Stony River

by Ciarra Montanna

  Leaving the apartment, Willy was surprised when she didn’t lock the door. “I did give you a key, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, but if you knew how much trouble I have with keys, you’d realize I’m more apt to strand myself out of my place than get burglarized.”

  Willy snickered. “Trouble with keys, eh?”

  “Yes, just like anything mechanical,” she said woefully. She wasn’t proud of being so inept.

  Willy was largely untroubled to learn of this defect in his new hire, and assured her she was just a typical creative type. He said he wasn’t such a whiz when it came to fixing things himself. He had her bring the key and made sure she could work it, and she very much appreciated his lack of condescension.

  They drove from store to store, picking out potholders and dishtowels, paring knives and saltshakers—and were mistaken for a newly married couple by more than one clerk. Willy’s sense of humor was in full swing as he hunted up aprons and potholders with absurd slogans, and made pompous critiques of dinnerware designs, often convulsing Sevana with his sly wit. But she surprised him when, after choosing two ceramic plates with a motif that had stood up under their combined artistic scrutiny, she promptly put them back. She had discovered a stack of tin camping plates on the lowest shelf. “Oh, I want these!” she said, snatching up two in excitement. “They’re just like the ones Fenn had.” And she selected a pair of tin cups to match.

  “You can’t drink coffee out of tin cups,” objected Willy, finding her choices incomprehensible. “You’ll burn yourself.” And he promptly reacted by buying her a set of hefty brown porcelain mugs, saying she could use them to serve coffee whenever he came to visit—which he hoped would be often.

  Sevana was surprised by the intensity of his look as he made this last remark, but felt honored he would think enough of her to want her company outside of work. For just in that single afternoon, it had become clear that Willy was no insignificant personage in that city of the western plains. Everywhere they went, people treated him as someone well-known and genuinely liked. After yet another businessman had detained him on the sidewalk to chat a while, Sevana asked him privately, “Is there anyone in this place who doesn’t know you, Willy?”

  “I doubt it,” he said cheerfully, steering her into a corner market to let her get the tea she needed, as well as taking the opportunity to buy a pound of specialty coffee to go with the mugs. “Almost every business in town has at least one of my pictures hanging on their wall.”

  Sevana felt a sudden tightness in her throat. To have your work so broadly recognized—to know that the beauty you saw in your mind’s eye had been shared with so many others—that is what she wanted. It gave her a feeling of relief to realize she still felt that way. She had forgotten, a little, in the transition of the move, why this was ever the life she’d thought she wanted. But the passion was still there, dimmed only by her unexpectedly sharp regret over leaving the mountains.

  The last, most unanticipated, stop was the florist shop, where Willy continued his indulgence of her by buying a showy gardenia, saying she needed a decent centerpiece for her table. Then he transported the packages back to her apartment, filled a bowl with water to float the many-petaled flower, and asked her to dinner at the Roadhouse. But when she said she needed time to deal with all her purchases, he good-naturedly left her to the domestic tasks, saying he’d see her in the morning.

  While Sevana washed and put away the new wares, she reviewed the happenings of the day. Willy’s lively personality had chased away her melancholy, making her feel no longer so disconnected to that place. More importantly, he had given her a visible example of what to aim for. His success burned as a determination inside her as she sat down to tea in a new tin cup—the opulent gardenia making her poor dried flowers look all the more pitiful.

  She took a deep breath and felt a measure of relaxation overtake her for the first time since the move. Art was why she was here. She could live without the other life right now because she had to, and she would do something to make Joel proud of her. The notion rose to full life within her. She would become someone Joel could not help but admire, by taking to heart everything Willy taught her, and letting nothing stop her until she had realized the same degree of accomplishment in her own work. She was on the verge of the destiny she’d been born to find.

  CHAPTER 32

  Sevana appeared downstairs for her first day of work in a svelte dark-blue dress that set off her light curled hair, midnight eyes, and creamy complexion. She was glad now for the outfits that had sat unused in the travel trunk all summer. At the door she met Willy, who was working the lock while juggling a briefcase, a bakery bag, and a cup of espresso.

  “Hello, Sevana!” Accomplishing his dexterous task, he let her in first. “Cool this morning, isn’t it? Where’s your coat? Oh that’s right, you’re from Cragmont. You think this is a summer day.”

  “Not quite.” The plain had a biting airiness the mountains didn’t. “I’m just spoiled living so close to work.”

  “Glad I could help.” He waved the paper bag. “Care for a doughnut?”

  Sevana had already eaten breakfast, but she unencumbered him of his burdens while he took off his coat. “See, how’d I ever manage without you?” he demanded to know at once.

  As he hung his trenchcoat on the coat rack, she noticed he was again dressed fashionably that morning, in pleated trousers and a crisp shirt with thin matching tie. And his eyes on her revealed he was thinking along those very same lines.

  “Ah, Toronto!—noble city,” he said with spirit. “Lethbridge may have a little catching up to do with you.” He meant it as a high compliment and she had to smile, even though she didn’t take it to heart. “Now I know why I never hired anyone before,” he went on. “I was waiting for just the right one, with just the right touch.”

  Sevana was glad he wasn’t regretting his hasty decision to employ her, but was equally glad when he stopped his flattery, ate a doughnut, and got down to business showing her the job. To her relief, the bookwork did not appear difficult. The cash register with all its function keys turned out to be the biggest hurdle, but Willy had a sheet of operating instructions to refer to. In an hour he had covered everything he could think of, and telling her to call if she needed him, went whistling into the classroom to paint.

  A few people came in over the morning—a white-haired gentleman bringing a new picture to add to his extensive collection on the wall, and a wealthy-looking woman who needed a fanbrush. Both recognized her as a new face in the shop and spent some time getting acquainted. She was able to help both of them, and rang up the one sale without Willy’s assistance.

  At noon Willy sent her out to lunch, so she went upstairs for a white roll layered with sliced cheese and vegetables. She told herself she was certainly eating well there, in contrast to the coarse fare she’d subsisted on all summer. The shopping centre had a first-rate bakery, and the clouds they sold as bread were an indulgent pleasure after a summer of durable brown sandwiches.

  Willy went out after she returned, and while he was gone the shop got busy. Sevana did the best she could, even though to one lady she had to say simply that she didn’t know the difference between two types of paint thinner and Willy would be back soon. The woman didn’t seem to mind, and looked at other things until Willy returned.

  When it was quiet again, Willy went back to painting. Sevana looked in on him once, and saw the wagonwheel picture almost finished.

  At half-past five he materialized from the back, straightening his flyaway tie, and announced he was taking her out to celebrate her first day at the shop. “This is the third time I’ve asked you to dinner, and I won’t take no for an answer,” he said—and while she was still pondering how she wanted to spend her evening, had already shown her to his car.

  Willy drove to Vandalier’s with a certain gravitational instinct, causing Sevana to conclude it was his favorite haunt. Two businessmen at the bar hailed him as he entered, as though they kne
w him well. The attractive, middle-aged woman who waited on them also talked with Willy cozily, while barely giving Sevana a glance.

  “So, how’d you like your first day at the shop?” Willy asked, when the waitress had stopped her flirting and left with their order.

  “I liked it very much.” Sevana found her eyes drawn to his square hand with the heavy gold ring resting on the table. It was his right hand, but it made her realize with a slight jolt just how little she knew about him. “I love being around art and artists,” she went on. “I just wish I had more education. I can’t talk knowledgeably with the people who come in, for I’ve had no specialized art training.”

  “And yet you paint, and I’d be willing to bet you paint well.” He leaned forward. “I’d like to see your work, Sevana.”

  “I could bring some things down to the shop tomorrow,” she offered.

  “I was thinking more like tonight, when I take you home.”

  Willy drank heavily during the meal. He regretted he could buy nothing for her since she was underage, but offered to share his drinks. Sevana, however, remembering her promise to take care—remembering, too, Joel’s look when he’d bought Fenn’s whisky—declined Willy’s charity. But the food was very good, and she did enjoy the dinner.

  While Willy waited for her to finish, he sat back and sipped a glass of scotch—a special import, Sevana divined from listening to him order it, kept on hand by the establishment specifically for him. A couple of fraternity men came over to say hello to him on their way to the bar. Then a town banker stopped by their table and talked with Willy awhile. It also seemed they were attracting a fair amount of interest from the tables around them. “Willy,” Sevana said low, after the banker had left, “why do people keep looking at us?”

  “I should think you’d be used to it,” he said with a lazy smile. “Beautiful women always attract attention.”

  The bluntness of his words startled her, and she looked down to avoid his openly admiring eyes.

  “Forgive me,” he said immediately. “I don’t mean to embarrass you. It’s just that the artist in me is quick to appreciate beauty wherever I see it.” He smiled disarmingly at her. “Ready? Let’s go.”

  When Willy delivered her home, she brought out her pictures. He sat on the couch and studied each one, his scented cologne bold in the small apartment. He was all artist now—Sevana noticed the change in him immediately. He was truly impressed with her work; he said so at once. But the teacher in him could not resist pointing out aspects in each that could be improved. Sevana was awed that he could remedy at a single glance things over which she had wrestled vainly.

  Last of all he took up the mountain scene and looked at it a long while. “This is exquisite,” he said finally. “I could do no better. In fact, I’m not sure I could do as well.”

  His seriousness surprised her. “It isn’t hard to paint such a picture when you have so fine a subject,” she demurred.

  “Did you paint it from a photograph?”

  “No, it was from a meadow above my brother’s place. It was like a dream, it was so beautiful.” She was eager to tell him about it. “The mountains towered above it so grandly, and in the green grass the lambs pranced and played.”

  “Lambs?” Willy repeated blankly, as though he’d never heard the word before.

  “Yes, a shepherd lives on that mountain.” Her eyes dropped as she spoke. It was frightening how distant that shepherd—indeed, that whole life—had already become.

  The change in her was unmistakable, like a flower wilting or the moon going behind a cloud. “This shepherd—” Willy said carefully, “was he a good friend of yours?”

  “Yes,” she said wistfully, “a very good friend.”

  “Well,” Willy said briskly, bringing the subject back to his own ground, “I was right, Sevana. From the look of it, I might have a student in class rivaling the teacher.”

  “Not at all.” She was able to smile. “I know how much I have to learn from you, and I’m looking forward to it. How did you learn to paint, Willy?”

  “I grew up painting. My father was a painter—a good one. When he died, he left me enough money I was able to open my own shop—something he’d always wanted to do.”

  “It’s been very successful, hasn’t it?”

  “Well—I’ve got a name in Lethbridge, at least. But I don’t know if that’s saying very much.” He gave a smirk as he considered it. “Well, I guess I should be going. Goodnight to you, Sevana.”

  After she’d seen him out, Sevana picked up the mountain picture again. She felt very far from the time when she’d sat in the pasture painting that composition. Fragile as a fantasy in its shining goodness, that life was already being overshadowed by the reality of her life here. She was afraid for it, lest as a dream upon waking, it vanish and be lost altogether.

  No, she thought suddenly, vehemently—she wouldn’t let go the memory of it. Even if she had to live one life in the real world and one only in her heart, she would never forget that time which had opened her eyes to a whole new existence. For what was life without it?

  As if part of the obvious sequence of her thoughts, she sat down and wrote Joel a letter. The words poured out. She told him everything that had transpired since the move—the apartment, the job, the thrill of having her sights on a goal that now seemed real rather than visionary. She knew he’d want to know. What was happening in her life was an extension of the things they’d talked about over the summer, and so in that way, he was part of it too.

  She confided her recent disturbing discovery regarding Fenn, which she had not mentioned that last night at his cabin. “Anything could happen to him when he’s not all there,” she wrote across the paper in her neat script, biting her lip. “Isn’t there some way you can keep an eye on him for me?”

  It was an eight-page letter when she was done. And if something in her questioned how that letter would be received in comparison to the letters he kept above his bed, she told herself that no matter how he felt about Chantal, he couldn’t deny that they, too, had shared something that would always be theirs—two souls who had forged a mysteriously strong bond because of the unique setting they found themselves in…a setting that doubtless could make any two people feel and share in the glory of life.

  CHAPTER 33

  Before work, Sevana walked to the corner mailbox so her letter would go out first thing. The sky was palest mint blue, the air cold, the sun just rounding up over the edge of the town. What was he doing today? she wondered, as she retraced her steps along the sidewalk with cars passing only a few feet away. Chopping the woodpile by his cabin? Sanding a fiddlepiece in the early morning meadow? Her heart rose in sudden, desperate longing to see him, and she bent her head and hurried along the street—back to the haven of the art shop.

  Len Sterling put in an appearance at the store that morning. “Well, Sevana!” he said, walking up to the counter. “Is this how Willy bribed you to stay, by offering you a job?” His voice was raised for the benefit of the shop’s proprietor, who was rearranging pictures on the back wall.

  “Not quite,” Sevana chortled. She put down the employment forms she was filling out for Willy’s file, to give him her attention.

  “I wouldn’t be so flippant if I were you,” Willy warned him, coming over. “I was upstairs looking at some of her work last night, and I’d say if you want her to remember you when she’s famous, you’d better show her your respectable side now—if you can still remember where to find it.”

  Ignoring him, Len set his painting on the countertop. “Like it?” he asked Sevana confidentially, as if Willy wasn’t even there.

  “Oh, yes!” And she let her eyes dance at Willy just a second as she gave it her attention.

  Willy came round to see. “Not bad. That fence gives a nice touch. Glad I thought of it.”

  “A pity you didn’t paint it, or you’d get the credit,” Len retorted—but they went off companionably enough to find a prominent place to hang it.
<
br />   That first week at the shop passed pleasantly. Sevana took to heart all that Willy told her, and tried to uphold his high standards, for despite his flamboyant personality she had observed he was a careful businessman. She knew he was impressed by her dedication, for he told her outright on several occasions, and frequently demonstrated his confidence in her ability by leaving her to run the shop while he worked on projects in the back room.

  But as much as Sevana enjoyed the job, she was always glad when the workday was over. She liked to change from dress shoes into hiking boots and roam the quiet prairie before darkness fell, traversing as far as she had time for through the dry grass. Sometimes she even got up early and went for a walk before work. The low, bleak rises held something of a fascination for her, their treeless horizons inviting her to wander. And wander she did, finding in those wide stretches a place to collect her thoughts away from the fast-paced life of the city.

  By the end of the week, Sevana was able to put faces to most of the painters whose works were displayed on the shop walls. There were Len and Ralf, of course, who were seen in the store almost daily. Len had a section of the wall he kept supplied with landscapes of his own choosing, but he was also popular as a contract artist, painting subjects for clients on request. By contrast, Ralf painted only when inspiration struck, and took up to a year to complete a single picture—for which he never used a subject, but painted it solely out of his head.

  And there was Jillian Vale, whom Sevana gathered was Ralf’s longtime girlfriend, even though they were frequently seen independent of each other. Jillian was a graphic design editor by day and an avid freelance artist by night, painting impressionistic pictures Sevana did not care for. But she did like Jillian—sophisticated at first impression with her avant-garde clothes, sleek molasses-brown hair, and long oval cat eyes, but actually very merry and down-to-earth. She took time to talk with Sevana when her busy schedule allowed her to visit the shop.