“Just open it,” she says as she fixes our plates.
Opening the box, I pull out the De’Longhi cappuccino machine. “This is perfect, Mom.”
“Yeah? I figured you’d get good use out of it,” she says as she walks past me and sets our plates down on the table.
“It’ll give me something to do today, figuring out how to use the damn thing,” I joke as I sit down.
“Happy twenty-ninth birthday, darling.”
“Thanks.”
As we start eating breakfast, she looks up and says, “So, I never saw you last night.”
“Yeah, I crashed early. Sorry about that.” After I left, I was too upset to even think about seeing my mom, so I spent the evening upstairs.
“Did you go?” she asks.
“I went.”
“Do you want to talk about this?”
“No.”
I get up and walk into the kitchen to fix my coffee, and when I return to the table, I tell her, “It’s done with, Mom. I’m walking away, so there’s no point in ever bringing her up again.”
Nodding her head, she responds, “Of course, dear.”
But I’m not completely walking away because her canvas is still in my closet, and a bottle of her perfume still sits on her side of the sink. It’s pathetic, but even though I know I should, I’m not entirely ready to let her completely go just yet.
Another week passes, and while I’m cleaning up my home office, I come across the sheet of paper where Candace wrote down the information for the woman we met at the gallery showing. It’s funny that I should run across this now because this past week, I started working more on some of the photos that were stored on my camera. Albeit photos of Candace, but the thought of trying to find someone else to photograph turns my stomach.
Needing to step out of the monotonous routine I have going, I pick up the phone and give this lady a call. She once mentioned being interested in seeing more of my pieces, so why not?
“Henry Gallery.”
“Is Stacy Keets available?” I ask.
“One moment.”
The line is picked up after a few seconds. “Stacy here.”
“Stacy, this is Ryan Campbell. We met at Thinkspace a few months back.”
“Yes. I remember. ‘Nubile,’ right?”
“Right.”
“What can I do for you?”
“I have a few pieces that I’ve been working on if you were still interested in taking a look,” I say.
“I’d love to. My time is a bit limited, and I’m about to go on vacation, but I’m free this afternoon, if that isn’t too soon?”
“No, that works for me.”
“Great. How about three o’clock?”
“Sounds good, Stacy. I’ll see you then.”
After running up to the bar for a few hours, I head over to the Henry Gallery.
Sitting down in Stacy’s office, she says, “I’m glad you called. We actually just had two wall openings become available yesterday.”
I hand over my samplings and while she studies them, she keeps her eyes down as she casually says, “Your girlfriend was brilliant last week. You must be so proud of her, huh?”
She says this not having a clue that we’re no longer together, but for the moment, it feels good, so I don’t correct her, saying, “Yeah. She’s amazing.”
“She’s more than amazing. Sergej has always considered her a prodigy,” she says as she flips to the next photo. “Has she gotten many job offers?”
“Umm, I don’t really know,” I answer honestly, and when she looks up, she says, “Well, I have no doubt that she’s gonna have quite a few companies to choose from.”
“I’m sure she will.”
“And these,” she continues as she takes her sleek glasses off and sets them on her desk, “these are really beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
“Are you being displayed anywhere else at the moment?” she questions.
“No. Didn’t really think all too seriously about pursuing anything with these photos until this past week, to be honest.”
“Well, I’d be interested in these two, if you’d like to discuss further,” she tells me as she sets two of the samples aside and stacks the rest. “Are you optioning a sale?”
“No. I won’t sell these,” I respond. All these photos are of Candace, and I don’t want any of them hanging in some random person’s home. They’re mine.
“Well, then. Let me look at something really quick,” she says as she starts clicking away on her laptop. “I can do a six-week spot showing. It’s a good slot because they will be on display during one of our invite-only showings next month. You’ll have a lot of eyes on these that could help jumpstart some work if that’s a direction you’d like to go.”
“That sounds great.”
“Perfect, then. Let me go grab all the necessary paperwork, and we can get everything secured for you right now.”
Feeling like I’ve been needing to do something different, have a little more focus, this couldn’t have come at a better time. Although I would never sell these particular photos, I’d love to have an opportunity to expand this and possibly take on some work. So we spend the next half hour getting everything set up before I head out, feeling good about this new door that could be opening for me.