Chapter 7 Iris
IRIS
There are two reasons artists shut themselves off from the world. The first is when they’re consumed by inspiration, and the second is when they’re crushed.
This morning, my studio feels like both and neither. It’s filled with finished, unfinished, and half-finished canvases stacked like songs I won’t play again but still know by heart. My brushes have been dry for weeks, and my head’s been worse.
“Congratulations, universe, you win,” I mutter with a sigh.
But not everything is defeat.
Blanket sprawls in the corner, half on an old quilt, half on the ridiculously expensive cushion he stole from Marcus Lockwood.
I’d tried to ditch it in the car because I figured I’d send it back through Dr. Liam Hunt, but the mutt hauled it out, stubborn in that feral, street-born way.
Now he guards it like it’s the only possession that makes this life his.
He lifts his eyes when I move toward him.
When I first tried to coax him out of Chelsea Waterpark, he fought me like a toddler refusing to leave the toy aisle. I couldn’t leave him there injured, sick, and in need of daily meds. So here we are.
My Brooklyn apartment doesn’t allow pets, and risking our lease isn’t an option, so that leaves this Hudson Valley barn as our compromise.
But Blanket hates confinement, and he hates the leash even more.
Out here, I could probably let him run without it since there’s no traffic and no neighbors, but I know better. Without a leash, I’d lose him.
I kneel beside him, my fingers skimming the faded patch of skin where Liam set the fracture. His leg is stronger now, the fur creeping back in soft tufts.
“You know, you could at least act impressed with your recovery,” I murmur. “Whatever happened to a positive attitude?”
He presses his nose into my palm, then buries his face even deeper into the cushion as though the conversation’s over.
I’m still jobless, hustling mediocre Etsy paintings for grocery money and keeping a stray alive on meds I never could’ve paid for if Liam hadn’t shoved them into my hands for free.
To the world, Blanket is just a mangy mutt, though the mange is nearly gone now, and I should probably stop thinking of him that way. But here in this barn, with his absurd cushion and his mule-headed devotion, he’s proof that something broken can still be worth saving.
I leave Blanket be and cross to my workbench.
The Spotlight Study is gone, left behind at LeBlanc’s. But the last-minute sketches never made it out of my hands. I didn’t bring them out for LeBlanc or Keller that day, so they’ve lived here ever since, folded into the mess.
I spread the pages across the scarred wood. They’re filled with polka dots, but not like the others. These are unruly, restless, and full of energy, straining to break free of the paper. I shouldn’t like them, but I do. They feel…like me.
“No, it can’t be,” I whisper.
Because I know exactly where they came from.
They were born the night I sat through Charles Pompeo’s “A Day in the Life of,” my pencil running wild after Dr. Marcus Lockwood spoke about asymmetry.
For a moment, he had me and made me want to chase the thought to the end.
But then he opened his mouth about his charity and about compassion and humility, which reeked of PR.
My excitement collapsed on the spot, though the sketches somehow carried the charge of that first spark.
Marcus Lockwood.
My gaze shifts to Blanket, who has repositioned himself so the cushion props both his head and his neck.
“All right, lazy bum,” I tell him. “Walkie walkie.”
The routine plays out the same as always, with me chasing him in circles until I manage to fasten the leash.
Then, he drags his paws, and we don’t even make it half a mile.
His head drops, his steps slow down, and before long, he’s more interested in staring at the ground than walking it.
He hasn’t been himself these past few days. He eats less and sulks more.
“You know, Blanket,” I say, “Reggie once swore you’d grow into my guard dog. Protect your human and defend her honor. But honestly? The only thing you’ve ever guarded with your life is that cushion.”
Blanket gives a soft whine, then plants himself on the path, his four paws locked.
“Fine!” I sigh, crouching down to ruffle his fur. “I won’t judge you. You just be you, okay?”
I watch him sit there, miserable as sin, the leash slack in my hand. His ribs show less than they used to, but the spark isn’t there today. Maybe it hasn’t been there for a while. After a long minute, I make the call.
“All right, boy,” I whisper, stroking his head. “Let’s go somewhere you actually liked once.”
Hudson River Park.
He rides in the backseat with the cushion clamped in his mouth. But the moment we get there, he slips the leash, pads into the green, and then…disappears.
I stand there with the empty leash in my hand as sadness drowns my chest, but there’s relief too. He’s free again. Free in a way I can’t give him.
I pull out my phone and dial the only number that matters.
“Hey, bestie,” I say.
“Hey, darling!” Reggie’s voice bubbles through the line, like sunshine even without the sun. “How’s your little cushion prince?”
“I need moral support,” I admit. My studio has felt lonely, but mostly, I miss him.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, his voice instantly softer.
“I took Blanket to Hudson River Park. And now he’s gone.”
“Oh, Eye…” His sigh is sympathetic, not surprised. “He’ll always be the wild one. But don’t worry, sweetheart, he’ll be back. You know he will. Remember when he vanished for almost a year? Then one day, boom, he turned up as if nothing had happened. That dog has nine lives, and then some.”
“Yeah.” My voice wavers between hurt and hope.
“I’m here if you need a shoulder to cry on. Or a distraction. Or both.”
“Drinks?” I ask because I already know the answer.
“Drinks!” he chirps. “Meet me at three? Jumbo Joe’s. My treat.”
“Absolutely,” I say with a smile.
I try one more time to find Blanket, but he’s nowhere to be found. My feet carry me out of the park to a corner I know too well.
LeBlanc’s gallery sits ahead, the windows crowded with another polka-dot invasion.
Monet Fairchild’s collection fills the display, bright and airy, the sort of pieces that would charm their way into contemporary offices.
I’ll give her this; she handles dots better than I ever could.
But the title? Dot Series No. 3. That’s it. Whatever that’s supposed to mean.
I cut down the alley behind the gallery, angling for the subway.
The industrial bins line the wall in a shadowed row, fixtures I’ve walked by a hundred times. But today, one of them has something jutting out like a severed limb.
No.
The closer I get, the more the truth tears at me.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mutter.
Spotlight Study. My Spotlight Study.
It’s rolled and bent, slumped against a bag of reeking trash. The edges are warped, a slick streak of something unidentifiable running across its surface. It’s rain-swollen, mishandled, and stripped of whatever dignity it had left.
Memories come fast and hard—the night I stretched the canvas, the scent of fresh paint, Reggie’s polite gasp.
I’d known it was mediocre, somewhere below an Alaska puffer fish on the art food chain.
But I left it with LeBlanc. He could have stored it, donated it, or even sold it to some over-funded collector and then pocketed the cash. Anything.
No one throws away art unless the artist did it themselves.
Shaking my head, I place a hand on top of the roll.
I rejected my own work, so maybe I should savor the be-careful-what-you-wish-for irony of seeing it thrown away. But there’s no room for irony in me today.
I shove damp cardboard aside and wrench the canvas free, my grip so hard that my nails leave crescents in the soggy roll.
I hoist it onto my shoulder and head for the car.
Halfway there, I almost decapitate a man in a business suit while a mother drags her child out of my way as though I’m swinging a weapon.
By the time I reach my Brooklyn apartment, the damn thing has become like ballast. I drop the roll onto my bedroom floor and kneel, unspooling the canvas inch by inch. The polka dots stare back at me, blurred and smeared where the rain kissed them. I stay there while time thins to nothing.
I’ve lost my edge. LeBlanc was right. And that’s the real problem. The whole paint-to-market routine has dulled me and sanded down the volatile energy that made me who I am.
Artistry isn’t born in comfort. It thrives in extremes. Passion, tension, the thrill of risk. The chemicals that fuel creation aren’t passive; they’re a cocktail of adrenaline, oxytocin, and endorphins. The asymmetry lesson from Marcus Lockwood is nowhere near enough.
Like any artist worth their salt, I know the truth. Inspiration isn’t polite. It doesn’t arrive neatly packaged, waiting to be scheduled. It demands to be chased.
Give me risk, or give me boredom. Guess which one I pick.
The music at Jumbo Joe’s is too loud to think, but not loud enough to drown out the success stories spilling from the next table.
Reggie swears it’s the new spot everyone’s buzzing about, and I believe him.
The place has trendy décor all around, with Edison bulbs swinging in cages and brick walls scuffed to look deliberately rough.
And look at that: there’s polka-dot-adjacent art scattered here and there.
I’ve got a lavender gin fizz sweating on the table in front of me. It’s the kind of cocktail that comes with a sprig of rosemary tall enough to block conversation. Reggie is sipping a Negroni like he designed the damn thing.
He points at the menus above us, done in chalk lettering so polished it probably took the designer a week to make it look casual.