CHAPTER3
Kari lingered in the front room, allowing the media to photograph her alongside one painting after another. A television crew positioned her by the front room’s unsold picture, Kari’s favorite. A reporter whose gaze was as lacquered as her hair asked empty questions. Kari scarcely heard her own answers.
When the pros were done, the fans crowded in. Eager for selfies with the painter who had never before revealed herself. Kari remained mildly astonished at her ability to handle the attention, the conversations, the interviews.
Dr. Indrid Anand, the woman who had done so much to help shape the woman Kari had become, drifted quietly around the two rooms. Kari’s parents had never met the woman who had effectively saved her life. To them, Indrid was just another well-dressed visitor. Kari watched Indrid return time after time to the unsold painting. Most times, Indrid found it necessary to wipe her eyes. Which would have probably had Kari reaching for a tissue herself had so many cameras and strangers’ gazes not been on her.
Finally, her family prepared to leave the gallery. Quick hugs from her father and her brother. A kiss to her cheek and a final complaint from her mother. Her first ever hug from Beatrice’s second husband.
As Kari accompanied them to the door, Justin asked, “Do you know what you’re doing, leaving town like this?”
The answer was, she had been planning this step for over a year. Ever since her growing success had offered Kari the financial wings necessary to escape. But she replied as he probably expected she would. “Do I ever?”
Then the door closed, and she responded to her mother’s final glare with a smile and a wave. Finally, she could turn away and walk over to where Indrid stood in front of the unsold painting.
Her dearest friend said, “I heard them talking. Your mother tried to be snippy with Raphael.”
Which was precisely the sort of reaction Kari had expected from Beatrice. Tonight, though, her mother had probably got exactly what she deserved. No one did snippy better than her manager. “What did Mom say?”
“How nice it was of them to host her daughter’s little event.”
It should not have hurt as badly as it did. She had endured a lifetime of such comments. But still. “And?”
Indrid did an almost perfect rendition of Rafi at his insulted best. “Oh, madame. It’s anhonor. After all, yourdaughteris aglobal star. You must besoproud.”
“Rafi just earned the night’s biggest hug.”
“It left your mother so angry she actually played nice with her ex. They’ve basically agreed to gang up on you once this is over.”
“I’m not giving them the chance,” Kari replied.
“Your mother intends to force you to stay in LA.” Indrid was watching her now, gauging Kari’s response. “She called it just another of your misguided escapades. I fear your father and brother agree.”
“I said I was leaving town tomorrow, and I will,” Kari said. “But I’ve already packed everything I’m taking. I won’t be going home. Rafi booked me into the Courtyard three blocks from here.”
“Booking his star artist into a Courtyard,” Indrid said, smiling. “Rafi must have broken out in hives.”
“My car is already parked in the hotel garage,” Kari went on. “Sienna is sulking in the room.”
“Who?”
“My kitten.”
“Since when have you owned a pet?”
“Since last month. Rafi and Graham’s cat had a litter. Sienna is a Persian-Siamese mix. It was love at first purr.”
“A traveling companion. How nice for you.” Indrid took hold of Kari’s hand. “Now, be a dear and introduce me to your world.”
* * *
As they slowly toured the two rooms, Kari found herself recalling what she had come to consider the signature event. The moment when her life finally, at long last, began to come together.
Throughout her early years, the fear of unleashing yet another bout of rage pushed Kari ever further into silent isolation. Gradually, this silent drifting around the edges filtered into other aspects of her life. At school she rarely spoke. When she entered her teen years, Kari became ever more focused on the one thing that held her. The one passion that made her feel whole.
But after the shocking and hurtful responses from the art schools, Kari refused even to consider applying elsewhere. At seventeen, Kari had no money, no friends, no apparent interest in leaving home. And in the eleven months after the schools rejected her, she did not paint. Or draw. Not once.
At seventeen, her life was defined by worries. Her mother was defiantly involved in the affair that would soon wreck her marriage. The pool house, Kari’s refuge, was lined with half-finished paintings and empty canvases, shards of her former passion. Now that she had stopped painting, what was she to do with all the empty days?
