina beamed as she serenaded the crowd, sweet, swingy, and soaring. Along with the hundred other celebrities, Tyler looked up at her full of adoration. John spotted Brenner in the middle of it all, smirking in the darkness, probably thrilled at how smoothly the evening’s proceedings were going. Brother. John weaved through servers, producers, event photographers, lingering publicists floating over the attendees, never taking his eyes off the editor-in-chief. Maybe he should walk up to Tyler, kneel down, ask him out on a date, and then get out of here. No, I should go right up to Brenner, say something incredibly witty, and then leave. He massaged his wrist. Why not both? He’d need something legendary—something so stinging it would become Review lore, the kind of stuff historians gasp at in textbooks.
His feet had taken him to the larger bathrooms of the Guggenheim, the ones that weren’t single occupancy. Maybe the women’s room was the place where a bunch of startlets would crowd to get a viral selfie—there was a line forming at the door, but the men’s room was empty. As he pushed open the door, he collided with a brick wall.
That is, the man he walked into was as sturdy as one. When John looked up rubbing his wrist, he realized he was staring at one of Samwell University’s most famous alumni. Oh jeez, was he here with his husband as a plus-one or something? Was Geoffrey Brenner obsessed with a baking influencer? Was he secretly a hockey fan?
“Sorry,” said Jack Zimmermann, stepping aside. He was as wide as Tyler and had the same clear blue eyes—so was in other words, stupidly handsome in a tuxedo. He paused. “Wait. You’re the Cover Sessions artist, aren’t you? My husband loves your videos!”
“That’s me,” said John, with a small nod. He couldn’t do this right now. “Love your work. Your games. Your…skating and goals. And what you’ve done for the community.” John sighed, pained sympathy. “Let’s go…Samwell!”
He pumped a fist. Jack Zimmermann, confusingly, pumped his fist in the air in return. Panicked, he backed away and left quickly.
John turned and saw another familiar face.
“Dan? Your company works all of these events?”
The last time he had seen Dan, the bathroom attendant, was at the New York Review Festival after party, minutes before John had gotten ensnared in a viral pool party. He wondered if Dan’s corner of the Internet included stupid celebrity parties. He hadn’t changed a bit—it had only been six months—but had ditched the small mustache. A shame. John thought that mustache charming. He greeted John with a genial wave.
“Oh shit,” said Dan. “What’s up boss? You see Jack Zimmermann? Nice guy.”
“I did,” said John. “How’s it been?”
“To be real with you?” Dan sighed and shook his head. “Not great.”
“Really?” John leaned against the counter.
Dan looked up at him guiltily. “Yeah, you know how it is…I messed things up with my girl. I missed this big party she helped put together for her cousin? Because something came up at work. She worked hard on it too…”
“That's tough,” said John, clicking his tongue.
“She's patient with me too, which makes it worse. Because this has happened a few times. So I’m trying, but you know?”
“When did this happen?”
“Last night. I don’t know what to do, man.”
John crossed his arms. “I’m the last person to offer anyone advice, but do you want my advice?”
“Please.”
“First of all, say you’re sorry, buy her flowers,” said John. “Second, work’s important, but she’s more important, so it’s priorities, I guess? Because I think stuff like that—you make mistakes again and again and you figure out what you actually can’t lose. It’s why I stopped drinking. Well, not exactly the same. Also, I probably replaced drinking with a different addiction—Garfield collectible merchandise. You know the orange cat from the newspaper comics?”
“Oh yeah, Heathcliff?”
John frowned. “No. Anyway. Just my two cents. Get a second opinion though. I look put together because I’m wearing a tuxedo but I’m a complete wreck.” Dan laughed. “Seriously, I’m broke. Man, how much did you say I should charge famous people for portraits? Ten thousand? Do you want to be my illustration agent? Ten percent commission—no, fifteen. For you, Dan, fifteen.”
Dan laughed again. “Damn, priorities. You're right. I gotta get my priorities straight…You had a drinking problem? For real?”
“I know. I look like I can't hold down apple juice.”
Dan laughed again. “You're quick, man. You should do comedy.”
John laughed with him, but then really thought about it. With a loud crackling buzz, a lightbulb went on over his head.
“Sorry about that broken lightbulb,” said Dan. “It’s been like that all night.”
John snapped his fingers. He should do comedy.
John reached into his tuxedo jacket, pulled out a few dollar bills. Suddenly, every system in his body was coming online from a surge of adrenaline.
“Dan,” said John, “I only have four dollars. And a nearly complete punch card to a cafe in Greenwich.”
“Yeah, man, it's okay,” said Dan. He held up his fist. “You don't seem like you're wealthy or anything. Plus, you didn’t even pee.”
John fist bumped him, put the cash on the tray next to—Jesus, how much did Zimmermann tip? “Good luck, Dan. God bless you.”
He sprinted out of the bathroom and into the rotunda to a burst of applause.
Catarina launched into one last song, and John stared at the stage. Okay. All right. How bad could this all go? One half of his brain was telling him to text Tyler “are you free for a drink?” and leave; the other half of his brain was shorthanding a script, and highlighting punchlines. John loved a tightrope walk, the thrill of a performance, but he had not prepared, had not run any of this through. If he bombed it would be bombing on a live telecast of thousands of people—and before hundreds of celebrities. A big chunk of Hollywood and New York City’s elite art scene was sitting in those delicate chairs. If he didn’t bomb…
He glanced at Tyler.
John simply decided that he wouldn’t.
John walked up to Danielle. Catarina's voice carried high into the rotunda, and as he got closer, he caught Brenner’s eye, smiled—Brenner smirked back—and lightly grabbed Danielle’s arm.
“Hi,” whispered John, leading her along. A huge applause broke out as Catarina bowed under the spotlight. “I need you to take me up to the stage while talking into your headset the entire time.”
Danielle scurried with him. ”Why? What the hell are you doing?”
“Because you look like you’re in charge and people are scared of you,” he panted, putting her in front of him like a shield, “and just trust me.”
As they walked, Danielle put her hand up to her headset mic and frowned but walked fast, the crowd parting as she held out her clipboard.
Clapping guests stared at them as they marched around the Cover Sessions setup. The camera was trained on the stage, broadcasting live to hundreds of thousands of people—perfect, no pressure. When they reached the stage, John adjusted his tux, walked past a Guggenheim Social producer, who also had a headset and clipboard. They were about to ask why John was going on stage—when they took one look at Danielle and stepped aside.
“Thanks, Danielle,” John said.
“I had nothing to do with this.”
John planted himself at the foot of the stage, just as Catarina was coming down the stairs, and she stopped in her tracks. He leaned in to whisper in her ear, heart thrumming in his chest.
“Hey. Can you do one more song?” he asked.
She bolted up straight, but leaned in to whisper again. “Yes. Oh my God, of course. An encore? They want me to do an encore?”
“Yes,” said John, “but I’m going to give remarks. But you guys can go right into it after that, okay?”
Catarina nodded, gesturing for the drummer and guitarist of the band to stay. “I had no idea you were going to talk to everyone.”
“Yeah, neither did I. May I?”
John held out his hand, and Catarina placed the mic in his palm. He tapped it. Heavy. Hot. Good. He had one foot on the stage when he turned back to Catarina, covering the mic. “You were phenomenal by the way.” Then he took another step into the spotlight, and faced the hundred-something-person crowd of artists, actors, pop stars, professional athletes, unwanted billionaires, and staffers of The New York Review. Tyler Hughes was at the first table, and looked up at him, surprised and delighted. John, butterflies in his stomach, smiled back.
John Rich had been very good at standup comedy. He knew this, because people reacted to his comedy the way they reacted to his drawings—with recognition. With art, this meant leaning in, staring, going “ah!” and with comedy, laughter. Yes, John was an awkward anxious wreck six days out of seven, and yes, he had once combusted after Tyler Hughes called him a nickname, but on stage he had it figured out. Nothing could touch him. Not only did it all feel right—the weight of the mic, the sound of his voice, the knowledge that everyone in a room was listening to his clever thoughts; it felt deserved. They should be listening. Because if the ideas in John’s head were funny to him, they’d be funny to anyone else too. He was not just going to be fine—he was going to be more than fine. He was going to kill.
Because John Rich, at any moment, had a deadly five minutes.
“Hello, Guggenheim Social,” said John, voice echoing loud through the rotunda, “can we get another round of applause for the effervescent Catarina Harlow!”
A roaring applause erupted before John even finished his sentence. Of course. If you’re sitting in the crowd at a fancy gala and a man in a tuxedo tells you to clap, you’re gonna clap. The lights were bright on him but he could see, at a table two rows back, Geoffrey Brenner sat up—frozen. No, Jeff, this wasn’t on the schedule. John had to move fast.
“And keep that going for the amazing emerging artists whose work we’re here to honor tonight!” He raised a hand and, like puppets, they clapped again.
“Welcome to the Guggenheim Social, an event organized by The New York Review and Audre West Entertainment,” said John, words falling out slowly, clear, without a stumble. “My name is John Rich, and I do covers for The New York Review—”
The first bump of this set: John was not expecting the applause here. Hooting and hollering broke out amongst the tables. He felt his eyebrows shoot up, and leaned into the expression, lowering the microphone in stunned silence to get the first chuckles of the evening. They cheered louder. Hunter stood at the edge of the rotunda, scrambling for her phone to start recording, and cheering her head off like everyone else. John smirked and brought the microphone back up to his lips.
“….I do covers for The New York Review,” said John, drinking in the pause and waiting for the applause to fade to silence, “but you might know me from, oh you know, falling into two feet of water last year.“
There it was. That first honest pop of laughter was like catching a warm breeze and riding it right up into the sky. The virality of the fountain incident was worth it. Oh, he was flying. He was a mile over Manhattan. They didn’t just like him—they loved him.
“If you’re wondering,” he continued, smiling wide, “people see me on the train, and they still ask me if I’m okay after that fountain thing. And I say ‘no’, but then again, was I ever really okay in the first place?”
Again, they chuckled, all adoring grins as far as he could see. He had some tried and true bits—things he had repeated a million times at dinners and at the barbershop and whenever people asked him how he liked his job. He trotted them out one by one, because from there John knew it: this crowd was going to eat up everything.
“Before we bring Catarina back onstage, I wanted to thank you all so much for being here tonight. We’re here to celebrate art and culture in New York City, which is what The Review is about.
“You know, I love being the cover artist for The New York Review. Because it’s a job that shouldn’t exist. Every magazine in the world puts celebrities and super models on their covers, but we at The New York Review said, ‘you know what’s way hotter than that? That’s right….tasteful drawings of experimental poets.’
“For someone like me, it was either this or become a courtroom sketch artist, which I would be very bad at. Because I would not pay attention. If someone was wearing a bad wig, that’s it. That’s the drawing. Lumpy head? I’m locking in. ‘Oh, sorry, I did not draw the defendant during the moment of sentencing, I did however draw a juror whose head was oddly round. Did anyone else notice how round that guy’s head was? Just me? I’m fired? That’s fair.’
“You know, The New York Review gets a bad rap for being too intellectual, taking itself too seriously, being too intimidating—which isn’t true at all. So to completely change our image, we hired Geoffrey Brenner as editor-in-chief—”
It was all John could ever ask for: a burst of laughter exploded from the back—from the Audre West employees, and was echoed by the knowing crowd. A diplomatic smile flitted to Brenner’s face and he clapped, but he stared daggers into John. John gave him his biggest shit-eating grin. Making Geoffrey Brenner publicly uncomfortable at his own gala checked off a huge box, but John couldn’t help it. He kept going. “People don’t know this but he has a great sense of humor, he is just really good at hiding it.
“But I am here today,” said John, for the first time, a tremble entered his voice, “to make an announcement. Maybe I should say I loved being the cover artist for The Review, because I am resigning.”
The crowd hushed. John swallowed, his mind going blank with what to say next. There. He said it. That would be the headline from this entire evening’s affair. You can’t fire me, Geoffrey Brenner—because I quit. Sweat prickled at his back, and the mental script he ran through had no more words. All he could hear was the tinkle of wine glasses and the increasing murmur from the audience, who was suddenly realizing that none of this was planned.
“I-I am resigning,” John repeated, but forcing a smile, forcing control back into his voice. He looked down at Tyler, who was staring back at him, hand covering his mouth, waiting for John’s next words. John took a breath. “And I’m announcing it here because. Well, someone told me that doing it at the Guggenheim Social would be the best way to get booked for weddings and barmitzvahs for the rest of the year?”
Now John laughed—from relief—because the museum was laughing with him. They were back. “Bachelorette parties? I have no other skills. Dear God, please hire me. My email is [email protected]—I lose access on Monday, seriously.”
“Artists, we do this—this.” He gestured to the building and the exhibit it housed. “Because if we don’t, we’ll die. It’s that simple. You wake up compelled to figure something out about yourself, or the world, or someone else. We do this to survive. Art should be something that we use to reach out to one another and to understand one another. And I’m glad to have been part of something that has connected so many people.
“The last thing I’ll say is,” and he paused, “I do wish that I had gotten more cartoons in the magazine, but it’s really hard. Like, you think Review cartoons are hard to understand—I don’t get them either. Anyway.”
John's wrist was starting to throb in pain. He realized he had been clutching the mic with a deathgrip, like someone was going to wrest it away from him.
“Please enjoy the evening, please enjoy each other, and please, for the love of god, enjoy all this goddamn art.” He waved. They were already applauding, and he shouted over it. “Thank you. Catarina Harlow one more time, everyone.”
He bowed.
The rotunda erupted into applause, and when Catarina met John at the stairs to the stage, she beamed. She threw her arms around him, and they kissed cheeks. “Oh my God, you’re hilarious!”
”Th-thanks,” he said. Uh-oh. His tongue was starting to feel like it was made out of a sock. He had to get out of here. “Go and kill it.”
He jogged down the steps and through a sea of clapping hands and gowns and tuxedos and smiling mouths.
“So sad you’re leaving The—”
“Wonderful speec—”
“Ruff!”
But he couldn’t stop. His retinas still stung from the stage lights and he swam through a sea of dark blobs and pinpricks of candle light as Catarina launched into another song. He heard Hunter shouting over the crowd, saw Danielle swearing at him and shaking her head, but he could feel Geoffrey Brenner moving to intercept him, only slowed down by the dozens of dinner tables and celebrities between them. John got to his drawing table, realized Danielle must have moved his sketchbook and briefcase elsewhere, snatched up his pencil bag, put it in the pocket of his tuxedo, and wove through the crowd of event staff until he was at the side entrance and out of the Guggenheim. He set off down Fifth Avenue at a brisk walk then a jog, sidestepping a screeching taxi as it wailed at him, and running across the street as annoyed bikes clanged their bells. He ran, breathless, until he was drenched in the darkness of Central Park.
He opened his phone to text Hunter:
me: Had to stepnoutsee you after yhe show ?
Jesus Christ, he couldn’t type—his entire body shook from the post-adrenaline comedown. He walked fast through the park. This wasn’t a daydream. This was real. He tried to pocket his phone, but his shaking hands missed his pocket and it clattered to the ground. He stooped down to pick it up, and that’s when he heard behind him, faint at first.
“John. John!”
John turned around.
Someone was running after him in a cream-white tuxedo.
John stared, as Tyler Hughes jogged through Central Park, illuminated by lamp posts and darkened by tree cover again and again as he ran up to him. John watched, panting, and set his jaw to keep it from chattering.
“Oh my god!” said Tyler, when he had reached him. “I’m lucky as fucking hell that I found you. That was insane! Did you really just quit and run out of there? You’re really not cover artist or something?”
“H-how—how?” Make your mouth move normally, John. “How’d you know I’d take off for the park?”
Tyler shrugged as they walked side by side. “I dunno. Hunter was looking for you too, but she went off toward Madison. That took huge balls, mate. Oh my god. Everyone was talking.”
“Did it seem planned?” John asked.
“Maybe but—it also absolutely did not. Which made it all the more impressive. Holy hell.” Tyler’s smile faded. “You alright? You're shaking.”
John stopped walking.
He had already done one scary thing that evening; two wouldn’t kill him. Plus, Tyler wouldn’t let him die. Even though everything felt right, and he knew what he knew about Tyler, the what if? still frightened him. His stomach dropped. His heart pounded. His hands trembled.
“Tyler, last year, when we were in your apartment after recording,” said John, “d-did you want to kiss me?”
Tyler was quiet. He looked at John, hands in his pockets.
“Yeah, I did,” he said softly. “Why?”
The answer made John’s head swim, and his hands rattled even more. Go, he told himself. Do it. Be honest. Don’t be an idiot about it. He took in a breath, and nodded.
“I should’ve just kissed you, then,” said John, "and I wanted to. But I—I get scared sometimes. Anyway.”
There was the scraping sound of asphalt under his dress shoes as he turned to face Tyler, and there was a spark when his hands settled on Tyler’s waist. John pulled Tyler close and kissed him.
He felt the scratch of Tyler’s beard, but his lips were warm and soft and gentle. Tyler shifted, and John felt a hand cradling the back of his head, an arm wrapping around his back. There was a puff of cool night air between them before Tyler found John’s lips again, and again, exhaling against John’s nose, thumb stroking the back of John’s neck, and John felt like every firework from New Year’s Eve was going off in his body. Because Tyler was kissing him. John could taste the wine from the Social, smell his cologne, feel the weight of his body against his—
CLING. CLING CLING.
Tyler stepped aside and jerked John with him.
The bike bell waned in the distance, but the delivery guy looked over his shoulder and bellowed. “Fucking bike lane!”
“What?…Come on!” shouted John. “What the hell!”
“Stupid!” shouted the guy.
“For the love of—we were kissing!” shouted John right back. He stepped away from Tyler. “It’s Central Park! We were making out! Ever heard of fucking romance?”
Fading into the darkness, the guy flipped him off. John rolled his eyes.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” muttered John. John squinted. “Wait a minute. Was that the same guy? From when we were walking through Washington Square Park? No way. No way!” He turned to Tyler. “I think that was the same—”
His words were lost on Tyler’s smiling, laughing lips. ✏️
=
previous chapter < start > next chapter ("John’s")
=
✏️ Author's Note
Have feelings??? SIGN THE GUEST BOOK! Still have feelings??? COME BACK AND READ THE COMMENTS.
i need you to tell a friend bc i wish ten thousand more people were reading about this stupid cartoonist finding love
guesses for the next chapter? There’s only 3 left, people. what other important plot points need to happen hmmmmm
laugh tax please
i’m abroad while updating this so please excuse the millions of typos i will correct them in america!!!
revising the last chapter and having many john/tyler thoughts. spoilers it's a romcom they become romantic partners
I was reading a GQ article on how big celebrities slowly introduce who they're dating to the public. Tyler tells his agent that he's seeing someone, it's pretty serious, and that person is famous YouTube personality and cover artist for the NYR, John Rich. His agent (who he's had since he was 20) just wants Tyler to be happy, but also knows because of how viral John and Tyler's interactions have been, this has the potential to be a big deal. (She also knows that Tyler has a history of dating fucking assholes and is a little wary of John, but she's not Tyler’s mother and it could be *worse.* Tyler had a two-month thing with a shit indie director with a massive ego...anyway.)
John has a panic attack when Tyler gently suggests the idea of them doing a pap walk. A pap walk! Just him and Tyler cozied up while getting groceries or kissing at a cafe or coming back from the gym holding hands ("Gym???" "No. I'm sorry. Just a suggestion—" "—this involves me doing deadlifts??")
John doesn't want to do a pap walk. He doesn't want to be part of a bunch of subtle instagram posts that millions of people speculate over. He also doesn't want to sneak around New York and Los Angeles, and has no idea how famous people do any of this! (Tyler internalizes all of this, lol.) He kind of just wants to get it over with. They're dating. They like each other. You're gonna see them arguing about Run Club Savannah on the streets of New York City and it will sound like a legitimate argument; who cares.
Tyler eventually goes "fuck it" and (with John's permission) makes an Instagram post on John's birthday. It's a bunch of loving candid photographs of John with the caption
"happy birthday, my love. You make me laugh more than anyone else."
(Does he turn off the comments or does Jules leave a comment that says "I FUCKING KNEW IT" that gets 10K likes?) Meanwhile John comments with "lucky for me you're an easy laugh". And idk they disappear for 4 weeks while the internet breaks.
The way the energy is building up as we near the end is so exciting! I love John as a messy protagonist and also the way he lets his assumptions about Tyler serve as a way to protect himself from his own feelings and has since DAY ONE is so good. I just reread the Fountain Incident and DAMN. It's all there.
I have completely lost the plot on the release schedule though. Once a month on Fridays- Does that mean our next chapter is in June?
Looking forward to seeing how John navigates his feelings (both about Tyler and his career). Thanks!
You've "lost the plot" on an update schedule because I’ve abandoned the update schedule. 😅 The next chapter "Tight Five" will go up May 29 unless otherwise noted, and the chapter after that June 12. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Ngozi I need you to know that I made John and Tyler on my Tomodachi Life island and Tyler immediately got a crush on John, literally the moment they met
Biblically accurate depiction of Tyler Hughes meeting John for the first time
JOHN RICH & THE BIG PICTURE ✏️
Chapter 17 - The Guggenheim Social
John Rich blinked up at the grey Brooklyn sky, and as the pain set in, the one thought that ran through his mind was my drawing hand.
“John! Shit…” Above him, footsteps creaked on rackety metal, and Tyler must’ve done his best impression of Jacob Raw scaling down that fire escape, because he was at John’s side in seconds, and breathless. “Are you okay?”
With Tyler’s help, John wobbled to his feet, his heart thrumming in his chest. His left wrist felt like that guy’s foot at the end of Misery, but when he pulled back his jacket sleeve, everything seemed fine—other than a huge red bruise forming under his palm. Tyler exhaled at the sight of it, his fingers grazing the skin. John yanked the sleeve down.
“Oh yeah, I’m fine,” said John. He picked up his briefcase with his left hand, winced, and grabbed it with his right. “Looks like a gnarly bruise though. Jesus, how embarrassing. First a rash, now this, wow. Listen, I’ll head out and ice it.”
“Seriously, John, you’re as white as a sheet. Let me go—”
“—no,” said John. He stepped back. “I’m fine. Thank you. I’ll see you around, okay?”
John was halfway around the corner when Tyler spoke.
“No, we won’t.”
John turned.
“We won’t see each other around,” Tyler repeated. God, he looked like a screenshot from some Nordic crime procedural, standing in that grey and weed-infested alley. He put his hands on his hips and grimaced at the ground like some unnecessarily hot, bearded, plain-clothed detective frowning at an off-screen corpse. “Shooting’s done. I’m out of town for work. I’ll be leaving New York by the spring. I—we…”
“…the Guggenheim!” offered John. “I’ll see you at the Social next month.”
“Right,” Tyler agreed, “guess so.”
Professional, John thought, keep things professional. So he walked up to Tyler and—awkwardly, because he needed his right hand to hold his briefcase—stuck out his left hand for a handshake.
“Great working with you,” said John. He smiled.
Tyler looked down at the hand, like John was handing him a rash-inducing Garfield scarf. He shook his hand.
“Yeah,” said Tyler, “it was great.”
It was the opposite of their first handshake. That one had been caught on camera, streamed to millions, and was full of bravado and raw strength as Tyler pulled John in. This time, Tyler’s hand was gentle and loose, careful with John’s grip, a ginger lingering goodbye. He wanted to take a snapshot of Tyler, but his brain still wouldn’t let him, because he still could not draw him. How could he ever capture the furrow in his brow, the shape of his downcast gaze, the hard line of Tyler’s mouth? It dawned on John that a sudden absence of laughter was about to hollow out his life. It stung worse than John’s wrist.
“See you around,” said John.
“Yeah, I’ll—” started Tyler, but he swallowed whatever he was going to say “—see you.”
John waved—winced—and swore. Tyler pointed helplessly, like that was proof John was not okay, but then John began to…
…whistle. Yeah, that felt like the right thing to do. He whistled. Tyler stared at him. John saluted, backing out of the alley, before turning on his heel and marching off with a spring in his step.
When he turned off Bushwick, he flexed his fingers and ow—ow—oh my goodness this was not good. None of this was good. Why did it feel so bad saying goodbye to Tyler when it was the right thing to do? He was saving himself months—years of being miserable over a guy. He had learned with Shawn. He was growing. It wasn’t Tyler’s fault that he got bored of people, and it wasn’t John’s fault that his heart had the structural integrity of a Fabergé egg. Is this what maturity felt like? Doing the smart thing? The bitter-tasting thing? Knowing that something was simply not meant to be?
He walked faster through Brooklyn, skipping with every other step, as the pain in his hand and heart ached more and more. He kept whistling a cheery tune; it was the theme song to The Mary Tyler Moore Show, because, oh boy! Today? He could turn the world on with his smile! He walked until his whistle turned into a hum, and until his hum into short sweaty grunts. He walked while gritting his teeth and singing, “You’re—goonna—maake it—after arrrrgh.”
When he reached Broadway with its bustling pedestrians, and was far enough away from Tyler to hear, John let his briefcase clatter to the sidewalk, bent over slowly in front of a bodega, and gripping his left hand with right yelled:
“MOTHERFU—”
—as the J train roared above him on the elevated line and a flock of pigeons exploded into the air.
=
The urgent care doctor said that if he’d had fallen in a slightly weirder position, he would’ve gotten a hairline fracture. So John should consider himself lucky: His wrist hurt like hell, but his left hand—his drawing hand—would only be living in a splint for four weeks.
When Susan Rich got the news, she was distraught, but was telling John to look on the bright side by the end of the phone call: “Oh my dear. My dear. Well, look at Frida Khalo! Look at how she metabolized pain into exploration…No, sweetheart, I’m not comparing you spraining your wrist in Bushwick to a streetcar accident in Mexico City…But you could take up photography. Filmmaking! Sculpture…Fine. One-handed sculpture. I’m just trying to help.”
When John texted Shawn, he discovered that Shawn was…headlining two shows in Toronto. Randomly. And sure, he answered John’s texts seventy-two hours after he had sent them, but he cared. Sort of. “Please take care of yourself, john…Let’s link up when i’m back? lord of the rings joke we worked on killed.”
When John finally heard from Tyler on Monday morning, it was an uncharacteristically brief text.
Tyler: I heard about your wrist. You okay?
John stared at the message in bed. He wanted to tell Tyler that he was not okay. In fact, he wanted to be on a cold late-night stroll through Central Park, with Tyler’s arm warm around his shoulder. He wanted for them to be together, for Tyler to never get bored of him, and for Tyler to kiss his aching wrist and make sad little faces while they walked. He wanted to complain about how much it sucked to not be able to hold a pencil. He wanted to explain how he’d drawn every single day for the last twenty-one years of his life, because when he was seven he learned that being an artist was something you could do for money, so he needed to get good at it. By the end of their Central Park walk, he wanted to be laughing with Tyler about something stupid; maybe Tyler would be narrating the inner monologues of the squirrels.
In reality, John answered Tyler’s text immediately.
Me: I am! Thanks for checking in.
He tossed his phone across his duvet.
The Monday after the disastrous, final Big Picture session, John finally told the editor-in-chief of The New York Review that one of his cover artists would be out of commission for four weeks—four.
“Two weeks,” said John with a sigh. He made a big fuss of pushing back his suit jacket sleeve and fastening and unfastening the straps of his splint. “We’re lucky it isn’t longer or I’d have to miss the Guggenheim Social. Hard to discreetly sketch about the evening when you’re yelling in pain.”
They were in an emptying conference room after an early morning meeting on the aforementioned Social: assignments on attending guests, discussions about the event’s online presence, and an all-hands-on-deck breakdown of the evening. The night would be everything John dreamed of when he got the gig as cover man for The New York Review, and exactly the place he wanted to be: in a tux, around amazing art, while nursing a non-alcoholic cocktail.…Even if Tyler Hughes was no longer planning on attending. One of the Social producers announced this along with other changes to the laser-focused guest list, and John sat there, jaw set. Good. One less thing to agonize over. After the meeting, Assistant Jenny collected the spread of old Review issues fanned out on the wide conference table before Brenner. As Brenner signaled for Producer Danielle to stay behind, his eyes narrowed on John.
“I have a cursory knowledge of sprains and fractures,” he said. “It is remarkable that you’ll be fully recovered so quickly.”
John shrugged. “What can I say! I drink chicken soup like it’s Gatorade. It’s disgusting.”
“Well, we are lucky,” continued Brenner, standing, “because there has been a change in plans. You will be doing live portrait drawing at the Guggenheim.”
“…Uh oh.”
“What?”
“Nothing! Amazing news. Shit.”
“What?”
“Everything is fine.”
John hummed in panic.
“Filmed like Cover Sessions?” asked Danielle. John could see the producerial gears whirring in her brain.
“Yes,” sighed Brenner, “filmed like Cover Sessions, but part of a live telecast. He looked at both of them. “In fact, call it a return to Cover Sessions, if all goes well.”
John promptly forgot about his wrist. “Wait, really?”
“A change,” said Brenner, “one…of many.”
“Not ominous at all,” said John.
“Genevieve,” said Brenner to Assistant Jenny, “send Danielle the museum’s atrium layout, and connect her to event coordination. And John—I’ll let Clyde know you’re up to the task.”
”I will be up to the task in two weeks,” said John, as Brenner and Jenny brushed past him. “Two weeks! I will be fully recovered and churning out portraits!”
“Of course I lied,” said John later that day, from the comfort of his own drafting table. On a chilly evening in the West Village, John had just finished a slow, squiggly, right-handed portrait of Hunter. They were all crammed into John’s studio: Hunter carefully perusing John’s Garfield collection while Yohel stirred a curry in the kitchen. Two more people were all you could fit in a cramped studio like John’s and both stopped to stare at him.
“You lied about your recovery time?” asked Hunter. “John.”
“Yes, yes, I know how it sounds, but I can do it. And I’ve got a great backup plan. I have two entire weeks to learn how to draw with my right hand.” John swiveled around on his stool. “You’re giving each other those little glances that mean you think I’m being delusional. I am not being delusional. I, John Marshall Rich, am not a delusional person.”
“You once said you could keep up with Mohammed Ali in an interview,” said Hunter.
“I absolutely could, if it were a topic we both knew about. Maybe he liked Garfield.”
“John!”
“Geoffrey won’t let me go if I’m not recovered, and he certainly won’t let me draw live portraits if he knows my wrist is healing.” He stood up, tearing off and re-fastening the straps of his splint. It was becoming a nervous tick. “Every cell in my body needs to make art, okay? Yes, under normal circumstances I have the constitution of a Victorian child, but if I want to get better and draw, I will get better. Look.”
He picked a yellow #2 pencil up from the sill of his drafting table, and with his left hand, closed a trembling fist around it, but even flexing his pinky and ring finger sent a bolt of pain up his arm. He frowned, his arm shook. The pencil clattered to the wood floor.
“Stop,” ordered Yohel, snapping off John’s stove, “before you injure yourself again, fool.”
Yohel had insisted on making them all dinner when he had heard about John’s wrist, and had argued about it until John gave up. He was at the stove with a kitchen towel over one shoulder, like some gorgeous domestic god, one Superman curl falling across his eyebrow. John gazed at him. Maybe John could figure out how to run a kilometer and then he and Yohel could date. While Yohel handed Hunter a bowl of curry and rice, John snatched up the pencil, put it behind his ear, and held up his squiggly portrait of Hunter.
“Okay, well, at least I can still draw. See?”
Hunter frowned at the portrait. “This is sad.”
“No it's not! It's happy!” He brought it closer to her, pointing. “See, your proportions are all there. I got the rhythm of your braids, and your eye shape, and the angle of your nose. See?”
“It’s all wobbly, John. It looks like I’m underwater.” She tilted her head ninety degrees. “I look like Leonard DiCaprio fading into the depths of the North Atlantic. Didn’t your mom say you should take up pottery or something?”
“Aha! I have done that too. I made the three of us.”
John pointed to the Garfield shelf. Sitting there were three lumpy ceramic faces of himself, Hunter, and Yohel. Hunter yelped. Yohel leaned over the kitchen island and whispered something in Spanish.
“What’s that English story where there’s an ugly painting that someone owns of themselves that keeps the person beautiful?” asked Yohel.
“The Picture of Dorian Gray,” John replied.
”I want that ceramic.” He pulled out three bowls. “Curry is ready.”
His shoulder sank. This was a foreign feeling. Making art that was apparently “bad” was not something he did every day. Instead of lingering on that, he turned to his Garfield collection. It was nice having people over who had seen the mass of Garfield merchandise before and were no longer surprised by it. Nevertheless, Hunter and Yohel did have completely different relationships with the collection. Like right now, Hunter was carefully looking through it. Every time she came over, she picked a random plushy and it would be hers for the night. Tonight she grabbed a Halloween Garfield and tucked it under her arm. Yohel on the other hand would ask about new pieces, and discuss the eBay battles that John had endured to win them. Made sense; Yohel was a guy who owned at least forty X-Men figurines and was proud of his curation. He even complimented John’s rare non-suit outfit: a vintage white Garfield T-shirt tucked smartly into high-waisted jeans. John took the steaming bowl of curry that Yohel placed in his hands.
“I’m very appreciative,” said John, “but you guys didn’t have to do any of this.”
“We did, actually,” said Hunter. “I feel terrible. If you had told me that you were meeting with a reclusive artist in Bushwick, I would’ve told you not to go.”
“It is proven that home cooking will make you feel better,” said Yohel, who in another life had finished med school. “I am creating an environment where you can heal your ligaments and draw Garfield again. Planning any retail therapy?”
“You mean eBay auctions?” John glanced at the still-broken ceramic bowl and thought of Shawn’s pained laughter. “I’m down-sizing, actually. This smells like heaven, Yohel. Thank you.”
“Anything to see you to a fast recovery.” He sighed as he squeezed in next to Hunter on the small couch. He ran his hand through his thick black hair. “Even watching reality programs. Now let’s sit down and visit the horrible women.”
“Yes, yes, yes!” said Hunter, clapping. She opened her laptop as John slotted himself in next to her. Season four of Run Club Savannah was cued up on the screen. “Do you need a refresher?”
“No,” muttered Yohel, “I think about the narcissism of these women every day.”
“You know what?” asked Hunter. “Let’s interrogate this misogyny, Yohel. It’s a lot.”
“The only misogyny in this room is the internalized misogyny of the Run Club Savannah police state. John, you have a text.”
Hunter picked up his phone and John let her. He wasn’t going to read the texts anytime soon. She read aloud. “Aw, he’s letting you know personally. ‘Tyler Hughes. I wanted to let you know that I won’t make it to…’ Dammit, the notification disappeared.”
John buried his face in the curry. “Yeah, that sucks.”
“That more than sucks. It’s huge news. I wonder…”
She hummed and searched for something on her phone. Yohel, annoyed, reached over to the laptop to tap play on the episode. She swatted his hand with the Garfield plushie toy.
John’s phone buzzed several more times during the episode, but he did not answer them. Instead, he started on some wiggly, right-handed sketches of Helen and Jeni, wobbly text reading, “it’s not about qualifying Helen. I swear to you, it's not.”
=
On the first Friday in March, John Rich got a fresh new haircut, dabbed on his suavest cologne, put on a jet-black tuxedo, tied a black bowtie, clasped on his sleekest watch, slipped his pencil bag and sketchbook into a black briefcase, and descended the stairs of his apartment with pep in his step; it was the evening of the Guggenheim Social and he looked like a million bucks.
A million and one.
The pre-party anxiety that roiled in his stomach was exhilarating; he liked knowing that he was about to perform, to do something high-stakes that only he could do. The tightrope walk of returning to Cover Sessions—and making it perfect—while celebrities milled around him and he quipped and drew three portraits on the spot, live? He’d knock it out of the park. His mind drifted to Tyler Hughes, but he flexed his wrist to cut the rumination off with a dull ache. Whatever. Underneath the perfectly tailored tux and crisply parted hair he wore his lucky Garfield underwear, which was like his lucky Garfield tie, but far more powerful. As he bounced down the last steps of his apartment staircase, he thought one thing:
Tonight was going to be perfect.
Mrs. Tuk burst out of her apartment. “John.”
“Mrs. Tuk,” started John, spinning around, gesturing at his tuxedo, “not now. Can’t you see I’m dressed to the nines? Off to rub elbows with the stars? Tracy baby, please, I gotta make tracks!”
She glared. “Do not call me Tracy.”
“I’m sorry,” John said, deflating immediately.
“It's just two walls,” Mrs. Tuk pleaded. “It will take you one hour, including clean-up! I need your eye. You have good taste. You're a painter!”
“Mrs. Tuk,” he said, pushing open the front door, “when I paint, it's portraits, on canvases, for weighty sums.”
“I'll give you a month off rent.”
John turned around. “Two months.”
“One and a half.”
“One and a half months, and you let me cat-sit your cat.”
She frowned. “But that’s more work.”
“Take it or leave it, lady!”
She shrugged and they shook on it.
“This week?” she asked, still holding his hand.
“No.” He was out the door.
John was hoofing it to the intersection when Mrs. Tuk yelled after him, “have fun at your dance!”
John opened his mouth to correct her, but instead sighed, hailed a taxi, and was swept away to the museum.
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum sat at the eastern edge of Central Park, between 88th and 89th Streets, and the traffic from the Social stretched far down Fifth Avenue. John hopped out of his cab on 82nd Street and headed north as the sky melted into dusk over Manhattan. The commotion of the red carpet built as he got closer and closer to the museum, until he was weaving through shiny black sprinter vans and limousines, blinking into the firework of camera flashes, and lost in the hubbub of event coordinators shouting over publicists, who were shouting over photographers, who were shouting over a hundred ticketed fans at the barricades.
John had no intention of walking down the red carpet, but as he closed in on the museum and the crowd erupted with cheers and applause, he couldn’t resist turning to see who was exiting the latest private car. Well, he’d be damned. He watched as Bella the TikTok dog skipped down the carpet, wearing a bowtie. Geoffrey Brenner had curated an excellent guest list. At a side entrance, John flashed his Audre West badge and slipped through security and more stressed event coordinators. Then the roar of Manhattan traffic and museum crowd faded into warm jazz and light soiree chatter, and John was inside the Guggenheim Social.
If you’ve never had the chance to visit the Guggenheim, the most important thing that you need to know is its central architectural feature is a gently sloping multi-story ramp that swirls up through the main gallery. You start at the bottom, and wind up and up through the atrium, stepping into alcoves and looking over the wide-open bowl. For the Social, three emerging artists were presenting an exhibition and their works were scattered up the ramp. What was normally a well-lit gallery was dark for the dinner, and the fading light of the evening fell on the dozens of tables dotting the rotunda, each set with spring florals and twinkling candles.
Milling about the tables and trekking up the ramp to see the art were the attendees of the Guggenheim Social, and they were like the invite list from The Review’s festival after party, but more refined and possibly even more famous: John spotted pop stars and their professional athlete plus-ones, a tech billionaire who was donating millions to the emerging artist fund, Pulitzer winners, famed Review writers, and at least three Academy Award nominees. There were designer gowns and tuxedos, endless introductions, and event photographers galore. Camera flashes went off on every floor of the museum as celebrities posed with the exhibit; if you weren’t looking at the art, you were looking at the crowd.
At the foot of the stage where a jazz band played and through the increasingly dense crowd of famous people, John spotted Danielle. She was in her final form. She wore all black, gripped a clipboard, and the headset at her mouth sat on helmet-shiny hair. She looked exhausted. Beside her—next to a professional cameraman and hauled all the way from the RCA building— sat John’s drafting table.
“Oh my God!” exclaimed John, coming right up to the Cover Sessions setup. There was a cameraman with a live telecast setup, a sound guy, and bright warm lights for the broadcast. He rolled the drafting table’s rusty T-square back and forth. “Did you really bring this thing all the way from the office? It weighs a ton.”
“It was in an email—never mind.” She softened looking at the setup. “It’s nice, isn’t it? Retro. How’s the lighting?”
John snapped on a desk lamp attached to the table and sat down at his stool. A sheet of archival Bristol board was already taped to the surface. He massaged his wrist.
“This is great,” said John.
“Can I set up my desk to the left? Then it’ll really be like Cover Sessions.”
John turned to find Hunter, absolutely beaming from being around this many famous people. She grasped a black clutch in manicured fingers, wore a semi-sheer black Tom Ford dress that showed off her abs, and looked like she had gotten hours of glam—her signature microbraids transformed into a wavy blow-out. She gripped him by the shoulders and fiddled with John’s black bowtie. “I know you always wear a suit, but you clean up nice, Rich.”
“Not too bad yourself,” said John, kissing her cheek.
She leaned in close. “I have some intel for you. Apparently, you will be drawing Helen Gardener.”
John barked out a laugh, setting out his sketchbook. “Fine. I mean, I hate her on TV, but I can draw her in real life.”
“Brenner is obsessed with Run Club: Savannah, and she’s launching a sunscreen line, so the Social is great press for her. Oh, look!”
Sure enough, at the proper front entrance of the Guggenheim, was Geoffrey Brenner. His black tie attire was a tuxedo jacket with black shirt, and his long locs were gathered solemnly behind his back. He was talking to Helen Gardener and someone who must have been the principal ballerina of the New York Ballet. His face was serene, excited almost—the angles of his face dulling into curves, the angle of his eyebrow less sharp. John found his drawing hand moving—carefully—across his sketchbook. He made the tiniest flick for Brenner’s ever-arched eyebrow.
“You know, bringing back Cover Sessions, putting you on the Guggenheim Social beat, and being into Run Club? That guy isn’t half bad.”
“Are you smiling at Geoffrey Brenner?” She leaned on his shoulder and shook her head at the drawing. “And drawing a flattering sketch of him? Jesus Christ. And with a bum wrist.”
John winked and twirled the pencil in his fingers, even though it pinched. He put an arm around Hunter’s waist.
“Never mind me, toots. You’re glowing. Let me guess, you ran into ten famous people in the bathroom?”
“The bathrooms up here are too small. But I’m going to hang out at the one downstairs. Apparently that’s where they do the bathroom selfie each year. But look at this place!” She looked around at the party, practically rubbing her hands together like a praying mantis. “We’re in the thick of it.”
It was glitzy—the pinpoints of light on the wine glasses, the attendees trickling down from looking at the art—and they were in the thick of it. The Guggenheim Social hosted by The New York Review in New York, New York, planet Earth. John adjusted his bow tie, letting the smirk trickle across his face. “Who am I drawing, Danielle?”
He pulled Danielle out of her conversation with the camera crew and she consulted her clipboard with a freshly printed out sheet of paper. “Rory Smith—some big sponsor. Helen Gardener—you know about her, right? And…” She frowned. “Tyler. Tyler Hughes.”
John’s head snapped up. “What?
Hunter’s eyes flashed. “How?”
“I know, that wasn’t in the email.” Danielle whipped out her phone. “No, no way.” As she scrolled, John saw her blush. “I missed an email—for once, from an hour ago. Audre West Entertainment, what the hell. I haven’t double-checked with his publicist—I can’t believe I missed an email.”
She was gone in a flash, wedging her way into the crowd.
“I guess he made it work,” Hunter said, where John could feel his stomach sinking, she was buzzing from the chaos. “Besides, this place is packed with voters for the Tonys. If I were his publicist, I’d make it work. I’d…Look.”
Hunter gasped. John looked over his shoulder.
He heard the flurry of noise from the red carpet outside and John knew that Tyler Hughes had arrived at the Guggenheim Social. Even in the dim light of the atrium, he glowed. John had seen Tyler in a suit at The Review festival, in a casual blazer at City Live, but Tyler Hughes in black tie was something else. He wore a light cream suit that fit his shoulders, and his hair was perfectly tussled, and as he looked over the atrium, John got every angle of his freshly trimmed beard. But it was his smile—that movie star smile—that knocked John on his ass even though it wasn’t directed at him. It reached Tyler’s eyes, thinning them out into sweet blue lines, and seemed to sparkle with a toothpaste-commercial ding! John watched as he melted Geoffrey Brenner into a flurry of pleased greeting, as every camera in the museum trailed after him, as everything slowed to a grinding halt on the Tyler Hughes event horizon.
Then they locked eyes.
From across the museum and through the crowd, Tyler’s smile softened. John held his breath. Could he read John’s mind? His stomach flipped, swooping up and then down. John breathed out one shallow breath and held up a hand to wave. Tyler laughed, and waved back then pointed to the drafting table. John looked down at it, smiled bigger than he had smiled all night, and nodded. Tyler gave him the smallest thumbs up, and was swept up in another conversation.
Slowly his smile faded. He turned away on his stool and exhaled, aching.
John Rich was in love.
He did not want to be. He thought the feeling would dull after saying bye to Tyler, but no. He was still very much in love.
He was also in trouble. How do you draw someone when there’s so much of someone? How do you capture with lines all the facets of someone when a squint shifts him from a hardened action hero to a curious actor? When the light falls across his cheek and it changes him from movie star to friend? A grin reveals a secret, a laugh shows how he must have laughed when he was a boy.
How do you draw someone when you’re head over heels in love?
“Hunter,” said John, quietly. He looked at the ground, swallowing. “I can’t draw him.”
“Pft,” she said, taking a picture on her phone, “because you’re injured? That’s your own—”
“—no, because—I can’t,” John said, grabbing her arm and shaking his head, “I can't. I don’t know how.”
He looked at her, and she searched his eyes.
“Oh,” she said. “Okay, well…if you’re getting cold feet, you should tell Danielle.” She glanced over to Brenner. “Because I don’t think Geoffrey Brenner is gonna like that the live broadcast for the Guggenheim Social stopped because you have big feelings for Tyler Hughes. Go find Danielle.”
John nodded. He stood up and rushed through the crowd, on the hunt for Danielle.
Maybe he should just let this happen. Tell Tyler he liked him—that he adored him. Let Tyler shower him with love and affection, and then let Tyler go. Just get over it. Why was he torturing himself like this? And what was an artist without a little heartbreak, anyway? After that, he’d be able to draw him. Okay, but what exactly would he say to Danielle now? To Tyler’s publicist? To Tyler? “Oh, sorry, I can’t draw Tyler Hughes because I’m hopelessly in love and see, like, a dozen people whenever I look at him. Maybe I could take a stab at it tonight, but could you give me two hours? Or maybe twenty? I’ll need a few sketchbooks.”
Or worse, they’d record and he’d be going viral for the next few weeks. “Did you see the newest Cover Sessions? It was at the Guggenheim Social! The Cover Sessions guy confessed his love to Tyler Hughes right there on the spot!”
He slipped out from the atrium floor, to the dim side entrance right off the stage, and sidled through dozens of frantic people with clipboards and servers with plates of hors d'oeuvres and bottles of wine. Where had Danielle gotten to? He was thinking this right as he bumped into Catarina Harlow.
“John!” she yelped before jumping up to kiss his cheek. “Oh my goodness. The bowtie! You look the height of glamour.”
“Same to you,” said John. He was not exaggerating. He couldn’t place the designer, but the shimmery slip of a dress reeked of couture and hung off Catarina’s body by a perilous gold thread around her small shoulders. She was gripping a microphone, and a makeup artist refreshed her highlights. Not only had The Big Picture interview turned into an invite to the Social, but the invite had turned into Catarina performing several jazzy numbers with the band. Close by, Catarina’s shark-like publicist was grilling an event producer. “If you’re warming up, don’t let me distract you.”
“No, please don’t go!” she cried. “Distract me? Talk to me, please, because I’ve warmed up so much I’m overheating. Besides, you’re the only reason I’m here! Well, you and that guy.” On tiptoe, she looked over John’s shoulder to catch a glimpse of Tyler Hughes and the halo of star power swimming around him. “God, Tyler looks great doesn’t he?”
John nodded. He couldn’t look at him. “He’s gorgeous.”
John stepped aside for a flurry of event management, and took a deep breath. If Catarina had hooked up with Tyler and accepted her fate, maybe he could too. He turned to her.
“How can you just be with him and then not be with him?” John blurted out. “How are you still friends?”
Catarina looked at him. “Be with Tyler?”
“Date him,” said John, shaking his head. “Sorry, I had to ask. I—I’ve heard. How did you do it? How does anyone just do it?”
“…date Tyler?” Catarina asked, frowning.
John watched a flurry of emotions pass over her face, a ripple through her eyebrows: confusion, surprise, amusement, and finally concern. With long gold nails, she gripped John’s tuxedo sleeve. “Oh, John, honey. Tyler and I have never dated.”
John froze.
“Really? But—” John thought about it. Oh, I heard a ton of rumors about you! Is that what you're going to say to a celebrity, John? “You guys are so…close.”
“He’s one of my best friends.” She shook her head. “John, no. Tyler…I'm not his type. Like. Not even close.”
“Wait.” John squinted at her. Then he looked around. He leaned in close and mouthed, “Is he bi?”
Catarina shrugged. Winced. Hummed.
Then John mouthed, “gay?”
Catarina inhaled. She nodded.
What?
“But,” John whispered, leaning in very close now, “what about Monica Grajales?”
Catarina gasped. “I love her! What about her? Oh, you thought they were—John... John. I thought you talked to Tyler about Sutton Foster.”
“He didn't date Monica Grajales?” John hissed. “I heard they hooked-up at City Live, they were inseparable—”
“Hooked up?” asked Catarina. Even though her microphone was not on, she covered it with her palm. “I mean he's obsessed with her, but they met the week before her seventeen-year-old cat died. They spent so much time together because he,” she sighed, rolling her eyes fondly, “drove her to pick up the urn. Or something like that, I think. Whatever it was, it was fucking annoyingly kind. But…” She looked John up and down. “I thought you knew he played for a different team. At least by now.”
“I mean, he told me…” said John, slowly. So he wasn’t serially dating people? Love ‘em and leave ‘em? John couldn’t stop now. He had to know. “One last question. As a friend of his. Sorry, if this is weird—but Tyler and Micah Andrews.”
“Yeah?” She paused for a producer to double check her microphone, then leaned in closer to John. “I mean, they broke up after that thing in Miami. It was sad, but I don’t think Micah was serious.” She sucked her teeth and shook her head. “Tyler really wants a boyfriend.”
John’s eyes opened wide.
He grabbed the doorframe of the side entrance.
He needed to sit down.
“Dear God, John, are you okay?”
“Break a leg,” said John, pulling himself up, “break your legs, break their legs—break everyone’s legs. Go on a leg breaking spree. Thank you, Catarina.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you!”
Then he ran.
Oh God!
John squeezed through the now dense crowd of celebrities—he might have stepped on the foot of a certain Academy Award nominee—and scanned the crowd as the host urged them to take their seats. He had to be around here somewhere. Near Geoffrey Brenner? Near the front? John didn’t know what he would do when he found him, but if he could just talk to him—pull him aside and apologize to him—explain everything to him—there. He saw the back of Tyler’s head as he was taking his seat right next to the stage—
—which was when Hunter grabbed him. She started pulling him away.
“Hunter, no. I need to talk to Tyler. I need to tell you something!”
“Later,” she said. Her voice was tight. “Follow me. Right now.”
She dragged him out from the dinner crowd and up the Guggenheim ramp, Tyler shrinking as they ascended and John protesting the entire way. “No, Hunter, if this is some celebrity gossip—I’ve got something better. Something big! Something just happened.” A smile took over his face. He stuffed it down. “This is important!”
“It’ll have to wait because I can guarantee you, you need to hear this.”
She yanked open the door to one of the tiny bathrooms and stuffed him in.
Inside, Assistant Jenny was in tears.
“Jenny,” said John, squeezing in with Hunter. The museum restroom was barely large enough to fit one human, let alone three. He blinked at her. She was also dressed in black, a simple jumpsuit, and her long body shivered as she leaned against the sink. She blew her nose into a wad of toilet paper. “Oh my God, are you all right?”
“John,” said Hunter, turning to John. “Yohel got fired.”
John gaped. “What?”
“All the cartoonists got fired,” said Hunter. “Geoffrey Brenner took them all off staff. Everyone—gone. Jenny just found out and told me.”
“I-I shouldn't have,” said Jenny through a sob. “He forwarded me an email to proofread and schedule—he does that all the time. But this one goes out tonight. I shouldn't have told you, Hunter, but I—I had to tell someone.”
Hunter fumed. “And it gets worse.”
“How?” asked John.
Outside there was applause and Catarina Harlow started to sing. Hunter exhaled.
“He’s getting rid of the position,” she said. “John, you’re the last cover artist for The New York Review.” ✏️
=
previous chapter < start > next chapter ("Tight Five")
=
✏️ Author's Note
How satisfying is it to see John to fucking realize that he can't draw Tyler because he's in love with him. [loading...Character arc at 90% completion.]
This chapter is a microcosm of John Rich & The Big Picture—John in denial and making bad decisions, Yohel and Hunter and Danielle and Mrs. Tuk, the Garfield collection, tailored men's wear, ART, and a storyline about John's career getting in the way of John and Tyler making out.
Can you tell we're in act III we've never been more in act III. John is literally in his final form, the Charizard evolution of John Rich—he's in a tuxedo!!!
this will never get published bc the guggenheim will never approve of this "this man is too stupid to run around in our museum even fictionally"
I feel like every chapter title is ominous lol...TIGHT FIVE??? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN??????
for somebody broken, will break it so...
hand & color practice... but it's @okjohnrich fanart!!
Loved the new chapter (what else is new), was ruminating on it, reading others' comments... and just, gah. My heart hurts!
The chapter title alludes to these three parallel moments already, all things that break. At first this started as a sketch of the bowl (rip), since it had such a striking visual in the text... but I wanted to include the other two moments as well. They all work well together as, like... three instances of unwilling vulnerability and shame, seeing the 'real' John, and being rejected/punished as a result. Some real 'I wouldn't like me if I met me' type self loathing, both warranted (insulting Tyler) and unwarranted (Shawn's judgement).
I would be so gutted in John's position, from the humiliation of the Shawn interactions, to shooting himself in the foot with Tyler, and finally complete self-inflicted tragedy with his wrist. I'm assuming it's his drawing wrist for maximum angst potential, which would just... ugh, I can't even imagine. When his career is already in a rocky and uncertain place. When it's all he has to distract himself from his shitshow love life. I'm in distress
ANYWAYS I wanted to practice hands, so hands I practiced. I wanted to use all the primary colors as well, so the lighting is inconsistent between Tyler and John's frames (since they're supposed to be like, within a minute of each other) but shhh it's for the aesthetic. Maybe the concrete is just really blue where John fell, it's possible...🤣
Bonus since I could not stop thinking of this meme while reading. It fits them both. From before the interview:
Tyler nodded, but gave John a look that he’d never seen before. It was confusion with little flecks of disappointment—a pout. It made John want to throw himself off the fire escape.
Hi, welcome to John Rich's Playlist for Hopeless Romantics!
From Samara Joy's album Portrait, this take on "You Stepped Out of A Dream" is suuuuch a sweet, bubbly, and flirty take on the 1940's jazz standard. It is also (QUITE unofficially) the theme song of John Rich & The Big Picture.
Can' t you see it playing through your head? John running after the train? (And missing it, obvi.) Walking through Washington Square Park with Tyler at an ungodly hour? Sketching on the J train as the sun goes down over the East River?
I'm really proud of this playlist! And excited for you to discover the rest of the songs! ✏️
"You Stepped Out of A Dream" as the theme song of this novel has shaped so many of the motifs. AUGHHH!!! Yes, I've listened to it maybe 1000 times, no exaggeration?
oh my god, you know what I've just realized? John is like...Carrie Bradshaw. Or some weird combination of all the women from Sex in The City. Or even a character from HBO's Girls. I guess I haven't ever written an irresponsible character who operates from a place of desperation and self-sabotaging insecurity. Who never once thinks "I need to become a better person." The fact that John has turned out to be Who He Is—is FASCINATING TO ME.
I'VE GIVEN BIRTH, AM MEETING MY CHILD FOR THE FIRST TIME, HE IS AN ASSHOLE
Bitty, for the most part, wanted to do the right thing and be as honest and responsible as he could. He's optimistic, friendly, and kind.
Chi-Chi, was extremely insecure, but certainly not self-sabotaging.
Molly (from Bunt) shows up with literal rulers in her arms—she's as responsible as they get, but naive and an idealist. But she's a lot like Bitty in her optimism and kindness.
Barda is extremely responsible, but her loyalties shift from evil to good.
Orion is fueled by, like, cosmic tyrant genes, but he's generally kind and noble.
John is just...a fucking petulant mess. Good for me, tbh, as an author?😅 New Character Type Unlocked?
JOHN RICH & THE BIG PICTURE ✏️
Chapter 16 - Hearts, Wrists, and Garfield Bowls for $400, Alex
THROUGH THE HAZE of half-sleep and in the darkness of the apartment, a phone vibrated. Then the dull blips of a text message—followed by another text message—cut through the silence. A gentle breath kissed the back of John’s neck along with a sigh. His bed creaked, two feet padded softly on the hardwood, and there was a shrill crack! This was the sound of ceramic shattering against the floor. John Rich shot up in bed, his spider senses tingling. He knew, like a mother knows when their child is in danger, that there was a disturbance in his Garfield collection.
Brown bangs grazed his eyebrows, and through them, he saw the salt shaker that Tyler had given him—he exhaled—was perfectly fine. Next, he saw Shawn Hendrix, shirtless, and standing over the split remains of a broken Garfield bowl. He held his heart and leaned into the mattress.
“Euggghhf,” John moaned. God, this was it, he was dying, he was having a heart attack. Had he been storing a part of his soul in this ugly bowl? Ow! “Aw, man.”
“Shit. I’m so sorry, John,” whispered Shawn, stooping down above the broken bowl, toes curled on the studio’s rough wood floor. Shawn was in dark blue boxer-briefs, and despite the mortal pain that had inexplicably beset John, he couldn’t help but follow the feather-light coils of chest hair that trailed down across dark skin and into those briefs. He couldn’t help but trace the swell of Shawn’s quadriceps, the curve of his glutes. He didn’t want to say that Los Angeles had changed Shawn, who had always been on the athletic side, but he must have been doing shots of beets and ginger or something.
The blackout curtains brushed the window frame, and a blade of light fell on the wreckage. It was January 1st and it felt like January 1st; the light piercing the dark studio was crisp, a new year’s light. At least four Garfield alarm clocks glowed 7:37 a.m. God, John needed a triple espresso. Or a casket.
Shawn lifted up a piece in one hand, and held his phone in the other. “I was just reaching for my phone…You gotta let me replace this.”
“I don’t,” began John, “I don’t think you can.”
Shawn went Phhhfeww. John didn’t know how to explain that, no, he didn’t find the Garfield bowl online. A little British girl had crafted it with her little British hands as a summer project. After that, her father brought the awful thing all the way to the RCA building without shattering it. It was one of a kind. It was the most beautiful thing John owned. It was irreplaceable.
But instead he shrugged and said, “Ahh, you know. Pft, it’s fine.”
“Really?” asked Shawn. “You sounded like your soul left your body.”
John patted the mattress next to him. Everything was fine.
Less than six hours ago, John had nearly been ensnared in a romantic vortex by world-famous movie star and flirt Tyler Hughes. He avoided this vortex by making out with Shawn until half past midnight, dragging the both of them into Sam Brother’s upstairs bathroom, parting Shawn’s lips with his tongue, letting his suit get wrinkled, and scraping his chin against Shawn’s beard until it chaffed. When they had first run into each other at that bookstore, John had traced Shawn’s shoulders with eyes; in the cramped bathroom, he ran his palms over them. He had catalogued Shawn’s outfit, his hoodie and jeans; now he grabbed at the skin underneath. He clawed under Shawn’s sweater with still-cold hands, and when they had warmed, shoved down the back of Shawn’s jeans, clutching his ass until Shawn murmured, perhaps impressed, “Okay.”
Around one in the morning, they’d taken a cab to Manhattan, and John watched Shawn perform in a packed comedy club. He was charming and electric and smart and fucking sexy for the new year’s show, smirking like a killer as the crowd shook apart with laughter. He sketched him as Shawn leaned against a mic stand and the late-show audience fell in love.
As they made their way back to John’s apartment, he did not want to think about Tyler. His mom had been right (Tyler liked him), Hunter had been right (Tyler had a track record with co-stars), and John had been wrong—he thought he could get out of a crush alive. What a fool! He had ignored the danger of having a heart that lived in daydreams and fairy tales; reality always caught up to his gooey machinations. You silly cartoon man, he said to himself, you were chasing one of your naïve crystalline happily-ever-afters—no, no. You’re safe here with Shawn. Intimacy with zero, crushing expectations.
They had barely made it past the second floor landing before John pulled Shawn in by the hips, uneven on the steps. They both stifled their laughter when Mrs. Tuk opened the door to investigate—and closed it again.
They kissed, gripping each other, and it was different from before, when they used to fumble around on Wil Diego’s couch after John graduated. Back then, John had been pining after Shawn for four years at Samwell and on The Bullet. Their hook-ups were dirty little secrets. They never talked about it. It was different now, and John wanted Shawn to know that it was different. He was different. He wasn't a pining sap, a kid. He was John Rich, cover artist for the New York fucking Review! A confident man who had his life completely under control! In the dark of John’s apartment, he had shoved Shawn back against his door, unzipped his jeans, unbuckled and dragged down his own trousers, and rolled their hips together until they were both panting and hard. When they were out of their street clothes and half-naked on John’s comforter, John offered, matter-of-factly, to fuck Shawn. “Like we did that one time, remember? It was humid, and the air conditioner wasn’t working in Wil’s apartment? I was sorta gassy? Wait, don’t remember that part. Anyway, would you be into that?”
This caused Shawn to question aloud why exactly John thought he had “pull.” Well, mister, John did. Because fifteen minutes later, Shawn Hendrix was swearing, moaning, and gripping John’s sheets, and learning that John—through the rigorous scientific trial and error of an anxious slut in his twenties —had gotten very good at pretending to know what he was doing in bed. It was enough to unravel Shawn. Most of the time, the guy was quiet, sexy, and assured, but he pleaded with John to “come on.” The only thing that felt better than how warm and soft Shawn felt around his cock, was the sound of Shawn swearing, maybe in disbelief, because John Rich actually knew what he was doing. They both fell asleep workshopping the stupid “Guy Doesn’t Go To Time Square Because His Brother Got Food Poisoning” joke. Shawn had almost got it to work on stage a few hours ago, but something wasn’t clicking.
Now, for the second time that January morning, Shawn’s phone buzzed. He glanced at the white rhombus of light glowing on John’s bookshelf.
“Sorry.”
“Your agent?” asked John, rolling over.
“Probably. I should check.” He patted John's ass, feather-light. “But don’t go anywhere.”
A minute later, Shawn was murmuring “yeah” and “okay” while a Charlie-Brown-teacher voice spoke a mile a minute on the other end. John scooted off his mattress, and stretched. A glimmer of light from the window fell on that damned Garfield salt shaker that Tyler had given him. Oh brother. Why hadn’t that thing fallen to the ground and broken in half? John scowled and yanked back the curtain, and a burst of white light from the new year filtered in…
…and with it, a burst of flaming orange on John’s shelves.
“I’ll talk to Val,” said Shawn, “I’ll call in a…”
In his underwear, Shawn turned, blinking into the daylight, eyes widening.
They darted from the orange shelves to the cartoon-cat poster—to John's 3XL Garfield T-Shirt. “Oh shit.” He shook his head and said into his phone, “No—sorry. It’s nothing. Uh. Actually. Can I call you back?”
Shawn hung up.
“Shit,” he repeated.
Usually, when John looked at the three shelves of Garf memorabilia his emotions ranged from (at best) delighted amusement at this sardonic cat to (at worst) unease toward the ever growing mass of orange stuff. Now a different emotion rose in him; it grabbed his lower intestines like an icy claw. He felt naked. Stupid. Sideswiped. He had mentioned to Shawn that he had stopped drinking, but he hadn’t mentioned to him that this had taken over his life. He threw up jazz hands.
“Um,” said John weakly, “ta-da?”
“It was dark so I couldn’t see...” Shawn moved back slowly, fearfully, like he was a paleontologist at a disastrous dinosaur theme park and the velociraptors had just found him in the kitchen. “Okay…you got a thing!”
“Yeah,” said John, “I have a collection. The bowl was part of it.”
“Oh, no, no! Don't apologize,” said Shawn, even though John had not apologized for anything. “I’ve got all of my sneakers in these plastic cases with LED lights in a closet? Collecting, I get it.” He pointed at John’s big Garfield shirt, and smiled weakly. “Sleeping gown!”
John looked down at the t-shirt, which hung off his lanky body and went down to his thighs. When had he even put this thing on? It was like he fell asleep in this cursed Garfield den and the shirt had enveloped his body like a Garfield chrysalis.
“It’s not a gown,” he complained, “it’s a T-shirt.”
“Sure, sure. It’s cool! Very cool, very Dickensian. A different style than usual for you like—Don Draper in the streets but Scrooge in the sheets.”
Then Shawn laughed—audibly.
It was a terrible sound, like a monotonous bird call. John wished he would stop. Shawn turned around.
“HOLY SHIT.” He jumped a foot in the air, took a step back, his bird-song laugh starting up again. He pointed. “Fuck, I am so sorry. Was that thing here all night?”
In the corner stood a large fiberglass Garfield sculpture. It was about the size of someone’s five-foot-tall girlfriend. John knew this, because when he picked it up from its previous owner, this owner said that the sculpture freaked out her five-foot-tall girlfriend. “She always forgets that it’s in the living room, so I gotta get rid of it.” The petite woman had eagerly helped dolly the thing into John’s apartment.
“Was that thing watching us?” asked Shawn.
“Watching us,” John shrugged. He threw up air quotes. “Watching ‘over’ us. Listen, Shawn…”
Shawn looked up. Down. Turned around in a circle. His eyes searched for more hidden, terrifying Garfs. With every turn, he glanced back to the three long shelves heavy with the weight of plushies and tchotchkes. Hundreds of hooded eyes stared down at him like spectators in a coliseum. He could see it in their dead white eyes—they’d kill Shawn. They’d smother him. John heard their cry for blood. John wanted to dive in between Shawn and the collection, to cover the Garfs up but also to protect his friend. Dear God, it was the bowl. They had seen what Shawn had done to one of their brethren. They wanted revenge; they wanted justice.
Shawn’s phone buzzed again. He answered immediately.
“Wow, okay.” Shawn stepped into his pants, pulled on his sweater, and collected his beanie. He turned to John. “Hey, you mind if I take this outside?”
“Go ahead!” John smiled.
As soon as the door clicked closed, John yanked the Garfield T-shirt off his body. In record time, he changed into a pair of trousers, a button down shirt and rolled up the sleeves, and pulled out a tie. Maybe not your lucky red Garfield one, Johnny boy! Not today! He found his fancy grown-up watch where he had left it while he and Shawn were making out. He rushed around his apartment, glaring at his Garfield collection, the manifestation of his juvenile obsessions. Dear God, Susan Rich was right again. She was always right! This collection was weird! It was the last thing an unsuspecting victim would see before a Garfield serial killer murdered them (lasagna asphyxiation). What was he a child?
He caught a glimpse of himself in his bathroom mirror, and did in fact see a child; bangs cascaded over his brows, softening his already soft features. He growled. John charged into the bathroom to tame his hair—and bustled right into his radiator pipe.
“Hrrrrgggfffhh!”
He thought he could smell the burning flesh on his forearms. John muffled the pain in his throat, but laughed. Because oh, yes, the pain was clarifying! He gazed at himself in the mirror. John Rich had pull?
His face was a soft oval. He had a tidy androgynous haircut. With his boyish freckles and tea-saucer ears and pink little mouth, he would have been the perfect casting for a kid in an ice cream commercial. That’s right, BOY #1 - VANILLA. “Yum,” sneered John into his mirror, but it was a yum of self-loathing. “Yum!” He combed his hair back, tousled it with product. Maybe men threw themselves at his feet the same way moths flew into lightbulbs and died.
When Shawn opened the door. John strolled back into his studio, completely calm, hands in his pockets, with a serene smile.
“Are you doing anything today?” asked John casually, cheerfully, delighted. Shawn wanted to glance at the Garfield collection, but John held his shoulders and steered him away from it. “I just made a new year’s resolution. Downsizing, dropping some of this stuff off at the Salvation Army. Haha! You in?”
“Sorry,” said Shawn. He glanced at his phone. It was a quarter ‘til 11:00 a.m. “This stupid television deal. We have a studio deadline at noon—”
“The television deal, of course,” said John. “Maybe lunch then?”
Shawn’s phone pinged.
“John, I’m so sorry. I gotta take this phone call.”
“Well, how long is it?” asked John. “We can get breakfast afterwards. There’s this barista you have to meet—”
“I’ll be on Zoom calls with the production company all day. This television stuff; it’s big, but it’s a big mess.”
John considered asking “did my Garfield obsession freak you out?” He wanted to show Shawn that people had bigger collections than he did, to prove that he wasn’t so bad, but his heart wouldn’t be in it. For there was no such thing as a Garfield collection that was too big.
“Well,” said John. “Nice hanging out.”
Shawn smiled too. “Yeah.”
Shawn put a hand on John’s hip and kissed him, soft. It was stupid that it gave John butterflies. It was stupid that a college crush could do this to him.
“You’re something else, John Rich,” murmured Shawn, tapping John’s chin with his knuckle.
“I know,” said John, “that’s the problem.”
Shawn laughed silently, squeezed John’s hip, and soon he was out the door. There was the sound of Shawn’s footsteps on the stairs, then a long pause. John held his breath. He heard a muffled, “hello?” and more footsteps. The creaking of the front door. The disappearing conversation. All of it fading into the bustle of the West Village.
John sighed in his empty apartment.
He picked up the Garfield bowl, broken in two pieces, and put it back on the shelf with the rest of his junk. It made a tiny clink.
Comment. looooove seeing this sweet side of Tyler! he’s alot more comfortable when he’s not answering questions to promo a movie.
Comment. Loved the interview, but @NewYork Review, how dare you use Catarina for clout in promoting your new series but not invite her to the Guggenheim Social. Shame. Edit: THANK YOU FOR FINALLY INVITING CATARINA!!!! QUEEN
Comment. are you kidding me Tyler Hughes & the cover sessions guy
Replies. 14 comments.
By the time Hunter set her laptop down on the kitchen counters in The Review’s office that Monday, the view count for the first episode of The Big Picture crossed one and a half million. Because outside of the star power of Tyler Hughes, it was a really good interview. Danielle left in that long raw clip of Tyler defending Catarina, and John’s candid monologue about loving a certain cartoon cat. In fact, it was such a good interview that Hunter and Yohel had to pause every three seconds to analyze it, huddled over her laptop, pointing and arguing like they were mission control at NASA navigating the moon landing.
Later, in an empty meeting room, John clicked a link on his phone and watched a viral clip of the cold open. The first episode of The Big Picture was doing numbers, but this cold open clip was everywhere. On his phone screen, Tyler and John leaned over Tyler’s yellow legal pad, bantering, smiling, touching—every titillating electric moment of the viral Cover Sessions interview came out in bursts thanks to Danielle’s editing. A thumb under John’s lapel. A hand on Tyler’s back. A smile across John’s face, boyish and giddy and wide. John Rich looked like he was on his goddamn honeymoon. John stared at all of it, a prisoner of his past affections. He frowned, pocketed his phone, and returned to practice sketches for today’s cover.
Drawing the cover of The New York Review, often his only solace when his love life imploded, was also not going great. In the middle of January, he finally met his apparent usurper Arielle Su. It was terrible. Because John instantly liked her. He had wanted to hold a petty grudge, but when she sat down in the office chair at the art meeting, she shrugged off a huge neon-red, knee-length puffer jacket. When she took off her beanie, she revealed a chic silver buzzcut. When she asked questions, she cut off Geoffrey with sharp, insightful inquiries. She jotted down all of her notes with a tiny, plastic, carrot-shaped pen. John gazed at her, charmed, fascinated, completely jealous.
“This is probably old hat to you, but assignments! I can’t wait to see what you’ll do with that director duo.” They chatted on the way to the elevators. John couldn’t help it: he asked about her studio, her collage process, her painting style. She answered with all the chill of a surfer who just loved a good wave. “And dude, I was obsessed with Calvin and Hobbes in high school. We should get coffee sometime!”
God dammit! He’d love to get coffee with her!
February rolled around, and winter turned Manhattan into a slab of icy concrete. With interviews of Catarina Harlow and Jules the Barista in the can, the last guest on The Big Picture would be Alex Fleming, the Australian painter with whom Tyler was obsessed. John couldn’t find anything about him online, other than a few cryptic interviews and blurry, pixelized self-portraits—the guy was a mystery.
Alex Feming’s studio was in Bushwick, behind a coffee shop the size of a closet, where John stopped to get a latte the morning of the shoot. As the espresso machine whirred, his phone buzzed.
The slot machine in John’s brain lined up three Tyler Hughes heads, but John couldn’t scoop up the gold coins that tumbled out. Their texts had slowed since the new year. Tyler was busy with some Jacob Raw post-production, and John was attempting to fall out of love. This meant no more yes-and-ing Tyler’s jokes, no more texting Tyler as they fell asleep, no more teasing. He would keep things professional. John sighed and looked at the texts.
Tyler: Phenomenal studio up here. AMAZING.
Tyler: You’re going to love this johnno
Tyler: Danielle nearly slipped getting to the studio, and told me to tell you because you’re a klutz?
Tyler: and apparently only respond to my texts?
Tyler: :D I’m honored
Tyler: well get up here, there’s a massive pyramid of paint cans!
…John would keep things professional. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t smile. John hid it behind a sip from his latte. God. Tyler fucking Hughes. Golden boy inspired by humanity. Honest weirdo who used emojis. Genuine man who thought everything was amazing…
…Serial flirt who was ruining John’s fucking life. He typed back.
me: I’m a klutz and you send good memes.
me: Where is this place?
The alleyway behind the coffee shop was empty save for iced-over weeds, a ripped-open garbage bag, and piles of empty spray paint cans. A voice came from above. Danielle stood out on a fire escape landing, and that thing could not have been up to code. She looked especially exhausted, black ponytail pulled tauter than ever.
“We’re on the third floor,” she called down. “Check your damn email, John!”
“Third floor…” murmured John, he looked at the rattling death trap in front of him, “…you guys climbed up this fire escape?”
“Yes, get up here.”
The peeling and rusted black staircase snaked up to the third floor. John took as many stinging sips of his latte as he could before abandoning the thing on the ground. He set one foot on the narrow metal stairs, climbed another step, and another, until he was at the second floor. The J train screeched a block over, and, peering through the grating, he realized that he did not have the goddamn constitution for this. The fire escape swayed and vertigo twisted the ground underneath him. If John fell here, he'd break something and have a terrible time on the way down. He gripped the railing, and kept marching up as the alley wind snaked around his ankles.
When he finally reached the third floor and found studio 7B, he found a forest of chaos. The floor was sticky with drizzled vines of acrylic paint, and covered in a lawn of empty spray paint cans. Last year’s calendar hung over a graffitied desk and stacks of art books sprouted around the studio like tree stumps. Canvases were everywhere. Amongst the debris, Danielle had set up an easel, a box light, and three stools in the center of the room, and perched on one stool was Tyler Hughes.
“There he is.”
Like a dust storm engulfing a defenseless corn farm in 1936, Tyler wrapped John into a massive, overwhelming hug. For a moment, John was frozen, brain forgetting strategy and body feeling the firmness of Tyler’s arms. How the hell did Tyler’s entire body feel like it was smiling at him—into him? Tyler laughed, squeezing him, lifting him clean off of his toes. He stepped back, beaming, running his hands up and down John’s arms, already chattering about a dozen things, and John smiled back, dreamily, taking him all in. Tyler rubbed his shoulders, ready to tuck his thumbs under John’s lapels for a massage—and John ducked.
“Cat is convinced it was you who got her the invite to the Guggenheim So—what are you doing?”
“Urmh” said John, straightening up. He backed into stool and it toppled over, clattering like a church bell. John set it straight. “Uh. I’m sunburned.”
Tyler frowned, hands frozen mid-air. “Really? In January?”
“Well, no, actually, it’s more of a rash.” John’s face crumpled and he nodded, shuddering. “A terrible rash. Like so much texture and oozing. I sent a picture to Hunter and she thought it was cookie dough.”
“Oh no! Your whole shoulder area? Are you—”
“—don’t.” John sidestepped him, lifting up his briefcase like a shield, this time knocking over an empty can of paint. “Don’t touch me. It. No one should touch the rash. We all must take necessary precautions around the rash. We don’t know if it spreads. It could take all of you down in minutes.”
Danielle frowned over at him from the second camera tripod. “Jesus, John. How did you get a rash?”
“I got this homemade Garfield scarf from Esty? I think they used an off-market fungal dying process, to make it, you know—orange. Anyway. The Big Picture?”
Tyler nodded, but gave John a look that he’d never seen before. It was confusion with little flecks of disappointment—a pout. It made John want to throw himself off the fire escape. Nevertheless, he stood fast, and Tyler gestured to the studio around them. “Well…welcome to the studio of Alex Fleming. How does it rank in terms of artsiest studios you’ve ever been in?”
“It’s…” said John, looking around.
It was not the artsiest studio by a long shot. Senior year of college, he had shared a studio space that was a biohazard. (Two words: mold art.) The problem with this space was Alex Fleming’s art wasn’t “artsy” at all. Canvases were everywhere, and a large one lay balanced between two sawhorses. It was just like the painting John had seen back in Tyler’s apartment—like if the worst frat bro you’d ever met decided he wanted to do Andy Warhol. The piece showed a dozen repeated images of a man shouting into podcasting equipment, layered over pink spray paint. The microphone was a penis. John hated it. It was the fine art equivalent of those Calvin and Hobbes decals. You know the ones? Where Calvin is mischievously peeing? People put them on their giant trucks? Yeah, those. It left a queasy feeling in his stomach as he questioned Tyler’s taste.
“It’s something,” John concluded. “Where’s our guy?”
Danielle sighed at her phone. “On his way. This Fleming guy is…uinque. He told us to set up if we beat him here because his studio is never locked.”
“Never locks his studio, doesn’t have a website,” said Tyler, cheery nature restored. He found this chaos intriguing. “I had to get his email from a friend of a friend of the guy I bought the paintings off of. He was cagey about this whole interview, but I’m not above begging. I’ve discovered that artists always want to open up, but it’s a trust thing.” He winked. “It’s like getting a cat to like you, you know?”
“Right,” muttered John, popping open his briefcase, pulling out drawing paper, and feeling like this was all about to go south, “you can lure most artists out from under a couch with deli meat.”
“Dali meat,” said Tyler.
John suavely covered up a yelp of laughter with a cough.
Usually, John was in awe of Tyler’s ability to make people like him, but it was irksome now, this self-assuredness, this need to get people on his side. Was this why the guy was an actor? He needed people to fall in love with him or he couldn’t sleep at night? Tyler’s way of going about this was off, the art was off, this space was off. Nothing about this interview felt right.
Right on cue, there was a clatter at the door, and leaning in was Alex Fleming.
“Hi.”
Danielle gasped and toppled a tripod. She picked it up, slowly looking from Tyler and John to Alex—and back to John. And then back to Alex. And then back to John again. She looked like she’d seen a ghost.
“Oh. Hi,” she said, “are you…Alex?”
“Yes,” he said, cigarette dangling from his mouth. Alex removed a small canvas from his backpack. “You’re in my studio, aren’t you? Whoops. Shouldn’t smoke in here.”
He put out his cigarette in an ashtray right outside the door. Alex Fleming was a tall white guy with messy brown hair. A baggy black skateboarding T-shirt hung off his skinny body, and black tracksuit bottoms were tucked into his socks. John immediately clocked the guy as loaded, because his simple outfit was entirely designer, and he carried himself like every oblivious trust fund baby he had known in college. That’s how he was able to make a living in New York City hawking gaudy paintings. Alex Fleming was just rich.
But the strangest thing was that Fleming reminded John of someone, but he couldn’t place who. It was like looking at someone he was related to, and maybe they were, distantly. When the British were starving John’s great great grandfather’s family during the potato famine, one of the brothers must have hopped on a ship to go to America, and the other went down under. Fleming also had big ears and blue eyes and—as he walked closer through the piles of spray paint cans—John saw that he also had freckles. Same height, similar weight, but the number one difference…was his thick, push-broom mustache.
John tiled his head. Huh.
Alex stalked right past Tyler and Tyler’s extended hand, and went over to investigate the camera set up. “I’m guessing you’re Tyler.”
“No, I’m Danielle Allen, the producer,” she said, shaking Alex’s hand, “that’s Tyler Hughes.”
“Oh! You’re Tyler,” said Alex. Another thing John noticed was that Alex’s Australian accent sounded strange. Like it was using more vowels than necessary. The artist shook Tyler’s hand. “The guy who annoyed the shit out of me, emailing me twice a day. Who owns a painting? Movie producer? Or something? Or a lumberjack. Why are you so big?”
“I workout,” said Tyler, grinning? Blushing? John stared in disbelief. This guy hadn’t heard of Tyler Hughes? And Tyler seemed charmed by this man’s insanity? He felt this interview was going to go badly, but in typical John Rich fashion, it was going badly in terrific and whimsical ways. “Great to meet you, Alex. I’m a huge, huge fan of your work. Always great to discover Aussie artists. Oh! This is John Rich, he’s the cover artist for The New York Review. He’ll be drawing you today.”
John shook his hand. “You never lock your studio? What if someone steals all of your paintings?”
Alex froze, suddenly alarmed. “People do that?”
“In New York City?” asked John. “Yes.”
“I never thought about that,” said Alex. “That would be terrible. What do you do with your art?”
“…lock my door?” John offered.
Alex nodded slowly like John was explaining international banking.
“You had an assistant that I emailed?” said Danielle from behind the camera, flipping through a clipboard. “He confirmed that you got the info about the interview.”
“Oh, I didn’t get the info,” said Alex, “because I don’t have an assistant.”
“But someone responded,” said Danielle. “With a thumbs up.”
“Oh well! That was me. But I respond so that things don’t pile up in the inbox.”
Danielle made a strangled sound.
“Hey, so,” said Tyler, seeing the blood vessel popping in Danielle’s forehead and clapping his hands together, “let’s get started so we can get out of your hair, shall we?”
While Alex Fleming went to unload his backpack, team Big Picture huddled together, heads together.
“Unique was an understatement,” hissed John, “this guy has no clue what’s going on!”
“Right?” whispered Tyler in awe, “he seems lost in his art.”
“Oh my God, forget about any of that that. You guys seriously didn’t notice?” Danielle looked from Tyler to John. They shook their heads. She waved her hands. “He looks exactly like John! He looks like John, but if John had a fake mustache!”
“I don’t really see it,” said Tyler and John at the same time.
“No, no, no, wait, I can see it,” said Tyler quietly, “in the ears.”
“We can’t interview this guy,” continued John in hushed tones. He looked over his shoulder to where Alex Fleming was lighting a cigarette before absentmindedly remembering he couldn’t smoke in his own studio. “He looks like he barely has a clue what year it is, let alone what this interview should be about.”
“You don’t want to interview him?” Tyler asked. He seemed shocked that they weren’t totally aligned on this guy.
“Not particularly,” said John.
“Well, suck it up, because we have to get this episode edited by next week. The sooner you draw this guy, the sooner we can get out of here.” Danielle hit the record buttons on both cameras and shuddered. “Hurry up. I’m weirded out.”
The interview that proceeded was…weird. Not only had this Alex Fleming character never heard of Tyler Hughes or the billion-dollar Case Raw franchise, he was very cagey about where he was from in Australia. Like, Tyler couldn’t pin down his accent. His answers were spacey and vague, his art process completely random, and he seemed increasingly suspicious of Tyler’s curiosity.
The worst part was that Tyler loved this. He found Fleming’s aloofness and increasing irritability charming—elbowing John like, “can you believe this guy? How much of an asshole he is? How much of an artist he is?” When Tyler asked why Alex had stacked a bunch of semi-open paint buckets like a pyramid near the window, Alex explained that he had simply gotten bored. Tyler beamed. John’s pencil tip broke twice from how hard he was pushed into the Bristol board. Great, Tyler Hughes had found another person to win over—Another weird genius he had to impress. Another victim. By the time John was inking the piece, Alex Fleming had yawned twice, and asked how long the interview was supposed to last. John filled in the bushy mustache and capped his pen and was done. He nodded at the portrait.
This guy looked nothing like him.
Fleming walked around to John’s shoulder and looked down at the finished portrait. Danielle trained the camera on the both of them and Fleming whistled.
“Really dig your style,” said Alex. “Sorry, this place is so fucking dark. Can I take this to the window?” He gestured for the picture. “May I?”
John handed it to him. Even if Alex Fleming made a shallow critique of his work, it wasn’t like this interview could get any worse.
“There we go, we can see it better in the light…”
Then things got worse. It all happened in slow motion. Alex Fleming strolled across his studio, transfixed like Narcissus by the ink drawing in his hands, and when he reached the window, promptly stepped on an overturned can of spray paint. Before he knew it, his legs went out from under him. Before he could find balance, his arms wind-milled in the air. Before God could save him, he went flailing into the pyramid of paint cans, which toppled over him and the drawing with a loud, colorful, and goopy crash! Danielle, Tyler, and John watched wincing.
“My God, man,” started Tyler, pulling the artist from the wreckage.
“We got that all on tape,” breathed Danielle. “Dear God.”
“This happens more than you think,” said Alex, as Tyler hauled him up. He was drenched in paint and—John squinted—was his mustache slightly askew? “Oh, mate, sorry about your piece.” He tilted his head at the Bristol board, which was streaked in green and yellow paint. He hummed. “Well actually, somewhat improved it don’t you think?”
An empty bucket of paint rolled up to John’s shiny brown Oxfords.
“Yeah.” John jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “I’m gonna go.”
It’s not that John stormed out of the studio—he’d simply grabbed his briefcase and departed abruptly. He did not own any of the portraits that he drew for The New York Review, but it was admittedly annoying to see one destroyed—and that Tyler, again, was somehow involved. He pretended not to hear Tyler shouting after him.
“Wait, John! Would you wait? Hey—” Tyler caught him by the arm just as John stepped out on the windy fire escape. “Can we please talk before you just leave?”
“Sure,” snapped John, plastering on a smile, “do you want to talk about how terrible that guy was, or to explain why you wanted to interview him in the first place? Or should we debrief on how that was pretty much a waste of all our time?”
“No,” said Tyler, “I want to talk about what’s going on. Co-producer to co-producer. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“No,” countered Tyler, “you barely said a word during the interview. You sped right through that portrait. You’ve got this sudden and concerning rash that I’m only just hearing about. It’s fungal. Are you sure?”
“Yes,” repeated John, taking a step down the fire escape, “I’m absolutely fine. The paint fumes in that studio were slightly disorienting, so I had to get out—”
“Then are we okay?” Tyler put a hand on the rail and it shook the fire escape. “I haven’t properly heard from you since the holidays, and back there. Something’s off. I feel like I’ve done something wrong. Have I pissed you off somehow?”
John shook his head. “It’s fine.”
“No, John, I know you by now. Why can’t you just say what you’re actually feeling for once?”
“You know me,” John said flatly, mostly to himself. “Okay, so you probably know that I thought that guy was a hack, and super weird. And hated us being there, and one hundred percent hated you. Why did we waste our time on that, man? And honest question—why do you have to try so fucking hard to win everyone over?”
It was too much, and John could tell all of it landed right on Tyler’s heart. John watched him blink, hurt, as frustration turned to understanding. John opened his mouth to take it back, but Tyler spoke first:
“You think I try to win people over?”
“—that came out wrong,” said John, over him. He waved a hand. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair. You don’t—you don’t do anything, but be kind. It’s just that guys like that—some artists aren’t worth your time.” John sighed. “Just because they’re quirky, and hard to understand, and impossible to get a hold of, and assholes, you don’t have to—” John stopped himself. “Listen, we’re good. This is something we’ll laugh about, later, I’m sure. I’m sorry I was acting weird, but everything between us is copacetic, okay? I’ll see you around.”
Tyler looked like he wanted to speak, but did not—or could not. Professional, John reminded himself, and descended the fire escape, bravely, gripping his briefcase, like he wasn’t afraid of slipping and falling to his death. When John’s feet were planted firmly on the cold concrete, he hurried, kept his gaze on the horizon, rushing forward—and nearly stepped on an empty spray paint can. He looked down at it, and chuckled in relief.
Then he slid on a banana peel from the trash.
His briefcase went flying, he fell backwards, and when he landed, it was on his wrist, and with an audible crack. ✏️
=
previous chapter < start > next chapter ("The Guggenheim Social")
=
✏️ Author's Note
Thank you so much for reading this latest chapter of John Rich & The Big Picture—yes, that was John in a mustache. Like, if this were a TV show, it would be the same actor who played John, but wearing a fake mustache and doing an awful Australian accent. This novel had a world-famous TikTok dog as an integral part of the meet-cute it's weird.
At this point, how do we feel about John? Do YOU like John?
I feel like this doesn't read like a romcom because I have a B-plot (John's job) that has little to do with the #rom, and I really love chapters like this where were get to indulge in the #com. What do you think? Is this a romcom to you?
