Satisfaction Guaranteed

by Karelia Stetz-Waters

  “Are you all on your break or something?” Cade grumbled.

  She wanted to sit down, but they’d taken up the three metal stools, and, anyway, Cade didn’t want to be associated with the smell of stuffed grape leaves.

  “You can’t eat your lunch at the counter.” She glared at her parents. “This isn’t a dive bar.”

  “Oh, honey.” Her mother popped one of the slimy green packages into her mouth.

  “Your parents love them,” Amy said. “Try one. I used za’atar this time.”

  It had been two weeks since Cade had left Portland. Two weeks of sporadic texts with Selena. She was never sure what Selena actually said. She got one message that read, Ipn fr Umy darregster. It could have meant I pine for you, darling. It could also mean I finally got my motorcycle registered.

  Send a pic, Cade had texted.

  In the photograph, Selena was standing in front of an easel at the Aviary. Beautiful Adrien held a bottle of champagne. Becket was smiling next to them. Selena was back in the artists’ co-op. Cade wanted to hear all about it. And every day, Cade thought of a million things she wanted to say to Selena, but when they got on the phone Cade remembered Selena’s cool If you’d like to see what happens, I’ll give it a try. Their conversations felt stilted, with long pauses followed by both of them speaking at the same times, then saying, You go. No, you. They were like polite drivers at a four-way stop. No one went anywhere.

  “Have some tea. Your mom put weed in it,” Amy said.

  “You like to hang out with them.” Cade nodded to her parents. “But this is my job.”

  Amy looked hurt.

  “I’m sorry,” Cade said. “No thank you. I don’t want weed tea.”

  “Have a dolma?”

  Cade ate one to be nice. It was tasty, but it caught in her throat. She just wanted the day to be over so she could lie in bed and stare at the ceiling.

  “Your aura is all wrong,” her mother said.

  “Thanks.”

  Her mother poured her some tea.

  “It’s good for you.”

  “It’s weed.”

  It was weed mixed with Earl Grey. It smelled a bit like Selena’s perfume, floral and not floral at the same time, like flowers climbing a castle wall.

  Cade was a lost cause. Why was love so hard? If only she’d known how much easier it was to be an almost-thirty-year-old almost-virgin…she’d have done everything exactly the same. One perfect night with Selena was worth it.

  “If you guys want to hang out, I got the gallery,” Cade said. “Go get a drink or something.”

  Across the room, the men were still considering the painting that did not look like Klimt or Parrish.

  “Why don’t you get drunk,” her mother said kindly. “You look very sober.”

  Not a bad thing for a workday.

  “Somber.” Her father adjusted his monocle.

  “It’s Selena, from the funeral,” Amy filled in for Cade’s parents. “Cade misses her.”

  “That young woman who said all those nice things about your aunt’s clitoris?” her mother said.

  Words that should never be spoken out loud.

  “I liked her eulogy,” her mom added.

  I did too.

  “Did you have a romantic interlude?” her father asked.

  Cade hoped he wasn’t asking if they’d had sex. She shot Amy a look. Don’t talk to my parents about me. Amy pushed the dolmas in Cade’s direction.

  “Your parents are worried about you,” she said.

  Cade’s parents nodded.

  “Your aura is dull,” her mother said.

  That probably was the problem. If she’d had a shiny aura, Selena might have wanted more than let’s see what happens.

  “Lusterless,” her father added. “Lifeless.”

  “Depressed,” Amy said.

  “Thank you. That makes me feel better,” Cade said.

  “Talk to us,” her mother said. “We’re your parents.”

  That was a good reason not to talk to them. Cade took a sip of her tea. Probably a mistake, but it reminded her of Selena.

  “Cade,” Amy urged. “You’ve been walking around like someone died. At least tell them what happened, so they don’t worry that you have cancer or something.”

  Cade sighed.

  “Selena and I dated. Kind of. And we decided not to commit to anything when I went back to New York. We didn’t break up; we just didn’t make it a big thing.”

  Her parents looked at her expectantly. Cade looked back and forth between them. They’d been together forever. Always eccentric. Always looking for the next alpaca farm to buy or the next ashram to join. Always perfect for each other.

  Cade took another sip of her tea. “I had fun with her. She took me on her motorcycle. We drank whiskey. We talked.” We made love. I felt like I was free. “When I was with her, I was someone else.”

  “Who you are is lovely,” Cade’s mother said.

  Cade rubbed her temples.

  “Who I am is your accountant.”

  “No!” her parents said in unison.

  “You’re our jewel,” her mother said.

  “Our Athena,” her father said. “Our changeling.”

  “Because I got stolen from my boring parents.”

  “That’s a joke, honey,” her mother said. “We don’t think that. You’re not boring. You’ve never been boring.”

  “I wasn’t enough for her.” Cade looked down at the leaves floating at the bottom of her tea. They didn’t tell her anything.

  “And she didn’t tell Selena how she felt,” Amy added.

  That would start a round of well-meaning advice Cade did not want.

  Josiah saved her, strutting in the door in his usual three-piece suit and skinny hipster goatee.

  “You faithless!” he said before he’d taken two steps in. “Cade Elgin, I am never going to play with you again.”

  Whatever this was about, Thank you, Josiah.

  “Your daughter,” he said to Cade’s parents. “There are rules in love and war.”

  He clasped his hand to his heart. Cade had to smile.

  “She has violated them all.”

  “What?” Cade said. “I’m not stealing your Senegalese painter. I thought about it. He’s good, but you found him first.”

  Josiah pulled out his phone.

  “If we were both on a quest for the Holy Grail, and I found it, I would keep it for myself.” He adjusted his glasses. “Obviously. But I would not let you keep looking.”

  Cade furrowed her brow. The tea must be getting to her.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked Josiah.

  He held his phone out to her.

  “At auction. Tonight. Online bidding allowed. You could not possibly buy all of them or show all of them. And yet, you harpy, you did not tell me.”

  Cade stared at the screen.

  “What is it?” Amy asked.

  It was Cade, sleepy, naked, wrapped in a quilt of Crown Royal bags.

  The door opened, and a courier came in with a package. Obviously, a painting. Far too large to ship via regular mail. Unsolicited. Artists were always sending the gallery work like that. Hope was dumb.

  Cade’s father called to the intern in the back room. “Would you unwrap that for us and find some place to put it for now.”

  “Let me see?” Amy reached for Josiah’s phone.

  Cade was still staring at it. It was the Aviary website. She scrolled up and down. There was a photograph of Selena, a short bio, and dozens of her paintings. Maybe all of them. Up for auction that night. The portrait of Cade was the only one marked NFS. Not for sale.

  Cade’s parents and Amy all leaned in.

  “What is it?” Amy asked again.

  “Your friend and I,” Josiah said, with exaggerated composure, “have a friendly competition to bring new talent to light, and we found an artist that we both liked. A mystery. Name scraped off the canvas. Skill of a grand master. Soul of an angel.
All that stuff. But your friend, your daughter”—he pretended to scowl at Cade—“told me she was an unknown. No one has any idea who she is.”

  He gently took the phone from Cade and set it on the counter for the others to see.

  “But she posed for them. You knew all along.”

  “Excuse me?” The intern appeared in the door, the painting in her hands, facing away from them. “Do you want to see this?”

  “That’s okay,” Cade said.

  The intern hesitated.

  “It’s you.”

  She turned the painting around so it faced them. It was the same portrait, like Cade was looking in a mirror to the past. Her heart filled with longing. Selena. It was exquisite work, even better than Selena’s older paintings. It captured everything Cade had felt that night, love and tenderness and shy hope and happiness.

  “It’s called,” the intern read off the back, “‘My Heart Breaks When You Turn Away.’”

  “Is that by your inamorata?” Cade’s father asked.

  Then everyone was talking at once. The intern set the painting against the wall. Cade’s father moved it into better light. Her mother exclaimed over the brushwork. Josiah called Cade a ruthless woman. Amy said, “God, that’s totally you!” Cade wasn’t paying attention. She was just repeating the name over and over.

  My Heart Breaks When You Turn Away.

  Finally, they all turned around to stare at her. Cade gulped her tea.

  “She’s in love with you,” Cade’s mother said.

  Cade started to say no, a painting wasn’t proof of love no matter how good it was. But even Josiah was nodding.

  “Her soul is on that canvas,” he said.

  “I didn’t know she was selling her work,” Cade whispered.

  “Right,” Josiah drawled.

  “She didn’t even want to show it.”

  What would it be like for Selena to auction everything she’d done, the work she’d thought she’d lost? Selena had just begun to paint again. Auctions could be fast, cruel affairs. She’d talked to artists who’d broken down after auctions where they made thousands of dollars. It wasn’t the money. It was seeing their work whipped away like so many stocks and bonds. And they didn’t put half as much soul in their work as Selena did. Selena had never been through that. Cade could see her in the Aviary. She’d be wearing something fabulous, fake fur and glittering pants. She’d be excited and nervous, smiling, gorgeous, but would she be ready? Cade wanted to be there with her, to stand behind her and wrap her arms around Selena as the auctioneer began, to whisper in Selena’s ear, Whatever you’ve made is beautiful because it’s yours.

  “Oh,” Cade gasped.

  Cade had to be there, and there was no way.

  “I told her I wanted to wait and see what happened,” Cade said.

  “What?” her mother asked.

  “She said she didn’t want to commit to anything, but I said it too. I said I was busy and long distance was hard. It never worked out.”

  And she loves me. Cade wasn’t misreading the painting.

  “I love her.” So simple and so true. “And I fucked up.” Also simple and also true. “She thinks I don’t want anything serious. She thinks I just want to wait and see. I said we didn’t have to be exclusive.” Cade hung her head. “It’s her first auction. Those things are terrible, and I can’t be there with her.”

  “Ridiculous,” her father said. “You’re an Elgin. You can be wherever you want to be.”

  Optimistic and wrong.

  “When has an Elgin stayed at work when love was at stake?” Her father gestured like a Shakespearean actor. “You are motorcycles. You are whiskey! You are a shooting star winging your way to your lover.”

  If only.

  “I can call her.”

  “But why not a grand gesture?” her father asked.

  “Because I’m in New York, and the auction starts at eight.”

  “And it’s only 2:45,” her mother said. “Don’t worry. Calendria, that nice woman from the funeral, she said her nephew’s ex-girlfriend works for Delta. If we ever needed a last-minute flight, the universe will provide.”

  “It’s almost three,” Cade said. “Can you even get across the country that fast? I would literally have to get on a plane in ten minutes.”

  Maybe she could get a flight for tomorrow or the next day. Maybe if she flew standby.

  “Everything works out the way it’s supposed to,” Cade’s mother said. “Trust me. You get a cab to JFK. I’ll call Calendria.”

  Cade looked at the painting, then at her parents.

  “We’ll keep it safe,” her father said.

  “Now go,” her mother said.

  There was no way Cade’s mother’s friend’s nephew’s ex-girlfriend was going to magically produce a direct—it had to be direct to make it on time—flight from JFK to Portland and get Cade on it in the next ten minutes. Cade must have been high. She grabbed her coat and ran for the door.

  Chapter 37

  Selena leaned against the railing of the Aviary balcony. Becket stood beside her, holding one of Zen’s cocktails.

  “Not all bad,” she remarked. “Kind of tastes like lemongrass that hates you.”

  Inside, the Aviary sparkled. Hundreds of folding chairs replaced the usual settees. Lights trimmed the auctioneer’s stage. The auction attendees were dressed in gowns and suits. Selena wore the sweatshirt Cade had loaned her that first night on the patio. She watched the attendees move around the work set up around the perimeter of the space. Artists stood by their work, trying to have nonchalant but meaningful conversations with potential buyers. Selena had heard Beautiful Adrien talking about the dominant paradigm of potentiality. On any other night, she would have called bullshit. Tonight, she’d just nodded and given him the thumbs-up.

  “We’ve never had so many people,” Becket added. “I am so glad I’m performing, not selling. Everyone in there is popping Ativan. How are you doing?”

  “Fine.”

  “For real?”

  Selena’s work stood by itself in the far corner of the Aviary. It would sell or it wouldn’t. She didn’t feel like hovering over it, explaining the work to people who were looking for something to go with their green carpet.

  She was fine when it came to selling her work.

  “For real.”

  “You know if it doesn’t sell, it’s not because it’s not good,” Becket said.

  “I’ll make enough for first, last, and deposit,” Selena said. “I’ll get off your couch.”

  Selena didn’t care if she slept on a couch or on a yoga mat or a flat in the Pearl District. But Becket deserved her privacy, and Selena kept losing her shoes in the sea of sequins and chiffon that covered Becket’s floor. She would have lost her clothes too (Becket’s floor was their birthplace; they’d be like salmon swimming home) except she’d been wearing Cade’s sweatshirt for two weeks.

  The lights in the Aviary dimmed and came back on, signaling the beginning of the evening’s events. One of the Fierce Lovely troupe appeared in the doorway to the balcony holding Becket’s signature gold tailcoat.

  “Beck, are you ready?” he asked.

  “I’ve got to go,” Becket said apologetically.

  “You’re going to rock this,” Selena said.

  Selena moved to the doorway, standing half in, half out of the Aviary. The crowd took their seats. The lights dimmed again. At a cue from Zen, the DJ started Becket’s music, and Becket descended from the ceiling, belayed by one of her troupe mates and shining in gold. She was fabulous as always, but nothing sparkled for Selena.

  After Becket, a few more Fierce Lovely members performed. Then the auctioneer, a drag king with a perfectly coiffed pompadour, stepped up on stage.

  “Welcome,” the auctioneer boomed. “Ladies, gentlemen, gentlepersons, and all you wonderful creatures in between. I am here to stun you with artistic masterpieces. To help me are my lovely assistants who will be spotting those paddles as you bid. You will nev
er regret the purchase of fine art.” He introduced his assistants, four drag queens in full sequined gowns. One stood behind a computer at the side of the stage. “We’ll be taking internet bids as well,” the auctioneer went on. “So bid high and bid fast, friends. LA is on the line. New York is on the line. Milan is waiting to outbid you. Now shall we begin?”

  Selena watched for an hour. At least she stood in the doorway facing the stage. She couldn’t say whose art had auctioned or how much it made. Finally, she pushed off the doorframe and headed for the exit. Everyone was focused on the stage. There was no point in pretending she was too. Outside she walked to the end of the block and sat down on the curb. The motion-sensitive streetlight flickered to life.

  Is this what you wanted me to learn, Ruth? Pay rent and get a new phone?

  She saw Cade standing behind the counter at Satisfaction Guaranteed, looking like British royalty trying not to notice the paparazzi. And she saw Cade sprawled naked on her bed, her body flushed, hair damp with sweat.

  I just needed another month. Selena looked up at the cloudy sky. It just went too fast. We had something. I love her.

  The streetlight went off.

  Selena wanted to lie on the damp sidewalk, but that was dramatic, and someone would probably see her and try to have an intervention. She’d have to explain that she hadn’t drunk too much of Zen’s liquor and she wasn’t waiting to be run over by a skateboarder, she was just sad because she’d fucked up when she was trying so hard not to.

  She stared at the gravel and little bits of litter that had collected along the curb. The sidewalk was cold beneath her.

  She checked her phone again. There was only the one message from Cade. Thank you for the painting. It’s lovely.

  It was lovely. How could it not be? It was Cade. But Thank you for the painting. It’s lovely? That’s what people said when they got a nice birthday card. Selena’s heart ached. Cade of all people could look at a painting and understand its meaning, not that you had to be Cadence Elgin to read the meaning in My Heart Breaks When You Turn Away. Selena had mixed her desperate yearning into that paint. Her love was in the paint. Her tears had streaked the oil. She’d signed her name, clear and legible. And Cade had texted, Thank you for the painting. It’s lovely.

  She cradled the phone in her hands, looking through Cade’s texts. Their story in little bits. What kind of coffee? Can’t wait to see you. Last night was heaven. Then Thank you for the painting. It’s lovely. It was too hard. She selected all the messages, hesitated for a moment, then touched delete. Then she opened speed dial. Cade’s number. It was midnight in New York, but what Selena had to say was short. Whatever it was they were doing, this shadow of a relationship, this long, drawn-out goodbye: she couldn’t bear it.