Hailey

Fall was beginning to crisp the San Diego air. The tourists had retired, and the ocean had become its frozen cove. The smell of pumpkins and apple cider was already permeating the air, and the diner across the street was already advertising their pumpkin spice milkshakes. Halloween was one of my favorite times of the year. It brought about so much inspiration and happiness to those who found the beauty in its costumes and morbid decorations.

The gallery had been open for a little over a month now, and things were going pretty well. One of the first suggestions I’d ever received from a customer was how they wished they could see me painting. I’d originally set up the small back room as my painting studio, but I quickly started switching things around. I was in the process of making the original painting studio a small shop for people to purchase things and started setting up my painting studio near the front of the store. I was exposed to everyone, which was a little daunting, but I set myself up where a cash register would’ve been in any other traditional store, just to see how things would pan out.

Everyone coming in loved seeing and watching me paint, so I decided to keep the setup the way it was.

The small store in the back was bringing in a good chunk of my weekly revenue. People were purchasing beginning painter’s packs and canvases for my therapy classes. They were requesting other tubes of colors be sold so they could purchase their paint right there before class began. I was able to stock and try selling some different wooden picture frames for the artwork that was selling and started offering framing services right there at the counter for those who wanted it.

Business was booming, and I couldn’t have been any prouder.

The gallery showing that showcased the grand opening included a bunch of paintings from other art therapy students. I stayed away from John’s because of everything that happened between me and Bryan, but there were still so many others that deserved to see the light of day. Fluid abstracts and beautiful portraits. Breathtaking landscapes and pictures that wrenched emotions deep from within someone’s gut. It only took me two weeks to sell all those paintings, and one by one, I replaced them with pieces of artwork I had been working on.

By the third week of being open, the walls were lined with pictures I’d painted and crafted over the course of the last four years. For the first time, I got to see them all side by side. I saw the evolution of my own craft. My own emotions. My own presence. I got to study the brushstrokes and how they’d changed over the years. I got to take in the subject of the paintings and how my focus and my muses bounced around depending on my emotional circumstance.

It was like peeling off my skin and holding myself up on a display for everyone to see, and it was a bit unnerving.

I was restocking the back room that had now become my little store when a blonde woman walked through the front doors. Today had been a particularly slow day, so I’d gotten a great deal of painting done. She was attractive. I had to give her that. Tall and slender, with legs for days and white skin that had the slightest hint of a tan. Her hazel eyes seemed to change colors with the artwork she was surveying, and there was something about her that made it hard for me to take my eyes off her.

I didn’t recognize her. She hadn’t ever been in here before, and I’d never seen her at the diner. She was walking around the gallery and taking in the pictures like she was floating on air. She walked as if her feet didn’t quite touch the ground, but she was dressed in a very professional manner. She had on this red and yellow dress that hugged her close to her neck and covered her all the way to below her knees. Her black and red heels added even more height to her, and her blond hair was pulled back into a large bun that sat on her head. She was clutching a notebook and a pencil, and part of me wondered if she was here for a specific purpose.

“Take your time and look around. No one’s going to kick you out,” I said.

“Thanks,” she said mindlessly.

I didn’t want to disturb the trance she seemed to be in with the paintings, so I went back to restocking while she took a look around. I sorted the last of the tube colors and put them in their respective bins before I hung up the last of the canvases, and by the time I walked back out onto the floor, she was looking at the painting I was currently doing. She was over by the front door, standing with the massive front window backdropping her frame. The fall sunlight cascading through the windows made her seem almost angelic.

Then she turned her face towards me and smiled.

“What made you choose this space?” she asked.

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“This space. For the gallery. It’s in such a rundown part of town. Why did you choose it?”

“I enjoyed the beauty of it,” I said.

“The beauty of it?”

“Yes. There’s beauty even within loneliness. Its scars and its bones called to me, I guess.”

“What inspired you to open the gallery?” she asked.

“I’ve always wanted to open one eventually,” I said.

“Did San Diego call to you?” she asked.

My mind wafted back to John and to the conversations we used to have whenever he was sober. His eyes always lit up whenever he talked about San Diego. The beauty of the city simply called to him. He always felt this ethereal tug to get back, even though he never really told me why.

“I guess you could say it did, yes,” I said.

“Is this your art hanging on the walls?” she asked.

“It is, though I didn’t open the gallery with them.”

“You didn’t?”

“No. I opened the gallery with a bunch of paintings some of my art therapy students did when I was still hopping from city to city.”

“You hold art therapy classes? Are you a licensed psychologist?” she asked.

“No, but I have a certification in the practice. I don’t offer them psychological advice. I simply give them an outlet for their emotions they may or may not want to talk about with a psychologist.”

“Fascinating,” she said.

She started jotting down some things in her notebook, and I started to get curious. Who was this woman? Why was she asking so many questions? I was thrilled someone was interested, but no one came in and wrote my answers down. No one was ever so interested they wanted to remember the answers I gave.

“What’s your goal with this gallery?” she asked.

“I want to help show people’s beauty. I want to breathe a fresh breath of life into a beautiful place that has been stripped of its beauty because of the world’s debauched idea of beauty. I wanted to help show other’s beauty for those who are no longer here to show it themselves.”

“Something tells me there’s a personal story behind that. Care to explain?” she asked.

My mind railroaded me again and threw me back to a time when Bryan and I were together. Happy. In love. My heart ached for him and how he was still feeling. So many of her questions were tied to him and his family, and everything in me wanted to scream the story from the rafters. John was worth the attention. His artwork and beauty were worth the attention. His life was worth commemorating, and not just within the walls of a bar.

But I couldn’t talk about it. I couldn’t talk about any of it without talking to Bryan first, and something told me I knew that was never going to happen.

“Not really. It’s just how I’ve always been. That’s the path my artwork has always taken. I was lucky enough to stumble across a construction company with the same values. They helped me get this place in working condition.”

“What construction company was that?” she asked.

“B.D. Construction,” I said. “Bryan McBride was the project manager.”

“Uh-huh. And you were drawn to them because they hold your same beliefs within business?” she asked.

“Beliefs within and outside of business, yes.”

I wanted to tell her all about what Bryan did and about the second chances he gave people within his community. I wanted to talk about his outreach work if only so I could remember him the way I wanted him to. I wanted to tell her all about how he hired homeless men to work on his sites, gave them jobs, paid them well, and got them clean and back on track.

But all of that would dive right back into John, and I couldn’t do that to him.

I couldn’t do that to either of them without reconciling with Bryan first.

“What do you have back here?” she asked.

“Oh, that’s our new shop—”

Before I could catch her, she blew past my small little shop and pushed out the back door. She was looking around like she was searching for something. People were starting to pull up and enter the gallery, which meant I had to get back inside, but the moment I saw her hand land on the door of the storage shed, I had to stop her.

“I’m sorry. Who are you?” I asked.

“Jennifer Skyles, reporter,” she said as she tried to open the door.

“Miss Skyles,” I said as I grabbed her wrist. “That would be private.”

“Yes. Of course.”

I was a bit taken aback. This woman just waltzed into my gallery and thought she had a right to everything simply because she was a reporter. She turned toward me and flashed her one-hundred-watt smile, hoping to smooth things over as I led her back inside.

“I heard about this place from a few of my friends. They absolutely loved the quality of the artwork and the building itself, and I had to come check it out,” she said.

“Well, I’m glad you stopped by.”

“If it’s not too rude of me already, I think the story angle on this is too perfect. You, a traveling artist roaming the world looking for your place, set up shop in a working-class neighborhood next to a rundown diner in a location that’s known for eating small businesses alive. It’s perfect.” she exclaimed.

“I guess if you think so,” I said, shrugging.

“Did you know you were setting up in a place that was rooting for your failure?”

“I don’t think it’s rooting for me to fail, but yes. I did know that businesses struggled to stay open here,” I said.

“So, failure isn’t a deterrent for you.”

“Nope,” I said. “The artistic aura of the place was more important to me than its location. If you find the right space where you can do your best work, people will come,” I said.

“Another one of your business philosophies?” she asked.

“Nope. Just one of my life ones.”

“What inspires your art?” she asked. “All of these paintings are so different from one another.”

“That’s because I painted them over the course of four years,” I said. “In the past four years, I’ve lived in six different cities and encountered thousands of beautiful souls. They are my muse. They are the reason I paint.”

“So, each painting is based on a person,” she said.

“Multiple people who affected me in similar ways, yes.”

“Some of them seem more heartbroken than others. Were those inspired by heartbroken people?” she asked.

“No,” I said, “they were inspired by some of my art therapy students that I lost.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that. What happened?” she asked.

“Some of my art therapy students come from rougher backgrounds, recovering addicts, foster children who age out of the system, people like that. Those types of individuals, their life expectancies tend to be lower than most.”

I couldn’t bear to say more than that, nothing about the people I’d lost and the number of funerals I’d attended over the years. It was positively overwhelming. I felt tears threatening to burst free, so I swallowed hard, hoping my emotion could keep itself at bay long enough to get whatever this was over with.

I suddenly wanted her gone a lot sooner than I had before.

“Does your own personal loneliness drive you to find beauty within it, so you don’t think you’re such a lost cause?” she asked.

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“Does your own personal loneliness drive you to—”

“I heard what you said. I’m just not sure why you asked.”

“Because I’m curious.”

“What makes you think I’m lonely?” I asked.

“The sadness in your paintings. It’s a sadness that could only come from someone who’s lonely,” she said.

“Takes loneliness to find loneliness,” I said.

I stood there with her as I took deep, steady breaths. This woman had walked into my gallery from off the street, tried poking her nose around in shit, and then was accusing me of being some lonely old soul who threw herself into her artwork because no one would love her. Who the hell did this woman think she was? All she did was report on people’s shit she shouldn’t be poking around in to begin with.

“Well, I like what I hear, but I’m not sure my boss will. We’re trying to put more uplifting stories in the column I write. Apparently, I’m drawn to the more morbid side of life,” she said.

“Tell him it’s a Halloween special,” I said mindlessly.

“And a sense of humor,” she said, giggling. “Perfect. Either way, I don’t think he’ll go for it, but I’ll make sure to mention your gallery in the story I do end up writing.”

“Thanks.”

I had to say, I was a bit disappointed. Even though she’d pissed me off to no end, the attention in the newspapers would’ve really helped business. But if it was meant to be, it would’ve happened. The only newsworthy hook I had anyway wasn’t my own.

It was Bryan’s and the hook that drew people to his business.

“If you come across any other stories that might be worthy of some newspaper time, give me a call.”

She handed me her card, and immediately, I started thinking about Bryan and his homeless projects and his community outreach and how it was all fueled by the death of his brother and how John had died. The newspapers and media around town would eat him alive to produce that story.

But my gallery had many media-friendly angles showcasing John’s work. How John connected Bryan and me. How the same inspiration for my art gallery and the passion I had to showcase his work was the same inspiration Bryan used for his community outreach. Two businesses connected by one philosophy that stemmed from one person.

It was one of those stories that made national headlines.

But all of them involved Bryan and involved his cooperation, and I knew he wasn’t into boasting about what he was doing. It was one of the many things that made me fall in love with him. Even if I could get him on board for it, I still didn’t know if he would go for it. I couldn’t tell this woman any of the wonderful things he did or how his brother inspired all of this without betraying Bryan further.

He’d never forgive me if I did something like that, and even if I did, I sure as hell wouldn’t give the story to a reporter who felt compelled to go through my shit and ask shady questions before introducing herself.

“Thank you, Miss Skyles. If I hear of any, I’ll call you,” I said.

“Wonderful. Have a nice day, Miss ...?”

“Ryan. Hailey Ryan.”

“Have a nice day, Miss Hailey Ryan.”

A few people were walking around the gallery and checking out the price tags on the paintings. They were smiling and enjoying themselves, and a few kids were running around the floor and asking if they could buy some stuff while they were here. At any other moment in time, it would’ve put a smile on my face, but all I could think about was Bryan. I missed him, and suddenly my heart was slipping to my toes.

I wondered what he was up to and how his business was going. I wondered how those homeless men who worked on this gallery were doing and if they’d gone on to find other jobs. I wondered how he was doing at night, and I wondered if he had hung the painting I gave him.

But most of all, I wondered if he missed me as much as I missed him.

He doesn’t miss you. You’re a liar. No one misses liars.

For once, I succumbed to the voice in my head. I plastered a smile on my face and started answering questions that customers were slinging my way, and I made three sales in the thirty minutes I was out on the floor. I ushered them all out of the gallery, wishing them a good day while the kids cheered and ranted about their new paint colors. Then, I sat back down on my stool and picked up my brush.

I almost had the finishing touches done on this portrait of Bryan, and then it would be ready to stash in the storage unit with the rest of them.