Page 57 of The One Who Won’t Get Away
Three rings, then a receptionist picked up.I tried to sound casual as I said I was a new client.There was absolutely no reason to be nervous.I was just making an appointment, for fuck’s sake.
“Are you located in Philly?”she asked.
“Brooklyn,” I answered.“But I can do it remotely.Is that allowed?”
“Oh, yes.But I do want to make sure you understand your insurance isn’t likely to cover it, so we require payment up front.”
“How much?”I asked, feeling my stomach tighten.I had some money saved up, but it wasn’t much.This better be as I hoped, just asking for help with coping.One session.Two, tops.
She quoted a number that would have bought a week’s worth of groceries.Sounded awful, but booze wasn’t cheap, either, and it clearly wasn’t working.Painting at least paid for itself and then some.
“That’s fine,” I said.
My latest painting had better sell.
“The earliest opening is Wednesday, ten in the morning.Does that work?”
I said yes.There was a clicking of keys.“I’ll text you the Zoom link before your appointment.Anything else I can help with?”
“No.”
When I hung up, my skin was damp with sweat.I wiped my palms on my jeans, then started pacing the length of the office, a tight loop from the desk to the credenza and back.My eyes kept drifting to the painting, the way the red bled out from the bottle, saturating the takeout boxes.Would anyone actually buy it?
Sure, I’d sold plenty of my work before, but every time it shocked me someone would want to look at all the ugliness living inside me.
I was three circuits into my pacing when Lara came in, carrying a clipboard and wearing her “no time for nonsense” face.She stopped cold when she saw me.
“Isn’t this your day off?”she asked, arching a brow.
“Couldn’t stay away.”I turned to face her, and a fresh wave of nerves hit me.Would Lara like the painting?She usually did, and it had been one of the reasons I got this job, but still, this one was a lot.
She set the clipboard on the desk and came over, arms folded.Her gaze was clinical as she checked my work, lips pursed, tapping her bottom lip in thought.
“There’s something in the way you layered the red, almost metallic.It looks alive.”
“That was the point,” I said.
She stared at me a second longer than felt comfortable, then said, “This will sell.Especially if you have more like it.”
“I don’t,” I said.“It was a one-off.A bad day.”
Lara squinted an eye and looked at the ceiling as if the answer for whatever problem she had was written up there.“With the pieces you already have displayed and this one, plus a few we hadn’t hung yet, you almost have enough for a solo show.You’ll need at least seven more.Preferably twelve.”
My breath hitched.“That’s a lot of bad days.”
She allowed herself a micro-smile.“People pay good money for honest suffering.”She started scribbling something on the clipboard, then looked up.“How soon can you get me the next piece?”
I shrugged.“Depends on how often I spiral.”
Lara paused, her pen hovering.“Are you okay, Nadya?You look tired and a lot like you’re gearing up for a bender.”
“I’m fine, just didn’t sleep much on the train ride.”
She didn’t push.Instead, she set the clipboard down and started talking logistics—sizing, price points, framing, all the ways a gallery owner could break down a painting into its marketable parts.I listened, nodding at intervals, trying to keep my eyes from drifting back to the painting.
When my phone buzzed, I was almost happy for the interruption until I glanced at the screen.Vera.I loved my sister to death, but I had a bad feeling about this call.
“Sorry, I have to take this, or Vera will beat me with a celery stick,” I joked as I answered the phone and walked into the showroom.
