Limited Run

The twenty-something stick figure folds her clanky umbrella, tucks its dampness under an arm, and quietly slips her hands into mantas pose. I sense her calmness as she awaits further instruction. I motion that I am ready to descend. To her credit, she stays, silent and alert.

My driver collects my coat, hat, and gloves and tells me he will return in two short hours. He squeezes my hand in solidarity, and affirmation.

I can do this.

I hear his footfalls retreating toward the rain. As if by rote, I count the distance he creates. His gentle retreat has become our bond, our language, his trust in me, my faith in him.

**

Upper-middle-class art hounds form a chatty line out front, snaking along the ramp that winds round the gallery’s main entrance. I hear the docent nudging patrons closest to the door, “That is what you’re here for, isn’t it?”

What passes for enthusiasm in a small town.

I begin to second guess accepting this request. My fingers swell. My pulse leaps. Why did I agree to public speaking?

I dodge the docent’s stupid question and her pist-pists to Stick Figure, who knows better than to dare parade me over.

Isn’t that the singular advantage of slipping in via the west hall entrance? A breadth of space from all the looky-loos?

I distinctly declined a grip and grin.

**

I understand. Most have come here for the one thing. That suddenly famous painting everyone’s effusive over lately.

The artist’s tale turned tragic, nearly fatal. And then the artist herself became elusive, reclusive. Misfortune does what she does to drive up value. There’s nothing better in the art world than misery and mystery tinged with sorrow, spiced with truth or what passes for it.

But what would I know?

**

I adjust my pencil skirt and reassure myself. Stick Figure has been properly vetted. We walk on. Pity is an affront, and I won’t have it.

It’s a major boon, to get the loan. This piece has brought this small-town gallery to a national audience.

The stuff of dreams.

**

No one comes to see the sanguine brush strokes or the waking of cold light across a time battered shore, or the heroine in the water up to her slender tilting neck, or the loss of innocence revealed beneath layers, thinly masked.

**

I step, confidently, striding across slick marble, arms linked, elbow to elbow, masquerading with my young volunteer accomplice.

I feel eyes on my face, stares falling to my shoulders only to circle back once more to glimpse my haughty sunglasses.

Leave me be. I do not say such things aloud. Instead, I smile my relief to Stick Figure, who reads me well enough without words. The little crowd will hear from me soon enough.

No one stares outright. But I can feel them sneaking glances. At my hair, which this day falls gently from a loosely spooled bun that I’m quite certain appears effortless. At my attire, which today speaks to that same sense of refinement, a certain je ne sais quoi. The blouse, a raven chocolate, I had long years before. I know I wear it well, still. Mostly, they want to see these hands, hands no longer gloved, no longer useful. Hands no longer as they once were: brilliant and innovative and sublime. Now these hands are shackled, lacking partners in the dance that once was art that once was life.

These hands have so much left to say. That's what I'll tell them.

A sneaky tear slips along the ridge-line. I halt it in its tracks. Not today. I pretend to look away. Not that it matters, in which direction I point these eyes.

Perhaps I missed a button, or dabbed too much blush across my cheek, but far more likely, the docent created a fuss upon my arrival.

"There she is! Hello there?! Might we have a moment--"

“Onward.” I entreat. Stick Figure guides me down the longest of long hallways, down corridors that hold what art I can only imagine.

I smile my mustered best, the one reserved for just this occasion, and I tell myself it matters that I'm here.

I'll follow your lead, I nod to the young art student, whispering aloud, “I see you know the way.”

***

Copyright © 02/16/2024 by Christy Munson. All rights reserved.