Thought Farm | Chapter 15

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-15-

I trudged with all the others, single file through a colorless fog. My feet moved forward, but somehow, I felt they were not my feet. My eyes could see, but the see-er within wasn’t me.

When I reached out to touch the man in line ahead of me to wake him from his stupor, my arm hung limp at my side, unconnected to my will. There was something urgent I needed to tell him, but when I tried to speak, the sounds were shrill and meaningless.

The procession passed under a billboard covered with numbered symbols, strange dashes, and lines I couldn’t understand. I heard someone crying, pleading to me through the fog. Wake up. Wake up. Don’t let them do it.

I jolted awake with my heart fluttering and that inconsolable voice resounding in my head, the voice of Jason Leroux calling to me from a near distance.

Wake up.

-16-

The Man in the Window

The sky was pigeon gray, typical of summers in San Francisco. I forgot to bring a jacket and wore a light, sleeveless dress. I felt like a tourist as I walked up the block toward the gallery.

At the corner, a street preacher held a life-sized sign hand-written in black marker, the words too dense to be legible. “Wake up,” he called to passersby. “Wake up. He stared at me in the crowd, and we locked eyes. “Guard your mind,” he said in a low voice.

Startled by the synchronicity of his words, I broke his stare and quickened my pace to the gallery.

Amanda sat behind a rococo desk near the window with a view of the gallery floor. “Chloe, there you are. I want you to meet Jamison Wunderlund.” A cream-skinned woman with long, auburn hair sat across from her, dressed in a tailored business suit. Amanda also wore a suit, the same champagne silk color as her hair. They both stood as I neared the desk, and I saw that with heels Ms. Wunderlund, in heels, loomed a good six feet four inches tall. She took my hand and gave it one firm shake. There was a formidable air about the woman that extended well beyond her height, as though Jamison Wunderlund was accustomed to towering over people in other ways.

“I was just leaving,” she said. “Amanda has all the information about the commissions, sizes, and so on. If you have any further questions, you can reach me during business hours.” She handed me her card. Raised black lettering read, MEYERS, GOODMAN, WUNDERLUND, AND ASSOCIATES. JAMISON WUNDERLUND, ATTORNEY AT LAW.

“Thank you for your interest in my work.” I slipped the card into my purse.

Ms. Wunderlund gave a cursory look at the art that spanned the walls. She scanned a four-foot canvas that could be loosely interpreted as either a dove or a bat, depending on the viewer’s tendency to focus on positive or negative space. “Personally, I don’t care for your work. It strikes me as undisciplined.” Her plump lip curled almost imperceptibly. “And there’s a somewhat...” she scowled, “A somewhat possessed element to it, for lack of a better word.”

“Oh.” I looked at Amanda. “Is this a new trend in collecting that I’m not aware of?”

Amanda’s brows rose in the equivalent of a shrug.

Ms. Wunderland looked down at me, moving only her eyes. “These two pieces will represent a very small part of our total collection.”

“Why bother if you don’t like the work?” I asked.

The woman tossed her head, a lioness mildly annoyed by a fly. “Your art may have hit a cultural nerve,” she conceded. “In the end, my petty preferences mean little next to the integrity of the collection.” Her smile curled up on one side of her mouth. “I don’t care for most of my clients either. It’s a personal motto. When I don’t like what I see, I make it a point to look especially hard.” Her stare seemed to narrow in on me.

“Admirable,” Amanda said. “Very Zen.”

Jamison Wunderlund shrugged. “Relatively speaking, it’s still accessible in price. If it takes off, I’ll be congratulated on a shrewd acquisition. If it doesn’t, I’ll dump it.”

“I’ll be rooting for your happy returns.” I crossed my arms and issued a tight smile. “Maybe you’ll get lucky, and I’ll get a spot in the Louvre and get hit by a bus.”

Amanda shot me a scowl.

A trace of a smirk crossed Jamie Wunderlund’s lips as she lifted her briefcase from the chair beside the desk. “Ladies.” She bid goodbye, and I saw a flash in her eye before she turned and strode from the gallery without looking back.

“How do you like that?” Amanda said, shaking her head. “You’ve got to admire a bitch who knows how to make an exit.”

I followed Jamison Wunderlund down the street with my eyes, watching heads turn as the wind swirled through her hair and she whisked above the crowd. “Clearly, an enlightened soul.” I plunked down in the chair across from Amanda’s desk.

“My God,” Amanda said. “From the looks of the circles under your eyes, you haven’t slept in a week.”

“Thanks.”

“I said you look tired, not ugly.” Amanda studied me with a frown. “You haven’t been having more of those episodes, have you?”

“Now you sound like Scott,” I sighed. Scott called the trips down the hole episodes—

neuronal bursts firing against the occipital cortex.

“What was that look?” Amanda squinted at me. “Don’t tell me there’s something wrong between you and the good doctor? Don’t forget what I told you. Men with savior complexes need to feel indispensable. It doesn’t hurt to indulge his fantasy a little.”

Amanda liked to think she was an expert on men. Her ex-husbands included a senator from back east and a technologist who made a killing when he took his startup public in one of Silicon Valley’s more enduring success stories.

“If there’s a problem between you and Scott, you need to address it head-on,” Amanda said. “Put it behind you, pronto.”

It would never occur to Amanda to mind her own business. I was her business, and Amanda had known Scott for years. They’d met at her SoHo gallery at an opening for Fred Tomesseli, a mixed-media artist who suspended colored pills in resin. “Things will be fine,” I said, hoping it was true. Jason’s voice echoed from my dreams. Wake up.

“Good,” Amanda said. “Things are happening for you, kiddo. I need you focused. To quote Queen Wunderland, you’ve hit a cultural nerve.”

I rolled my eyes, irritated that I’d let the woman get under my skin. “When I don’t like what I see, I make it a point to look especially hard. What does that mean anyway?”

“You know exactly what it means.” Amanda shot back. “At least, you’d better. Don’t forget what your art is supposed to represent.”

I blinked, caught off guard by the reproach. To make matters worse, Amanda was right. I did know exactly what it meant. Wake up.

Amanda’s face brightened. “Did I tell you that I’m this close to placing the Seasons Series in the Winter Pharmaceutical collection?” She held her manicured forefinger and thumb a quarter inch apart. “I’m meeting with their art consultant next week in SoHo.”

“Hmmm.” I was still stinging from her words. Winter Pharmaceutical had an acclaimed corporate art collection, including indigenous artifacts from the native Amazonian tribes. They made a show of revering the cultures they exploited through art and foundation grants. It was a cynical form of marketing.

“No comment?”

“Congratulations.”

Amanda beamed a wide smile but froze. “God. What’s his problem?” She stared past my shoulder out the window.

“What is it?” I turned to look and gasped when I saw a man’s face pressed against the glass. The look in his eyes knocked the wind from my lungs. It was like staring into black obsidian. “His eyes,” I whispered.

“Ugh. Spooky,” Amanda said. “I think he likes you.”

The man wore an army jacket worn to an oily sheen. He cupped his hands against the glass, and I saw a series of dashes and symbols tattooed in blue ink above the base of his wrist. He leveled a desolate moonscape stare at me before he lumbered down the street.

“Did you see his eyes?” I shuddered.

“My God,” she said. “You’d think if we can send robots to Mars, we could find a way to help those poor people.”

As I watched the man disappear down the street, I couldn’t help but think of the empty multitudes in the hole.