Melinda burst through the glass doors of Crowder & Whittle Fine Art at 3:14 p.m. Her painting was cradled against her chest.
The white polished concrete floor of the lobby magnified the slap of her sneakers.
The little red eye of the security camera to the left of the entry glared at her.
At the far end of the lobby, glass-walled and faintly blue in the filtered sunlight, Donna Crowder’s office hovered like a control tower. Melinda could see the director through the glass, sharply edged by the backlight of a monitor. Both insulated and in full view.
Melinda crossed the gallery, ignoring the assistant behind the marble desk. The young woman was murmuring into her headset while her eyes darted up and down the length of Melinda’s body. Melinda imagined she was describing her, right now, to someone on the other end.
In the main hall, the work of the current show lined the walls, the debut of a local prodigy. Melinda had admired him, but now as she walked past each monochrome landscape, she realized her masterpiece was at least the equal of anything he ever created.
She paused at one, noticing the signature, a scrawl nearly identical to the one Donna had urged her to adopt years ago.
Melinda pressed on, her hands clammy around the frame of her painting.
Donna emerged from her office as if responding to a silent alarm. She stood in the doorway, unhurried, surveying Melinda with cool impersonal interest. She wore an asymmetrical suit in a shade of grey, and pointy black shoes.
Donna removed her glasses, folding them and holding them between both hands at her waist. "Melinda," she said. "I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow."
Melinda bristled. "I had to come today. I couldn’t wait any longer."
"Is everything alright?"
Melinda positioned her painting in front of her like a shield. She felt the eyes of the assistant in the lobby, the invisible lens of the security camera. "Don’t play dumb. I know what you’re planning."
Donna looked puzzled.
"You want to steal it," Melinda said. "You want to claim it for the gallery, or for yourself."
"Melinda, let’s go into my office. We can talk there."
Melinda took a step backward. "No. We can talk here. Where everyone can see."
"Melinda, if there’s an issue, I want to resolve it."
Melinda looked over Donna’s shoulder, scanning the hall for witnesses, for listening devices.
"You think I don’t know about the bugs?" Melinda said. "You think I don’t know you’re recording all of this, cataloguing everything I say, everything I do?"
"Melinda," Donna said, "can we please sit down?"
Melinda could taste the panic at the back of her throat. "That’s how you do it, isn’t it?" she said. "You undermine me, little by little. First you question my technique, then you change the installation date, then you start exhibiting these… these copies of my work. You hire assistants who watch me, who report on me. And now you want to take this..." she indicated her painting, "..and claim it as your own. But I won’t let you."
Behind Donna, the gallery assistant's lips were parted in horror.
"That’s not what’s happening," Donna said. "I’m not trying to take anything from you. I’ve always supported you."
"Liar."
Donna pinched the bridge of her nose. "Let’s move into the office, Melinda. Please."
Melinda shook her head. "You can’t make me disappear," she said. Melinda scanned the perimeter, half-expecting to see the walls flex inward. She placed the painting against the nearest wall.
Donna mimed a silent message to her assistant, who closed her mouth, nodded, and pressed a button on her headset.
Melinda felt her knees buckle, her vision swim. She sank to the polished floor and pressed her forehead to the cool surface. The marble floor felt good against her skin, but Melinda forced herself to rise and face Donna. The assistant had retreated to the corner, eyes flickering between Melinda and her boss.
Donna turned to the assistant: “Please clear the floor.” The girl nodded and vanished down the side hallway, reappearing seconds later escorting a pair of elderly visitors out of the gallery.
As Melinda stalked toward her, Donna lifted her hands placatingly and said, “I don’t know what you think is happening here, but I have no interest in stealing your work, or undermining you, or whatever else is ...”
“Don’t patronize me,” Melinda said. “I’m not some ‘troubled artist’ for you to manage. I know how you operate. I know how you talked about me at the Board, how you told everyone I was ‘erratic’ and ‘unpredictable.’ That I’d be better off on the discount shelf.”
Donna’s jaw worked, at a loss for words.
The gallery lights seemed to Melinda to shift, multiplying until they buzzed in Melinda’s eyes. She hesitated.
Donna indicated the painting. “I'll take a look at it,” she said.
“Don’t touch it!” Melinda lunged, one hand outstretched. In the second before impact, Melinda realized her trajectory was off. Her right shoulder clipped the wall and she caromed into the display case immediately to the left. The case, which housed a delicate glass sculpture, wobbled. Donna gasped, and the assistant yelled something. Then, with the sluggishness of a nightmare, the case toppled, shattering the sculpture, fragments flying in all directions.
Melinda landed hard, hands outstretched. For a moment she couldn’t breathe. Then, across the floor, she thought she heard the painting calling to her. She started crawling to it.
When she reached her painting, Melinda cradled it to her chest, as if it were a baby. She met Donna’s gaze and saw fear in the older woman’s eyes.
It was a victory, in a way.
Melinda stood, slowly, knees skinned, blood from her hands stippling the white sheet that covered her painting. She faced the ruined sculpture, and thought, That’s what it takes. That’s what you have to do to be heard.
Melinda let her painting slide from her hands to the floor.
Security finally arrived. Two men in pressed black slacks, black knit shirts with a discreet patch, and boots. One was older, with a mustache and sad eyes; the other young, his face all jaw.
“Ma’am, we need you to come with us,” the older guard said gently. “We just want to get you out safe.”
Melinda didn’t move. She stared at Donna. “You’ll regret this. Everyone will know what you did.”
The guards moved slowly closer until their hands were on her arms. Melinda allowed herself to be guided.
They led her through the lobby, past the shell-shocked assistant and the few remaining visitors clustered at the threshold. The glass doors parted.
Later, when the last of the blood on the marble had been mopped, when the police reports had been filed and the insurance claims prepared, Donna walked the length of the gallery and stood before Melinda’s painting.
She undraped it, and gasped.
It was not just the best thing Melinda had ever done. It was possibly the best thing Donna had ever seen.
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