CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 24
Kari rose early and painted all morning. For the first time ever, she actually applied oils to two canvases during the same session. The butterfly girl was on the easel to her left; on her right stood the woman chasing the man and his lantern. Somehow the two paintings felt interconnected. Or they balanced each other in some illogical manner. Whatever it was, the longer she worked, the more she became convinced that in reality she was working on just one large project.
She became utterly caught up in her work, something that had been happening with increasing regularity. Such that her ringing phone was a jarring irritant, until she remembered why she had brought it with her.
“Rafi?”
“No, dear. Graham. Rafi has been breaking out in hives ever since we passed Santa Barbara. It’s his customary reaction to entering a frontier zone.”
“Where are you?”
“We just left San Luis Obispo. Wherever do they come up with these names?”
“Can you stop somewhere and buy us lunch?”
“Kari, it’s four o’clock in the afternoon.”
“No wonder I’m starving. I’ve been painting since daybreak.”
A pause, then, “Well, as long as we’re not required to watch them shoot and skin some poor animal. What will you have? Bison tongue on sourdough?”
“You’re loving this. I can tell.”
“I do confess the scenery is rather fetching. Mind you, in an utterly primitive fashion.” A second voice muttered something. “Rafi wants to know when you’ll be moving back closer to civilization.”
“Never, never, never, never.”
“She says it will be a few weeks yet.” To Kari, he said, “We’ll be with you soon. Unless the road gives out and we’re forced to hire a pony.”
Kari rushed into the house, where she was greeted by a loudly complaining kitten. She opened a tin of food, then carried it and Sienna to the rear porch. Kari seated herself so that she was facing the atelier and fed the kitten off the tip of one finger. It was how Graham had directed her to make Sienna’s acquaintance the first time they met. Ever since, it remained Kari’s way of apologizing.
“What am I going to do with you? Do you want to come with me to Miami?”
Sienna replied with her remarkable ability to eat and purr simultaneously.
“I don’t like carting you off so soon after you’ve arrived here. And you hate being around almost everyone.” She scooped out another finger’s worth. “Ian will be there. Which I think we both agree is a plus.”
Sienna licked the finger clean. Purring. When Kari did not offer more food, the kitten head bumped her and purred.
“Liam—he’s a young artist—he and his mother have offered to come feed you. And it’s only for a week at most. Should I leave you here? Alone?” She lifted the kitten so they were eye to eye. “Pay attention. This is important.”
Kari returned to her atelier, settled the kitten in her basket, and resumed painting. She stayed there, immersed in her work, until Sienna bolted for the corner drop cloths. Then Kari heard a car-door slam, and a man called her name. She set down the brush and palette, wiped her hands with a paint-stained cloth, and told the kitten, “Don’t you start. You were born in their home.”
The kitten remained invisible. Silent.
Kari walked out front, kissed the two cheeks, and demanded, “Where’s lunch? I’m so hungry.”
Rafi said, “You’ve waited this long, you can just starve a while longer.”
Graham said, “We’re going to pretend we’ve viewed your lovely new home.”
“And we’re enjoying your company,” Rafi said.
“Now that the trivialities are out of the way,” Graham said, “why, yes, Kari dear. We’d love to see your secret stash.”
“And you can explain why we had to come all this way to see work you should have shown us years ago,” Rafi said.
She studied the two implacable faces and knew they were only half joking. “They’re not secret. I just wasn’t ready to give them up.”
Rafi looked at his partner. “I don’t find that explanation the least bit satisfactory. You?”
“Kari. Really. Please.”
“Well, if you’re going to be that way about it,” she said.
“We absolutely are,” Rafi said.
“All right, then.” She led them back to the atelier and pointed to the four packing crates stacked beside the drop cloths. “Careful not to step on Sienna. She’s hiding back there.”
Kari watched them unlatch a crate’s top and begin setting out her work. They gradually rimmed the walls with paintings, some of which she had not seen in over a year. Longer.
“Do you want tea?” she asked a little while later.
“Kari, be a dear and go for a walk. Pet the cat. Something. Just . . .” Graham watched Rafi set the next painting down in the line. “This one?”
“Definitely,” Rafi replied.
Kari decided her only real option was to ignore them and paint.
To her surprise, the day’s intensity resumed almost instantly. She was mildly aware of the two men as they moved about and talked in near whispers. She knew they occasionally shifted paintings about. She noticed when Sienna emerged and drifted about the room’s periphery, finally settling by the north wall, as far from the men as she could get and still remain within the late afternoon sunlight.
The sun moved. The kitten moved with it. Not purring. But there where Kari could see her. She painted.
Then she realized her two friends stood to either side. Watching her. Studying the two canvases.
She set down her brush and palette, cleaned her hands, waited. “Well?”
“You are growing up,” Graham said.
“And there’s one more.” She walked to the corner opposite where the crates had been stacked, and carried back the easel holding the storm-clad guitarist. With Graham’s help, she settled it to the left of the pair.
“Our precious darling girl,” Rafi said. “Coming into her own.”
“I could weep,” Graham said.
“Go right ahead,” Rafi said. “Why should I be the only one getting all teary-eyed?”
Kari settled her arms around their two shoulders. “They’re not finished.”
“They will be,” Graham said. “Not long now.”
They made a picnic on the atelier floor, facing the three easels. Kari’s other paintings lined the back wall and the wall to her left. Sienna vanished when they started moving about, but the offer of food drew her reluctantly back. She finally settled close enough to accept a morsel from Rafi and allowed Graham to stroke her ears.
“I can’t believe Sienna has already forgotten us,” Graham observed.
“She hasn’t forgotten anything,” Kari replied. “She’s acting like a spoiled little kitty.”
Conversation during the meal remained disjointed. Her two friends seemed distracted, even anxious. Twice she started to tell them about Ian. But their oddly distanced air kept her quiet.
Finally, she demanded, “Will somebody please tell me what is going on?”
“You might as well,” Rafi said, lifting the kitten into his lap. “It’s not like it’s going to get easier with time.”
Graham showed irritation. “Me? Why on earth should I be the one?”
“Because you know I’ll mess things up. Then you’ll spend the entire trip back telling me how you could have done it better.”
“Oh, all right.” Graham turned to her. “Kari, dear, there’s more.”
“The gala. I know. We need to go shopping tomorrow.”
“No. Well, yes. Of course the gala.”
“And you definitely need a dress,” Rafi said. “I’ve already picked out the perfect—”
He was stopped by Graham’s upraised hand. “May I?”
“Actually,” Kari said, “there’s something I need to explain—”
“Best let him get it over with,” Rafi said. “He may never start again. Then I’ll have to tell you. And that way leads to ruin.”
“Tell me what?”
“Your retrospective is not in the exhibition hall.”
“You already told me that.”
“I did? When?”
“Last night.” She saw how nervous Graham was. Kari reached over and took his hand. “Graham.” She held her other hand across the finished meal. “Rafi. You two dear men are why we’re sitting here. In the studio of my new home. Whatever it is you need me to do . . .” Pause for a big breath. “I agree in advance. I’ll do it.”
A very different Rafi began, “The retrospective is all about you. We’ll be shunted off to some drab corner and left to molder.”
“I won’t let that happen.”
Graham said, “We’ve added another condition to your attending.”
Rafi said, “One that really was just for us. We demanded a booth in the hall. And not just any booth. Ours is directly across from the hall’s main entrance.”
“There’s a six-year waiting list for any booth,” Graham said.
“The directors shrieked so loud, they set the dogs to howling in Barbados,” Rafi said, smiling at the memory. “But in the end, they agreed.”
“That’s how much they want you to attend,” Graham said.
“Our plan was to showcase your two recent works,” Rafi said. “Justin’s and Indrid’s.”
“Marked SOLD, of course,” Graham said. “Then we’d use the rest of the space for other artists. But now . . .”
Kari said, “You want to sell my works. The ones I’ve held back.”
The two men did not respond. If either breathed, she could not tell.
Kari released their hands and rose to her feet. “Come tell me which ones.”
But as they walked with her along the rows of the paintings, she found the distance growing between herself and the work. She had brought the paintings as an anchor, a reassuring link to all she was, what she had accomplished, and who she wanted to become.
Now, though, she felt as if they belonged to a different era. What Indrid had said came back to her in a rush of clarity. She was entering a new phase of life.
It was time to let them go.
They selected five.
Kari said, “Take them all.”
Rafi staggered over and leaned against the opposite wall.
Graham said, “All of them?”
She pointed to the three easels. “Those too. Take them. They’re yours.”
“Kari, I don’t know what to say,” Graham told her.
“Well, I certainly do.” Rafi pointed at the easels. “Hurry up, finish those, and we’ll hang them where everyone will see them when they walk through the exhibition doors.”
Graham smiled. “That will put the other exhibitors’ teeth on edge.”
“Put a knot in their bowels, more like,” Rafi said.
“Rafi.”
“Well, it’s true. And I’m going to love every minute.”
“Enough of that.” Graham asked Kari, “Did you have something you wanted to tell us?”
“It’s better if I show you.” She pulled out her phone, checked the time, and added, “We need to hurry.”