by S. Massery
There is a silence, in which Rose is probably trying to decipher my sarcasm.
“I told him you weren’t going back to it.” Her voice drops lower as she says, “You’re not, right?”
I snort at her stupid question. God, I feel like crying. “No.”
“That’s what I thought. He said he would take care of the rent for the rest of the lease. His name was on it, too?”
“Yeah,” I whisper.
I hear someone shouting in the background. I’ve been yelled at enough to know that it’s my former boss making the racket, and my stomach flips at the memory.
“I have to go. He’s…” She sighs. “Yeah.”
“Okay. Bye. Miss you.”
“Miss you, too. Stay safe.”
My phone starts vibrating again, this time from my mother. I immediately decline the call. She has no idea that I quit my job and got on a plane to Seattle, and I’m afraid to tell her. I’ve been avoiding her calls for two months, now.
Face your fears, I tell myself.
I hold my breath and dial her back.
“Charlie?”
I exhale. It’s been way too long since she’s called me that. “Hey, Mom, I’m sorry.”
“I would hope! My god, girl, how long were you going to make me wait before you answered my calls? Your father and I have been worried.”
“I texted you,” I murmur. I had, sometime around the second week: I’m fine, super busy, can’t talk.
She huffs. “Well, that’s not quite adequate.”
“I said I was sorry,” I reply.
“Honey, your father and I were thinking of coming up to the city for a performance at the Boston Symphony Orchestra. We can get you and Avery tickets, as well.”
Here we go. “Actually, Mom… Avery and I broke up.”
She gasps. “What?”
“He was still in love with his ex-girlfriend, and she moved to town to win him back.”
She makes a strangled noise in the back of her throat. “Oh, honey, when did this happen?”
I swallow. “Three months ago.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I just—”
“Why didn’t you come home? Are you still living with him?”
Here was the hard part. “Actually, I let him keep the apartment. Georgia invited me to stay with her for a little while…”
My mother pauses. Then she says, calmly, “I thought she moved to Washington.”
“Yes,” I say. “I, uh, I’m in Seattle.”
She’s quiet for a minute. “You’ve been in Seattle for three months?”
“Two,” I say. “I gave my boss a month to find a replacement…”
I imagine she has sunk into the chair in her office, rolling her eyes at me. Instead, I hear her sniffle.
“Mom?”
“Did you think you couldn’t have come home?”
I shake my head. I’m finally back at Georgia’s apartment, and I lock the door behind me. “No, I just…” Breathe. “I’ve been so stuck, Mom, I feel like everyone could see it. I needed to go somewhere new so I could try…” I stop talking. I don’t know what I wanted to try.
“You’re on an adventure,” she supplies.
I blink.
Her voice is soft, like it used to be when she would read stories to me before bed. “You and Jared used to be obsessed with adventure. And then,” she pauses to clear her throat, “when Colby… happened… it was like that spirit was gone. In her place was my careful, cautious daughter that hated any sort of fuss or intimacy.”
I wince. “No—”
“You wouldn’t let us hug you,” she says. “It took you months to put on the weight you lost, because you refused to eat. You refused to speak. You just sat in your room and wrote in those journals.”
“My therapist told me to do that,” I say.
“You were affected by Colby, and he is still affecting you. You still run from true intimacy. You don’t like the idea of romance. It clearly had an impact on your relationship with Avery, even if you don’t see it.”
“Are you blaming me?”
All I can hear is her breathing. It’s so calm and steady, unlike me. I feel like I’m coming undone. “Honey, no,” she answers. “I’m saying that I’m proud that you’re taking steps toward helping yourself. You used to love adventures, even when you were too young to go out on your own. Your father and I would follow you at a distance, letting you have your freedom while making sure you were safe.” She sniffs. “We can’t do that now. We can’t make sure you’re safe.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You’re finally making real progress. Keep going. Keep pushing yourself.”
“I love you, Mom.”
“I love you, too, Charlie.”
58
I need a job.
As much as that realization pains me, I miss the work. I miss doing something productive. There is also the factor of money, and my sad checking account. I twirl around the ideas in my head, looking around Georgia’s apartment. With a jolt, I realize that I had barely recognized a painting I had done in college. It was when I was experimenting with black and white oil paints, with a pop of a single bright color. This one was a black and white child, facing sideways and leaning forward to blow on a dandelion. The color, orange, was the feather-light wisps that the child’s breath caught in the air. She had it encased in a wide, black frame. It looks like a professional painting—so much so, that I hadn’t noticed it in the months that I’ve been here.
It feels like I painted it a lifetime ago.
When Georgia gets home, I am sitting at her table with a cup of coffee from down the street. Proof, I want it to tell her, that I am stable. She’s been watching me like a hawk.
I turn the cup slowly in my hands. “I need to get a job.”
“Yes,” she says simply. “Do you know what you want to do?”
“I think I could sell my paintings.”
She freezes, and then she grins wide enough to split her face. “Charlie!” she yells. “That’s fantastic!”
It was on a whim, but then—yes, maybe. “Yeah?” I run through it in my mind, and I’m surprised at the excitement that awakens inside of me.
“Absolutely! Yes! We can work on a website and have Henry’s friend take photos of them, and you can learn how to put a watermark on everything, and then we just need a gallery to be interested—”
“Okay,” I laugh, “The first thing I need to do is paint more. My collection has shrunk quite a bit.”
Georgia glares at me. “Oh, my god. You left half of your paintings in your Boston apartment, didn’t you?”
“No—no, they’re in storage.”
She nods and plops down on the seat across from me. She picks up my hand and threads our fingers together. “You’ve got this. I know the perfect place to get supplies for you, but it’s a drive.”
“Thank god tomorrow is Saturday,” I say. “What if no one wants them? What if I can’t make any money?”
Georgia frowns. “Stop that. Listen, what we need is supply and demand. You just need to create the demand, and then give it to people.”
I roll my eyes. “We both read the book where the guy painted confessions and only sold them once a month, Georgia. I can’t copy that.”
“Hey, that guy was a business genius.”
“It was a sad book,” I say. “And it’s famous. Everyone would know. Plus, isn’t the idea copyrighted?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess we can figure something else out.”
I smile, but then it drops. “You just want me gone, huh?”
She stands up and comes closer, putting her hands on my shoulders. “Chuck, you listen to me. You’re welcome here forever, for all I care. I doubt Henry would object, either, since he loves you.” I start to respond, but she gives me a look that she must’ve perfected from her mother—that woman is scary—and says, “We will figure your life out together. It doesn’t mean I want
you gone. I just want you happy.”
I hug her. “Thanks, Georgie.”
Later, we sit close together on the couch, sharing a blanket, when I say, “I told you about Jared, right?”
She glances at me. “Um?”
My face turns red, and I pick at my fingers. “Well, just, you know, that he left Massachusetts?”
She knows that he came to visit, but I never went into detail about what we talked about. She pauses our movie. The firefighter—my reminder of Jared—freezes on the screen mid-action. “Seriously? Where’d he go?”
“Uh…”
“Charlie.”
“Everett, Washington?”
Her jaw drops. “That’s less than an hour from here! Have you told him you’re in Seattle?”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Nope.”
She smacks my arm. “Why not!”
“I don’t know, Georgia. He left and we’ve only been friends for like…”
“Forever,” she finishes. “You’ve been friends forever.”
I can’t stop staring at the actor on screen. “He said something weird right before he left.”
She mutters, “I can’t believe you haven’t talked to him.” And then, “Wait, what did he say?”
“He brought up the time that he beat up Colby in the woods. He asked if I remembered what he said.”
“And do you?”
I groan. “I’ve been blocking out that day for so long, I can’t remember what Colby was even wearing.”
“I’m glad he’s in jail,” she mutters. “Or else I’d go put him there.”
“I think I’m getting over it,” I tell her. When she raises her eyebrows, I add, “I had a nice chat with my mother today about it.”
She starts laughing. “A nice chat about your abusive ex-boyfriend?”
“Exactly.”
She squeezes my hand. “It’s about time.”
59
The next month is a flurry of activity, and life is getting brighter.
Georgia and I take her car to the art supply shop, where I spend too much money on nice paints, different brushes, and a roll of canvas. I order wooden frames online, to stretch the canvas onto by hand and staple into the wood.
“What are you thinking about painting?” she keeps asking me as I touch tubes of paints.
I don’t answer her. Everything goes into bags except for one paint that I can’t seem to let go of: a deep, sapphire blue.
“Portraits?” she guesses on the way home.
I shrug. “I’m not sure yet.”
From that moment on, painting becomes my full-time job. Henry helps me build a website, and his friend comes over one day to photograph the paintings I have already completed and framed. Robert is tall, dark, and handsome: a complete package with a beautiful smile. Once he is done, he asks me, “How much are you charging for these?”
“How much would you pay?”
He points at one painting: a spider hanging by the barest of threads in a window looking out onto an ocean. “Two hundred?”
“Really?” I can’t believe that he sees that much potential in my work, that it would be worth that much.
He blinks. “Okay, I’d do three.”
Before I can answer, Georgia walks in the room and tells him, “Deal.”
And thus, I make my first sale.
By November, I have sold six more paintings. My website gets regular traffic—all thanks to Georgia’s marketing strategies, if we’re being completely honest—and I’ve been churning out different pieces to experiment with which style I like the best. To say the least: I’ve been busy.
It hasn’t been enough to pay the bills, though, so I have been doing an online customer service job. I chat with people and help them with basic inquiries over the phone or through an online chat program. Part-time work, usually in the mornings, is enough for me to contribute a bit to the rent, groceries, and bills.
Robert calls me out of the blue—he comes by once every other week to photograph my new paintings so I can add them to my website—and says, “Charlie. I found the perfect spot.”
“The perfect spot for what?”
“Our gallery.”
My jaw hits the floor. “What?”
He laughs. “Any friend of Henry’s is a friend of mine. I started my photography business from nothing, and I’ve been looking for someone to sign a lease with—and not many people have the raw talent that you have. I don’t think you realize how much you can profit from that talent.”
I swallow. “I’m not sure if I’m ready for that.”
“Neither of us can do it alone in this city. Rent is insane. I’ve been wanting to showcase my photos somewhere for quite a while, and I think you’re the perfect person to partner with—at least, in terms of a lease. Obviously, we only make money on our own work. Now, can I show it to you tomorrow?”
“Wait—”
“Yes?”
I sigh. “I feel like… I don’t want to date you or have sex with you or anything like that.”
His laughter fills my ear. “Thank god, Charlie! My boyfriend would be quite upset with me.”
I realize how much of a terrible friend I’ve been—to him and everyone around me. We don’t know anything about each other, and I consider him a friend. I’m lucky if I manage a ten-minute chat with Henry without Georgia there. Why didn’t I know he had a boyfriend? Why didn’t I ask?
“I’m sorry, Robert, I think I’ve been narcissistic lately—”
“Oh, god, Charlie. No. I assumed you were trying to keep things professional. Small talk, nothing too personal… I understood.”
“But—”
“We’re good.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. “What’s your boyfriend’s name?”
He chuckles. “Paul.”
“Well, I look forward to maybe meeting him someday. I’d love to see the place tomorrow.”
Robert and Paul are waiting for me at the address that Robert texted me. It’s downtown, and the Uber driver grumbles under his breath at the traffic. They stand in front of a tinted glass storefront, and they both wave as I climb out of the car.
“Paul, Charlie.”
“Nice to meet you,” I say as we shake hands.
“Likewise.”
Robert waves his hand at the storefront and awning. “So, we can put a sign up here with our logos and ‘Art Gallery’ so people know what the hell is going here.”
People pass us on the street; it’s surprising how busy it is. We’re surrounded by other stores, a few restaurants, and a cute looking coffee shop across the street. Sold, I think.
Robert produces a key and swings the door open. It’s open and airy, and the tinted windows let in a surprising amount of light. “This actually used to be an art gallery before, so in the back there are still the temporary walls that we can put up. They also have some lights for displays.”
The walls are black, and the whole place has an edgy feel to it. I instantly love it.
“This is amazing,” I whisper.
Robert grins, and Paul nods. “Have you seen Robert’s photos?”
I shake my head. “I’m sorry to say, I’ve only seen what I was able to find on his website.” I shoot them a look. “It seems to be a little outdated.”
“Yeah,” he answers. “I stopped updating it because it wasn’t a good source of income. It just became a hassle.”
I nod. It makes sense.
“There’s a room in the back, and there’s also an apartment upstairs that is included in the lease. We were thinking you might like to take the apartment and I’ll convert the back room into a darkroom.”
“As in, I can live there?” I think my jaw is on the ground again.
Paul smiles. “I told you she would like that idea.”
“Robert.” He turns to me. “I want to go over the finances and make sure it’s something that I can afford. Otherwise? It looks perfect.”
Robert sticks out his hand. “Deal.”
We sh
ake. And it’s done: we have a gallery.
60
Opening Night.
It took longer than I would’ve expected to open this place: nearly three months of hard work. In that time, I couldn’t keep up with the offers on my paintings. I ended up selling some, and other offers received an email stating that there would be a gallery opening soon where the paintings would be available for purchase. Supply and demand, Georgia had said. It seemed like people really appreciated that I didn’t turn my paintings into prints—except for the one that I made for myself as a way to catalog and remember. They were original and one of a kind. It terrified me, though, because I knew that my art was finite. It wouldn’t last forever, especially once it left my hands.
And then, two days before we were set to open—February 1st—I started running out of ideas. I panicked and called Georgia, and she immediately came over to my apartment above the gallery.
I’d been avoiding going outside, and when she came in with enough layers to be an Eskimo, I knew I had made the right decision.
“Help,” I said.
I was sitting on the floor, surrounded by canvases and metal. I had recently begun doing some painting on thin sheets of metal, which created an interesting ability to layer and texture. I’m not in love with it, yet, but it’s been giving me some new inspiration.
It took Georgia a century to pull off her hat, gloves, coat, sweatshirt, and boots. “Okay,” she said. “Where are your paintings that you’re putting in the gallery?”
I pointed toward my bedroom and let her browse. They’re a mix of style, but all of them have a dark-versus-light theme.
“Charlie, these are amazing! You’ve been hiding your skill from the world for far too long.”
I shook my head. “Don’t say things just to flatter me, Georgie.”
She reappeared holding one that I did of her profile: in it, she looked to the left, and the light source appeared like it was coming from the viewer. The background was black, with flecked white, like stars. “Wow, Charlie.”
