The Gallery

by Barbara Steiner

  It didn’t matter what the painting said, but she enjoyed the exercise. For a few minutes she sketched her own emotions with a piece of charcoal, trying to be as free as possible—to free associate, letting her feelings come through her hand. Not thinking, just feeling what appeared on the page.

  What she had when she finished was the best drawing she’d done in weeks. It wasn’t great, but it was a start. Maybe—did she dare hope—she was moving past the block in her work.

  The next day, she took her sketch pad to school. Spent all her free time doing the same free association doodling. By the time she got to sixth period she had six sketches, the last one somewhat finished.

  Robby laid them out across a table and stared at them. He kept staring until La Donna felt her stomach tighten, her underarms grow damp. She bit her bottom lip and looked at them with the teacher.

  Eric Hunter stopped before Roddy said anything. He looked at all the sketches. “The work of a disturbed mind, I’d say.” He laughed and winked at LaDonna. Never in her whole life had a boy winked at her. She didn’t think she liked the gesture.

  “Hunter, will you step into my office?” Roddy said, his voice low and unemotional. “I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes.”

  “Sure, teach.” Hunter gave LaDonna a parting grin.

  “Sometimes they send me some real losers,” Roddy mumbled, loud enough so that only LaDonna heard it. She felt it better not to comment.

  “These are strong, emotional sketches, LaDonna. You may be onto something here. This may be your leap of faith. How about transferring this last, more finished one, to your canvas? Try painting it.” Roddy shuffled the newsprint pages together with the picture he meant on top.

  On canvas, the picture looked crude and stiff. Artificial. Even childlike. LaDonna stared at it, rolled her paint brush over and over from hand to hand. She couldn’t bring herself to squeeze one dab of paint onto her palette.

  Only once, during the hour, did she look at Johnny. She had walked to school early this morning, deliberately missing him. She felt a bit foolish about last night.

  Her apprehension, however, paralleled an eagerness to get to the art building on campus, to the basement room. Would there be another painting? A note back from him, answering hers?

  A good twenty minutes before the class was over, she packed up her fishing tackle box of paint tubes and brushes. Stuck the canvas board in her tote bag, along with her sketches. Turned, and without a word to anyone, left school through the back door.

  If Roddy needed to tell her that her behavior was unacceptable, he could do so tomorrow. If Johnny thought she was being weird, she’d explain later.

  She practically ran across the parking lot, over the bridge that spanned the creek behind the school, and up a short cut path to the college.

  At the door to the art building, she paused. Took several deep breaths, her eyes closed, her mind blank.

  Mrs. Coombs was on the phone and waved to her. LaDonna waved back, but she didn’t stop to talk as she did occasionally. She needed to turn in her hours so she could get paid, but she’d do that later. All she really needed to do was slide a paper under the office door.

  Closing the hall door behind her, she snapped on the stair light, thumped down, making plenty of noise. Did she have to warn him that she was coming? No, he’d know.

  Deliberately, she dumped her stuff on the table, not looking at the walls. She steadied her shaking body, breathed in and out three more times, enjoying the musty smell of the room. And a faint hint of oil paint? Or was she imagining that?

  Slowly she turned and stared at the wall where the painting had appeared yesterday. It was still there. Another hung beside it. A note was slid into the corner of the frame of the first.

  She grabbed it, clinching her fist around the paper until it crumbled and the cream-colored note floated gracefully to the floor. She snatched it up, held it more gingerly. The paper seemed really old, the ink watery and uneven.

  How many works of art have you seen, LaDonna?

  The connection took a few seconds. She had called his first painting a work of art.

  She slapped open her notebook, tore out a sheet of tablet paper.

  Some. Roddy took us to an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. And I know what I like.

  When she had scribbled that much, she stopped, sat on the hard, straight chair, and studied the second piece.

  The style was similar. Those deep set eyes, lined with a thick, dark brown line. A child’s face—a waif was a better word—certainly a child who was hungry, perhaps homeless, maybe without parents, a child stared at the horizon. There was the same stormy sky, the same empty horizon. But from the sky came a hint of light, celestial light?

  Are you looking for something, too? Has anything ever appeared on the horizon for you?

  “Very good,” a low voice whispered from behind her.

  She swung around. Then stood and backed up until her shoulders pressed against one wall of the warm room. “Who are you?” she asked in a soft voice. “Where are you?”

  “Does it matter?” The voice seemed to be all around her. It bounced gently off the concrete walls, the plaster ceiling, the worn concrete floor.

  “I—I guess not. I didn’t imagine you, did I? You’re the one who’s been here all along.”

  “Do you think you’re imagining me?”

  “Stop answering my questions with another question.” She felt some annoyance, some impatience with him, combined with a struggle of her lungs to suck in enough air, which suggested she was also afraid.

  She didn’t want to be afraid. “Should I be afraid of you?”

  “What do you think? Have you been afraid until now? For three weeks? Are you afraid now?”

  “Some.” She licked her lips. Her mouth felt cottony. She sucked her cheeks to find enough saliva to swallow. Then she caught one cheek in her teeth and bit down just enough to be sure she was awake. Of course she was awake.

  “I’m glad you came,” he said. “I was lonely.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Your company. What do you want?”

  He did it again. Asked another question in response to hers. She forced herself to relax. He was the same person. The only thing that had changed was his speaking to her. Why should she be afraid now? “I want to paint again. I’ve been blocked. Do you ever get blocked?” She’d talk to him as she would any artist. As she would Roddy.

  “Of course. All artists get blocked. So do writers. It’s part of the business.”

  “How about pianists?” she asked just for fun.

  “They get strung out, nervous, hard to live with. Everything they play sounds off key.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “I watch people. I know what they’re feeling.”

  “You’ve been watching me for three weeks.” She looked in every corner of the room. There wasn’t any place to hide. She didn’t have the nerve to open either door to or from the room. “What am I feeling?”

  “Frustration. Maybe you could paint here. I might be able to help you. It’s worth a try.”

  “That wouldn’t be fair. I’m supposed to be working for Glen Walker. For the gallery.”

  “No one is monitoring you. Don’t turn in the hours when you’re painting. This work you’re doing here is not very valuable anyway. You’re the only one in this room with any talent.”

  “Besides you.” She felt comfortable enough to tease.

  “I guess I was talented.”

  “Was?”

  “Am.”

  LaDonna needed no more encouragement. She set out her canvas board, wishing she had her easel, but she could paint without it. She clicked open the dark green fishing tackle box with its small compartments, each filled with tubes of paint of varying sizes.

  With no more thinking, she set to work.

  She had no idea how much time had passed until she looked at her watch. It was midnight. But a painting was finished.
<
br />   She realized now that she had never questioned what colors to use, what brush strokes or brush size, how much paint to apply. She seemed to know.

  She was pleased with the picture except for one thing. “It looks like something you painted.”

  She spoke to him again without stopping to feel if he was there. She got no answer. And she was incredibly tired.

  She’d leave the picture on the table to dry, and for him to look at. Maybe he’d leave her a note about how to improve it. Maybe he’d say what he thought of it.

  Please tell me what you think.

  She left him a note.

  From the middle of the room, she pulled off the light, stood for a minute in the darkness. It was velvety. She took it in, surrounded by a feeling of well being. He really wasn’t there, but it was all right. This was her place, too. A place she could hide, she realized. A place where she could shut out the world, feel safe, feel totally accepted.

  “Goodbye,” she whispered, as much to the room as to him.

  At the top of the stairs, she looked back into the pit of darkness. The black hole invited her back. She smiled. “Later.”

  The upstairs hall was another matter. The building was empty she knew. Her footsteps echoed behind her. And she realized she was going to have to cross the campus and get home at a very late hour. Her trip to Old Main last night to find Johnny flashed into her mind. The idea that someone had followed her.

  For the first time ever, she was afraid of the darkness.

  six

  LADONNA PAUSED AT the front door of the art building, then tried to push it open. It seemed extra heavy but it wasn’t locked from the inside. She leaned into it, barely forcing it wide enough to slide out.

  While she was painting in the basement the weather had changed. A wild, twisting wind storm roared across the campus in full force.

  Trees bent their full-leafed limbs in protest. Savage gusts rustled the young leaves, tore them from their stems, tossed them through the air. The storm sent small limbs sailing, swept dirt and trash through the turbulent air.

  Grit filled her eyes the minute she faced east. Tears blurred her vision as she blinked and blinked. Her thin jacket slapped and billowed, the wind threatening to rip it off and send it westward. Gathering the bottom in both hands, she managed to zip it closed. Now it was plastered to her body, offering no warmth. An icy edge to the wind knifed through her body, twisted and loosened her braid, sweeping curls away from her face. Then her hair whipped back, stinging her face.

  Instead of walking toward Broadway, she cut north, even though that path took her through the trees. She didn’t feel very safe walking under them, but the route was shorter. Sometimes these storms uprooted whole trunks that had stood for years. Huge limbs cracked and snapped like twigs.

  Inclement weather lured LaDonna outside to take long walks. Rain, snow gently falling, provided a solitude she loved, and she sometimes roamed for miles, returning to the house soaked and satisfied. This wind was not friendly, or inviting.

  She had forgotten to be afraid until she heard the thudding footfalls behind her, coming fast. She turned and just had time to throw out both arms to catch the body hurling towards her.

  “Oh! Let go! Leave me alone!” The woman started to beat LaDonna with her fists, to struggle and thrash about wildly.

  “Hey, hey, hey, stop that. You’re all right. I’m not going to hurt you. What’s wrong?” LaDonna clasped her in a bear hug to stop her hysterics.

  The young woman, tall and thin, but strong, sagged against LaDonna. Her weight was too much and LaDonna let her sink to the sidewalk. She crouched beside the girl, cradling her until she calmed enough to speak.

  Instead of talking, the girl began to cry. LaDonna sat down and waited. No way could she leave the woman alone until she found out why she was so distraught.

  As the two huddled, the wind swept around them, but it was less violent under the pines. The moaning and whistling distanced itself, leaving them in a small pocket of quiet.

  Finally her sobbing and puppy whimpers ceased and the woman bent double. She slid her knees up, circled them with both arms, buried her face, gasped, coughed, and sucked in air. LaDonna waited, patting the woman’s shoulder to reassure her that she was okay. That she was with a friend.

  “Better?” LaDonna finally said.

  “I’m okay now. Thanks.” The woman raised her head, wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her warm-up suit.

  “I’ll never, never run across the campus at night again.”

  “You were out running in this storm?” LaDonna knew Bellponte was full of fanatics who ran in snow, rain, freezing cold.

  “The wind wasn’t blowing when I left home. I ran to the campus. Planned to get a book at the library and run back home.”

  “And what happened? What frightened you?”

  “Someone was following me.”

  “Are you sure?” LaDonna looked around, but they were alone.

  “He grabbed me when I came out of the library and headed toward Old Main. I hadn’t started running yet. I was zipping the book into my jacket.”

  “I thought you were awfully flat-chested.” Maybe teasing her would help her relax.

  She did laugh a little. “Yeah, but if I’d have kept the book in my hand, I could have hit him with it.”

  “But you got away?” LaDonna wanted the rest of the story. The woman’s experience made her realize that maybe she hadn’t been spooked for nothing the other night.

  “I twisted out of his hold. Kicked him in the stomach. Maybe he hadn’t expected me to be so strong. Hey, thanks.” She got to her feet. “I hope I didn’t scare you too bad.”

  “I was a bit startled when I turned around and saw you hurling towards me. I think someone was following me up here the other night. This makes me angry. I’ve never been afraid before. But then I’ve never wandered around the campus at night before. I just got a job up here.” LaDonna rattled on, suddenly needing to talk.

  “Listen, which way were you headed? Could I walk with you? I doubt if he followed me far. I can outrun almost anyone. I’m on the track and field team.”

  “Maybe I should think again about the benefits of pounding the pavement every day.” All LaDonna would do was think about running. She wasn’t the least bit athletic. “I’m going towards College Avenue, but I’ll go whichever way you need to go until we get to busier streets.”

  “That’s perfect. I live down off of Twentieth. I had planned to run down Seventeenth, but when I took off, I had no sense of which way I was headed. I never walk by this pond.”

  They skirted the edge of the Varsity Pond, and the woman looked back several times. When they reached College, the wind roared again, pushing them along.

  “My name’s Mary Lou Shoemaker. You a freshman?” Mary Lou felt recovered enough for small talk.

  “Actually I’m a high school senior. I got a job on the campus, and hope it will continue next year when I do go to the college. I’m an artist.” It was the first time LaDonna had said that in a long time—well, she used to say, I’m going to be an artist. She realized the difference.

  “I’m impressed. I don’t have any talents.”

  “Except running.” LaDonna joked again.

  Mary Lou was able to laugh. “Yeah, you’re right. I guess that is a talent. I may even think about the Olympics. The competition is incredibly hard work, but once you win one of those medals, no one can ever take that away from you. You’re in the books forever.”

  “I guess so. I’ve never thought about winning anything.”

  “You any good? As an artist, I mean?”

  “I—I think I am. It takes a lot of self-confidence.”

  “Don’t let anyone stop you, girl. If that’s what you want. Don’t let anyone say you can’t.”

  “Someone tonight said I could.” LaDonna just remembered what he’d said. “He said I had a lot of talent.”

  “Then believe him. You’re lucky if even one person believes in you.
But believe in yourself. No one else will very often. To tell the truth, no one else will care very much. I’m the only one who thinks I should try for the Olympics. ‘That’s hard work, girl. And losing will break your heart. Don’t even try.’ That’s what my friends say. They know they wouldn’t do it.”

  Mary Lou stopped in front of a huge old house, probably divided into several apartments. “I live here. Thanks.”

  “Nice running into you.” LaDonna shook Mary Lou’s hand. “I can say, I know her, when your picture is in the paper or you’re on TV accepting that medal.”

  “And I’ll get so many jobs advertising shoes and running clothes I’ll be able to afford one of your paintings. It’s a deal, okay?” Mary Lou grinned.

  “Okay.”

  “You afraid to go the rest of the way to your place?”

  “Not now.”

  “Then take care.”

  A bond had formed between the two women. They might never meet again, but LaDonna felt close to Mary Lou Shoemaker. They shared something in common. A yearning. A dream of being more than most people dared go for.

  As she stepped onto the porch of her own house, LaDonna recognized a sense of excitement she hadn’t had in a long time. She thought of the painting she’d left in the basement room. Please, please let it be as good as I think it is. Please, please let the block be gone. I need to believe in myself again.

  Mary Lou was right. It didn’t matter how many people did or didn’t believe in you. You had to believe in yourself.

  She could hardly wait until tomorrow. She’d go up to the campus on her noon hour—cut a class if she needed to—and get her picture. If it wasn’t good, she’d do another. And another.

  Maybe the wind had done her a favor. It had blown away the little dark cloud she’d let stop over her head.

  Roddy would be glad to see her recover her confidence, return to her old self.

  Johnny would celebrate with her. She’d helped him live through some of his gloomy gray clouds.

  And he—he would be glad, she thought. He’d be especially glad.