That day he made sloppy joes. They weren’t on any menu on the bulletin board but were wonderful and made from leftovers that bore no resemblance to sloppy joes. He filled a bun and handed it to me. “Two pictures. You sold two pictures.” There was awe in his voice. “I’m in the wrong business. I should have been an artist.” He tilted his head in that unique way he had. “Except I have no artistic ability at all.”
I giggled, still flying high from the fact that Paul’s wealthy friend – the one that I suspected he cultivated because she could advance his career rather than because they were romantically involved – had bought two of my paintings. Two!
I enthused to Jase between bites. “She’s going to talk to a gallery owner she knows. There’s a show later this winter and she happens to know that at least one artist pulled out. She says there was an argument, which is pretty common in the art world. Anyway there’s now space for someone else’s pictures. Maybe mine.”
Jase blew on his sloppy joe and then ate it in one gulp and sighed in contentment because he likes his own cooking. “I think that if Sylvia Ullerman tells the gallery owner that she thinks your paintings should be included, they will be.”
He leaned across the table, sloppy joe sauce on the corner of his mouth. “That artist guy, Paul I think his name is.” I stopped eating, my sloppy joe halfway to my mouth, and waited. “I think he likes you. Sort of. Maybe.”
I examined Jase’s face for any indication as to whether this bothered him or not while mentally castigating myself for caring. “Though whether it’s because of your pictures or your red hair and green eyes, I can’t decide.”
He looked at me in a way he’d never done before, really looking, really seeing me. I felt his gaze clear to my toes and the warmth from his eyes spread over me like a blanket. “Too bad you can’t paint yourself. You’d make a great model.”
It took less than a day to clean the upstairs suites and get them ready for the next guests, who’d be arriving in a little over a week, but there wouldn’t be as many as there had been from New York. Still, they’d find lavender and evergreens when they arrived. The north woods would be with them all day and night.
A small business from St. Paul was bringing employees to the Center for a few days of recreation during the day and instruction in the evenings. We moved the couches to one side and filled the center of the main room with large, folding tables with a screen on one wall and a smaller table against one wall near the kitchen for coffee and snacks. It looked very businesslike.
Later I didn’t remember much about that group because, a week before they showed up and a bit more than a week after Sylvia Ullerman and her group had left, I got a call from her. Pleasantries took less than a minute. I’d noticed at the Center that she was phenomenal at cutting to the heart of any subject while being so diplomatic that her listeners thought they’d been chatting pleasantly forever. A real skill.
“Laurie, I hope you are willing to place some of your pictures in my friend’s gallery for a show.”
I gulped, took a deep breath and remembered how to speak. “Of course.”
“That’s good, dear, because you’re going to be getting a call from him.”
We spoke a bit more but everything essential was said and just as diplomatically and just as quickly as she’d started the conversation she ended it and, I was sure, went on to whatever else was on her agenda for that day. I hoped that when evening arrived she felt good about her accomplishments because I certainly did.
I told Jase in a daze that I’d have to pack a bunch of pictures so the gallery owner could have enough to choose from. He nodded. “And you’re going, of course.”
“Me? Why?”
“Because you’re the artist.”
“I don’t know anyone in New York. Besides, I don’t talk art-speak.” Then I had to explain what art-speak was and how important it could be to an artist’s future and that it was an ability I lacked.
When he finished laughing and had wiped the resulting tears from his cheeks he said that between us we could come up with plane fare and a hotel for a few days and then he suggested that I might bring a few brochures for the Center along so we could call it a business expense for both my art business and for the Center. Lots of deductions.
Jase was always the businessman, I decided, and was glad because I’d finally figured out that it was his hardnosed business sense that had made the Center successful and that my paintings on the walls were an asset that had somehow snagged the attention of guests from half way across the country.
Not long after my conversation with Sylvia Ullerman and the subsequent one with the gallery owner who, just as she’d said, called and after a long, detailed phone conversation that required me to snap photos of every single picture on the Center’s walls and a few unfinished ones in the bedroom/studio, it was decided that I should bring as many as possible because a second artist had cancelled and he had all kinds of space available. And because, though he didn’t say so, Sylvia Ullerman wanted them there.
As I stuck my phone back in my pocket I wondered if there really had been two cancellations or whether, more likely, Sylvia Ullerman’s money and influence had done their thing and he’d simply made space where there was none.
I shortly received a third call, this one from Paul. “I look forward to seeing you when you come.” I didn’t know what to say, how to interpret his words. “My works will also be in the exhibition, of course, so we’ll both be there to talk with prospective buyers.”
After a long pause, “Don’t worry, little Laurie, I’ll be beside you all the time and will kick you hard if you don’t say the right thing and convince everyone that you’re some kind of heretofore unknown genius.” A chuckle at the other end was followed by, “Prepare to nurse bruises.”
Jase heard all the calls, of course. The Center, though large, was mostly for guests. The spaces that Jase and I were normally found in were much smaller and we bumped into each other constantly. He kept quiet about the calls for as long as he could manage but he finally asked, “What were all those calls about, anyway? I know about the call from Sylvia Ullerman, of course, but you’ve been on the phone a lot and I suspect the people on the other end are New York types.” His lips pursed. “Is everything okay?”
I told him about the phone calls, even the one from Paul. Especially the one from Paul, watching for any signs of jealousy but there were none. Darn. He nodded pleasantly and said, “Nice of him to mentor you. One artist to another.”
I goaded Jase. “He didn’t seem the mentor type when he was here.”
“He was out of his element here. In New York it could be different, he’ll be in home territory.”
“I suppose so.” Disappointment cascaded over me like rain. Jase wasn’t even a tiny bit jealous. So did that mean that he wasn’t the jealous type or that there was no reason for jealousy?
Probably the latter. So thinking I once again shoved those odd feelings that were pestering me and trying to come to the forefront of my mind back where they’d never see the light of day. No reason for such thoughts because I wasn’t in love with Jase. Wasn’t. Not even a little bit and if Donaldo read something in those portraits that wasn’t there that was his problem. Not mine and I wished I’d get over my reaction to his statement sooner rather than later.
So thinking I whizzed through the next batch of guests and made reservations for a flight to New York and for my paintings to be shipped to the gallery and almost died when I found out what shipping cost and then I looked at the calendar one day and realized that it was time to head to Minneapolis and the airport.
My parents had already agreed to keep the Center truck at their house and deliver me to the airport and pick me up afterwards. They love me and are always available to help me advance my career even though they’ll never understand how they ended up with a daughter who draws pictures for a living.
So one day I got on an airplane in Minneapolis and got off in New York and took a cab to a hotel where
I spent an inordinately long time in an inordinately hot shower that did nothing to quell the knot forming in my stomach so large that it was impossible to either eat or sleep which meant I’d be a mess when I met Paul and Sylvia Ullerman and there was nothing that could be done about it.
CHAPTER 21
I figured out one thing as soon as I left the hotel for a jog around the block and a quick look at the city before heading to the gallery and that one glaring thing was that I didn’t like New York. Nothing personal I said silently to everyone who passed without seeing me as I went around the block where the hotel was located while hoping not to be mugged or run over by the hordes of people hustling everywhere without seeing anyone, just their own reflections in the many store windows.
I decided right then and there that I don’t like cities in general. I don’t like the way the smell. Or the claustrophobia from so many extremely tall buildings that keep the real world hidden from view. Or the lack of flora and fauna. Too many bricks, I decided, too much concrete and not enough trees. I like trees.
While at the Center, Sylvia had mentioned that the trees of the north woods seemed to kind of resemble the buildings in cities. Both reached for the sky and blocked the view while being a kind of view in themselves.
I remembered our conversation and tried to see New York her way and failed completely. But then I’m from the forest and would have to change into someone else in order to paint those buildings, which I was sure was what Paul did on a daily basis, something that I realized was spot on when I finally reached the gallery and saw his works on the walls.
Buildings. Cities. Streets full of people. Night turned into day by a million artificial lights. What had he thought of my trees and ferns and moss and snow? Now those odd expressions I kept seeing on his face made sense.
Before I realized what was happening, Sylvia’s arms were around me as she swept me towards a small, pedantic man with huge glasses in the middle of the gallery who was orchestrating a confusing mass of people and paintings. The whole thing added up to contained chaos. “Laurie!” Her arms were both protection and security in this strange place.
She turned me enough for the tiny man to see me better and then I got about two seconds of his attention before he nodded abruptly in acknowledgement of my existence and turned back to the total confusion that was the gallery being prepped for a show.
“He likes your work.” The arm that was still around me propelled me towards a table with coffee and donuts. She poured herself a cup and indicated that I should, too. “Not as good as at the Center, but it’s hot and strong.” She blew on hers and gulped it down.
When the heat of the coffee had abated enough to allow her to speak, she said, “I’m having a few people over after the show. Please come.” She handed me a card with her address. “Not that you need it. I’ll have a cab pick you up.”
She pinched my shoulder as I opened my mouth to protest. “I don’t want you to get lost. This isn’t the forest, you know, where forest sprites like you navigate by the trees and whatever else it is that gets you where you’re going. This is New York, it’s a city, and it can be intimidating.” The words ‘city’ and ‘intimidating’ were said with pure love. This woman belonged in the city as much as I didn’t.
I belonged to the forest. The thought popped into my mind from nowhere and I didn’t expect it. I loved the forest, of course but I’d always thought that love was much the way everyone loves a place that has been special in their lives. But to think that I belonged there as if I was a possession of the trees? The thought was both so ridiculous and so true that it brought me to a stop in the middle of that huge room.
Sylvia, however, gently propelled me through the gallery that was somehow and rather quickly, under the direction of the small man in the center of it all, coming together and becoming a place of art and beauty. Standing there, though, and moving where Sylvia indicated I thought about the forest and my place in it instead of the gallery. I realized the forest was where I should be instead of this place in a very large city of lights and traffic surrounded by way more people than I’m comfortable being near.
I stared at the gallery and the beautiful pictures hanging on the walls and waiting to be admired and purchased and I wished I was back in the forest. Or perhaps resting on the rug in front of the Center’s huge fireplace with Jase beside me enjoying hot cocoa and s’mores.
Jase belonged at the Center as much as I belonged in the forest. He and the fireplace were made for each other. Thinking about the forest, about Jase, his face floated through my mind. The planes of his cheeks and the smoothness of his forehead.
Something odd happened. I felt an actual stab of physical pain and couldn’t imagine why thinking of him would hurt. Until I realized the pain was because I missed him. Wanted to be with him. To hear that laugh that no one else could duplicate. To see him tilt his head and tell me something. Anything. Because when you are in love with someone, what they are saying isn’t as important as hearing their voice.
Good Lord!
Donaldo was right after all.
I was in love with Jase.
As the realization hit me with the force of a cannonball I stopped midstride and Sylvia almost bumped into me but somehow she was sensitive enough to realize something was going on and so she said nothing, asked nothing, simply stood with her arms around me, protecting me from the hoards that could have run us over, as she waited until I moved again.
“New York is interesting but I belong somewhere else,” I heard myself say and was glad I didn’t say out loud that I wanted to be with the man I loved because that would have been embarrassing in the extreme but the thought was so new that I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear myself blurt it out. Instead I cunningly said, “I want to be home.”
“Of course you do, dear, and as soon as this show is done with and I’ve returned in some small measure the gracious hospitality that you and Jase showed me at the Center then that’s where you shall be.” Her gaze drifted to one of the huge windows that overlooked the city and all its lights. Love showed in her face, clear and true. “As for me, I’ll visit your forests again, I’m sure, but this is where I belong just as you belong beneath a bunch of trees.”
In a daze I followed her for a while and then returned to my hotel room. Somehow I lived through the show and smiled and smiled and smiled at all the positive comments on my work and of course I said all the wrong things but no one cared because I was a novelty, an artist from the forest who painted trees, of all things, and wasn’t that interesting and doesn’t she talk in the most charming way? Not like an artist at all.
I sold three paintings, all summer pictures containing wildlife and I wondered why no one wanted just trees and decided that perhaps city dwellers might not like them as much as I did but everyone loves fawns and wolf cubs and bear cubs.
I went to the gathering that Sylvia said would be a few people that resembled a mob scene where I enjoyed still another moment of fame as the artist who’d painted the pictures that now hung in her foyer and had been expertly lighted to bring out the subtle colors of the forest at dawn that I’d thought no one else would see much less understand.
She stood behind me as I examined them and said she’d had an interior decorator place them to best advantage and do the lighting and I finally knew that she truly appreciated the forest even though she was a city person. Then I drank way too much wine and was glad for the cab that took me back to my hotel room.
I sold still another painting to an elderly man who’d grown up in the Midwest and said it reminded him of a patch of woods at the edge of his family’s farm and he and I somehow ended up in one of the many little places New York seems to specialize in that carry coffee every bit as good as my father’s along with slices of multi-tiered cake that melted in my mouth.
Then I packed my things and couldn’t wait to reach the airport and fly home. All during the flight, instead of the fleecy white clouds and blue sky beyond the window, I saw Jase and th
e Center and the forest we’d trekked through and I wondered what would happen when I got there now that I knew my former agent was right and I was in love with my boss and fellow survivor.
I wanted to curl up in my seat and disappear and was grateful that my seatmates were more interested in catching up on sleep than talking.
My parents met me at the airport and I spent the night at their house where I’d left the Center truck. The next morning as my mother made sausage and pancakes, she looked at me shrewdly and asked what was wrong and didn’t believe for a moment my story of being tired from the trip.
I finally blurted out. “Is love always this bad?”
After a slight shock that she hid rather well, she gathered me in her arms while still managing to flip pancakes with precision. “It often is.” She pulled back and looked at me. “This is recent, isn’t it?” I nodded. “Let it age a bit, Laurie. Get used to how it feels.” Then she tilted her head in much the same way as Jase. “Then, if you still feel that it’s real and not going to disappear in the morning mist, do something about it.”
“like what?”
“Whatever feels right. Walk away if he’s married.” I shook my head hard and her relief was evident. “Tell him how you feel if he doesn’t tell you first.”
“What if he doesn’t love me?” He’d never said he did. Never acted like he did.
“Then figure out what to do next. If it’s truly hopeless take a trip to the south seas and paint fish. Throw something at him because he’s clearly insane not to be in love with you. Or simply smile and continue as always while you look for someone else to love.” She let me go and piled the pancakes on the table and called my dad for breakfast. “Whatever feels right that’s what you should do.”
I wasn’t hungry and couldn’t imagine why I ate three stacks of pancakes before throwing my luggage in the back seat of the truck and heading to the Center to face whatever might happen when I saw Jase, knowing as I did that I was in love with him because, no matter what my mother said, I had to survive the immediate future while I was figuring out what that right thing she kept talking about actually was.
The Snow Queen Page 13
