“I hav
e no idea how the art world works. Did you get a bad review or a lousy write-up or something?”
“No, nothing like that.” Though taste was subjective, and negative opinions came with the territory. Those she could handle. “I climbed into bed with the wrong people. And despite how that sounds, it’s a boring story. Forget I said anything.”
The mattress gave as he rolled onto his side to face her. “It’s on your mind. Seems like the kind of thing your fiancé would know about. Maybe I can help?” He found the ache over her eyebrow, and ironed the sore spot with his thumb.
Paramedic by trade, rescuer by nature. She’d best remember that. “You’re sweet, but there’s nothing you can do. Oh, hey, look at the time. I should go. I’m supposed to wake you up, not keep you up.”
A warm hand curled around her forearm when she started to move.
“How am I supposed to pass the fiancé quiz if I don’t know about your career? C’mon, Smith. Spill.”
Shoot. Trapped by her own argument. And yeah, a real fiancé probably would know her first effort to make a name for herself in a regional market had failed miserably. lf not for the fellowship, she’d been at serious risk of celebrating her twenty-eighth birthday by moving back in with her parents.
“Okay. Fine.” She flopped onto her side, facing him. “Here’s the deal. Earlier this year a hot new gallery in Atlanta offered to represent me.”
He folded an arm behind his head and turned to look at her. “Congratulations. Is that what brought you here?”
“Yep. The gallery owners suggested I move closer so I could support their marketing investment by attending showings, doing client meet-and-greets, and generally circulating in the local art scene.”
“Sounds logical, I guess.”
“I thought so. I’d done well in Athens, but the scene there is only so big, and mostly supported by my school. After undergrad and my MFA, I felt like I’d wrung all I could out of Lamar Dodd.”
“Time to stop being the big fish in a pond?”
“Exactly. Moving represented the next logical step in my growth, and I arrived with a smile on my face and stars in my eyes, but not enough hard information about my new business representatives.” She fiddled with the sheet, folding a corner into the world’s smallest accordion. “I ignored rumors about financial problems, and some not-so-legit deals. A couple months ago the owners got busted for selling forged Warhols on eBay, and the gallery shut its doors soon after.”
“That sucks. Can you get your work back and jump to another gallery?”
“Unfortunately it’s not that easy. They sold five of my pieces—presumably collected payment in full—but only paid me partial commissions for two. In theory, I can sue them for what they owe me, but Mit…um…my legal adviser said he didn’t see the Feds unfreezing their assets to pay my judgment while the mail and wire fraud charges drag on. Meanwhile, despite marketing myself like crazy to other reputable galleries, no one’s calling.”
“Screw ’em.” He stared at the ceiling again, a slight furrow in his brow. “Represent yourself. Get a good photographer and a web designer and open your own virtual showroom online. Who needs a gallery?”
She appreciated the show of support, but she knew better. “I do. In part because nobody knows who I am, so I need a gallery to publicize me and present me to potential collectors, and in part because my works are three-dimensional and respond to nuances of light and shadow. People need to view them in person to get the full impact.”
“I can’t drive a block around this city without running into an art festival or street fair—”
“And there’s nothing wrong with art festivals and street fairs, but many of my pieces are large, and all of them are breakable.” He was picturing embedded flower paperweights and Murano vases. She did six-foot waves of indigo glass curling into millefiori foams of silver, cobalt, and sapphire. Her vases came complete with cascading glass blossoms dripping with prisms of dew, attracting enough breathtakingly fragile glass bees and butterflies to make a Dutch master weep. “I can’t cart them around to every art festival in Atlanta. Even if the breakage risk didn’t deter me, my price point makes those venues a waste of time.”
His eyes cut back to her. “What’s your price point?”
“If you have to ask…”
“And yet you’re broke.”
“Because I haven’t gotten paid. Those slick-bellied sons of guns owe me over forty thousand in commissions, but I can’t devalue my name because of my current circumstances. If I started churning out twenty-dollar paperweights and fifty-dollar vases to sell at coffee shops and farmers’ markets, I might as well kiss my fine-art prospects good-bye.”
“What about your pen pals at the Solomon Foundation? Do they have a gallery?”
“The Solomon Foundation has everything.” She closed her eyes and imagined the palazzo on the Grand Canal. “Museums throughout the world, a network of galleries and collectors, plus patronage. They offer fellowships to selected artists. The foundation provides fellows with studio space and living quarters to enable them to pursue their projects.”
“You should apply for one of those fellowships.”
“I did, actually. The week I learned I’d been hosed by my gallery I kind of panicked and sent out applications and proposals to a bunch of different programs. Hence the letter you received by mistake.”
“And…?”