Chapter 21 – Maura
MAURA
From the outside, the Whitmer Gallery is just as beautiful as the artwork inside.
The two-story building was designed by an acolyte of Frank Lloyd Wright, and its clean lines look warm and welcoming in the gray Toronto spring.
I should be itching to walk inside, especially since I forgot my gloves this morning, and my fingertips are tingling with cold.
Instead, I'm frozen outside. Staring at that beautifully designed door, completely incapable of reaching for the handle.
My meeting with Sydney Meyer starts in ten minutes. I'm early, like my father always said you should be for business meetings. Early’s going to turn into late real fast if I stay here, my whirling thoughts stopping me from walking inside.
I just feel completely in over my head. I've never had a meeting with a gallery head before, let alone one so influential and important. What if I say the wrong thing? What if the questions I ask her are naive and stupid? What if she figures out immediately that I’m a fraud?
I just wish I had someone with me to have my back and give me the confidence that I don't feel myself.
I didn’t have to come here alone, I remind myself. Brinley would have happily showed up as my cheerleader-slash-minion if I asked. At breakfast this morning, James even offered to drive me to the gallery and join me at the meeting.
I raised my brows. “Don’t you have a meeting on your schedule?”
He waved a hand. “It’s just a weekly meeting with my assistant to go over my calendar. I could reschedule it.”
“No, go back, rewind. Are you seriously telling me you scheduled a meeting about your schedule?”
His blue gaze was coolly amused. “Yes.”
“So when was that meeting scheduled? Did you have to schedule a meeting to plan all your scheduling meetings? This is just turning into a real Russian doll situation.”
“I’d be happy to drive you,” James said, sipping his decaf coffee and ignoring me. “Just let me know so I can tell Taylor.”
“Nah. I don’t want to make the poor guy have to find a new color label for when he schedules your chauffeur duties. The rainbow is getting exhausted.”
James shrugged. “Fine. Good luck today, then.”
The truth is, it would have been nice to feel my husband’s quiet confidence right now. But I knew I needed to do this by myself. I want to feel like myself, not just Mrs. Keller. I'm not just some important man's wife. I'm an artist.
I close my eyes and envision the sparkling paints waiting at home for me in my studio. If the coping goes terribly wrong, at least I know I can go home and paint up the feelings.
Taking a deep breath, I open the door.
I've been to the Whitmer before, but I've never seen it like this.
The gallery is completely empty. No people, no paintings.
I know from stalking their website online that their new exhibit will open in two days.
This emptiness is only temporary. Still, it gives me a chance to see the display space as a blank page, ready for me to fill.
The lights are low, lending a warmth to the plain white walls. As I walk past the reception desk, my nose is filled with the scent of plaster and fresh paint. They’re just remnants of cleaning up after the last exhibit, but they remind me of my studio. Slowly, my heartbeat starts to slow.
I stray forward towards the longest wall in the gallery. I press my palm to the wall, feeling the subtle texture from the paintbrush. Closing my eyes, I picture color. I could start with something bold here, a blazing red or a sunny turquoise. A big impression to start off the show with a bang.
Or I could do something huge and more subtle. Maybe a gradient with luminous ivories, grays, and browns, like a weathered cliff. Something that would draw people in and make them stop to look more closely.
“I see you're getting acquainted with our gallery,” a low feminine voice says behind me.
I yelp in surprise, my hand going to my chest as I whirl around. An elegant, gray-haired woman wearing chunky jewelry and all black clothing stands behind me, her manicured hands clasped in front of her. Her high cheekbones and square jaw lend her a stark, harsh beauty.
“Sorry to scare you,” she says, a hint of amusement in her voice. “I'm Sydney, and you must be Maura.”
“Pleased to meet you in person.” My hands stretches forward automatically, my years of etiquette lessons kicking in. “The gallery is beautiful.”
“Yes, I'm rather fond of it.”
“How long have you worked here?”
“A few decades, give or take,” Sydney says. “I'm practically part of the furniture by now. Have you been to a show here before?”
I nod eagerly. “I come whenever I can. I still look at pictures of those driftwood sculptures you had a few years back. They felt so massive. Standing here now, I can’t believe they even fit.”
Sydney smiles, revealing a gap in her front teeth that adds an element of unbalance to her face.
It makes her look even more striking, and I wonder whether she hasn’t been a muse as well as a gallerist. “Yes, I remember that exhibit well. Rodney is a master of perspective. I’m not surprised his work spoke to you. ”
“Oh?”
“He’s drawn to natural materials, just like you are. Manipulating wild elements into your vision. Have you ever tried bringing wood into your paintings?”
I chuckle. “Only to reinforce my canvases. I'm more interested in stones and minerals.”
“Yes, it was quartz and coal you used on the painting that caught my eye at the Copper Cup. The Thunderstorm, I think you called it?”
“Yes. It’s one of my favorites.” Frankly, I can't believe that's the one she liked.
It's one of my smallest paintings, a foot by a foot, and not one of my most colorful. It holds a special place in my heart, because I was able to evoke the feeling of absence and emptiness I envisioned. It’s almost like a little black hole of a painting, rough and ragged.
“Do the majority of your paintings have weather themes, or is that just your current interest?”
“Actually, I've been a little fixated on changes around the earth’s surface recently. Eruptions and magma, extreme heat and pressure, contrasted with the slow changes of erosion. Obviously, there’s a weather component to erosion, so it feels like a natural continuation.”
Sydney’s eyes widen. “Fascinating. Especially since you’re doing a sort of extreme erosion yourself, breaking the minerals down.”
“Exactly. That’s why I like to grind and break the stones myself, so I feel like it’s my hands on the work.
I’m about to get some industrial equipment so I can break down some tougher stones, but I’m still mixing all the paint myself.
I just want to make sure I put a piece of myself into every painting, you know?
So it holds onto my memory in a way.” I shake my head. “I’m sorry, I’m talking too much.”
“No, it’s fascinating.” Sydney fiddles with her pendant necklace, which looks like jade. “I’ll want you to do a few more interviews about it with our PR team so they can promote your show. They’ll email you for your availability next week.”
I blink. “That soon?”
“Our next exhibit ends in three weeks, and we’d like to start yours a few days after. We’d feature mostly existing work, but I hope you’ll have time for a few new pieces.”
I swallow a crazed laugh. Despite all the emails, it hasn’t felt completely real until now. I’m going to have an actual gallery show, at one of the city’s best galleries. This isn’t just some crazy, wonderful dream. It’s happening, really happening.
“I'm supposed to ask you about a commission share,” I blurt out, remembering James’s advice.
Sydney smiles. “Of course. We won't formalize anything until you've signed the contract. I'll email you over our standard agreement for your team to review. I'd like to get it signed in the next two days, so please, send me any notes as soon as possible.”
“I'll do that.” I would probably just accept whatever Sydney offered me, but I know James will have notes. I'll have to order him to go easy on them. He's used to negotiating with business scions, not with galleries.
“I’ll let you get back to your studio, so you can start planning the new pieces,” Sydney says. “We’ll also need you to think of a name for the show, once you’ve decided all the paintings you want to hang. When I send the contract, I’ll make sure the specs for the gallery are attached.”
“Great. I’m really looking forward to this, Sydney.”
She smiles. “I am, too. Please, call or email me if you have any more questions. I’m here to help.”
I believe her. The way she talked about my paintings, it was like I was a peer. Someone on her level. Despite her decades of experience, she respects my art, and that’s worth more to me than Pages and Sequel put together.
My body feels like a helium balloon, floating out of the gallery. Not even the cold, damp air can pull me down. I lean against the front wall of the gallery while I let my emotions settle. Half of me wants to laugh, and the other half’s about to cry.
When my phone buzzes, I pull it out and find an email from Sydney waiting for me.
Dear Maura,
Wonderful meeting you today. The contract is attached for your review.
A thought on the show’s title: Self-Erosion?
Looking forward to seeing your new pieces.
Sydney
I immediately forward the email to James. I’m sure he’ll have comments on the contract, though he probably won’t get to them until later tonight.
I wish I could talk to him about it sooner, though.
Impulsively, I screenshot her email and text it to him, too.
Maura
So…I might be a real artist?
His response comes in under a minute.
James
You were before the email. The market just figured it out.
James is waiting for me when I get home, which is unusual.
“You're here,” I say, surprised.
“I wanted to hear about the meeting.” He gestures toward the couch. “Tell me everything.”
So, I do. I tell him about Sydney's silver jewelry and intimidating elegance, about the gallery's white walls and the way the light fell through the windows. I tell him about my vision for the show, the paintings I want to create, the stories I want to tell.
He listens without interrupting, his full attention on me. It's unnerving and wonderful at the same time. I’ve never done this. Not really. I’ve tried before—with my father, with my au pairs as a kid. But no one has ever shown such patient interest in my art. In me.
“You're going to be incredible,” he says when I finish, and for some reason, I lock up.
“You don't know that.”
“Yes, I do.” He says it with absolute certainty, like he's stating the answer to a mathematical equation. “I've seen how you work. The way you lose yourself in creation. That kind of passion doesn't produce mediocre results.”
I tuck my feet under me, hugging a couch cushion to my chest.
“What about you?” I ask, the spotlight on me suddenly feeling a little too bright. If he looks too closely, he’ll see all the cracks and flaws I know are there. “When's the last time you were passionate about something that wasn't work?”
He's quiet for a long moment. “I don't remember.”
“That's sad, James.”
“Maybe.” He looks at me, and there's something vulnerable in his expression that I've never seen before. “What makes you happy? Outside of painting.”
I think about it. “Rainy days. The smell of coffee, even though I like it decaf. When a song comes on that I forgot I loved. When someone remembers something small about me.” I glance at him. “Lo mein when I'm stressed.”
His mouth quirks. “I'll keep that in mind.”
“What about you? What used to make you happy, before you forgot how?”
“Poker nights with the guys. Watching old movies. When someone laughs at something I say, even though I'm not trying to be funny.” He pauses. “Watching you paint, when you don't know I'm there.”
My breath catches. “You watch me paint?”
“Sometimes. You're...different when you work. Freer. It's like seeing a version of you that no one else gets to see.”
I don't know what to say to that. The admission feels enormous, like he's handed me something fragile and precious.
“I'll try to be that version more often,” I finally manage.
“Don't.” His voice is soft. “Don't change for me. Just…let me keep watching.”
“Okay.”