And that pretty much described my first three hours at home. I dodged, deflected, and said things like “We’re just working together” through all the cookie baking and Christmas decorating.
By Sunday evening, I was packed and tucked into the freezing truck for the drive back to Calgary. Mom crammed six Tupperwares into my hands. Three soups, two pasta dishes, and something that might have been a taco meat?
“Take the garlic bread too!” Mom shouted from the garage. “You need carbs!”
“I have carbs!” I yelled back.
“Not enough!”
_____
I arrived at the gallery warehouse early Monday morning since my regular class was canceled due to my professors unfortunate allergic response to shrimp pasta the night before.
The last of the construction trucks were gone. In their place sat neat stacks of polished floor panels, ladders shoved into corners, and coils of extension cords.
Inside, I stopped dead. The walls gleamed with a fresh coat of crisp white paint, and the track lighting was installed, half the heads already angled toward imaginary canvases.
It didn’t look like a warehouse anymore. It looked like a gallery. My gallery.
Norman was already striding across the space with a clipboard, talking to three contractors at once. “Electrical. That corner needs another buff. The southwest panel is warped—replace it. And can someone please fix that outlet?” He pointed, waiting for a response. When he didn’t get it, he waved me over like I’d materialized precisely when he needed me. “Crystal. Good. Exhibition sequence today. Start with the emerging artists’ alcove. We’ll see Alison Kerr at the Palliser. I’ve got a meeting with her before the reception, and I want a preliminary concept board.”
My pulse fluttered. This was a thousand percent better than slashing boxes. “Yes. Absolutely.”
“And pull the MacIntyre Foundation file,” he added. “Cross-reference this proposal language with our education plan so we don’t repeat anything. Or promise anything insane.”
Donor proposal language?He trusted me.The realization made me heady. I set my stuff down and dove in. I spent the morning ricocheting around the gallery, sketching exhibition flow on tracing paper, labeling plinths with a Sharpie, reviewing lighting angles for both dramatic effect and donor-safe visibility, building the student-engagement binder for the Douglaspartnership, and prepping printouts for the meeting with Alison Kerr.
By noon, I felt larger than life, until I realized I’d forgotten the MacIntyre file. Hopefully Norman was still in his office because I didn’t have a key.
I approached, noting from down the hall that the door was propped open, and mentally prepared for a search. Was it a green folder or blue?
I was about to push the door open when I froze.
Norman was in the room, but it wasn’t him who stopped my heart in my chest. It was the woman he was kissing.
Alice Kemp.
Logan’s mother.
Chapter
Twenty
The Palliser looked like money.Old money. Leather-bound money. The kind of money that wore cufflinks and got decent-looking hair plugs.
The lobby hummed with soft piano and the dim lighting made everyone look gauzy. Thank the heavens for Shar and her little black dress. If I would’ve shown up in anything from my wardrobe, I would’ve looked like someone who wandered in off the street looking for a sunday school class.
Logan’s reaction when he picked me up was still playing on repeat in my mind. The slight part of his lips, the quick blinks. I was more prepared since I’d already been blindsided by him in a suit at the breakfast.
Now he walked beside me, suit jacket crisp, hair neat except for one rebellious wave that kept falling onto his forehead. Upstairs, the ballroom doors stood open, spilling out jazz music and chatter. Inside, chandeliers glittered over linen-covered tables and servers carried trays of champagne flutes, offering them to all the guests. Norman glided through the space, greeting everyone.
He found us seconds after we entered. “Crystal. Logan. Excellent. Come, there’s someone I want you to meet.”
Norman ushered us across the ballroom before I could even get my bearings. A donor I vaguely recognized from the breakfast at Douglas nodded at Logan with thinly veiled awe as we passed.
On a side table near the stage, set discreetly but intentionally beneath spot lighting, hung a large painting. Thick, bold strokes of crimson and navy blues were scraped into geometric motion. At first glance it looked abstract, but then I caught it. The ghost shape of a hockey player mid-stride, the suggestion of a stick, the arc of ice spray.
“Isn’t it something?” Norman said, nodding toward the painting.
