“I saw the press release.” It was all over the Calgary papers. $200k annually.
“Did the article mention agent fees? Taxes?”
We rejoined Maddie and Chase in line, their cart loaded like a small nation’s supply convoy.
“Wow, look at you using real adult words.” Maddie gave Logan a satisfied smirk.
Logan shook his head. “Man. Didn’t realize how cush it was hanging with people who think I’m cool. At least Chase gets me.”
Chase gave him a fist bump and started unloading the freezer food.
Logan sighed and dropped the diapers on the conveyor belt. “You girls will understand all that finance talk someday.”
I slugged him in the shoulder. “I’m older than you.”
He winced. “By a month.”
“And more educated,” Maddie added.
“By amonth,” Logan grumbled. “Or ten.”
I wondered whether he was going to finish his degree, but didn’t ask. He hadn’t seemed all that serious about his classes at Douglas before his big break. Probably hadn’t thought twice about it.
The conveyor belt hummed, and Logan shifted the juice tubes forward with the rest of the cold items. He turned to me. “My mom’s friend is opening some kind of gallery downtown. Or maybe a museum? I can’t remember.”
My pulse ticked up. “Really?” Logan’s parents were loaded. I wasn’t sure what his dad did, but he owned a few places in Calgary, including the townhouse Logan, Shar, and Rob used to live in.
“Yeah. I’ll find out the details,” he said, pulling out his wallet. “I think his name is Marcus . . . Nieman Marcus?” Logan frowned, thinking, as my mind lit up like a neon sign.
“NormanMarcus?”
His look of consternation was replaced by a huge grin. “Yeah, that’s it. You know him?”
Did I know him? He was a legend in Calgary’s art world. OwnedMarcus & Bell, the sleek gallery on 17th Avenue where everyone pretended not to want a showing. Rumour said he’d started as an architecture student who’d dropped out after a fight with his thesis advisor about “emotional geometry.” He’d spent a few years in New York apprenticing under a curator at the Guggenheim, then came back in the late ’80s with a Rolodex full of important names and an ego to match.
He’d been on the acquisitions board for the Glenbow Museum for five years and wrote op-eds about “the death of sincerity in postmodern expressionism.” People in the art worldjoked that if Norman Marcus walked into your opening and didn’t frown, you were halfway to making it.
“He’s well-known in Calgary. At least in the art world.” I tried to play it off, but my heart was beating like a hummingbird’s wings. If Logan’s mom had an in with him, if there was any way I could get an introduction, that would be the biggest opportunity anyone in our art department landed in years. Of course, I’d have to do something to impress him, to earn a job—or hell, even a volunteer position—but I could figure something out.
“I’d love to meet him,” I blurted, already regretting all the crap I’d given Logan in the freezer aisle. But he was the one who brought it up. It wasn’t like I’d pushed for him to tell me all the famous people he knew now that he was an NHL player or anything.
Logan sniffed as the employee scanned our items with a string of beeps. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Chapter
Two
We arrivedon Shar’s front step holding bags, with Chase still unloading from the back of the truck.
The door swung open, and Shar’s eyes went wide. “What?—?”
“Merry Christmas! For your immaculate conception!” Maddie teased, her breath fogging around her face.
“I did have something to do with this!” Rob called from somewhere in the back of the house.
Shar laughed. “Get in here!” She tried to move out of the way, but I had to hold the door for either of us to get past her belly.
Rob emerged from the kitchen, and when he saw us hauling bags, he dropped the dish towel he was holding and walked to the front to get his shoes. He joined Chase in full pack-mule mode. Chase entered with six bags strapped to his forearms, and Rob followed with what had to be eight.
