What the Light Looked Like Leaving

Chapter 3 The Interview

The Arcadia Bay Art Foundation occupied the top two floors of a restored brick building downtown, all exposed beams and white walls and enormous windows facing the bay. I'd been to gallery openings there twice, both times as someone's plus-one, never as anyone's guest of honor.

Now I sat in the lobby with my portfolio on my lap, waiting to be called in.

I'd chosen my outfit carefully. Navy blazer, cream blouse, low heels. Professional but not trying too hard. The kind of clothes I could afford on my own salary, from my own closet, with no help from anyone.

The door opened and a woman stepped out. Eleanor Vance. I recognized her from the foundation's website, a tall woman in her sixties with silver hair and sharp eyes, wearing a charcoal suit that probably cost more than my first car.

"Ms. Marchetti," she said. "Thank you for coming."

I stood and shook her hand. Her grip was firm. Her eyes were assessing. She looked at me the way Catherine used to look at me, the way all of them had always looked at me, like I was a puzzle they hadn't quite solved.

"Please, come in."

The room was large and bright, with a long table where three other people sat. I recognized one of them, a curator from the Marbury Museum, and the other two were strangers. I took my seat and arranged my portfolio in front of me.

"Tell us about your work," Eleanor said.

I'd practiced this. I'd been practicing for weeks. But sitting there, in that bright room with the bay glittering behind the windows, I found myself thinking about something else entirely.

"I grew up in a small town in the valley," I said. "My mother taught art at the high school. She used to take me to museums on weekends, small ones, local ones. The ones with donation boxes and hand-painted signs. She used to say that art was for everyone, not just the people who could afford to buy it."

Eleanor's expression didn't change. But something in her posture shifted. She was listening.

"I've spent the last ten years working in community arts programs," I continued. "Most recently at the River House shelter, where I ran a weekly workshop for women in transition. They came in with nothing, most of them. They left with something they'd made with their own hands. Something that belonged to them."

"Your portfolio reflects that," said the curator from Marbury. "The pieces are quite raw."

"Raw in the sense of unfinished?"

"Raw in the sense of unpolished." He flipped through the pages. "These are sketching studies, not finished paintings."

"They're studies for a series I'm developing," I said. "About the way women are taught to make themselves small. To take up less space. To apologize for what they want."

"And what do they want?"

I looked at him. At Eleanor. At the two strangers at the end of the table. And I thought, for just a moment, about the life I'd left behind.

"Everything," I said. "They want everything. But they've been told they're allowed to want so little."

The room was quiet for a moment. Then Eleanor nodded.

"The fellowship includes a solo show at the end of the year," she said. "Do you have a concept for it?"

"I do."

"Tell us."

I took a breath. I hadn't planned this part. I'd been so focused on getting the words right that I'd forgotten to think about what they meant.

"I want to do a series about the objects women leave behind," I said. "The things they hold onto because they were given by someone who hurt them. The things they finally let go of. The things they pass on to the next woman, who might need them more."

"Like inheritance?" one of the strangers asked.

"Like survival," I said. "Sometimes inheritance and survival are the same thing."

I saw something cross Eleanor's face. I couldn't read it. It might have been recognition. It might have been judgment. I couldn't tell.

"Thank you, Ms. Marchetti," she said. "We'll be in touch."

I stood, shook hands with each of them, and walked out. My heart was pounding. I couldn't tell whether I'd done well or made a complete fool of myself. But something had shifted in that room, something I couldn't name.

I checked my phone in the elevator. A text from Priya: How did it go?

I typed back: I think I may have just told a room full of strangers the truth.

Her reply came almost instantly: About time.

I didn't hear from the foundation that week. I didn't hear from Nathan either. I went to work, I came home, I cooked dinner, I watched bad television. I tried to live my life the way I'd been living it, which was, for the most part, fine.

But the invitation was still on my counter. And every time I walked past it, I felt something I didn't want to feel.

I called Priya on Thursday night. "I think I'm going to go."

"To the wedding?"

"Yeah."

She was quiet for a minute. "Okay. Why?"

"Because I want to see him. Daniel. I want to look at him in his tuxedo and see if he's happy. And I want to know what that feels like."

"To see him happy?"

"To see if I care."

She exhaled. "That's either very brave or very stupid."

"That's what my mother said."

"Your mother and I are usually right."

I laughed. "I know."

"Then why are you going?"

I looked at the invitation. At the little handwritten note, the cream card stock, the letterpressed names. I thought about Eleanor Vance, about the way she'd looked at me in that room, about the words I'd said without meaning to. I want to see what I'm not missing.

"Because I'm not the same person I was eight months ago," I said. "And I want him to know it."