But Rachel had a feeling about this. “C’mon Tiler, what was it?  What did Carletti say about beauty?  Rian here can tell us if you don’t…”

The three waited, with Rian feeling nervous for her young friend.

In a voice that quaked in a manner Rachel had never heard from her assistant, Tiler responded haltingly, “Well … erm… Carletti said that beauty is the sum of parts working together in such a way that nothing needs to be added, taken away, or altered …”

She looked away, feigning an interest in something going on in the other corner of the sculpture garden. She half-noticed a pack of kindergartners had been let loose to run and play amongst sculpture that the museum allowed people to touch.  Their look of excited glee and shrieks of joy as they ran around playing a game of tag brought a smile to onlookers.

Tiler was obviously looking anywhere but at the women staring at her with varying expressions of surprise. She casually uncoiled her long form, and leaned back insouciantly on her arms – for all the world, keeping up appearances of being cool, calm, collected.

“So, he’s talking about something … or someone …looking perfect?” Rachel asked in a teasing voice, noting the careful attempt her young assistant was making to continue to appear unperturbed. “I wonder what made you think about that all of a sudden…”

Tiler breath out slowly. Rachel!  You’re poking at my ‘tude, girl!  What the …  Bah! What have I got to lose, anyway? My cool?  In front of this hot chick?  Fine.  So be it.

She turned to look directly at Jia. “Yeah … Carletti was referring to a standard of beauty, that powerful moment when an artist, with her last brushstroke, puts her brush down, and realizes there’s nothing to add, nothing to take away. Nothing to alter.  She knows that she’s finally gotten to that moment, that point in time she’s been waiting for, when fate brings her face to face with …. a beauty like no other.  For she beholds something that’s perfect the way it is.  And she doesn’t want to change anything about this work of art.  Not one thing.  Her head is spinning, the world is slowing to a stop.  She tries but she can barely breathe, struck by this beauty who is changing her world, transforming it….”

The pack of kids who’d been running around the sculpture rumbled past them in the ensuing silence, and one accidently nudged the rubberized end of the crutch Jia was leaning on.

In a split second the foursome realized what was about to happen, Tiler’s words forgotten in the tumult.  Three were momentarily frozen, and then, one uttered a heart-stopping cry, as Jia inevitably lost her balance, tumbled forward, thinking, “Oh, no, not again!”

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