The Note (Manhattan Nights #5) - Natalie Wrye Page 0,82
speaker, scarcely holding my breath. “Mr. Tweeney?”
“Miss Somerset, I’m glad I got a hold of you today,” he exclaims quietly. “I have some news for you. Is this a bad time?”
“No, of course not.”
It’s never a bad time to hear from the gallery you’d submit your work to. A gallery you’d slipped a second painting to on Thursday night, when you were still reeling from a certain Australian’s strange request.
I’d been working on that painting all Wednesday night.
After leaving that Scottish bar with Noah, the urge to rewind the last few days, to take out my paint brush and capture the mysterious man in all his nuanced glory, was as strong as ever as I sipped lavender tea in my living room late into the night.
I needed to get something on the canvas. But what?
I knew the urge the minute I felt it, knew it was as natural as breathing.
That Wednesday night, with a sip of my tea, I headed towards my little corner of the living room, reaching for the paints. My clothes were still stuck, still slicked to my skin from the earlier rain.
Luckily, the radiator’s warmth warmed my body, putting me at ease, and I reached for the easel, missing this. Missing the feeling of coming alive every time a paint brush was in my hands, every time I stroked its edge to a canvas, losing myself in its soft surface.
Not a day went by where I didn’t paint, and that desire had far surpassed subtle, settling like a sledgehammer in my stomach.
I set up a mid-sized canvas on an easel, taking my time. Oil paints were next. A small jar of water. Slipping on my messy apron, a souvenir from serving at The Alchemist, I swiped my paintbrush’s bristles in deep blues and dark grays, attacking the shape of the eyes first.
I let my fingers do the talking, communicating with the canvas in only the way that it can, and my conscious mind took a back seat, inspiration leading the way.
Bits of my mind, that ones that still clung to the belief in fairytales took flight, as I stroked at the course canvas in front of me.
Slashing and swirling. Swiping and circling.
I beat the coarse fabric in front of me with my brush, giving into the fantasy.
Four years of Russian Literature, a marred childhood and a lifetime of storytelling turned into a portrait, only this time the portrait wasn’t of me.
The strokes across the canvas became excited slices across the canvas as a prince began to take shape on the rough paper, and as the great American artist Georgia O’Keefe once said “I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way– things I had no words for.”
After finishing the painting I entitled “Prince in the Tower,” I had no words left to give, nothing left to say.
I’d left it all on the canvas. And the next day, I’d turned over the painting to the Dweller gallery, thinking nothing might come of it.
Until now.
Mr. Tweeney’s eager words excite me, and I have to sit down, my legs shaking as I grab a stool. I listen closely.
“We loved your painting, Miss Somerset. Absolutely adored ‘The Prince in the Tower’ and we’d love to sell it.”
The tequila in my system threatens to make a reappearance, elation making it hard to sit still.
“I would love to sell it at the gallery, Mr. Tweeney.” The words shake even as I say them. “Thank you so much! You won’t regret it.”
I hear his grin. “I know we won’t.”
It might be the worst timing in the world, but I don’t care. I’m proud of myself beyond words and I can’t wait to share the news with somebody—anybody.
Even if it has to be Rick.
I turn in my stool to face the tabletops, but the tall, blond man is no longer there.
No. I look and he’s near the door, locking it.
My brows knit together on my face but before I can say a single word, Rick tightens his grip on a dark object I hadn’t seen until now, his arm trembling, both eyes on me as he raises the item, leveling it at my chest.
My heart leaps into my throat as I freeze, my eyes stuck on the object in his hand. I can’t help but point at it.
“What are you doing, Rick?”
The manager growls. “What does it look like?”
I’ve seen a lot of horror in my lifetime, been part of more than my share.