Page 9 of For Flag's Sake
I turn my back on the reception desk and the women peeking through the office blinds at me beyond it. “One conversation,” I beg. “Please.” Ineedthis from her if I have any hope of fixing the mess I’ve made. I send my plea to the stars as well while I wait for her to respond.
Maple is silent for so long I think my only answer will be the soft rhythm of her breathing down the line. As far as solutions go, it sucks. As far as a connection to her goes, I’ll take any scraps she’ll give me, and I listen to her inhalations like they hold the answer to life and the key to my undoing.
Eventually her breath hitches, and then sighs. I brace myself.
“Not today, Ivy,” she says, sounding tired and hurt.
My chest aches, and my stomach curdles. “Please,” I whisper, one last shot. It’s a broken plea I don’t really expect a response to, but I have to try. If Maple is my obstacle, then supplication is my battering ram, raw as it makes me feel.
“I have to go,” her wet voice warbles. “I love you. We’ll talk later.”
My phone beeps, and my heart breaks. My battering ram was too weak.
I drop my arm and stare, unseeing, at an art print on the wall opposite me. It’s a replica of a famous painting of a megalodon by an artist Maple loves. I only recognize it because last year I’d tried to buy the original from a man in Indiana who refused to sell it to me, claiming it wasn’t fit to be sold—something about silly string stuck to the corners. Why a grown man would havesilly string anywhere near an original painting that cost as much as a house, I have no idea, but I’d ended up getting a different piece of artwork by the same artist, so in the end it didn’t really matter. Maple was satisfied, and I was satisfied that she was satisfied.
I wonder idly if the print in this lobby is why she picked this hotel, then dismiss the thought. Knowing Maple, she picked whatever the closest mid-tier hotel to our house was. She’d want something just good enough to offer her safety and just bad enough to have plenty of rooms to spend my money on.
My Maple, so smart. So cunning. So creative.
So wildly inconvenient.
Flag, I love her.
“Your ten minutes is up,” a sour voice calls behind me. “You need to leave now.”
My hands fist at my sides, and my jaw ticks. I’m not angry at the woman, who’s only working to protect Maple and whatever other guests she has. Not really. I’m angry at myself. I misjudged, and I messed up, and there’s no quick release to make things right, and Ihateit.
I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.
I need to regroup.
“Sir,” the voice says. “I’m dialing.”
I spin on my heel and march to the doors. “I’m leaving,” I announce gruffly. “Tell her I’ll be back tomorrow.”
Tomorrow, when I’ll have a better plan and a bigger battering ram.
Tomorrow, when I come to reclaim my wife.
Chapter Five
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Maple
Three days after checking into the Nivora Hotel, Mary and Etta help me drag my suitcases and newly acquired boxes up five floors to a new room.
“Why are we doing this?” Mary asks, bangs flying as she huffs under the weight of the art supplies I risked venturing into the city earlier today to acquire. “Miss,” she adds when Etta glares at her.
“What she means to ask,” Etta corrects sternly, “is if there was something wrong with your previous room? We’re happy to help you relocate, of course, but if something isn’t to your liking, we can fix it without the change.”
I wave her off as I trudge several large canvases and an easel into the elevator. I leave room in the cramped lift for her to push a luggage cart loaded up with boxes in next to me, and Mary follows. “I just need more space,” I tell them. “And light.”Muchmore light. My previous room might as well have been a dungeon for all the natural light it offered. I could hardly be expected to paint in there. I don’t think I could even tell my cadmium from my crimson in such conditions.
Etta eyes my easel. “You plan to paintinthe hotel?”
I blink at her in surprise. “Well… yes? Where else am I supposed to do it?” My studio is at Ivy’s, and I can’t justnotpaint. I have creative muscles to stretch. I have techniques to practice. I haveemotions to express.I don’t know how long I’ll be here, hiding from Ivy, but I do know that three days is already too long for me to have been away from my art. I need paint inmy hands. I need charcoal beneath my fingers. I need to step into the shower and see a riot of color convalescing at my feet.
I need to feel a little more like me and a little less like a woman who’s lost and floundering.
