Chapter 2 Seeking Jazz and Sex and Soup
When they got back to their apartment, Makia knew it was a bad idea to let Agatha pop open a bottle of champagne. She’d had enough to drink, and had mixed feelings about celebrating her mystifying success. Plus, Ags was known to be dangerous with anything she could aim and shoot.
But the upside was, they would get drunk enough to stray from serious conversation. Makia wasn’t ready for that yet. She tried to focus on the joy of having money to pay her bills once the gallery issued her a check. So she pushed her nagging worries aside as they laughed and sang badly before passing out for a deep night’s sleep.
When morning came, Makia still wasn’t ready to talk about the mysterious figures in her paintings. She held her head in one hand, and a large cup of coffee with the other, each with equal force. It didn’t help. Her head pounded, anyway.
Ags, on the other hand, was more chipper than ever. Mornings were her favorite time of day. If she wasn’t such a good friend, Makia would have been inclined to hate her for it.
“So,” Agatha said, leaning forward in her chair as she took a sip from her In Godzilla We Trust coffee mug. She was actually religious, but somehow it was bearable, probably because she had a sense of humor about it. About everything, really. “You must be over the moon right now—at least I would be!”
Makia mumbled something incomprehensible into her own, nondescript cup.
“Oh, come on!” Ags said, lifting Pooka into her lap for a head scratch. He gave a typical feline stretch and settled into her lap comfortably. “You even did something new you’ve never done before—and look how it paid off! You should be proud.”
Makia avoided her gaze. She looked out the window at the apartments across the street. She looked at the artwork on the walls. Not hers. Never hers. She preferred to live with other people’s artwork. Then she stared at the threadbare oriental rug they rescued from an alley. Yep. The pattern’s still there. Sort of.
“Earth to Makia…” Ags rapped on the turquoise painted side table. “Did you even hear me?”
Makia snapped back to the conversation and made herself focus on her well-meaning roommate in between the painful throbs that racked her temple. Why doesn’t Ags ever get hangovers? Life is so not fair.
“I asked you when you managed to crack how to paint figures? I know you always had trouble with that.” Legs crossed, Ags swung a pedicured foot up and down impatiently. Pooka looked impatient, too. But that was probably because he wasn’t getting enough pets.
“Anyway,” she looked at Makia closely, “I thought you’d be happier about all this. What’s up? Is that gallery screwing you over or something?”
Makia sighed. She really wasn’t sure how to explain everything without sounding like a total lunatic. “Well, I—“
That’s when their neighbor started to howl loudly. Speaking of lunatics. For once, though, Makia was grateful for his loud antics. She was glad to have someone she could easily look sane in comparison to, since she wasn’t very sure she was all there right now.
“AWOOOOOO!” The random howl continued from the next unit for much longer than seemed possible. That guy has good lungs for a smoker.
Happy for the diversion, Makia stood up to pound on wall they shared with apartment 405 next door. “Shut up! Who do you think you are? Allen Ginsberg?”
Next door became quiet.
“Allen who?” Agatha tilted her head.
In answer, Makia searched the nearby bookshelf for a paperback and tossed it to Ags, who thunked her coffee mug down and capsized Pooka from her lap as she caught it. “I had to read this for a class.”
Agatha looked it over. “Howl. By Allen Ginsberg. Hmmm.” She opened it, read a page or two briefly and snapped the book shut. “O God.” She placed the offending tome gingerly far away from her on the worn coffee table. “You had to read the whole thing? Lucky you..?”
The neighbor began yelling again. “I want jazz! Sssex!” Pause. “And soup! SOUP!”
Makia pointed her thumb at the wall. “See, he’s read it, too.”
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“You’re both crazy.” Ags was the one holding her head now.
image [https://i.imgur.com/U3nbJh5.jpg]
Her afternoon schedule was 2nd shift at the cafe. Makia still managed to make it on time, but she didn't quite feel like she had fully arrived; her mind was definitely elsewhere.
She was staring out the cafe window as she poured coffee into a regular’s mug when he grabbed the hand holding the carafe to stop her. She jolted back to reality and looked down to see she was missing the cup and had begun to pour coffee on the floor instead. “Wha—Oh, thanks, Matthew!”
“Matty, please.” He took his napkin and knelt on the floor to wipe up the mess. He always looked so… casually crisp and put together, she was shocked to see him get himself dirty.
“Oh, don’t—I’ll get that! Sorry, I don’t know where my head is today.” But she did. She couldn’t stop thinking about the opening, the mysterious figures in the paintings and how in the world she was supposed to make more. Who added them? I still can’t paint figures! I wonder when the gallery expects new work…Rex didn’t say when, just that he wanted more.
Matty looked up at her with his terribly blue eyes. He wasn’t bad looking. Why hadn’t I noticed before? She shook herself out of it again.
“Please, sit!” Makia said, looking over her shoulder to see if her boss had caught her. “I’ll clean this up. It is my job.” She smiled at Matty, filled his cup for real this time and half-ran back to the storeroom to get a mop.
She wasn’t worried about getting yelled at, her boss was the best; Enzo was almost like a second father to her, even. He’d given her a job when no one else would; she was horrible at interviews. All the more reason to do good work, she thought. She wanted to repay his kindness with excellence. Too bad I’m such a terrible waitress.
After the floor was clean again, Enzo caught her in the back as she put away the mop. “How are you, my dear?” The middle-aged man gently put his hand on her shoulders, and gave her a hard look. “Whatsamatterferyou? I thought you’d be dancing after your show…how do you call it…’Starting Day’ or whatsit called?”
“Opening Night.” Makia smiled. She always found Enzo’s “Brooklyn-ese” and accent endearing. “This was only a one night show to try me out, though, so I suppose it’s weird to call it that.”
“Ah yeh. Dat thing.” Enzo smiled back. “Der we go. Hey, cheer up, you. I have a soorprize I want you t’ see. Howzabout you follow me, eh?” His accent was always more noticable when he was happy, and he laid it on thick now, so Makia knew he had something good in store.
He spun her around and shooed her to his office in the back. The room was its usual mishmash of paperwork and New York memorabilia, but leaned against the wall was a package wrapped in paper. Makia recognized the logo on the label attached: Gallery Apraxia.
“Is…is that what I think it is?” She pointed at the parcel and looked up at Enzo’s beaming face.
“Yeh, I got wunna dem paintings you had inna show from dat Dah-TEE-dah guy who runs da place.”
“Rex?”
“Yeh, dat’s him. Dat guy’s so cheap, I bet he’s still got the first two cents he ever made.” Enzo began to take off the brown paper from the parcel. “But it was worth it. Look at dis beauty…”
He held the painting up. Makia recognized it as one of her earlier pieces. It depicted a large field under a clear, blue sky, cut in half by a small stream. Leaning to catch the light, she saw a ghostly figure peeking over a hill near a bottom corner of the piece. Where the hell did those figures come from?
“I thought dis place could use some class, and who better dan you to add some, eh?”
Makia blushed. Enzo was like family she never had. That is, not like her family at all, thank God. “Thanks, Enzo.” She mumbled, as she stared at her shoes. “That means a lot.”
He laughed. “It aint nuthin’, kid.” Then the cafe door bell rang, announcing a new customer’s arrival. “Don’ just stand dere, now, get goin’ you!”
Makia greeted the newcomer and seated her at a table far away from Matty. She told herself it was because he needed space to write, but she felt like she had a small, ulterior motive. Trying to keep him to yourself? Just because he’s nice to you, doesn’t mean he’s interested, she chided herself as she left the woman to look over the menu.
Enzo hung up the painting quickly. She was proud he wanted to have it in the small restaurant, but as she went about her shift helping the scattered tables that filled that day, she couldn’t help but feel that the thing—the figure— was watching her.
She finished work at 8, and remembered to check her phone. For once. Ags was always on her for not paying attention to messages. When she pulled it out of her coat pocket, and looked at her notifications, she saw she had 12 missed calls. Twelve? I don’t know if I’ve had that many calls in the last 6 months! She unlocked it, and looked. Six texts from Agatha. Nothing special there. The call log was surprising, though. All of the calls were from Rex. He left her a couple of voice messages, too. She listened the first one.
Rex sounded a little irritated, which was a change from his good mood from yesterday. Good thing I signed that contract last night… Makia thought. She wondered if he was always so moody. The recording was brief:
Hello. Makia, darling. Rex here. Again, wonderful show…but we need to talk. I’m getting some, shall we say…unusal feedback about the pieces we sent home with buyers last night.
His voice sounded like he was trying to sound light, but was obviously strained. What’s up with that? Did he find out I didn’t paint everything in artwork? Makia tilted her head upward and closed her eyes. Does that make my work a liability to the gallery as fraud or something? Why didn’t I think of that before?
She threw on her motorcycle jacket and strode towards the door, but not without a quick glance at the painting Enzo hung on the wall. She couldn’t but help look for the weird, ghost figure, but it was gone.
Makia stopped in her tracks and looked again. No, it’s still there. But it moved. It wasn’t hiding in the corner of the piece anymore; it stood tall in the center of the field, vacant eyes fixed back at her.
image [https://i.imgur.com/U3nbJh5.jpg]