30. Evan
The metal doorrattled on its hinges as Evan slid it upward, and it finished its ascent with a jarring clang that made him jump. The storage unit was dark, but with a bit of fumbling, he found the light switch. Flipping it revealed ten identical crates—each more than half full of paintings he liked but couldn’t sell or didn’t like and didn’t want to—along with the furniture he’d stored when he left his apartment.
He hadn’t been to the unit since moving in with Nick. Looking it over, he was overwhelmed by how much there was and how little of the work he remembered. The paintings represented an epoch of stagnation and had been worthless at the time of their creation, but lately, people were clamoring for anything he’d produced.
As he stepped into the unit, his phone pinged with a text from an unknown number. Evan, this is Judy Bayard. I’m a friend of Kelly Moore. She said you were looking for representation. I’d love to talk.
Evan stared at the text then sprang into action and typed Judy Bayard’s name into the search bar of his browser. It turned out Judy was big-time, representing names that even laypeople had heard of. More interestingly, she represented Maureen Thomas.
Fingers trembling, Evan took a deep breath before returning the call. It rang once, twice, three times. Clearly, she’d given up on him, and he’d missed his shot—
“This is Judy.”
“Oh. Hi. Judy. Ah, hi. This is—”
“Evan. I had your number saved. How are you?”
“Um. Good.” He sounded less like a prodigious professional and more like a stammering six-year-old. “How are you?”
“Better now I’m talking to you. Listen, I’m in between appointments, so I don’t have long, but Kelly sent me some photographs, and I’ve seen your press. You’re on a bit of a hot streak, hmm?”
“I… guess?”
“You don’t have to be self-deprecating with me. Tell me a little about yourself. How are we only finding out about you now?”
Evan assumed “we” meant the art world, so he stammered through an explanation of his history—growing up in the Midwest, going to art school, moving to Seattle—ending with the trek to the suburbs and his recent explosion of creativity.
“And you’re still producing at that rate?” she asked.
“Hmm? Oh, yeah. I finished a piece this morning, actually.”
The painting in question had been a distraction from funeral planning, which had taken up a significant portion of his Monday and would continue to dominate his week because Nick was busy with work, and Evan was the one covering the expenses. It was a depressing task, not for the reasons one would think but because he’d run into so many salespeople preying on humans at their most vulnerable, upselling them flowers and catering and caskets.
“Kelly mentioned you had a significant back catalog.”
“Well, yes.” He glanced around the starkly lit storage unit. “I just don’t know that I’d call my older work as, uh… significant as my new stuff.”
“When it comes to striking while the iron’s hot, I don’t care. If you sign with me, I can arrange to have someone come out, appraise what you’ve got, and get it sold. As for what I can do for you moving forward, I’d like to know what you see for yourself when you picture your career.”
“I’d own a gallery,” he said without hesitation. “In… in New York.”
It felt strange to say the latter bit out loud. New York had always been part of the dream, but lately, Evan felt he might miss a few things about Seattle.
Judy barked out a laugh. “Ambitious. I like that. I’m based in Manhattan, you know.”
“I know. I looked you up.”
“Of course you did. Listen, no promises, but if you can keep churning out new work, I can finesse some connections here, see about getting you a show. There are loads of little galleries but only a handful that would be a good fit for you, based on what I’ve seen.” Judy talked fast, which was saying something, considering the speed at which Evan could chitchat.
“I—yes, absolutely. I’m actually at my storage unit now, looking at my old stuff.”
“Don’t worry about that. Just keep working. I’ll handle the appraisals and all the rest. I want you focused on the future, not the past, provided you sign with me. You’ve picked up a cult following that’s going mainstream, thanks to Rachel Roberts posting about you, and I don’t see the momentum slowing so long as you’ve got product to sell.”
Evan preferred not to think of his art as a product. But that was why agents existed—to sell the artist so the artist didn’t have to sell themselves. It made sense that Judy would be focused on the business side, giving Evan leave to think about what mattered. So he could handle her commercial angle, even if he didn’t like it.
“I just worry that if people see my old work, they’re not going to be as interested in the new,” he said.
“Let me fuss with the marketing. We’ll call it an evolution—your early period—throw in some copy about how you were experimenting with light, color, tone, whatever. So long as your name’s on it, people will pay.”
“That feels a little scammy.”
She laughed again, her voice rising over a honking car horn. “Did you paint them?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Then people know what they’re getting. If they want to shell out for something you did ten years ago rather than waiting for something new, then that’s their problem.”
“I guess,” he said, frowning.
“Why don’t you come out to the city this week? I can have my assistant get you on a flight tomorrow.”
“Oh, not tomorrow. This week’s really rough. I have—a friend of mine, her mother died. The funeral isn’t for a couple of days, but I’m helping with the arrangements.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. How soon can you be here?”
“Ah…” It was Tuesday, and Nick’s home visit was the next morning, provided they didn’t reschedule. The funeral, if all went according to Evan’s plan, would be Friday morning, with a small reception following. “Saturday? Or if you don’t want to meet on the weekend, Monday.”
“I want to meet you as soon as possible. Are you talking to any other agents?”
“No.”
“Well, if you get more calls, you gotta promise to give me a fighting chance, and don’t sign anything before I see you. Ah, taxi! Evan, it was a pleasure. I’ll be in touch, or my assistant will, or—hey, buddy, that’s not yours.” There was a brief vulgar exchange about whose cab it was before Judy came back on the line. “Sorry. The assholes in this city. Right, Saturday. Now, go home and get to work.”
For all her brusqueness, Evan liked Judy, and he smiled. “Will do. Thank you.”
“No, thank you. Have a good one, Evan.”
Then she was gone, and Evan was left with nothing to do. He took a photo of the crates and posted it to Instagram with the caption reevaluating my life’s work before locking up the unit and heading home.
To his surprise, he found Sydney sitting on the porch steps. Considering it wasn’t yet noon, and she was supposed to be in school, he had some questions. She walked around to meet him at the side door of the house.
“Hi, truant,” he said.
“What’s that mean?”
“It means you’re skipping school.”
She shrugged, folding her arms. “Yeah, well, all my teachers feel really sad for me, so I can pretty much do what I want.”
“And that leads us to truancy how?”
“Because Bree said I could take yesterday and today off, but I have to go tomorrow.”
“And Bree is…?”
“The monitor at the home.”
“So if I call Bree, she’s going to be cool with this?”
“Yes,” she said, her jaw jutting.
Evan ushered her inside and shut the door behind them. “How are you doing?”
“I’m fine.” She gave him a pointed look. “Can we go paint or what?”
“Don’t let me keep you. I was heading there myself.”
Sydney led the way to the studio, and soon enough, they were each standing in front of a canvas. Sydney’s piece was new, while Evan’s was a continuation of one he’d hoped to finish before the gallery show but hadn’t.
“This song sucks,” she said after a while.
Evan, who’d just put on a random playlist, concurred. “Yup.”
“Can we listen to the Stooges?”
“Yes.” He picked up his phone, pleased that Sydney had made the request.
Slowly but surely, he was indoctrinating her in the glam rock and punk he’d loved as a teenager. As the discordant guitar riff of “I Wanna Be Your Dog” hit the Bluetooth speaker he’d placed on a shelf, Sydney grinned.
Because of the volume, when Evan’s phone rang a few minutes later, he took the call in the stairwell. “Hello?”
“Hi there. Evan, I hope? This is Brian Blackstock. I’m with child and family services. I’m working on Nick Robinson’s foster application, and he put your name down as his roommate.”
A shiver went down Evan’s spine, and he gripped the railing. In all the furor over the show and Sydney’s mother, he’d almost forgotten about the sword of Damocles that was the looming background check.
“Brian, hi. H-How are you?”
“Fine, thanks. I assume Nick filled you in on what we need from you?”
“He did.”
“Excellent. I’m calling to get your email address so I can send over some paperwork—a consent form, things like that. Sound good?”
Evan slumped against the wall. “Yeah, definitely,” he said, fighting to keep his voice upbeat.
“Much appreciated. I also wanted to give you the chance to let me know about anything that might pop up—I can put a note in the file if it’s something minor or easily explainable.”
“Can you… can you give me an example?” If he knew what they were looking for, he’d know whether he had a fighting chance.
“The basics—whether or not you have a criminal record, credit history, employment and education verification, that sort of thing.”
“Right.” He cleared his throat. None of that sounded like it would turn shit up, but then, one couldn’t be sure. “I’m an artist, so my employment history is sort of nonexistent in the traditional sense. And I deal in cash a lot.”
“I’ll make a note,” said Brian. “But that shouldn’t be an issue.”
Evan nodded, the stuffy heat of the stairwell causing a bead of sweat to drip down his brow. If there was a ninety percent chance he’d pass the background check with flying colors, great, but what if he ended up in the ten percent and cost Nick his chance to foster Sydney? Or—well, no. Evan would leave before that could happen, New York or no New York. And so what if it made his chest hurt to think of either of them being so far away? That was a sentiment he couldn’t afford to indulge, because it would be too easy to stay and take the simpler path and let New York remain a pipe dream forever. He couldn’t just do the same thing he’d always done, floating through life on a whim. His recent success had only come because he’d challenged himself, and New York was nothing if not a massive challenge.
“Ah, I think that’s it,” he said when Brian didn’t speak again. “Nothing else I can think of.” Besides the obvious.
“Makes my life easier. I’ll get that paperwork over to you, and thanks again, Evan.”
They hung up, and Evan returned to the studio, where Sydney looked up from her canvas. “Who was that?”
“Nobody important. That looks good.”
She shrugged and stepped away. “I think it’s done.”
“Quick work, Syd Vicious.”
He moved to stand beside her and surveyed the piece. Instead of Sydney’s usual jangling neon cacophony, she’d painted something much less abstract. Evan could make out a distinct face, the mouth twisted in a rictus grin as if the person were laughing and screaming all at once. It was disturbing but very good.
“Syd—”
“It’s not about my fucking mother, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she snapped.
“I never said it was.”
“Everyone keeps tiptoeing around me, like I’m gonna be sad. I’m not sad. She left me a long time ago, so screw her.”
“I’m pretty sure the laws of the universe state you can feel whatever you want to feel.”
“I know that.” She folded her arms and turned back to the painting. “Donna said they’ll probably cremate her.”
“That’s one of the options we can consider.” Evan reached out to place a tentative hand on her shoulder and was relieved when she didn’t flinch away. “And if you want to bury her, we can figure that out too.” Nick and Donna had decided to keep Sydney from having to deal with the planning as much as possible, an approach Evan didn’t necessarily agree with. He’d never lost a parent, but he thought Sydney had the right to make a couple of calls on her own. “You know I’m helping Nick plan the service, right?”
Sydney nodded, and as Evan moved closer, he could see a glint in her eyes. “Yeah, I know.”
“Do you know why?” he asked.
She shook her head, her shoulders hunching as her fingernails dug crescent moons into her crossed arms.
“I’m helping—and Nick’s helping—because we love you, Sydney. And we want to give you the chance to say a proper goodbye to your mom if you want to.”
“I don’t care,” she said even as a tear broke free to roll down her cheek. “I don’t need, like, some big moment.”
“You don’t have to have it. We’re just giving you the opportunity, okay?”
“Okay,” she echoed then swiped a fist across her teary face, leaving a streak of dark paint in its wake. “Is Sam going to be there?”
“Yes.”
Nick had already spoken with Sam’s foster family, who’d offered to help pay for the flowers. Evan had put the kibosh on that. He could afford the expense, and he imagined that for them, it would be a stretch.
Sydney squinted at the painting then muttered, “I guess if Sam goes, I’ll probably go. For him.”
“You’re a good sister.” Evan squeezed her shoulder. “And you’ve been working pretty hard. How about you let me take you to lunch?”
Sydney nodded, clearly relieved to be done with the conversation. As they made their way downstairs, Evan watched her closely, his heart thrumming an uncertain little beat in his chest. He hadn’t been lying when he said that he loved her, but that love was too big—too confusing—for him to parse. Although, if he was being totally honest with himself, it wasn’t just his love for Sydney that was keeping him tied up in knots.