Louie stood back to examine how the exhibition was taking shape. It wasn’t quite what she had in mind. Her artwork was mounted onto thirteen felt-backed panels, which made it look more like a museum display than an art exhibition, and much smaller than she expected. She had requested some extra panels; the arcade in the Victoria Quarter was plenty big enough. She really needed Karin to see the full effect. Without Karin, there would be no exhibition. And this was her moment to come back to Louie.
The management team at The Midland were being very accommodating, allowing her the time off that she had requested. As a rule, they were supportive to employees in endeavours of this nature, so Louie had always assumed there wouldn’t be a problem asking for unpaid leave. The exhibition sponsors were paying modest expenses for her to stay in Leeds during the set up and preview night, and the rest she was covering herself. Even if it was only a room above a pub in a seedy part of town, at least it was the same town as Karin, which, in itself, meant as much as the exhibition.
Louie took the scarf from her pocket and ran it under her nose. It went everywhere with her, since retrieving it from the beach that day. She had seen roughly where it had landed after it broke free from Karin’s neck, and she had gone out in search of it. It was a different perfume to the one Louie was used to her wearing, more expensive probably as Karin could now afford to splash out on such luxuries. The scarf would be waiting for Karin in Morecambe when she came home; she could have it back then.
Louie was rather surprised by the interest that old bastard was showing in her work. Despite being flattered, she was also sceptical. With his percentages and sales-projection jargon, he may as well have been speaking a foreign language, but she understood the gist of it to be that her commercial work had potential in hotels, offices, bars, and that he could place it for her. She did wonder if he was playing some sort of cat-and-mouse game but, when he spoke of drawing up a contract, she said she would give it some serious thought and agreed to discuss it further with him at the preview night. If it had been anyone else making this offer she would have jumped at it immediately.
For the moment, though, her focus was on getting these paintings displayed correctly. She couldn’t wait to see Karin’s face tomorrow night when she set eyes on them.
She would do whatever it took to get Karin back in her life again.