Burnaway

[cont.]
And she was pleased as punch about all the red dots indicating sales and the show didn’t even officially open until tomorrow night. The two half dots represented the drawings held in reserve for museums. Museums always expected heavy discounts and normally that wasn’t an issue, but she kept reminding the curators of the little girls and their future. Every dollar mattered. When she told them she’d even wave her commission if they could find buyers at full price so the girls could get it all, they agreed to approach some of their board members.
She could afford to be generous. The gallery was on track to earn a solid profit this year, the best since the depression hit, since Dennis died. A good hunk of that success was from Lawrence’s friends, though. A sane business woman would not dump him, but Odessa couldn’t imagine him touching her any more without the image of the blonde assistant popping up.
She stood in the back room of the gallery going through the drawers in the large flat files, pulling out work to show to the band of collectors he was bringing over for drinks after gallery hours. Lawrence had once again arranged this without clearing it with her. At least this time he’d given her two days notice. Thinking about that photo, she had to suppress the desire to cancel and embarrass him: revenge always backfires, doesn’t it? Depriving artists of any last sales from his circle would be selfish on her part. She could endure this for the greater good. Besides, she might as well go through with it: she’d already canceled the dinner reservation at the hot new restaurant she’d made months ago for Maggie’s birthday in order to stick around for his group. There was no way she could reschedule anything comparable last minute on a Friday night. She’d like to think his get-together was a thoughtful gesture but it wasn’t really. He had developed a habit of overriding her plans with Maggie. Keeping her for himself. Funny, isn’t it, how that hadn’t really bothered her that much before.
While pulling out a group of etchings from the smallest flat files way in the far back storage room, Odessa heard a screech coming from the front gallery. She hopped up to see what was causing the commotion. There, standing in the middle of the front gallery, was Paula with a small dolly loaded with a handful of paintings, scowling the instant she saw her coming over. She had “I want a fight” written in bold letters all across her face.
Don’t exacerbate the situation. Don’t play into this drama. Be non-reactive. In her blandest voice, Odessa thanked her for coming in and offered to help move the dolly and paintings into the back room. Paula glared at her and without a word began shredding the bubble wrap which covered the work, tossing bits of it around, deliberately littering the floor.
This anger made no sense. When Odessa first met her, Paula had been very deferential, annoyingly, cloyingly so. Fortunately that quickly faded as her work sold and her reputation grew. Her work was really good and Odessa told her so. For the past few years, they periodically disagreed about pricing, but neither of them took it personally. At least she didn’t think they had. Besides, she was selling Paula’s work regularly. Just last month Odessa had sold four of Paula’s pieces to a board member of a museum down the coast. Any other artist would be utterly giddy to be in his very fine collection and she’d even paid her before the gallery got its money. She’d bent over backwards not to provide Paula with even the teensiest reason to complain. It hadn’t helped, though. Everyone warned her Paula was bitching up a storm. Paula accused her right and left of not being supportive of women artists. Several mutual friends said that Paula had started shunning them at opening receptions because they didn’t completely agree with her and condemn Odessa. Who would have guessed that simply not liking Kay’s empty work was such a massive crime against women? Why was it such an affront to Paula? This crusade of hers against Odessa was just plain foolishness.
When Paula leaned the seven paintings against the wall, Odessa’s mouth dropped open in a most undignified manner. What on earth was Paula thinking? These had to be by far the worst paintings she’d ever seen come out of her studio. Her surfaces had always depended upon a density of detail to make them luscious. The humor and sarcasm which had first attracted Odessa had declined with time but the surfaces had never lost their wonderful physicality. These literally looked half done. Patches of raw canvas were visible and it was not a good thing. Paula stood away from her, arms folded tightly across her chest, jaw clenched.
Odessa could have continued trying to not react and just accepted them, hiding them in the racks without saying anything. She, however, had difficulty believing that Paula would actually want her name connected to these pitiful excuses. Putting such shoddy work out into the world for any reason is simply self destructive for an artist. It was classic cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.
“These are quite a shift for you. I’ve never seen you leave canvas exposed before.”
“You said you wanted work. These were what I had in my studio.”
“I know you have a very busy teaching schedule and certainly didn’t mean to rush you. Are you happy with these?”
“My best work is now going to my gallery in Seattle.”
“Paula, everyone is accustomed to your usual high quality, your lush surfaces. Do you really think these attain that?”
“Well, if they’re smart, they’ll buy the better works from my other gallery.”
“Ok. It certainly is your right to determine where your inventory goes. It’s my obligation to protect both our reputations for high quality. It’s not in your best interest or mine to offer these up for sale.”
“If you don’t want what I give you, then I guess we part ways.”
“You’re sure about this?”
Paula’s response was to grab the paintings and stomp out, dragging the screeching dolly behind her, leaving all the bits of bubble wrap for Odessa to pick up. Why did she bother bringing them in the first place?