21. Toby
Twenty-One
Toby
Kingston James is the most terrifyingly competent person I know. A week after our dinner in Manhattan, a tractor trailer arrives on Bramble Street to deliver a simple rectangular building, setting it down on the cement pad that might have been designed for the purpose. A day after that, an electrician installs a new electrical box to power the thing. A plumber arrives the following day to put in an outdoor sink and shower head in the garden next to the new studio, and a carpenter comes to set up a fragrant cedar privacy screen around the shower head. Kingston says it’ll be handy to have an outdoor shower in summer, and he’s always wanted to put one in, anyway. It will be easier for me to wash out my brushes and clean up outside, at least until it freezes. And eventually it will warm up again.
All of a sudden, it’s early November and I have a brand-new studio space twenty feet from my door.
“Kingston built you a studio?” Ivy asks when I explain why I’m moving my canvases, paints, and tools out of her garage.
“Technically, it came pre-built,” I say as I stuff brushes into mason jars and the mason jars into a cardboard box. “He had been planning to put a garage on this concrete pad that previous owners had poured, but he’s never gotten around to it, and since I have the show coming up, he thought it would be more convenient. And this way, you have more room for your work!” I add brightly.
Since Ivy’s show opened, she’s been inundated with orders for more of her dramatic birds in flight. She’s even hired an assistant from the Rosedale Art Center to help her.
“I’m happy to have the space,” she says. “But?—”
I gather up a stack of battered magazines. “But what?”
“Are you two—never mind. I know it’s not my place to ask.” She sighs, looks down at her fingernails, and picks at the clay caulked into her cuticles. “Forget I said anything.”
It takes me a minute to get what she’s not saying. “He’s just being a good friend.” No matter how many times I look at him and wish for more, that isn’t what our relationship is about. Every time I think I’m going to work up the courage to say something, to ask if there’s even the slightest chance he could want me, I get brought back to earth before I can ruin what we have. We work as what we are—friends, roommates. His unwavering support has me determined to make this show a success. The first thing I’ll do when I get my first big gallery check is pay him back rent.
“Toby, babe, I’m not saying there’s anything nefarious about what he’s doing, but no one builds someone a brand-new studio just because they’re friends .”
“Why else would he do it then?”
She stares at me. “Were you this dense when we were together?”
“Is that a joke?”
“Not very funny, I suppose.” She touches my hand with hers. I miss her touch, I realize. Or I miss being touched. “Are you doing all right, really? You don’t have to move out of here if you don’t want to.”
Even if the new space wasn’t a lovely, perfectly sized sandbox for me to play in all day, moving seems overdue. “It’s for the best. You need your space. I’ve been trespassing on your kindness for far too long. Years too long.”
I wonder, with a stab of discomfort, if I’ve traded my dependence on her for one on Kingston. But no, this is different. Fernanda makes it different. My work being ready for prime time makes it different. I may still be scared of success, but I’m not letting the fear stop me anymore.
“Maybe it happened this way for a reason,” she says eventually. “Maybe neither of us was quite ready before, and these shows are happening when they’re supposed to.”
There’s still seventy-five percent of me that thinks I’m going to be laughed out of the Weiss Gallery when the show opens to critics and collectors, but I appreciate her optimism. “I’m glad you’re getting the recognition you deserve.”
“Yeah, well.” She shrugs. “I’m happy to be busy. But I’m not sure I’m going to stay in Rosedale forever.”
“But—the Art Center.”
“My board term is only one year. I think I might go back to London in the summer. I miss it, Toby. And I want to move on.” She squints at me as if gauging how I’ll react.
As sad as it is to think of her being an ocean away, I understand what she really means. “You want to meet someone,” I say bluntly. “You should. I mean, you will in a heartbeat.”
“Thanks.” She eyes me up and down critically. “You do seem the most Toby you’ve been in a while. I’m glad.”
I laugh and find an empty box for the magazines. “What does that mean?”
“Just that whatever you’re doing—keep doing it. I’m happy for you.”
“Thanks, Ivy.”
After I’ve packed the last load into the Volvo, I look around the empty studio. It feels like the end of an era. For a year and a half, this place was part of my daily life. Now I have a new start. As I’m leaving, Ivy comes trudging up the path, lugging a scarred wooden pedestal, one she sculpts on.
“Need a hand?”
She shakes her head and plops the square of wood in the middle of the empty room. “No, I’m good.”
It’s the end of one era and the beginning of another.
I hand her my key, give her a kiss on the cheek, and drive home.