Chapter 4
IRIS
The gallery is a cathedral of light and space. White walls stretch high, a void designed to exalt whatever’s under the spotlight.
This morning, that spotlight happens to be on my painting. It’s centered, lit, and staged for a private viewing that only one person is meant to attend.
After weeks of reshaping talking points and spinning marketing angles for people who measure art in buzzwords, I step back as the staff fine-tunes the canvas. Oversized polka dots. Pop Art. Hallucinatory repetition.
It’s not me. But it’s what they wanted.
LeBlanc sidles up to his trophy critic, Jonas Keller, who’s wearing his usual expression of tailored neutrality. LeBlanc is practically levitating with anticipation. Keller? He’s like stone. Then the silence snaps open.
“LeBlanc, what the hell were you thinking?” His voice ricochets across the hall. He won’t even look at me. “Polka dots are for horny people. This is a waste of my time.”
Keller turns around.
LeBlanc, however, is already scrambling.
“Keller, please extend me a little grace here. This was never supposed to be the final version. I insisted we do a preliminary viewing because I didn’t want you to miss the…
ah…evolution. She has these impulses. Very modern, very instinctual.
” He gestures vaguely at the canvas, at me, at the ceiling.
“This is on me for trusting her direction.”
“This was the direction we agreed on,” I say. “All of us.”
“Us?” Keller snaps. His eyes flick to me first, then to LeBlanc. “Who exactly is us, LeBlanc?”
Son of a bitch! He never had Keller’s approval. This was his gamble, and now I’m the easy sacrifice.
LeBlanc puts on his PR face and guides Keller toward his office.
I trail after them. “Mr. Keller, let me explain—”
“Ivy, not a word,” LeBlanc warns.
The name lands like a slap. Ivy. Not Iris, not the woman. It’s Ivy, the artist. The identity I’ve fought for, now dragged across the floor.
I step wide, blocking their path.
“Mr. Keller, please. There’s more to this piece. I call it Spotlight Study. It’s about obsession, about how a pattern turns suffocating when magnified. It isn’t just on-trend. It’s a mirror.”
Keller softens, but not enough. “Ivy, my dear. You’re talented. Anyone who created Crimson Reverie is.”
Anyone. As if I’m interchangeable with the girl who made it.
I was eighteen when that painting broke through.
I’d twisted Klimt’s gilded world into heat, striking crimson across canvas the way nobody else dared.
Critics crowned it genius. But it was just desire fueled by a man I mistook for a muse.
When he left, so did the fire. My next collections went from explosions of lust to a highbrow bloodbath, dissected by the same critics who’d once fought to get me wall space.
Right now, Keller has that face.
“This…” he gestures at the canvas, “…this isn’t it.”
“Then tell me where to go,” I press. “Give me a direction, and I’ll move fast. I’ll give you what you envision.”
But Keller doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even glance back as he walks out, ignoring LeBlanc’s flustered invitation to follow.
The cathedral of light suddenly feels cavernous, and all I see is the man who sold me out standing a few feet away. My fury vibrates beneath my skin.
I swallow the distance between us.
“You knew how important Keller was,” I snap. “And you didn’t even consult him before drowning me in your polka-dot fantasy?”
“No one tells me what I should or shouldn’t do in my own gallery,” LeBlanc fires back. “Take that dotty thing with you. I need to rethink the whole collection.”
I stare at him, astonished. “Are you kidding me? You saw the work in progress. Twice. And you loved that painting. You said it was ‘the future of contemporary art.’ Ring any bells?”
LeBlanc waves a dismissive hand. “That was before.”
“Before what?” I throw my arms up.
LeBlanc exhales sharply through his nose. “Look, Ivy, I’ve got a gallery to run. The collectors listen to Keller. If he looks at your painting and sees a horny Alaskan puffer fish, guess what? It’s a horny Alaskan puffer fish.”
I sigh. “You don’t want art. You want trend bait.”
He lifts a brow. “Trend sells. You think I built this gallery on noble suffering?”
Oh, he’s really going for it.
“Fine. Let’s talk trends. You picked the wrong one,” I state.
His eyes flare. “No, you did. It’s too red, too confusing, too sexual.”
Fuck him.
LeBlanc folds his arms, his gaze bloated with condescension. “Have you seen Monet Fairchild’s new collection? That’s what collectors want. That’s what’s making waves.”
I go still.
Monet. Freaking. Fairchild.
My so-called competitor. My art-school nemesis. The woman who once described my style as edgy but unrefined, and then made a career out of copying my early work while smiling sweetly into cameras.
LeBlanc knows this. And he dares to bring her up now?
“You’ve lost your edge, Ivy,” he says, shrugging like it’s just business.
I laugh. “You wanted me to do round things. Of course I had to lose my edge!”
I turn and then shove the door open.
“Ivy—”
I snap over my shoulder, “Keep the damn painting.” Even my apartment deserves better than that eyesore. Hell, calling it an Alaskan puffer fish is flattery.
“Ivy!”
I throw him a middle finger without slowing down. The gallery door shuts behind me, and the city hits me full force.
The late morning sun glares off glass towers. Strollers clog the sidewalks, cyclists ring their bells, and taxis snarl in traffic. My hands want to tear something down, but instead, I walk faster as fury builds in my chest.
“Fuck you, LeBlanc.”
The words taste bitter, but my pulse steadies. This isn’t the end. Keller wasn’t wrong. The polka dots were trash, and he knew it. That’s something I can work with. If I can pull together a new collection, trend be damned, maybe he’ll take another look.
The problem is access. Critics like Keller don’t waste time on artists. They move in galleries, among collectors, and in back rooms where the real money circles. I’m too far down the food chain, but I made Reggie a promise. I made myself one, too. I’m not crawling back empty-handed.
What I need now is a spark. An inspiration. And that’s the cruel part. It isn’t something you pluck off a shelf. Reggie swears it’s as simple as finding a muse. Marcus Lockwood? Please. That man’s more likely to inspire a lookbook than a canvas. Disastrous.
By the time I stop walking, I’m at Hudson River Park. People are stretched out on the lawn, kids are chasing balls across the grass, and a group of women is moving through yoga poses.
Just then, my phone rings. It’s one of the contractors for my parents’ place, the kind of guy who starts every call like it’s our first date. I’m convinced he powers himself by siphoning stress off the rest of us.
“You want the good news or the bad news?” he asks.
I hate this question. “Good news,” I mutter.
“The living room? Shored up.”
“Great. What’s the bad news?”
“The jammed toilet? Yeah, so…turns out the outside pipe collapsed. Orangeburg pipe. Classic sixties garbage. We gotta dig up the whole yard and replace the line. If we don’t, your mom’s flower bed’s gonna be blooming two-ply. So, what do you want the guys to do?”
My neck heats. This is the question I didn’t want to face. “How much?”
“Start to finish? Brand new everything? Five grand.”
My knees nearly give out. “I can’t afford that.”
“I can’t go lower, Miss Vaughn. Not on a full replacement. That’s mob-rates cheap already.”
I could shop around, but that means weeks of waiting and no guarantee they won’t screw it up worse. Better the devil you know.
“It includes fixing the yard?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“Well, leave that part out.”
“A grand down,” he says immediately, as if he’s been waiting for the haggle.
“Two and a half total. Come on, I’ve stuck with you through this whole reno. I put up with the delays, the disappearing crew, and the time your guy fell through the ceiling. Please.”
Silence. Then comes a sigh. “All right. Two-five. But upfront.”
I exhale deeply. “Fine.”
I drop onto a bench facing the riverwalk.
Joggers and walkers pass along the wide trail between me and the water.
Ordinary life continues. Everyone’s got their mess.
Today, mine is literal. And I hate that I’m about to be a charity case again, but I have no choice.
I’m going to have to tell Reggie that I can’t make rent.
The thought prickles under my skin. It’s not quite shame, and not quite hives, just the hot, itchy feeling of being back where I swore I wouldn’t be. I don’t even know how to say it. How do you tell your best friend you’ve failed again?
Then I feel movement behind me.
But it’s not a person.
A shaggy mutt limps out from the grass, his coat tangled with burrs, his left hind leg dragging behind him. He pauses when he spots me, his ribs rising and falling as though he’s run too far.
“Oh, Blanket, old soldier,” I breathe, crouching. “What’ve you done to yourself?”
He edges closer, the stink of infection arriving before his body does. The wound is wet, and the skin around it has been eaten away.
I reach for him. He shivers, then folds down at my feet with his head low, offering himself despite the tremor in his flank.
“Blanket…” My fingers find his matted fur. “You’ll die of this if no one helps you.”
A low whine breaks from his throat, and it splinters me worse than LeBlanc’s backstab.
“All right,” I say. “You’re coming with me.” I clap my hands, crouching low and coaxing him. “Come on, Blanket. Remember this? Like before.” I pat the air, make a clicking sound, and pretend it’s a game.
He hesitates, his eyes glazed with mistrust, but his tail twitches. He misses me. That much is clear.
“Yeah, that’s it, boy.” I back up a step. “Follow me. Just like old times.”