Chapter 30: Opening Night

"No," I said.

The gallery owner lowered her glasses on their chain.

"It's what the estate's records say."

"The estate's records are wrong. The model is standing right here."

She looked at me over the card for a long moment.

Then she tore it in half.

"Spell it for me," she said.

I spelled it.

Her assistant printed it that night and mounted it on white board.

At nine the next morning I watched her put it on the wall with a level.

GIRL ON A BLUE SHEET. OIL ON CANVAS.

MODEL: NEVE CAHILL, AGE 21, BRIDGEPORT, CHICAGO.

Lent by the artist.

"The artist," I said. "That's not right either. I'm not the one who painted her."

"You're the artist of everything else in this room," the gallery owner said. "And she's yours. I'm keeping it."

The show opened at six on Friday, April sixteenth.

My name was on the window in plain black letters.

NEVE CAHILL. NEW PAINTINGS.

I stood on the sidewalk in the West Loop and looked at it.

I looked so long the gallery owner came out and pulled me in by the sleeve.

I wore the dark blue dress from Archer Avenue.

Fran said it was lucky now and I wasn't allowed to wear anything else to anything important ever again.

Fran's nails were gold.

Mine were the blue of the sheet.

By six-thirty the room was full.

The Wednesday seniors came in a church van, all twenty of them in their best cardigans.

The Friday ladies came in hats.

The classmate brought six of her students, who stood in front of the mailmen and argued about which one was asleep.

The curator from the museum came in a black suit and went straight to the back wall.

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