by Susan Gloss
They never named their daughter. Back before they’d ever had reason to believe anything could go wrong, they had bantered suggestions back and forth over dinner a few times. They’d come up with a handful of names they both liked, but neither of them thought they’d need to select a name so soon. And then, after the fact, after she was gone, it seemed too heavy a task to name their dead daughter. To call her a name they’d never spoken to her aloud. All Nell had said to her, over and over, in those brief minutes, was “My baby, my baby. I love you so much. My baby girl, I’m so sorry.”
And so Baby Girl Parker she remained.
Chapter Fifteen
Paige
PIECE: Frank Stella, Polar Coordinates II, circa 1980. Offset lithograph and screen print, Edition: 31/100.
Trent left before daybreak, like he’d been doing whenever he spent the night with Paige, which was often. He’d gotten a job as a barback at one of the hotels downtown, and they met up most evenings when he got off work. Today, when Trent slipped out before the first whisper of morning light made its way through the windows, Paige stretched out under the covers and fell back into a satisfied sleep. As she often did after making love, she dreamed of making art. Colors and lines mingled and intersected until she could see, clearly, a finished work. This morning, she pictured feathers, in various stages of floating and falling, all delicate veins and tufts in various shades of blue.
Based on the complexity, it was something she’d need to create on one of the table presses up at school. She dressed, grabbed her backpack, and went downstairs, hoping no one else was up. A vision this clear was rare, and Paige wanted to get to the studio before the vision faded or got mucked up with the rest of the day’s sensory input.
On the first floor, the foyer and living room were still dark. But down the hall she could see the lights on in Nell’s office. She heard a muffled sound, like a hiccup, and realized that someone was crying. She had planned to go out the side door, but changed her mind when she realized she’d have to walk past the office. She took a few slow steps in the other direction, but stopped when her foot landed on a creaky floorboard just before she reached the front door.
Nell’s voice called out from down the hall. “Hello?”
Paige turned in the direction of the voice and saw that Nell had stuck her head out from the office. Even in the dim light, Paige could see deep-set circles under her eyes.
“It’s just me,” Paige said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s okay,” Nell said. The streaks on her cheeks and the messy ponytail, in place of her usual put-together look, suggested otherwise. Paige felt awkward seeing her this way, both for her own sake and for Nell’s. She looked away, focusing instead on a large, framed lithograph print on the hallway wall behind Nell. The print—of bright geometric shapes overlapping in shades of blue, green, and orange, as if drawn with a protractor—was one Paige had noticed before. She’d assumed it was a copy, but now that she was close enough, she could see that the signature of the artist, Frank Stella, was done in pencil.
Nell sniffed and straightened her shoulders. “You’re up early. When I was your age, I don’t think I ever got up before ten, unless I had a test or something. Definitely not on a Saturday.”
“I need to go up to school to work on something.” Paige shifted her backpack from one shoulder to the other. She hoped Nell would catch the urgency in her voice. Already the colors in her head were losing their clarity.
Nell’s face brightened. “Yeah? What are you working on?”
“I have an idea for a new series.” Paige didn’t want to be short with someone who obviously had been crying just a minute earlier. But she also didn’t like to talk about her work when she was in the middle of it or, worse, when she hadn’t even started it yet. New ideas were too fragile, too susceptible to suggestion. And anyway, she wanted to get to work, now, before the day took on a life of its own.
She knew what would happen if she waited too long. She’d walk down State Street at just the time when people her age were starting to get up and gather for brunch or five-dollar cups of coffee. Her ears would fill with the sound of loud conversations rehashing the events of the night before or the spitting hiss of hydraulic bus brakes. She’d pass homeless people huddled under awnings, asking for spare change or talking to themselves. Even in the short amount of time it took her to walk up to the art school—fifteen minutes, maybe—her head would jam up with images and emotions, occupying the space where beauty and lucidity used to be. She’d go sit in the studio, but the effort to create something would seem immense. Other students would be there already, chatting while they worked or banging around in the supply cabinets.
Paige would dally over setting up her supplies, combining inks to the point where the mixture would take on a brownish hue and she’d have to toss the whole thing and start over. Discouraged at the waste of money and time, she’d redirect her efforts, only to produce something forced and derivative—an inferior shadow of a work she’d already finished and liked. Then, after cleaning up, she’d trudge back over slushy sidewalks to her room, too depressed to study or read or do anything but text her latest lover, craving the tangible reality of skin on skin, the power of pleasure to blunt pain, even momentarily.
This was why Paige rose at dawn. At this hour, the streets were quiet and the pale palette of sunrise complemented, rather than covered, the colors in her head.
“Sorry to interrupt you,” Paige said. “I didn’t think anyone else was down here.”
“I haven’t been sleeping well lately,” Nell said. “So I figured I might as well work. There’s so much to do here. Betsy left behind so many notes with ideas she had for the Colony. Exhibitions, fund-raisers . . . it’s sort of overwhelming to try to get everything up and running all at once.”
“I bet,” Paige said. “Well, I’ll let you get back to it then.”
“Thanks,” Nell said. “Good luck with your project.” There was a forced cheerfulness in her voice, as if she were trying to convince Paige, or maybe herself, that everything was okay.
On the way up to school, Paige tried to focus again on the image of the floating feathers. But already the image of Nell’s splotchy face and sad eyes had displaced what she’d seen so clearly in her mind just minutes earlier. And maybe Paige could have successfully shifted her thoughts, smoothed them out in the studio as she ran the roller over her screen, again and again. But then she’d gotten a text from Trent, midmorning:
My parents are coming to town this weekend. Want to have lunch?
Oh hell no. Paige shoved her phone into her pocket. She liked Trent. A lot. She’d seen him nearly every day since they met. She’d told him things she’d never told any boy before. About the real reason for the scars on her wrists. He kissed them every time she brought him to bed.
Trent had talked to her a little bit about his family already. How he grew up in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. How his dad was a quarry driller and Trent was the first kid in his family to go to college. How his parents had been so disappointed when he dropped out, even though he insisted it was only for a year. Paige didn’t want to add to their disappointment by being the girl he brought to lunch.
When she didn’t respond for several hours, Trent sent her another message that afternoon that said, simply: ??? She’d never not responded to him before.
Paige shot back: Sorry, I can’t this weekend.
She didn’t have plans, yet. But whatever she ended up doing, it would not include meeting anyone’s parents.
Trent responded: No big deal. Another time. See you tonight?
Paige felt relieved, for the moment. But as she packed up her supplies to go home that evening, she got the uneasy gut feeling that something had shifted. She looked over at the feather prints she’d spent all day making, now laid out to dry. They suddenly seemed unoriginal, nothing more than flat images on fancy paper.
Before she zipped her phone into the pocket of her backpack, she texted Trent back:
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Really tired and don’t think I’ll still be up when you get off. Coffee tomorrow?
She hesitated before hitting send. For Paige, “coffee” meant only one thing.
TRENT GOT TO the café before she did the next morning. She spotted him sitting at a booth and admired, for a moment, how comfortable he looked being alone. It wasn’t a skill that everyone had. Trent didn’t check his phone or read the menu on the wall or pretend to be engaged in something other than just sitting there, looking around. He gave a small wave when he saw her. She ordered some tea at the counter.
“For here or to go?” asked the barista.
“To go,” Paige said. She waited until the barista handed her the drink in a paper cup, then walked over to Trent’s table and slid into the booth across from him.
“Hey.” He held her gaze and threw her the sexy half smile she’d come to crave over the last couple of months. “This is about asking you to meet my parents, isn’t it?” he asked. “I freaked you out, am I right?”
Paige squirmed a little on the vinyl bench. She took a drink from her tea and gave him a sheepish look over the brim of the cup.
“I knew it.” Trent set down his coffee. It was cold brew in a pint glass, and the bottom of the glass clunked against the table. “Let’s just forget about it, then. I meant it when I said it was no big deal. I’ll admit it was kind of soon for me to bring up, but my parents don’t come to town that often, and I like you a lot, so . . .” There he went again, with that half smile.
Before she lost her nerve, Paige took a deep breath and blurted out, “I think we should see other people.”
His smile disappeared.
“I need to figure out what I’m doing after graduation,” Paige said. “And I don’t really want to complicate things any more than I have to.”
“It’s not that complicated,” Trent said. “I like you. And I know you like me . . .” He brushed his leg against hers underneath the table, and Paige felt a warm buzz creep up through her body. Then she shifted in the booth again. She needed to keep her focus.
“Okay, I like you, too,” she said. “And I don’t see any reason we can’t keep seeing each other. I just don’t want to be, you know, exclusive. Serious.”
Trent let out a loud exhale. “I can’t do that. If I liked you less, maybe. But I can’t be with you and also think about you being with other people, too. It will make me crazy jealous.”
“Well, then, that’s that, isn’t it?” She picked up her paper cup, got up, and kissed him on the cheek.
As she walked out the door, Paige realized that she hadn’t really thought the whole thing through. She hadn’t thought about the flip side of the equation—how she would feel about Trent being with other people. She didn’t like the idea very much, either, now that she thought about it. So she resolved just not to think about it.
She walked out into the cool morning air, but somehow she didn’t feel quite as free as she’d hoped she would.
Chapter Sixteen
Betsy
PIECE: Ankle-length mink purchased from Furs by Hershleder in Madison.
Betsy unzipped the cotton bag containing her mahogany mink coat and paused to rub her cheek against the short, glossy fur. She heaved the weighty garment off its hanger and set it on her bed, then lay her body down next to it, winded from the effort.
The coat was probably too much for a midwestern exhibition opening—too formal, too old-fashioned. Certainly too big to fit in her suitcase. She’d have to bring it on the plane. But Minneapolis was positively glacial in winter, she told herself. And these days, she felt chilled to the bone even when sitting in front of a roaring fire.
Though she never would have admitted it to anyone but herself, Betsy wondered if this would be her last opportunity to wear the coat. It had been a gift from Walt for their thirtieth anniversary, specially fitted for her by a local furrier. Dropping the coat off in March or April for cleaning and storage had become an annual rite of spring, as reliable for Betsy as seeing the first crocus stalks push through the soil in her sculpture garden.
When she arrived in the Twin Cities, Betsy was glad she’d decided to bring the coat, after all. She’d arranged for a car service to take her from the airport to the gallery, but even the two minutes waiting at the curb outside the terminal were enough to make her flip up the tall collar against the wind.
When the driver pulled up in front of the Foster Gallery, Betsy was impressed. She’d been there a couple of times before, when it had been just a small storefront. It had expanded since then, taking over the next-door loft to build a second exhibition space specifically for regional artists. Today was the grand opening of the new space. The floor-to-ceiling windows glowed yellow in the early dusk, with patrons milling around inside—a mix of well-dressed, older people like herself and younger, trendier types.
The driver asked Betsy how long she’d be.
“Depends if I buy any art,” she said. But as soon as she walked into the expansion wing, she knew she’d be buying something. It was only a question of narrowing it down.
She used to buy art with a lot of different motives in mind. She had to think about which pieces were likely to acquire value over time, which artists were apt to have long careers because they were doing something new or unusual. She tried to be sure she wouldn’t tire of a piece, too, which often meant that it had to have multiple dimensions and meanings. And then there were practical considerations, like would the piece go with the other items she’d acquired? Would a particular artwork even fit in her home or her yard?
Now, though, with a breast cancer relapse that her doctor described as “aggressive,” Betsy found herself looking at art with simpler criteria—a single question, really. And that was: Did it bring her joy, or move her in some other way?
Today, the piece that answered that question with the loudest yes was a four-foot-by-four-foot mixed-media piece. The canvas was covered with damask wallpaper in bold coral and white. On top of the wallpaper, in the center of the canvas, was a big green chrysanthemum bloom with the word “forward” printed over it in red capital letters.
But when Betsy got closer to the work, she realized it wasn’t a mixed-media piece after all. The entire thing, including the patterned background she thought was wallpaper, had been drawn in oil pastels. What she had guessed was a green flower was actually a ball of frogs, dozens of them, clinging to one another in a scramble of webbed feet and varied shades of green. Even the lettering, which appeared so perfect it could have been typeset, had been hand-rendered and painstakingly colored in. Betsy stood there, marveling at how anyone could achieve such dimension just by drawing on flat paper.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” said a voice from behind her.
Betsy turned around and recognized Sloane Foster, the young gallery owner, standing tall behind her in heeled boots and a short black dress.
“Betsy Barrett, right?” Sloane said. “Thank you so much for coming.”
Betsy nodded. “I’ve followed what you’ve been doing here. I knew you had a good eye when I was here last time, and I see that hasn’t changed.” She gestured toward the drawing in front of her, a shock of color against the white wall. “Tell me about this one.”
“So, this is by a young artist from St. Paul. She does the initial design in colored pencil, then fills it in with oil pastel.”
Betsy removed her reading glasses from the silk-lined pocket of her coat. “Always Ahead,” she said, squinting to read the title typed on the information card posted to the wall.
“Because frogs can only jump forward, not backward,” Sloane said.
Betsy had already fallen in love with the drawing before Sloane explained the title. It made her think of her late brother, and his childhood nickname, Zaba—the Polish word for frog. But once Betsy heard about the concept of moving only forward, she was sold. “I’ll take it.”
“The artist does commissions, too,” Sloane said. “I just saw a piece she did for a client’s home. With t
ext, like this one, but bigger. They installed it above their fireplace.”
Betsy loved commissions. It gave her a chance to communicate with the artist, to go back and forth about ideas and get a glimpse into how the person worked. She had a few commissioned pieces in her home and she treasured each of them not just for the finished product but for the process that went into them. But now, she feared she didn’t have enough time to see a commissioned project from start to finish.
“No, no, this one’s perfect,” Betsy said.
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.” Betsy felt a rush of excitement up her spine, as she always did when she found a new piece for her collection.
Sloane pulled a sheet of stickers from the pocket of her dress and affixed a red dot to the corner of the information card, to indicate that the piece was sold. “It’s yours, then. I’ll send you the invoice, assuming you haven’t moved?”
Betsy shook her head. “Still in the same house.” She wasn’t sure how long that would be true, though, if her doctor was right about her prognosis. But she didn’t want to think about that now, not when she was surrounded by so much beauty. She turned her attention to a group of metal sculptures near the front windows. “I see there are also a lot of red dots for those sculptures over there.”
Sloane’s face lit up as a smile spread across her lips. “Those are by another local artist, Odin Sorenson. Well, he’s from Wisconsin, but he lives here now. That’s him there, in the plaid shirt.”
Betsy followed Sloane’s gaze to a tall young man with broad shoulders and a beard. His head was bent in conversation with a gray-haired couple looking at one of the sculptures. Although Betsy had met Sloane only a couple of times, she’d come to recognize a sort of sharp, exacting element in her facial expressions, an angular scrutiny in her body language. It seemed appropriate for someone who evaluated and sold art—a largely subjective commodity—for a living. Now, though, there was a softness that settled over Sloane when she caught Odin’s eye and smiled.