windows, and she turned the rods on them just enough to look out. If Ian or Grace were home, she would pull up the shades themselves, but not when she was alone. Too much like being in a fish bowl, though she realized that there was no one there to look in at her. Well, except their next-door neighbor. She had a clear view of the back of his house, and sometimes saw him sitting out there alone petting a large yellow cat.
He was odd, that one. Apparently he owned a floral shop in town, but she found it hard to picture someone so dumpy-looking creating anything beautiful. He gave her the creeps, the way he skulked from his house to his van when he left the house, scuttling along the sidewalk like some overgrown bug. Ian said he was just shy, and she could tell from the look on his face that he thought she was hardly one to talk about someone else’s reclusive behavior.
Kate sighed and stepped back from the windows. She poured some tea from her thermos and wrapped her hands around the steaming mug, remembering all the mornings she’d done this at her studio in Brooklyn. It felt strange to be doing it somewhere else, but it wasn’t just that her space had changed. She’d changed. She was so different from the Kate Corbin who’d walked the streets of the city after midnight feeling perfectly safe.
“I don’t like you coming home alone that late!” Ian had yelled at her more than once in the early years of their relationship.
“I need to work!” she’d shout back at him, frustrated that he didn’t understand that an artist couldn’t fit the workday into nine to five.
“It isn’t safe, Kate,” he’d said. “Call me if you’re going to be late.”
Except if she called, he’d be angry that she was gone so long. He hadn’t understood what it was like to be consumed by something, by the emotional energy necessary to get fully involved in her work. She had to be immersed in order to produce. And she’d been immersed. Too immersed to see that where she worked wasn’t safe, that the building wasn’t secure, that someone could climb the steps unnoticed, could pick the lock on the battered metal door, could wait in the shadows—
Kate squeezed her eyes shut and shoved the memories to the back of her mind. She wouldn’t think about that. No. She was in a new space. This was a new beginning. She took a long, slow deep breath and reached for a can of brushes on a shelf.
The previous owner had done a nice job with this space. The room was large and light and there was ample shelving. Kate had unpacked her boxes, taking care to arrange her brushes and paints and carefully set up her easels where she liked in relation to the windows. The paint-flecked portable CD player she’d used for years found a new spot on one of the broad wooden shelves, and she hung the old men’s shirt, worn more for luck than protection from splatter, from a hook on the back of the door.
It was strange to have a kitchen so close by. In her old studio she’d kept a hot plate plugged into an extension cord running from the single outlet, but now she could just walk a few feet back into her house. The thermos was more for old time’s sake than necessity. Other things were different, too, like the cleanliness of the space and the fact that the windows didn’t look out on the flat, tarred roofs of other industrial buildings, but on tidy green lawn and another house.
The incomplete portrait of a banker sat on a maple easel next to one window. She sank into a chair nearby and stared at it with a critical eye. It wasn’t working and she didn’t know why. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t done plenty of these bread-and-butter portraits. This commission, from the prominent man’s widow, had come over nine months ago and it still wasn’t done. It was work like this that allowed her to pursue more creative projects, but she’d never have the time for them if she didn’t finish this up.
Halfheartedly sorting through the photos she’d been given of her stout and ruddy-faced subject, she started at the sound of a door slamming. She stepped to the window and caught a glimpse of the dirty white van pulling away. The shop’s name, Bouquet, was painted in fading pink letters on the van’s side panel.
Somewhere she’d gotten the idea that small towns like Wickfield sent out welcome wagons and were populated by neighbors bearing homemade cookies to newcomers, but in the two weeks they’d been here they’d had no visitors. Aside from the party thrown by the Beetlemans, they hadn’t met or socialized with anybody.
Not that she’d wanted to socialize. In fact, just the night before she’d turned down Ian’s suggestion that they walk up to town and try one of the local restaurants. Still, she was surprised that no one had shown up on their doorstep to welcome them.
It was too quiet here. In her old studio she’d played CDs to try and drown out some of the louder traffic noise. Here she played them to create noise and distract her from the disturbing silence. She sifted through her CDs and chose an old recording of Sarah Vaughan before squeezing paint onto her palette. It was the banker’s face that needed work. A haunting jazz melody filled the studio as she stirred the paints with her brush.
Sharp rapping on the door interrupted her hours later. Startled, Kate dropped her palette and paint spilled onto the floor. Heart racing, she stepped over to the window and looked through the blinds.
A mailman stood outside the studio door holding a large box.
“Yes?”
“Will you hold a package for your neighbor?”
“Who?”
“Your neighbor.” The mailman jerked his head at the house next door before glancing down at the label on the cardboard box he held in his arms. “Terrence Simnic. He’s not answering and I got to leave it with somebody.”
“Sure, okay.”
The package was surprisingly light. She locked the door again and left the box next to it. She cleaned up the paint on the floor with a tiny bit of paint thinner and water and returned to the banker’s face. It was wrong, all wrong. She started the CD again, resisting her desire to slash through the canvas with a palette knife. It would have to be completely redone, but she wasn’t sure she could do it. With a sigh, she picked up her brush.
The package was completely forgotten until tapping at the window startled Kate. She whirled around and saw Grace peering in the window.
“Don’t do that,” she said when she opened the door. “You scared me.”
“Sorry.” Grace didn’t sound it. She stepped into the studio and bumped against the box. “What’s that?”
“Something for the neighbor.” Kate leaned toward Grace for a kiss. “How was your day?”
“Eww! Mom, you’ve got paint all over you!”
“Have an air kiss then.” Kate mimed a kiss near her daughter’s face and Grace rolled her eyes.
“Fine. Just don’t touch me. I’m hungry—can I have a snack?”
With a last look at the banker, who was becoming less distinct with each stroke of the brush, Kate broke away and followed Grace out of the studio, taking the neighbor’s package with her.
“You shouldn’t leave this door unlocked,” she said when the back door, which led into the kitchen, opened as she tried to put the key in the lock.
“What, like someone’s going to break in while we’re eight feet away?” Grace snorted. “Get real, Mom.”
“Just keep it locked.”
“Whatever.”
