Soul Unique

by Gun Brooke

“Do you think the police listen to people like you, Hayden?” Leyla snorted in a disdainful and ugly way. “You forget yourself.”

  “Hayden?” I walked up, standing next to Hayden, focusing my attention on her. “You don’t have to put up with anyone speaking to you like that.”

  “You’re kind, but you don’t understand,” Hayden said, her eyes empty. “Perhaps it is better if you leave after all.”

  Chapter Three

  I refused to leave Hayden alone with her acidic mother. Still, if I played this wrong, Hayden could be in a world of trouble after I left. My mind raced with different possibilities, estimating the outcomes for each of them. After what seemed far too long, I had one choice left if these paintings were to find their way to a gallery.

  “I have a suggestion,” I said, turning to Leyla but remaining by Hayden’s side. “You wish for me to endorse this school. As things stand right now, I can’t do that. Not by a long shot. The teaching is poor, the students aren’t where they need to be, and the management lacks insight.” I made sure my voice was matter-of-fact, but I knew for Leyla these words were daggers directed at her.

  “I’m listening,” Leyla said through clenched teeth.

  “If you make the changes I’m going to suggest, I can still endorse the school. They are nonnegotiable, though. If you don’t agree to do this my way, you’re on your own. We both know that will be the end of the Rowe Art School—if not right away, then in a year or two.”

  “So?” Tapping a pump-clad foot, Leyla showed her teeth. It would have been a smile if she didn’t so clearly want to dig her fangs into my carotid.

  “I come here once a week and teach a master class, and Hayden joins me as a co-teacher.” A rattling noise made me glance at Hayden, who’d dropped two paintbrushes. They rolled across the floor and came to a halt in front of her mother. “Would you do that, Hayden?”

  “The students can improve with the right tutoring.” Hayden picked up her brushes. “I don’t think my mother wants me to teach.”

  “Then the deal’s off.” I shrugged, trying for casual even if my art-loving soul moaned.

  “Wait. Why do you want Hayden there?” Leyla sneered. “I’m prepared to have a trained monkey assist you if that’s what it takes, but now I’m curious. Why her?”

  “Have you ever bothered to examine Hayden’s work?” Appalled at the searing and cruel words, not to mention the sheer stupidity of the woman before me, I did my best to stay collected.

  “A long time ago. She showed me some doodling and—”

  “Doodling? How old was she at the time?” I must’ve gaped for a fraction of a second.

  “I don’t know. Ten? Twelve?” Leyla waved her hand, dismissing her daughter.

  I couldn’t believe this woman. “And you never bothered to look again?”

  “She hasn’t shown me anything.” Leyla glanced around the room, looking like she’d never noticed the canvases placed against the wall.

  I turned to Hayden. “Is this true?”

  “Yes.” Hayden shifted the paintbrushes from one hand to the other and back again, over and over. She refused to gaze at Leyla. “When I was eleven years and ten months old, my mother told me never to waste her time. So I don’t.” She shrugged, but it wasn’t very difficult to spot the guarded expression in her eyes.

  “I don’t want to force your hand, Hayden, but if you teach a master class once a week with me, I’ll work toward exhibiting your work in my Boston gallery. I’ll endorse the school too, of course, but exhibiting your art is my main goal here.”

  “A solo exhibit for her?” Leyla squeaked. “You’re joking.”

  “I never joke when it comes to art. She’s very good.” I made sure Leyla was aware I meant every word. “It’d be a crime to not let the public see her work.”

  “You don’t realize Hayden’s issues. She was born with a mental deficiency. She can’t handle being in the public eye—”

  “Hayden? What do you think?” I turned my back on Leyla and focused on Hayden.

  “I’ll do it.” Hayden placed the paintbrushes on the counter behind her.

  “Excellent,” I said, and pulled out my planner from my messenger bag. “Why don’t we meet tomorrow and figure out which day will work for both of us?”

  Hayden looked puzzled. “I don’t have to work it out. I’m available every day.”

  “Ah. Good. Good. Let’s see.” Unable to hold back a smile, I browsed the pages of the upcoming weeks. “Then how about Thursday morning from eight to noon?” I glanced at Leyla, who still looked shell-shocked.

  She nodded. “Fine. How much is this going to cost the school?” Folding her arms over her chest, Leyla glared at me. “And what’s really in it for you?”

  I wasn’t surprised at her reasoning, as I’d known from the first time I saw her this morning that money drove this woman. In her world, that was how the world spun. Dollars spoke louder than everything else. “Only what the students use when it comes to supplies. Paints, pencils, canvases, that sort of thing. I won’t charge for teaching. It’ll be a privilege to work with Hayden. As for what I get out of it? I expect to see young people learn and grow. Also, I believe I’ll learn tremendously from Hayden.”

  Hayden blinked. Had she not understood how amazing I found her work? Perhaps she was so used to having her mother snub her, it hadn’t occurred to her that others might have a different viewpoint.

  “I’ll have my lawyers contact yours for the details,” I said to Leyla and refocused on Hayden. “Do you have legal representation?”

  “Of course not. My lawyers will speak for Hayden—”

  “No.” Hayden shook her head. “I’m going to see Isabella. She and I will contact Dominic D’Sartre.”

  Leyla did yet another fish-out-of-water impersonation, and I had to force myself not to cheer as Hayden asserted her independence yet again. “But, Hayden, she’s old and fragile.”

  “If you had visited her, you’d know Isabella is recuperating.” Hayden’s eyes narrowed. “She is old, but the staff says she’s doing much better.”

  “Of course they tell you that. They don’t want to upset you.” The sickly sweet tone was back in Leyla’s voice. “I’m sure if someone like me asked them, they’d tell a different story.”

  Someone like her? This woman was insufferable, and the way she spoke to her daughter was atrocious. “I take it your grandmother has her own legal representation.” I had to interfere before I throttled Leyla.

  “Yes.” Hayden glared at her mother with darkened eyes.

  “Have them contact my lawyers.” I handed Hayden my business card, on the back of which I’d scribbled the name of the law firm I used. She took it and cradled it against her in an odd little protective gesture. “We’ll figure everything out.”

  Hayden relaxed marginally. “Yes.” She raised her chin a few seconds later. “When do we start teaching?”

  “Today’s Friday. No need to waste time. Next Thursday, if our lawyers have ironed out the kinks?”

  Hayden looked puzzled, and I realized my words were too cryptic again.

  “Next Thursday if everything goes well.” I tried an encouraging smile and could tell she understood.

  Leyla, in turn, was once again smirking in an ugly I-told-you-so manner, which I wasn’t going to let her get away with for long. I planned to bide my time until Hayden was ready to assume her rightful place as my greatest discovery. As a nice side effect, I’d wipe that smug expression off Leyla’s powdered face, and it would be a true pleasure.

  *

  I had hoped to get Hayden alone before I had to depart, but Leyla stuck around and showed no sign of leaving. This, in turn, made Hayden pull further back into her shell, and she didn’t offer up any more canvases for my perusal. I took the chance to study her furtively as her mother went on and on about what a strange idea I’d conceived, but if that was what it took, so be it.

  Leyla’s voice was difficult to tune out, but I managed to reduce her chatter to a dull
murmur as I studied Hayden. She was busy rearranging her paintbrushes, which occurred to me was something meditative rather than practical. With her body half turned from me, she placed the brushes in order of length, then gathered them again, only to place them in order of thickness. Next, she put them in a glass jar and arranged them until the tallest were in the back and the shortest in the front.

  Her hair curled at the back of her head, folding in against her long, slender neck. I was ready to bet my new gallery in Miami on my opinion that the many highlights were natural. I couldn’t imagine Hayden having the interest or patience to do anything artificial to her hair. She wore no makeup, and her high-quality clothes were immaculate. I thought of some of the girls in the class we’d be teaching, Hayden and I, and how they used their own bodies as canvases in a way, adorning them with makeup, hair coloring, tattoos, and spectacular clothes and fashion choices. Hayden seemed content to place all her skill and emotions on the canvas sitting on the easel at any given time.

  “Thank you,” I said, not caring that I was interrupting Leyla’s monologue. “I need to get going as I have business to attend to and classes to prepare.”

  “Of course. Of course.” Leyla nodded eagerly and tried to place herself between Hayden and me. “This will thrill the students no end.”

  “Hayden,” I said, and rounded on Leyla. “Here’s my card with my contact information. Is there any way I can reach you?”

  Hayden took the card, but her mother spoke before she had a chance to respond.

  “You can call the school and ask for me,” Leyla said, her voice chirping again in a way that made me have to steel myself.

  “I have a cell phone.” Hayden grabbed a pen and what looked like an old receipt from her desk and wrote her number.

  “Thank you. May I call you either tonight or tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow.” Hayden didn’t offer any explanation, but her quick glance in Leyla’s direction told me her mother was the reason for that.

  “You have a cell phone?” Leyla stared openmouthed at Hayden in a way that was almost comical. “How did you get that?”

  “Mother.” Hayden sighed. “I bought it at Best Buy.”

  “You did. You did? Since when can you tolerate crowds enough to do your own shopping?” Sounding angry and hurt at the same time, Leyla took two steps closer to Hayden.

  “Since I learned how to handle it and not go out during the time of day when large crowds are in transit between home and work. There is also the Internet.”

  “This is something your grandma has encouraged, of course.” Leyla sneered.

  “Yes.”

  Leyla pressed her pink lips together in a way that smeared her abundant lipstick outside her lip line.

  “Thank you.” I tucked the note with Hayden’s number into my messenger bag. After a brief hesitation, I extended my hand to say good-bye, not sure if Hayden would see this act as too invasive. Hayden shook my hand, her grip firm. However, she withdrew her hand quickly, as if she’d learned to touch a stranger in a polite manner but still disliked it.

  As I made my way back through the school’s corridors, I was relieved that Leyla insisted on seeing me out, as I didn’t want her to tear into her daughter. Relatively sure this happened on a regular basis, judging from Hayden’s reaction to her mother, I didn’t like it. How the hell could Hayden be creative in such a hostile, toxic environment? I didn’t understand the protectiveness this woman stirred in me, as I wasn’t the protective kind. My image was no secret to me—no-nonsense, hard-bargaining, sarcastic, and somewhat of a bitch.

  “This plan of yours, Greer, I’m not sure…I mean, far be it for me to question your professional judgment, but Hayden isn’t a trained artist. We decided to homeschool her after several failed attempts at sending her to the finest private schools in Boston. My husband taught her the first two years, and then his bat of a mother took over. Trust me, those two may have been academically qualified to teach, but they wouldn’t know the right side of a brush or yellow from blue.” She cackled. “Whatever she’s managed to put on those canvases, it’s—”

  “It’s all hers.” I stopped inside the front door. “Leyla, you asked me here because your school desperately needs help. This means you must think my opinion matters, correct?” It didn’t thrill me having to deal with this unreasonable woman, but I kept going as she nodded reluctantly. “If Hayden is self-taught, she’s even more remarkable. I can’t explain to you how she can be this good other than she’s a genius.”

  Leyla shook her head. “You mean an idiot savant. That would explain it. Brilliance wasted on someone who isn’t aware of her talent.”

  “How can you talk like that about your own daughter?” I doubted Leyla even knew what a savant was. The way her voice oozed scorn made me want to distance myself permanently from this woman, but that would mean zero chance to work with Hayden.

  “There’s a lot about my daughter you don’t know. If you’d struggled like I have during her upbringing, you wouldn’t be so quick to judge me.” Leyla pursed her lips in a strange pout. “I suppose it’s easy to paint me as the villain, but I’ve gone through hell and back for that girl.”

  I couldn’t make myself believe her, and her long-suffering tone was a little too theatrical. If Hayden had some issue, I didn’t doubt there had been hard times, but nothing excused the way Leyla treated her child now.

  “I try to not judge anyone,” I said and hoisted my bag. “I’m late for my next meeting. This has been most interesting, and I’ll be in touch with Hayden soon.”

  “I’ll plan a function where we’ll announce our collaboration,” Leyla said, now back to her glittering self, smiling brightly.

  I winced, but this was the price I had to pay for having access to Hayden and her paintings. “Very well.” I shook Leyla’s hand and walked out the door. Torn between relief at leaving the building run by this overbearing, pink megalomaniac and my desire to immerse myself in more of Hayden’s art, I made my way down the wide steps. There was also Hayden herself, on one hand strong and unafraid, and on the other, vulnerable and at her mother’s mercy. Was the latter because she was financially dependent on her mother? Or perhaps her ailing grandmother?

  Determined and with my infamous laser focus, I intended to find out.

  Chapter Four

  “I’m dying to know if that woman is as horrible as she sounds.” India Duane, my assistant, gazed at me with bright eyes. Of all my employees, she was the only one I considered a close friend. India had come to work for me straight out of college almost fifteen years ago. It took me a few months to realize she was one of the few people I couldn’t easily intimidate. If I was irritated, she never cowered. She laughed off my mood or stood her ground.

  I learned that India was a lesbian and had a girlfriend, Erica, a tall, blond Valkyrie of a woman who looked as if she could break you like a twig. It didn’t take the two of them long to start trying to set me up on dates with friends of theirs. I had to make India promise to stop matchmaking, as I was clearly a hopeless case. All of their friends were lovely and very nice, and some I even slept with, but I rarely saw any of them more than twice. I blamed myself, my constant traveling, and how none of them was into art, but the truth was…something I couldn’t put my finger on was missing.

  “Well? Are you going to share what happened, or what?” India’s black pageboy hair danced around her cheeks as she waved her hand in front of me. Her expression changed, growing serious. “Oh, no. Something went down, didn’t it?” She moved across the office area of my gallery and sat down on the edge of my desk, her dark-blue eyes hinting vaguely at purple.

  “That’s an understatement.” I leaned back in my leather chair and rubbed my face. I was annoyed with myself at how preoccupied I’d been during my second appointment of the day. When I should’ve focused on four of my favorite artists, I’d been completely wrapped up in the images of Hayden and all her paintings. I’d sat like a drone through the meeting regarding the final stage
s of planning a joint exhibition at a huge fund-raising event. They were donating 25 percent of the proceeds of their art to different charities and at the same time getting exposure among the most powerful and rich people in Boston and on the entire Northeast Coast. I hoped they didn’t realize most of my mind had been elsewhere.

  An unnerving sound broke through my reverie; India was tapping her right foot against the metal leg of my desk. “Sorry. Leyla Rowe. I can safely say she’s worse in person than over the phone. Her all-pink outfit actually hurt my eyes. She made the hair on the back of my head stand straight up, but that wasn’t the worst part. I might have overlooked all of that, but, India, she’s horrible. The way she treated her daughter right in front of me was contemptible.”

  “She has a daughter? I didn’t know that. I heard she has a son, though.” India pulled the pen from her hair and rolled it between her fingers. “What do you mean, how she treated her daughter?”

  “Hayden, who’s an amazing artist, has lived out of her suitcases in the old school gym since her grandmother became ill. I’m not sure, there’s something about Hayden, perhaps she has some sort of ADHD, or similar, but her mother treats her like crap. She’s never even looked at Hayden’s art, for heaven’s sake. India, just wait until you see her work. It’ll blow you away.”

  India gazed at me, her mouth formed in a perfect little O. “Oh my God. You’re smitten.” Her eyes were huge and she seemed to forget to blink.

  “What are you talking about?” I rapped my fingertips against the glass top of my desk.

  “Whether it’s with her art alone or also with Hayden herself, I’m not sure, but you’re hooked.” India pointed at me with her pen. “I’ve known you forever and never seen you look like this.”

  “Like this? Just to make things clear, I don’t become smitten.” I glowered at her. She was too close to the truth.

  “Aha. Okay. I don’t believe you for a second. You may not call it smitten, but we can choose another word, several in fact. Enthralled, captivated, or even mesmerized. Damn close to enamored. Take your pick.” Clearly triumphant, she wiggled her ridiculous, feather-adorned pen.