Just What I Needed

by Lorelei James

  “Took a bite out of me financially, but not emotionally. I’m making calls this morning about a couple of pieces I finished last night.”

  “All right. Call me this week—any night but Thursday. Got a date with hot Irish rugby boy.”

  “Break him in gently.”

  “Where’s the fun in that?”

  After she left, I ditched my pajamas and put on real clothes. I’d just finished my short beauty routine (teeth brushed, hair combed) when the doorbell rang. I checked the peephole. What was she doing here?

  I opened the door. “Mrs. Stephens?”

  She smiled. “Surprised to see me?”

  “Yes. I don’t give clients my home address.” Or encourage them to drop by. I paused. “But since your husband declined to commission my piece last week, you don’t fall into the client realm.”

  “I don’t blame you for being bitter. But there’s a method to my madness that I’d like to explain. Do you have time to hear me out?”

  “I was just about to head to my studio. It’s around back.” I slipped on my flip-flops and stepped onto the porch, closing the door behind me.

  When we reached the studio, I punched in my code and the door opened. I led her to the small enclosed courtyard where I’d set up a fire pit (against city code) and a lounging area.

  “This is lovely.”

  “Thank you. Now, Mrs. Stephens—”

  “Please call me Esther.”

  “All right, Esther. Give me your spiel.”

  She drummed her fingers on the arm of the chair and stared into the cold fire pit.

  Her unease increased mine.

  Finally she spoke. “Michael’s dismissal of your proposed project last week was my doing. I’d made him think that your work was too left of center for my taste and I asked him to cancel the commission.” She looked at me. “I’m not a good liar, but I’m afraid I pulled it off too well with him. See, I’m a huge fan of your work. I picked up a piece in Santa Fe, probably seven years ago, at the Shifting Sands Gallery.”

  Somehow I hid my shock and managed to say, “A watercolor?”

  “And charcoal. I believe the piece is titled Desert and—”

  “Darkness,” I finished. “I always loved that piece.”

  “It just struck me, the complete separation of night and day. With the inky darkness at the top and the vivid colors of a reflective sun at the bottom. But, looking at it, you can’t tell if night is ending as morning approaches or if the day is fading into night.”

  “There’s no right or wrong answer—that was the point.”

  She nodded. “Stunning imagery. Anyway, Michael knew I liked your work and he recognized your name after seeing the Honor and Lies piece in the Federal Reserve building.”

  I’d created that mixed-media piece after being bombarded with images of memorials for victims of violent crime and the news headlines about combat-related deaths. Images from soldiers’ military funerals—distorted to protect their identities—were juxtaposed with flyers, pictures and notes left at the site where a violent crime had occurred on an enormous canvas I’d textured like cement. In the corners, I’d splattered red paint to resemble blood. I’d added shell casings, broken handcuffs, frayed sections of a discarded American flag, soles from worn-out combat boots, candles and teddy bears and love notes with lipstick kisses, handwritten prayers and camo material. The 3-D effect is startling. As your eyes search out specific images, trying to separate them into neat categories, the images overlap and it’s impossible to discern between domestic violent crimes and the results of international terrorism. That’d been one of the rare works I’d created out of my own frustration and anger. I hadn’t been trying to make a political statement; I’d been searching for answers.

  The only reason that work had made it out of my studio was my friend and fellow artist Nicolai’s insistence I enter it in a cattle call—an invitation for artists to display their projects for a limited time. Then businesses and gallery owners could browse and buy. I’d lived in the Cities for only nine months and was a complete unknown, both with my art and in the Minneapolis art community. So it shocked everyone when my piece was the only one that’d sold. The Federal Reserve purchased it for its local-artists wing. It’d been the single biggest paycheck of my career. I’d immediately put the money into updating my studio and purchasing supplies.

  Esther had stopped speaking while I’d been lost in thought, so I motioned for her to continue.

  “He contacted you to commission a piece for our upcoming anniversary. I planned to torpedo anything you showed us.”

  “Why?”

  “My husband is a wealthy man. He wants something, he buys it. So he’s impossible to surprise. I saw my chance to pull off the mother of all surprises. See, I want to hire you to do that mixed-media commission, not for our anniversary but for his birthday next month.”

  “Same design?”

  “No. Different. You can keep some of the elements he loved. There are certain textiles I want included, but the rest of it—” She smiled. “Get as edgy as you want. Just nothing lewd.”

  “Well, there goes my plan to stick a 3-D image of Michael’s head on a life-sized plaster cast of Michelangelo’s David.”

  Esther laughed. “It wouldn’t be anatomically correct.”

  Don’t blush. Don’t speak. Just nod your head.

  “I understand this will be a rush job, and I’ll make sure you’re well compensated.”

  “Define ‘well compensated.’”

  She gave me a number that made my jaw drop.

  “I can work with that.”

  “I thought you might.” She stuck her hand in her pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it over. “Forty percent down, thirty percent after design approval and thirty percent upon completion, correct?”

  “You did your homework, Esther.” The check was inside the paper, which turned out to be a copy of my rough draft for the piece rejected the week before.

  “You’re the artist. I won’t tell you how to do your job, but I kept this as a template, mostly so you know what the textiles are that I’ll be giving you.”

  I stood. “There’s better working space in the studio if you want to go over some of this now. Then I can have a mock-up to you by . . . Wednesday? And we’ll reconvene on Friday for the last draft?” I wouldn’t mention that even what she saw on Friday might not be completely what she ended up with. The best art wasn’t perfectly planned out.

  “Perfect.”

  Inside my studio, I unrolled a large sheet of paper and settled it on my drafting table. “All right, you start talking and I’ll scribble.”

  “Talk about what?”

  “Michael. How you met, what made you fall in love with him, where you lived, your kids, how you’ve been able to stick it out for almost fifty years, anything that will be useful to evoke strong feelings in him when he first sees this.”

  “I met Michael when I was nineteen and he was twenty-four.”

  “That’s basic, Esther—give me more intimate stuff. Like, he had the nicest buns, greatest smile, cheesiest pickup line . . .”

  “It wasn’t love at first sight for me. We were at a frat party and he copped a feel. Not me, but my best friend, Liddie. She was easily flustered so I knew she wouldn’t tell him to get his hand off her butt. So I moved in behind him and pulled his hand away. When he turned around, I punched him in the stomach.”

  I laughed. “Is that a story you’ve told your kids?” Right after I said it, I wondered how something like that would play out in my life. Yes, honey, the instant I saw your dad in that dive bar I was compelled to attach my lips to his and give him the hottest, wettest kiss of his life . . . before I’d even introduced myself.

  My hand froze above the drawing. What the hell? Walker and I had been on one date and the next day I was crafting “how we met” stories for our kids?

  Repeat after me, Trin. You’ve had one date with him. One.

  “Trinity? Are yo
u all right?”

  I managed not to jump when Esther interrupted my “one date” mantra. “Yes. I’m fine. I should warn you that I’m often sidetracked by the images in my head.”

  She smiled. “I’m honestly thrilled to be here seeing your artistic process firsthand.”

  “It’s more . . . controlled chaos than a legitimate process.”

  “Controlled chaos is a legitimate process if it works for you.”

  How sweet that she was trying to reassure me. “Chaos is a fickle mistress, so let’s crack the whip on her while I have her full attention.” I’d need every bit of focus this week to hit Esther’s deadlines.

  At the door, she said, “There is one more thing I forgot to mention. Dagmar Kierkegaard is a friend of ours. He’ll be at the party.”

  Dagmar Kierkegaard was a freelance art curator who had not only acquired pieces for the Walker Art Center’s permanent collection but also acquired for four galleries in Chicago, the Milwaukee Art Museum and galleries in New York and Washington, D.C.

  “Okay. And you’re telling me this why?”

  “Because this one time he’ll be your captive audience since yours is the only art he’ll see. Make it shine, Trinity.”

  No pressure.

  Six

  WALKER

  Right after I’d knocked off for the day, my cell rang. The caller ID popped up on my navigation screen and I poked answer. “Hey, baby sis. What’s up?”

  “I’m going to murder some family members and I need to borrow your backhoe thingy to bury the bodies.”

  “Am I on the hit list?”

  “Not unless you volunteered me for babysitting duty for dumb hockey players who don’t speak English.”

  “Who did that?”

  “Nolan.”

  “Annika, here’s where I point out you’re an adult and no one can make you do anything you don’t want to.”

  “Oh, really? If you could be doing anything else tonight, you still would’ve chosen to volunteer at the community theater?”

  “Yes.” I might’ve answered differently last week, but knowing I’d get to see Trinity changed things.

  “You’re not there at Mom’s command? Bull.”

  “We’re all at LCCO’s command. And we do get to choose.” Better this gig than the bachelor auction. No way would I strut around in a leopard-print loincloth, regardless of whether the money earned went to a good cause.

  “I have no problem giving time to LCCO, but this doesn’t have anything to do with community involvement. And I did tell Nolan no. The jerk went behind my back and enlisted Mom’s help. She told Nolan I’d be ‘happy in a clamshell’ to translate.”

  “Translate?” I asked.

  “From Swedish to English for hockey player number one. Nolan assumes I’m fluent.”

  “Uh, you are fluent.”

  “So are you, Mr. I-lived-in-Sweden,” she reminded me. “And Nolan didn’t call you to translate.”

  “Nolan hardly ever calls me for anything anymore. You work with him, so it makes sense he asked you.”

  “Except I’m not fluent in Russian, which is the only language hockey player number two speaks.”

  “You’re babysitting more than one?” I whistled. “That is asking a lot. Who are these guys?”

  “Friends of Jaxson’s. One of them is named Igor—probably the Russian. The Blackhawks traded him to the Wild. I don’t know the Swede’s name—probably something unpronounceable with twenty consonants—and he’s a recent trade to the Wild too.” She sighed. “And I shouldn’t know any of this news since I don’t give a puck about hockey, so will you please blow off your volunteer duties for one night and come to dinner?”

  “I can’t. I have to be two steps ahead of the artist, and we’re running night shifts on the McHenry job the rest of this week, so this is my only free night.”

  “Fine. Be upstanding.”

  “I don’t know any other way to be.”

  “Boring.”

  I laughed. “You done nagging me?”

  “Almost. Brady said I’m supposed to ask if you had any luck finding what you were looking for—whatever that means.”

  “Why are you asking me instead of Brady asking me himself?”

  “Because he and Lennox took off on vacation Sunday afternoon. I hate that you guys have secrets.”

  “And you and Dallas don’t?”

  She paused. “Dallas! Of course. I’ll ask her to be the fourth wheel at the babysitter’s club dinner.”

  “Good luck.”

  “I’ll call you later.”

  “Don’t. Seriously. I’ll be busy.”

  TRINITY

  Normally on a job like this I didn’t bother wearing makeup or fixing my hair. I put on my white painter’s pants, an old shirt, tossed my hair into a messy bun and I was good to go.

  But today I’d decided an upgrade from my usual sloppy look was in order. It made me hot all over whenever Walker’s lusty looks expressed his appreciation for my overly curvy body and I couldn’t wait to see it again.

  The actors were sitting in a circle onstage while the director paced around them outside of the circle. Nate gave me a chin dip in greeting and I cut through the auditorium to the backstage area.

  The door to my room had been propped open. I flipped on the lights and saw the specific paint colors I’d asked for lined against the wall. Canvas tarps had been spread out and the next pieces I needed to work on were stacked against the wall.

  Wow. That was a big stack. Walker had accomplished a lot.

  You’re slacking. Is that the impression you want him to have of you?

  My thought processes were skewed to the negative side. A trait I’d had since childhood. My stepmother chirped at me incessantly to think “happy thoughts,” as if that would alter my mood or fix me. I hated that they believed I was in need of fixing. I really hated they believed I’d succumbed to the brooding-artist stereotype. They never once considered I might’ve had a serious issue with depression. We didn’t talk about it after the one time I’d brought it up and my father lost his shit. He listed all the things I should be grateful for. He snapped that there was no reason on earth why I should be depressed.

  When I struck out on my own, I finally understood that my artistic gift had manic bursts of creativity followed by episodes where I couldn’t create at all. There was no magical formula to change that, so instead I’d accepted it’d always be a struggle to find the balance points between highs and lows.

  Gen was the only one I’d ever shared this with because it was intensely personal and to some extent it still felt like a flaw. I’d managed to mask that aspect of my personality during the few intimate relationships I’d allowed to last more than one night. I didn’t let lovers get too close—and the sobering part of that was that none of them had seemed to notice I wasn’t giving my all.

  “You’ve been staring at that piece a long time,” Walker said behind me. “Is there something wrong with it?”

  “No. I was just lost in thought.” I turned around. He stood back, his hands in the pockets of his jeans, a hopeful smile on his lips and wariness in his eyes. His hair was loose and it looked like he’d been running his hands through it all day. Oh, such lucky, lucky hands.

  “That happens to me too. Then I wonder where the hour—or sometimes half a day—went.”