“Right. And that’s what I’m here to talk to you about. I’ve been thinking about it, and while I think that you should be out there, you know, meeting your future wife and getting ready to make me a grandmother, I do want to be supportive of you. I’m proud of the things you’ve done so far, and I don’t want you to feel like I just give you a hard time.”
I stood there, waiting for the catch. There had to be one; no way in hell she just came down here to tell me that.
But she didn’t say anything else, and that was when she would’ve asked me for another loan or a ride somewhere.
“Well, thanks,” I said. “I appreciate you coming down here to tell me that. I’ve actually got to take care of a few things before Helena gets here and then I’m leaving early.”
“Oh? Where are you going?”
“Dentist,” I lied. She didn’t need to know I was going to help Chloe with her project.
My mother gave me a big smile. “You’ve always had good teeth. You can thank me for that.”
*****
The people at the art center seemed a bit friendlier after I’d gone there a few times; one of the older women even asked me what discipline it was that I focused on.
“Tattoos, mostly,” I said.
“I see,” she said, nodding. “I’m most interested in oil painting. I heard you’re working with Chloe Singer?”
“I’m helping her out.” I wondered who she had “heard” this from. “She’s got a show coming up at the end of the summer.”
The woman nodded. “I’ll also have a piece in it. Claudia’s summer exhibition is quite renowned, you know.”
“I didn’t.”
“Well, you do now. It’s an honor to have a piece shown in her gallery. Chloe is very lucky.”
“Chloe’s very talented,” I said. “And it sounds like anyone who has a piece in her show is very lucky.” I gave her a pointed look. Holy fuck, I hated that pretentious shit. The woman didn’t need to say that she thought Chloe didn’t belong in the show, that she somehow hadn’t earned the right; th
e expression on her face said it all.
Luckily, Chloe showed up then, saving me from having to continue this conversation. The lady I’d been talking to smiled sweetly at her, of course, as though they were best friends or something. Chloe seemed distracted, though, and just hurried down the hallway to her studio.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
She was taking out the sketches we’d been working on; pages and pages of doodles and drawings. She spread them out on the table.
“It’s fine,” she said. “I just ... help me go through these.”
“Sure.” We sat down next to each other and began leafing through the papers. Some were half-finished doodles, others were actually complete, but none of them seemed fully satisfactory to Chloe.
“These are good,” she said, “but nothing is exactly right.” She ran a hand through her hair. “And time is ticking, and I’m starting to feel stressed. It’s already mid-July and I haven’t even started yet!”
“Maybe you’re overthinking it,” I said.
“What do you mean? If I don’t think about it, nothing’s going to happen. I can’t just get some clay and start without some idea in mind of what the outcome is going to be!”
“I know.” I touched her arm because I could hear a frantic note in her voice. “I’m not saying that you need to go into it blind. But I think maybe you’re overthinking it, and putting too much pressure on yourself to come up with the perfect idea.”
“But I want it to be perfect.”
“I know. And I think whatever you end up deciding on will be as perfect as you can get it. But you’ve got to let yourself get started on something, because if you don’t, you’re not going to do anything. You’re just going to let that fear paralyze you.”
I knew exactly what she was feeling; there’d been plenty of times when a customer had asked for a custom piece, something big, usually, and they’d given me the details, but often it came with a fair amount of leeway, and I could clearly recall how overwhelming it felt to sit in front of a blank page, wanting to get it perfect, but being too afraid to start.
She took a deep breath. “You’re right,” she said. Without even realizing it, I’d started rubbing her forearm. She looked down and I stopped. “You don’t have to stop,” she said. “That felt good.”