Page 4 of Brenna, Brat

“You’re going to have to help me,” I said. “You work here, don’t you? I have to pack it up.”

“You really sold a piece?” he asked skeptically. It was kind of strange for this gallery, where most of the profits were coming in through the narcotics business on the side. “Alecta should give you a commission,” he told me when I nodded yes, but he hadn’t said that she “would.” We both knew that his aunt was iffy at best about paying people, and that money matters around here were messy in the extreme. “If I help you now, then you need to give me twenty percent of that commission.”

“No way,” I responded immediately. “I’d rather return the deposit to the customer.” I helped Dion all the time, by figuring out where his rent money would come from, by giving him good advice about things like keeping food in the house so he didn’t get hungry, and by listening to all the stories of his romantic/sex escapades. He owed me. Also, besides making some illegal deliveries for his aunt Alecta, he did next to nothing for the paycheck he received.

“Fifteen percent,” Dion bargained.

“No.”

“Ten.”

“No.” I examined my nails. I had six siblings; I could argue all day long.

“Seven percent?” he suggested, and I didn’t bother to answer. “Fuck, fine! I’ll help you,” he said, as if he were granting a favor or a wish, and not as if he worked here just like I did. Unfortunately, something we had in common was that neither of us was overly tall, so we had to stand on chairs because, of course, there were no actual step stools or ladders in this place. Even more unfortunately, he had been right about being weak.

We really struggled. We also almost dropped it, twice, and the whole process was so much harder than I had envisioned. I barked orders as Dion whined and moaned a lot, which led to us fighting. The argument got even more heated than the time last summer when the used-gum artist had tried to sell Alecta on a different installation of sculptures made of animal scat. Both Dion and I had fought hard (and loudly) to prevent that, and even my boss had retained enough sense to say no, eventually. It had been the middle of July and there was no air conditioning in the building. The thought of the smell…I’d also talked to my oldest sister Nicola, a nurse, and she had provided me with a list of communicable diseases from poo exposure. Last but not least, I’d threatened to call both the Detroit Health Department and Alecta’s mom, who was the owner of the building. That had put an end to the scat art show.

Anyway, eventually Dion and I succeeded in removing Campbell Bates’ purchase from the wall and luckily, it fit into the crate I’d dug up from the gallery’s scary basement. We weren’t professional enough around here to custom-build our cases (and we also didn’t make enough sales to have a real art handler on call to do it for us). Alecta had squirreled away a lot of materialsdown there, enough to provide sufficient cushioning for the sculpture (I hoped) but Dion refused to go fetch them with me. I had to traipse up and down the dark and dusty stairs about a million times by myself, which I didn’t enjoy.

No, I didn’t like that at all and it resulted in me being very red in the face and sweaty, although it was January in Michigan, because the temperature was hard to control in this building and the basement was hotter than Hades. That was not how I wanted to look, so I went into the tiny, grimy bathroom (where the sink was broken) and tried to enact repairs.

Dion eyed me when I emerged. “Better,” he sniffed, “but not great.”

“Your shirt makes you look sallow,” I told him, and now he turned as red as I had been before I’d fixed the problem, except his skin was darker so he disguised it better. As someone who was porcelain white myself, I showed it all.

In fact, Dion was so annoyed and hurt by my comment, he announced that he had to leave the hostile work environment I’d created. But really, it didn’t ever take much to send him on his way, out to the car he parked in the loading zone in front of the gallery. I would also have liked to skip out on my job whenever I wanted, but I didn’t work for my aunt doing drug deliveries, so I didn’t have the same flexibility in my hours.

Campbell Bates showed up just when he’d said he would, shortly before six when it was very dark outside and I was very ready to leave, too. He warily opened the door of the gallery but I had disabled the scream for him, and for my own well-being. Therewere only so many times you could hear that without suffering some mental damage.

He had added an overcoat (cashmere, not a blend) and leather gloves to his ensemble and again, he looked great. His clothes did, I meant. “Hello, Brenna,” he greeted me with a smile, and I thought that he was very, very good at this, “this” meaning women and flirting. Because I, who was nobody’s fool, had smiled right back at him, and I’d also been in that disgusting bathroom for half an hour to fix myself and had allowed Dion to mind the front of the store while I did it. Someone could have walked in and stolen every piece in the gallery, all that wretched gum art, and my coworker wouldn’t have lifted his eyes from his phone even once.

“Hello,” I answered, very coolly. I wouldn’t fall for this crud, even if that name game we’d played had been fairly fun, and even if he was fairly handsome…actually, he’d crossed the line from “fairly” into just “handsome.” He had crossed it, and gone well beyond.

“Your piece has been packaged and is ready to go,” I informed him. “I’ll need your card for the balance due, and then your purchase is complete.”

“Great,” he said. He hadn’t lost the smile, although I hadn’t been welcoming in the least. As I’d said, he was good. He whipped out his card again and the charge went right on it with no trouble at all. “I think my sister will really like this,” he commented.

Judging from what he’d said about her past history with presents, I disagreed, but I nodded and carefully documentedthe sale. I was going to force my commission out of my boss whether she wanted to pay me or not. If I had to extract it through alternative means, like by stealing her drugs, then I would. The atelier upstairs still had furniture which I could resell, too, or—

“What do you think?” Campbell asked.

I had been thinking of more ways I could get my money and I must have missed something. “What do I think about what?”

“I said, after your helpers load the sculpture, do you want to get dinner? There’s a good Italian place a few blocks west.”

Dinner together, him and me? I focused on the other problem in what he’d said. “Our loading crew has left for the day,” I admitted. That “crew” consisted of Dion and his weak biceps, so I wasn’t sure how helpful he would have been anyway—but I was now on my own, and someone had stolen our dolly when someone else (Dion) had left it in the alley by mistake.

Campbell looked at the crate. “I don’t think I can carry that by myself. It’s not the weight, it’s the size. It’s going to be unwieldy.”

“If you can take one side, I can deal with the other.” It probably would have gone this way even if Dion had been here, but at least he could have held the gallery door for us.

“You’re going to do it?” He looked doubtful, but who did he think had removed it from the wall? Well, probably the “crew” I’d pretended we employed here, but I was the one with cuts from the polished metal shards and broken mirror pieces. We’d found a pair of gloves but Dion had insisted on wearing themand I had been gracious about it. I hadn’t pushed him down and taken them for myself, in other words.

“Let me get my coat,” I said, which wasn’t as nice as his (mine was a cashmere blend, purchased at a thrift store but a great cut). Then I propped open the door, since there was no Dion to hold it, and I approached the crate. I knew how heavy this would be…no, I realized when we both lifted our sides, I had not known. It was much, much worse than the sculpture alone, and I tried not to groan or fall down under the weight of it.

“You all right?” he asked me, and I nodded. I was not. We made it to the door, where we had to angle it to fit through and I almost let the stupid thing go.

“I’m fine,” I snapped, although he hadn’t asked again. He nodded but in the light from the gallery (the one above the door had broken, making it way too dark), I could see that he seemed concerned. I redoubled my efforts to appear as fine as I had claimed to be. Eventually, we did make it to his very, very nice SUV that was parked in the loading zone just outside. He had opened the back when I’d propped the shop’s door, so we were able to slide the sculpture carefully into the cargo area and then I tried not to pant or rub my arms like Dion had. That had been so freaking heavy, I’d thought my limbs were going to detach from my body.

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