Chris blows out a breath, then starts tapping his fingertips on the top of the steering wheel. “What else did she say? Did she tell you to leave her alone?”
I shake my head. “No. I asked her what I could do to change her mind, but all she said is that she wishes it was that easy.” I scrub a hand down my face. “What the fuck do I do now?”
Chris starts the car. “Right now, you compartmentalize. Get focused on finishing up this case.” He puts the SUV in gear and starts to back out. “Because when we’re done, you’re going home to a woman who’s scared shitless about being in love with you. And when she finally realizes that, she’s going to want you in one piece.”
18
Anya
I step back from my canvases and try to decide if I’m doing this right or not. At this point, I have no idea because I’m so tired I can’t see straight. An hour ago, my decision to hang all three of these paintings on this wall of the gallery seemed perfect. But now when I look at them, I’m not so sure. My heart says that these three pieces belong together, but the curator inside me isn’t convinced.
Hanging the paintings this way leaves less white space between them than is expected in a formal setting and since this show will be my introduction to the Fenton community, I want to make a good impression. Going against gallery norms means that the stuck-up art snobs—my ex, Martin, included—who are invited to my show this weekend, will not approve. They’ll spend the entire evening sniping about how the new Fenton awardee is nothing but an amateur and clearly doesn’t know how to properly compose a showing. Part of me says to let them talk, while the rest of me wants to do whatever it takes to please them.
“It’s spot-on. Just as it is,” a voice says from behind me. “Don’t overthink it. You’ll just make a hash of it.”
I turn on a heel and gave the head of the Fenton committee a weary smile. Samuel Brooks is tall and lanky—built like a man who runs marathons for fun, which he does. With a mop of curly brown hair that occasionally falls across his face and mischievous brown eyes, he looks a decade younger than his actual midforties. Plus he likes pairing canvas high-tops with his corduroy pants and suit coats, which only makes him look even younger.
We’ve gotten to know each other pretty well over the past two weeks, with Samuel going over everything I should expect over the course of the next year, and driving me out to the ranch to see where I’ll be living and working during that time. His office, though, along with the gallery where my introductory show will take place, is here in downtown Tucson at the Fenton Institute’s headquarters.
“I’m not sure about the white space,” I conceded with a shrug. “People expect breathing room between pieces, especially when the canvases are this big.”
Samuel comes to stand beside me. He scans the wall from left to right, then crosses his arms over his chest and shakes his head.
“Trust your instincts. You’re an artist who works from the gut, Anya. So don’t fight what makes you you.” He sends me a patient smile. “After all, that’s what got you here.”
He gives my shoulder a gentle squeeze, then reminds me to lock all the doors when I’m done. After turning off the lights in his office, he disappears, leaving me all alone in the building. And when nothing but silence surrounds me, his words about trusting my instincts aren’t enough to tamp down the anxiety crawling up my spine. My instincts and I aren’t good friends these days. In fact, since leaving Palo Verde Heights and ending things with JT, I’ve spent most my time ignoring my instincts. Doing that is the only thing that’s kept me on course. If I hadn’t, I would have called JT a hundred times, showed up at his parents’ house a few more times than that, and traded in all of my independent aspirations in exchange for something more with him.
And while I want to feel proud that I haven’t caved, I don’t. All I feel is broken and sad, raw and ragged.
I sink onto the floor, cross-legged and drop my head into my hands. This isn’t how I’m supposed to feel. Not now, in the midst of my greatest professional accomplishment and on the cusp of my own reinvention in the world. But no matter how hard I try to ignore the hollow sensation inside of me, I can’t.
It’s everywhere—and I think it’s here to stay.
In the morning, I stop by the gallery before meeting Tara and take a second look at how I’ve arranged my paintings, hoping that a good night’s rest will give me some perspective. For the most part, it does. Without the fog of exhaustion I was dealing with last night, I can see what I put together with fresh eyes and now I’m not nearly as worried as I was. This showing is authentically me—and that alone is something to be proud of.
That confidence grows as I leave the gallery, stop by a café near campus to pick up coffee and breakfast burritos for Tara and I, then make the five minute walk to an outdoor commons area near the biochem building. The entire way there, I’m a little surprised at how unfamiliar the campus feels. It’s only been two months since I was here, but nothing about my life is what it was then. I’m not here to go to my job at the campus museum or to meet Martin after one of his lectures, and without either of those connections, I almost feel like a stranger here. Tara is my last tether to this place, which is something I’m still grateful for, so I scope out a large tree with plenty of shade and set up camp there to wait for her.
Just as I’ve settled in with my back against the tree trunk and peeled back the aluminum foil on my burrito, I’m interrupted before taking my first bite.
“Anya?”
With my mouth gaping open and hovering just inches away from the breakfast I so desperately need, I look up… and promptly lose my appetite when I see Martin gazing down on me with an easy smile. He’s wearing his usual uniform of a black turtleneck and black dress pants, with a black leather messenger bag slung over one shoulder and a charcoal grey scarf dangling around his neck. I start sweating on his behalf, still amazed at how he continues to dress like he’s wintering on the coast of Scotland instead of roasting away in Tucson.
“I thought that was you.” His eyes drop to my chest, zeroing in on the low neckline of my fitted top. “I only saw your profile from across the way, but I never forget a silhouette.”
My jaw snaps shut, then drops open again. Is he kidding me right now? The last time I saw this man, he was actively cheating on me, and doing so on top of my work table. I actually watched as one of my canvases was knocked off the table and crashed to the ground, right next to where Martin’s pants were laying on the floor. And now he’s greeting me with a smile on his face, his eyes on my chest, and not one iota of regret or guilt in his expression. He doesn’t even have the decency to look uncomfortable, he’s just standing there admiring me. Only a man with an ego the size of Texas could think it’s okay to leer at my boobs under these circumstances.
I don’t know why I’m surprised, though. I shouldn’t be, not when this is the way Martin moves through the world. He’s the sort of man whose self-image has never been tested, either because he’s too charming for anyone to question or because he spends most of his days surrounded by college kids who fawn all over him.