PIECE: Bruce L. Black, Flame. Steel sculpture.
Odin planned his departure from the Colony so that he’d be the first to move out. He did not want to stay long enough to watch the others take off, one by one, leaving only Nell. While she was getting the house ready for the next group of artists set to arrive in August, he’d be moving into his new apartment in Minneapolis.
When he’d packed the last of his equipment into the truck, he stood outside the mansion in the circular drive for a few moments before going inside to say goodbye to the others. He’d had a great love, once, in Sloane. He hoped there would be at least another one in his life, at some point. But in the meantime, he had his art to keep him busy. And, thanks to the recent Gallery Night, he’d signed two contracts for custom works—his first commissions.
One of the contracts was from the couple who had purchased his blue heron piece. They wanted another sculpture to jump-start their collection. He agreed without hesitation. The income would be good, but he also was excited by the prospect of creating something without being confined by the necessity for it to fit on someone’s bookshelf or end table. And he loved the idea that his pieces would be outdoors, in public view, where anyone could enjoy them and where he could see them when he came back to visit the Colony in the future. Because he knew he would be back here. Nell had already said that all of the artists had a standing invitation to join the new residents for a Sunday dinner if they were ever in town.
The money from the commissions was enough for Odin to put down the first month’s rent on a second-story apartment in an old house just a couple of blocks from Lake of the Isles. It had a detached garage, and the owner agreed to let him pay an extra hundred bucks in rent every month to do his sculpting work out there. It would be fucking cold in the winter—he’d have to get a space heater—but he didn’t mind. He’d come to appreciate cold, how it brought him into his physical body and out of his head. Maybe someday he’d have “made it” enough to do his work in a heated studio. Until then, he welcomed the thought of the cold.
Odin looked up at the window of the room where he’d dreamed and despaired for the last six months. Then he glanced at the garage, where he’d done more of the same, but also work. Quite a bit of it, especially in the last couple of months. He had some things to show now as soon he found the right gallery to show them.
When he first arrived, he’d felt so lost. Sloane, in his mind, was synonymous with art. Synonymous with any small amount of success he’d managed to achieve. Without her, he worried he’d never create anything worthy of the faith she’d had in him, of the faith she’d somehow manage to convey to the rich, dying woman who visited the Foster Gallery on that frigid February night the year before.
But now, he knew that what Sloane had brought out in him had been there all along. And it lived on, still, even in her absence. Other people, and other things, could inspire him. Paige had motivated him to stop worrying so much about what other people thought, and to make the art he wanted to make. Annie encouraged him to always keep moving and keep creating, with the rebel nature she donned as a guard against her ever-present fear of disappearing, of losing relevance and significance. And then there was Nell.
Nell, with her heart as jagged and raw as his own, maybe even more so. When he first met her, it seemed as if her dreams had been scrambled and tossed onto the table like dice. He knew that sense of powerlessness. But somewhere over the last six months, it seemed she’d leaned into the game again.
Odin would be lying to himself if he said he would not have taken the opportunity, in a millisecond, to be Nell’s lover as well as her friend. But the friendship was what he needed more. And he realized that his attraction to her served, more than anything else, as proof that his ability to connect with someone had not died when Sloane did. He just had to be patient. Still, Odin was relieved that he wouldn’t be around to watch as Nell found her way back to Josh. Already the space between them had shrunk.
With his truck loaded up, he walked around the side of the house to take one last look at his favorite work of art on the property. It was a sculpture of a flame made up of several steel beams, now reddened with rust. The beams were curved and positioned in such a way that they gave the impression of a flickering fire. The plaque at its base read: IN LOVING MEMORY OF WALTER BARRETT, WHOSE SPIRIT SHINES ETERNAL.
At the sound of voices, he walked back toward his truck. Everyone came down the steps of the front porch just then. Nell squinted in the afternoon sunlight. She had on a sundress (God, he loved summer) that hit a few inches above her knees and showed off her legs, which he told himself were fine to admire silently, even if he’d resigned himself to the fact that they should keep things professional.
As usual, Paige had her phone clutched in her hand, as if it were an extension of her body. Odin felt flattered that she glanced up for a full five seconds to meet his eye and say goodbye. He hugged her, and she acted awkward and stiff at first, then squeezed him hard before she pulled away.
“You let me know if you ever make it up to the Twin Cities, okay?” Odin said. “It’s worth a trip. The art scene there is pretty great.”
Paige nodded. “For sure.”
Annie didn’t wait for Odin to approach her. She threw her arms around him and patted his back with a firm slap.
“You’re one of the good ones,” she said.
When Odin hugged Nell, he held on long enough to take a deep inhale of the soapy-sweet smell of her hair, then pulled away and said, “I’ll be in touch.”
“You’d better. I’ll be keeping tabs because I expect big things from you,” Nell said. She looked over at the others. “That goes for all of you.”
Odin got into his truck, rolled down the driver’s side window, and waved as he pulled out of the driveway. He stole glances at the mansion in the rearview mirror until, finally, he turned the corner and kept his eyes fixed forward.