Chapter 11
Hope was beginning to understand the term starving artist. Thankfully she’d found a cleaning job five mornings a week, which meant she could just pay her rent and afford to eat, but she had no clue how the rest of the artists she lived with paid any of their bills.
‘Hope! Come and sit with us!’ Celine called out.
She’d spent all afternoon at her studio and hadn’t emerged until nightfall, which meant that most of her friends were already partly inebriated.
But she knew that she wouldn’t be able to keep the lease on her little studio much longer, which meant she had to make the most of it while she still could.
Hope listened to them talk as she lit a cigarette, ordering a drink when the waiter came past and watching as they downed either gin or absinthe. She imagined the spirits would double as dinner for most of them.
‘Has anyone sold anything this month?’ Hope asked, when there was a break in conversation.
She received a collective headshake in response, and she sat back and listened as someone started talking about a new gallery that was opening.
Like most nights they got together, it was hard not to feel despondent.
She’d thought her paintings were special, that she’d be able to impress gallery owners in Paris and keep herself afloat without needing a man.
But she was starting to see that making a name for herself in the art world wasn’t going to be easy, if she ever managed to do it at all.
The waiter came with her drink and she smiled her thanks, lifting it to her lips and taking a small sip.
She was starting to wonder if she’d be able to last a year trying to make a name for herself, or if she might have just been better off becoming a maid in one of the big houses she’d seen when she walked to work each morning.
But no matter what happened, anything was better than going home.