CHAPTER10
When Connor began his second solo melody, the two other women at Kari’s table shared a smile over the first line,Come away with me.
Aldana, the sheriff’s wife, said softly, “Sign me up.”
Several women at neighboring tables laughed in response. One murmured, “Get in line.”
Amos pretended shock. “In case you hadn’t noticed, this is your husband sitting here.”
“Oh. Right.” Aldana patted his hand. “What was your name again?”
The song ended to long and rapturous applause. Connor invited his band onto the stage, waited while they settled, then invited Ian to join them.
Kari studied the faces around her, warmed and lit both by candlelight and sharing this special hour. Some people showed confusion over Ian’s appearance; others utter astonishment. She wondered if she was the only one who felt chills.
The Drifters’ “Up on the Roof” was played with an upbeat jazzy rendering that had many dancing in place. Kari wrapped her arms around her middle, thrilled by the shape this moment was taking. Her first evening in her new hometown.
Ian held back through the first few songs, playing so lightly he merely punctuated Connor’s lead. Even so, he created a special magic all his own. Kari was certain this was not merely her own sentiment, seeing her favorite musician in such intimate surroundings.
Then Connor invited their guest to play lead on the set’s final song, a second Carole King melody. Ian generated a melodic force that elevated the music to an entirely different level. This was Ian Hart’s gift, offering the audience wings of their own, inviting them to soar with him. Kari had tasted this same energy in his albums and while seated in a captivated live audience. But the restaurant’s intimacy created something else entirely.
Kari felt herself pierced by his music. She looked out over the audience, saw the rapture. She had spent her entire life in artistic solitude. Only now, in this moment, she yearned for what would never be hers.
* * *
When she woke the next morning, Kari was ready to paint.
She rushed through the morning routine, throwing on whatever clothes were at the top of her unpacked case. Brewing coffee took forever. Her fingers made an impatient mess of feeding the kitten and then pouring yogurt and granola into her own solitary bowl. She forced herself to eat, knowing otherwise she might faint before realizing her body’s needs. The kitten became infected by her frenetic energy, mewing and threading its way around her feet, twice almost bringing her down. Kari plucked up the feline and her coffee and rushed down the brick walkway, fumbled with the atelier key, stepped inside, and breathed.
Sunlight spilled through the skylights and the eastern slit windows. The pattern cast upon the empty room’s vast space was an artwork all its own, so beautiful she might have wept if she had not felt such an urgent need to begin.
Every now and then, she worked on two or more canvases simultaneously. The ideas and emotions all crowded in, forming a huge jumble that could be clarified only by sifting through them together, isolating one fragment after another. Kari set up a pair of easels and got to work.
She loved sketching directly onto the canvas but seldom did so, because too often her initial ideas were miles removed from the final concept. Too much work on the canvas, and she became defensive. As if she needed to protect what she had done thus far. Working first on her pad was liberating in that sense. She had once heard a teacher declare, “An artist needs room to doubt.” That was how she viewed her sketch pad. As a book of doubts.
Today was different.
The first canvas was based upon her view of Justin and her father through the gallery door. Graham had forwarded his photographs, but her memories were so vivid, Kari found no need to bring them up. Her recollection of that night was merely a jumping-off point; she knew that now. Studying the images would only muddy her vision.
She sketched out the two men raging into their phones, then began swiftly adding color and form. First, to the background, then to the ephemeral image reflected in the glass. She had not yet decided whether to actually paint the two men so they resembled her father and brother. That needed to wait. Nothing could be allowed to hold back this creative torrent. So the two men were almost faceless, at least for the moment. The clearest element was their matching dark sunglasses, square and large and impenetrable. Almost as an afterthought, she then swept the brush along the left side of their profiles. As if an unseen wind, a tempest of rage and pressure matching their internal state, threatened to pull them away.
She was far from finished when she shifted her attention. The second canvas called to her with silent intensity. On it she sketched a memory, one that had woken her at daybreak.
Kari had not thought of the incident in years. Which was hardly a surprise. It had occurred the weekend before her sixteenth birthday. The week after, she had received the art schools’ responses. Her hand froze momentarily, her heart again captured by the words that had branded her spirit. She had always suspected the handwritten notes attached to one of the rejection letters had been forwarded by mistake. The professor’s comments had quenched her creative fire for almost a year.
Pollyannaish, the instructor had written.Not without some small talent, but absurdly immature, nowhere near ready for higher learning.Nine comments in all. Each stabbing her with those blades of contempt and rejection.
Then the kitten mewed, drawing her back to the here and now. Surrounded by a vast clean space, a confirmation in itself that the instructor’s opinion was not shared by many others. Kari shuddered, breathed, refocused, and sketched.
After the first few lines, the happy memory became so vivid she might as well be viewing it through clear glass, instead of rendering it onto an empty canvas.
Justin was six years her senior, but when they were growing up, he’d seemed much older. As if his single-minded ambition, his aim to join their father’s agency had aged him a full generation. He had never understood her desire to paint. Which was why she had never shared the art schools’ rejections and the devastation they had caused.
Every now and then, Justin had done his best to bridge the divide between them. On this day, all he had told her was he had a surprise in store. He’d dragged her out of bed at four in the morning. Kari kept whining as she dressed because it made him laugh. She had always cherished her brother’s rare good moods. This morning was one of the best.
Three of them traveled south at dawn that day. Brother and sister were accompanied by Justin’s most recent flame. As Kari sketched, she tried to remember the young lady’s name. Tessa sounded right. Her handsome brother maintained a revolving-door attitude about his female companionship. Tessa was beautiful, of course. They always were. But there was something to this one, a unique flavor or depth, something about the quiet way she observed everything. As if she was not as easily taken as the others Kari had met.
They stopped for breakfast at a Long Beach diner, a throwback to a different era. The place was filled with a remarkable blend of people. All ages, many races, all quietly sharing a fizzy, ethereal joy.
