The Matchmakers of Minnow Bay Read Online Free Page A

were there for the showing someone came in asking about it. Said she saw it on some art blog that morning. Another day and it would have been gone.”
    â€œWow.” I go to great lengths to stay off of the art blogs. I even blocked a few of the URLs on my browser. This is a fickle business and I don’t need editorial chatter in my head when I’m trying to work. But I am honestly surprised this quiet landscape is getting any kind of special attention from the media. I’ve painted similar ones for the last six months, and Mitchell has actually passed on a few of them. All the same view, pretty much, though never looking much the same on the canvas. I think I’m working something out. Well, I hope I am.
    â€œWow,” I say again. “Maybe I should buy one of those fancy bottles you were telling me about.”
    Jo shakes her head at me. “You absolutely may not. That wine is not going to be swigged out of a juice glass on my watch.”
    â€œI could use a coffee mug instead. I think there’s a clean one in my cupboard right now.”
    Annie looks faint. “How about we find you something wet and red in the $15 price range.”
    I shake my head at myself. “You know my tastes so well.” They pick out a wine and tell me things I should notice about the bottle. I tune them out until they tell me what it costs. Affordable enough to leave room on my last working credit card for a couple nights in a suburban hotel and some groceries.
    â€œShould we add a sliver of brie and some honeyed figs?” Annie and Jo are brilliant enough to sell a few good cheeses, chocolate truffles, and dried fruits in a case by the register. By the time you’ve tasted two or three bottles to find something you like, the cheese is pretty much a done deal.
    â€œMaybe more than a sliver,” I start, thinking of the credit cards and the eviction and the weird reality that though my art is selling, I won’t get a check from my gallery until the end of the next quarter. April 15th. It’s January 2nd. I have to be out of my apartment by the 7th.
    â€œI have some bad news,” I blurt out.
    Annie and Jo both swivel where they stand. “What is it?” they ask almost in unison, as if neither hears the other start to speak. I look from one woman to the other and then to my painting, which has been shown so much love here, which I can come see whenever I want to be reassured that someone truly looks at my artwork, that it is more than just wall filler for Wall Streeters. I change my mind. “I’m a fraud. That art is worthless,” I say, instead of telling them about the eviction.
    They both laugh gaily and my heart breaks. “Tell it to the appraiser. In the meantime, I think we’ll just leave it up and keep loving it all the same.”
    *   *   *
    When I get home I have arms full with the bottle of wine, cheese, figs, and several empty wine boxes bound up in twine from the shop. I live lean, so they should be enough for all my fragile possessions. The clothes will fit in my two suitcases. The paints, pastels, and brushes already have huge Rubbermaid bins to call home. The canvases themselves will be the only real logistics problem.
    In the past, whenever I finished a painting I was proud of, I would take it, by hand, to Mitchell’s gallery, in a big black Hefty bag. If he liked it, great. If he didn’t, the painting and I would come back together on the L.
    This means I have a small but formidable stack of rejected canvasses that I like too much to paint over. I usually work large, so we’re talking about four-by-six-foot pieces, unframed, in stacks against the wall. I’ve never hung any of my own works—that would be too vain for words—but I do put my favorites face-out. You know, for when guests come over. In case they want to admire me, just a bit. That’s not vain, is it?
    I contemplate the sum total of my adult