Are You Jealous (part seven)

Are You Jealous

(part seven)

“You have taken it all apart and put it back together?”

“I have done more. I have copied each part, fabricated a twin to it. I have made a second clock. The second clock does not work.”

“Did the first ever, though?”

“There is a bill of sale.”

I can’t read German. The words came to Gabriel; also, almost in unison with them, I’m sorry, I really must be off.

Reiff pulled a device from his pocket and aimed it at the window. Soundlessly, slats shifted; a blaze of sun, too painful to more than glance at, lasered in. The street was empty. Clouds sagged over russet hills, seen beyond the plodding shabbiness of the neighborhood, bricks weeping mortar from upper stories, shop signs flickering to life below.

One statement is true. One is false. Both fit the circumstance. Yes, but holy fuck, it doesn’t mean anything…

Reiff said, “And so, we have no other business.”

Another name cropped up. Gabriel, at his end of the sofa, was reading an article, while Eva at hers leafed a tome of an arts-supplies catalogue.

“Oh, I’m forgetting.”

She bent to her canvas bag, took things out, her phone, her clutch purse…

Submerged with the methane bubble that threatened to burst from the thawing permafrost, Gabriel blinked when Eva dropped an envelope on his keyboard.

From the desk of Kuaia Bodmin-Hodges bumped over what looked like seed hulls and insect wings entombed in hand-pressed paper. Ms. Bodmin-Hodges was an events-stager. She owned a high-end firm that sorts like Presby used; she had introduced Gabriel to Eva, and he had never met her.

Eva, then a design school graduate, crying in the chair before Ms. Bodmin-Hodges’s desk.

“But I really don’t hire people. Very rarely.” A sigh. “Some of you come out so raw, I do wish these schools would teach a bit more of the practical side. I may engage you. I have one or two artists who are almost on the payroll. Eva, I want to see your work as it evolves, and I would love to hear…let me say, read…your thoughts about your projects. You need to make a website. You ought to have already, I’m afraid.”

Kuaia had called Carma, a model, artist, person-about-the-clubs, and Carma had said, oh, absolutely, I will help this child, and by that means Gabriel had acquired Eva as a client.

On McFadden’s behalf, Kuaia Bodmin-Hodges wished to extend a personal warm invitation to Gabriel. He had no idea, now, who was hosting the event.

7

Are You Jealous

Are You Jealous (part eight)

(Stephanie Foster, 2016)