Page 28 of Wants and Needs
I freeze and sigh, then look back at him.
“I’ll text you and let you know how many are coming.”
“Good.”
He nods like he’s doing me a favor, and I grumble as I finallyget out of the house and into the already way too humid and way too hot morning.
Good thing I always keep deodorant in my office.
Penelope and Lorrywalk me through what they thought of for our reorganization project of St. Anthony’s.
When CJ entrusted me with all the art the Clemson family had gathered for generations, I knew it was something that would always be more important to me than it could ever be to him. I appreciated his vote of confidence, and his gesture.
Because that’s what it is, a gesture.
I know it, he knows it, but nobody has said it out loud.
CJ couldn’t care less about these pieces of art. He honestly only cares about which charities get the money from the sales.
So when I asked if I could hire someone to help me, and he insisted on me hiring two people, I knew he also understood how important my other work is. Just two buildings down the block is Sculpt, Sebas’s gallery—Sebas caresa lotabout each piece that passes through his doors.
I didn’t have to wonder even for a minute who I wanted to hire to help me in this endeavor, and the only two people I tolerated from my master’s course were Penelope and Lorry.
They’re passionate, hardworking, and most importantly, ethical—yes, not everyone in the art world is ethical, and that includes some of our professors.
The reason for all of our early arrivals today is because wehave twenty new pieces—the last pieces—to hang up and showcase.
We’ve done amazingly in the last year, selling constantly and finding good homes for all these paintings and sculptures, and we’re almost at the finish line.
Thankfully, as soon as this is done, I’ll get back to normal management, and they’ll start the real work—finding more talent we want to showcase.
We’ve defined the brand of St. Anthony, and we’ve made sure to stick to it even while having art from different ages and with different styles. Now we have to find artists who fit that brand and who we want to promote.
It’s exciting, moving forward and making sure St. Anthony becomes successful even after we’re done selling all the pieces his relatives have been collecting for more than a hundred years.
What’s even more exciting is that the earnings the gallery makes from sales of new artist’s pieces will still go to different charities and causes CJ wants to champion. Our salaries are coming right out of the building’s earnings on rent, and so it’s already a pretty self-sufficient business.
We get to support newer artists and charities, which means we all feel pretty good working here.
Together, the three of us spend four hours moving pieces around and putting up new stands we’d ordered that will fit certain frames better, and by the time we’re done and we’re ready to open after lunch, I know I’m going to need a boost from MP—in the form of a scone and a tall coffee—before I go to Sculpt for what I call my late shift.
I’m in the back,working at my desk on the boring stuff, at least that’s what Sebas calls it, while he’s out front dealing with whichever customers come in.
Though I’m tired, I get this light feeling of accomplishment around five in the afternoon. It happens almost every day, and it’s one of those moments when I’m reminded that this was my dream all those years ago when I was about to graduate from college.
And it still is my dream.
I’m living my dream.
That doesn’t mean my life is perfect, it most certainly isn’t, but still... it’s an amazing thing to feel after an almost full workday. As soon as I’m done with these last two invoices to an artist Sebas selected to be showcased last year, whose last two pieces sold just last week, I’ll get to go home and?—
Fuck, I didn’t invite anyone for dinner.
And I also didn’t message Milton. I drop my head and groan at the empty room. How am I going to apologize accordingly?
I have no clue, but I hit call on his new number.
“Carter,” he says as soon as the call connects. He... doesn’t sound mad.
