Page 36 of Daddy, Take Me Away
It ended with another shrill screech of security's whistle.
Without another word, he let her go. He looked at her as if to commit her to his memory, and he really did walk away. Getting in his car, he drove toward home without looking back. Chloe knew, because she stood there, her hand held high in farewell until she couldn't see him anymore.
She went inside the airport, standing at the front floor-to-ceiling windows, just in case he might come back, but he didn't.
It took almost an hour to get through processing, but finally she was allowed to board.
The plane was just as full as before, but she didn't care. Folding herself into her budget seat, she turned her face toward the window and ignored everything until the wheels left the ground.
She ugly cried the whole way home.
Chapter Twenty
One month later…
“Chloe, darling!” cried Madeline Grant, the owner of the prestigious Grant Gallery located right in the heart of art central New York City. Maddy, as she was known by to her friends.
Flinging out her arms, she waited for Chloe to bring herself into them. Maddy was too high up in the art world to walk up to anyone; people came to her, and that's what Chloe did.
Pasting on her best smile, Chloe hugged her online friend and real-life acquaintance with as much fake enthusiasm as she could muster. And she was pretty sure Maddy was doing the same.
Oh, Maddy seemed nice enough whenever they talked, but if she wasn't the queen of making or breaking the artists she liked to open her gallery for, then she was definitely high enough up in the echelon of royalty that it didn't matter.
Why Maddy had ever latched onto her work, Chloe still didn't know, but she had to admit, her latest works looked good on the walls tonight.
The Grant Gallery was top-notch in elegance with homogenous stone floors and walls, a many windowed ceiling, and strategically placed lights that looked like stars, especially at this time of night.
“We've a full house coming tonight,” Maddy crowed as she released Chloe to hold her at arm’s length instead. “Every single ticket sold, making me very happy lady indeed. And just look at what you've brought me! My darling, how ever did you do it? It's all so alluring! I'll bet every one flies right off the walls as soon as we open the doors.”
“You're not open?” Chloe looked to the thirty or so people already musing their way around the walls where the twenty-some-odd portrait and landscapes she'd prepared for this showing were being displayed. “Why are there so many people then?”
Linking her arm with Chloe's, Maddy smugly beamed. “Maddy Magic, darling. It's nothing but a bunch of my favorite high-paying collectors, with perhaps a museum director or three sprinkled in amongst them.”
Jaw dropping, Chloe’s stomach dropped, hitting the floor tiles between her black high heels. “Are you kidding me?”
Smirking, the other woman leaned in conspiratorially close. “How do you feel about seeing your work hanging in Chicago's Institute? Or the Louvre?”
Chloe clapped a hand over her mouth barely in time to block her unprofessional squeals. “Are you serious?”
“Silly thing, of course I'm serious,” Maddy scoffed, rolling her eyes.
Maddy took her on a tour of the gallery floor, letting Chloe see how her work looked on the walls. Frankly, she was still so stunned about walking among museum curators, she barely noticed. Not until one of Maddy's highly professional assistants walked up to them and handed Maddy three elegant white cards with big, black, calligraphy letters that read: SOLD.
“Don’t ever call me anything less than your saving angel, darling.” Maddy beamed, smug all over again. “Congratulations! The doors aren't even open yet, and you've sold three paintings.”
Heart skipping wildly, Chloe clapped a hand to her chest as if that could keep it from escaping completely. Three of her twenty works sold already? Possibly to a curator? She couldn't breathe.
Eyeing her thoughtfully, Maddy held out the sold cards. “Would you like to hang these first ones yourself?”
Though phrased as a question, no one said no to Maddy, especially not when their art was in her gallery.
Slightly panicking with excitement, strangely, no was the last thing Chloe wanted to say. “I'd love to.”
Arm in arm, they walked through a minor maze of display walls all decorated with her latest art. She knew every piece by heart, and yet Chloe stopped frequently, pausing to gaze on each scene with a mix or adoration and loss and a hell of a lot of good memories.
There was the kitchen scene where she sat cradled on his lap. In reality, she'd been naked, but that wasn't the kind of work she was known for. Especially not when the naked woman in the portrait was her. So she'd painted herself in clothes and used light and shadow to infuse intimacy into each brush stroke. She liked this one so much she'd almost changed her mind about selling it, but she wouldn't be much of a businesswoman if she kept everything she created. Besides, there was another she couldn't bear to be parted from; she wanted that one more.
On the next wall hung her memory of Hamish sleeping at the airport, his long body stretched out across the seats. On another, they walked side by side into the sunset with her hand firmly clasped in his. Daddy, taking his Little girl–his wee lassie–for a walk into the sunset.
