I bow my head, treat her like an angry animaclass="underline" don’t look it in the eyes. “I’m sorry,” I mutter.
“Sorry won’t re-clean all these storage rooms, will it?” she says, her voice icy. “We have a whole new shipment of artifacts coming in tomorrow. Where are we going to put them now?”
“I’ll do them all over,” I say. “I can stay late and come in early.”
Lydia scoffs. “You’ve already proven yourself incompetent.” She takes a deep breath and looks me up and down. “No, I’ve had enough of you. This is it. You’re fired.”
My heart stops. What?
“No, please Lydia, let me make it up to you.” This can’t be happening. It’s only been a week! “I’m better than this, I swear.” Tears are building up behind my eyes. This so isn’t fair.
“Swearing isn’t a result, and your results, since the beginning, have been less than stellar.” She puts out her hand. “Your badge, please.”
Slowly, I pull it from my pocket and hold it out to her. It wasn’t much, just a slip of laminated card with my photo and name, but to me, it represented so much more: my ticket to the career of my dreams.
Lydia takes it and shoves it in her purse before giving me another snooty glare. “And don’t even think about asking for a reference. As far as I’m concerned, I was right the first time. You’re not the sort of person we want in the art world.”
She stalks out, leaving me along with the mess of cleaning supplies and a half-mopped floor. A failure.
My dream is over before it even began.
CHAPTER 12
I get off the bus early and walk a few extra blocks home to help clear my head, but it doesn’t help. I trudge through the streets, noticing all the garbage in the gutters, the graffiti on the walls. I love this neighborhood, but right now it feels like all beauty has been taken from the world.
I walk past Giovanni’s and stop for a minute, peeking inside like a window shopper. I watch Carmella serve a family of eight, meatballs for almost everyone, and she smiles as she grates fresh parmesan over their plates. Jimmy opens a bottle of wine for a couple, and Fred sticks his head out of the kitchen window at the back to call an order I can’t hear. I don’t see Nona or Giovanni, but I know they’re in there, somewhere, their hearts full of love they never hesitate to share. If I go in there and break the bad news, they’ll surround me with love and support, but right now I just want to be alone.
I move away from the window before anyone can see me and go around back, climbing the stairs past my apartment and onto the fire escape that leads up onto the roof. It’s a place where I go to think, and from up here I can see the top of Coit Tower, its gray-white top sticking up through the fog like a sentry; the ocean in the distance, blanketed by banks of churning fog.The tears I've been holding back finally spill down my cheeks. Is it too late for me, Mom? Am I just never going to make it, either as an artist, or in the art world at all? Carringer’s was the only place that had even called me back in over a year. I’ve struck out at every gallery and auction house in the Bay Area, and then when I was given this gift, this huge opportunity at the most prestigious auction house in the area, I blew it.
Maybe I’m just not cut out for that world. Maybe Lydia and Chelsea were right, and I’m not good enough, don’t have the right eye or credentials. Aren’t all the rejections a sign that I don’t have the chops, that I don’t belong? How much longer can I try to convince myself that someday I’ll make it, when the world keeps telling me to give up?
I hear the metal of the fire escape scraping against the brick of the building and I know someone is coming up. “Give it up Eddie,” I start, but it’s St. Clair’s head that appears.
I stare at him in shock. “What are you doing here?”
“Well, hello to you, too,” he says, climbing up to join me on the roof. He grins. “Miss me?”
He leans in for a kiss, but my head is still too cluttered to respond.
“They told me downstairs where to find you. What’s her name—Nona, she seemed particularly happy to see me. I could hardly get away. She said something about her eggplant parmigiana…”
I smile, shaking my head. That woman knows everything. “She likes to feed everyone who steps through those doors.”
“She clearly loves you,” he says, smiling. “They all do.”
I nod, fighting my tears again. They’ve been so supportive and now I have to tell them I failed. St. Clair’s smile slips as he sees my face. He gently brushes my tears away.
“Grace, what’s wrong?”
I take a breath, willing my voice to come out steady. “I lost my job at Carringer’s today.”
“What?” He looks surprised. “What happened?”
I tell him about Lydia yelling at me, and telling me I wasn’t good enough. He looks furious, like he wants to march right back to the auction house and give her a piece of his mind. “That’s ridiculous. I’ll call in the morning, there’s no way she can behave like that.”
“No!” I yelp. “You can’t. And she can. She’s the boss.” I give a sad sigh. “Thank you for wanting to help, but I’m done there.”
“Maybe this is a good thing, then. You’ll find something else,” St. Clair insists.
I shake my head. “What if I’m just not good enough for a job in the art world?”
“That’s ridiculous,” he argues. “You spotted a forgery last weekend!”
“And your fancy art dealers didn’t believe me.”
“You are more than good enough, Grace,” he says, taking my hand. “Those guys, Lydia, all those people who dismissed your talents, they’re too jaded by image and status—they can’t see what really matters underneath.”
He means it too, I can see it in his eyes. I wonder how he can believe in me like this, when he barely knows me at all.
“You have an incredible eye, Grace, and passion, which is the most important thing.”
“Hiring committees don’t seem to agree with you.”
“Well this hiring committee is ready to offer you a job.”
I blink. What is he talking about? “What job?”
“As my personal art consultant.” St. Clair smiles.
I back away. He’s crazy. Art consultant gigs are the most prized jobs of alclass="underline" to advise private clients on their purchases, help build collections and work with museums. You have to have years of experience, the best connections…I shake my head. “Please, don’t joke.”
St. Clair frowns. “I mean it. I need someone advising me, and I trust your judgment more than anyone when it comes to art. You don’t have an agenda, you’re not swayed by status or trends. What do you say?”
I gape at him, his words finally sinking in. “You’re serious?”
“As serious as a German painting.” St. Clair grins, boyish and charming. “Think about it. You’d travel the world, helping to curate my collection and expand my holdings. Paris, Rome, Prague…didn’t you say you always wanted to travel?”
“Well, yes,” I stammer, “I just never thought…”
“What, that you could have everything you wanted?” St. Clair smiles. “Why not?
Why not…? He doesn’t realize, the world doesn’t work like that, not for people like me.
Except he’s offering it, isn’t he? The most amazing opportunity, better than any gallery job or internship by far. This would be real, the chance of a lifetime, and my heart races just thinking about it. “I don’t know what to say,” I whisper, overwhelmed.
“I haven’t even told you the starting salary yet.” St. Clair winks and names a six-figure number that’s more money than I can even imagine in one place, much less in my possession. “Plus, of course, you’d have access to a business expense account and the use of my private jet while you traveled.”