Selling Grace: A Light Romance Novel (Art of Grace Book 1) (2 page)

I realized that I was tuning out again, and I tried to force myself to listen. I really did need this job, and I wanted to not totally screw it up. I didn't know the first thing about managing an art gallery, but it couldn't be that difficult, right? I once helped run a stall at the local farmer's market as a kid, so the retail experience ought to transfer over, I told myself.

Preston led me through the four rooms of his little gallery space, pointing out various artists and telling me factoids that I immediately forgot, in one ear and out the other. Instead, I tried to imagine myself working here, showing off these slightly dusty paintings to the tourists and decorators who wandered inside.

"So, Uncle Preston," I cut in as he pointed at a large oil painting of a cow, "what exactly would be my responsibilities? You know, day to day."

He frowned at me, distracted from his litany of trivia. "Well, as the manager, you'd open the gallery, close it, and handle anyone who wants to make a purchase. The gallery doesn't usually get a ton of visitors, so you can probably handle it on your own - but you'd need to be here from nine to five."

"And taking payments? What about if an artist comes in?"

"Oh, I can show you that," he said, and he led me back over to the front desk of the gallery. "Everything you need is back here. See, here's the credit card swiper..."

As it turned out, running an art gallery really didn't seem to be that different from running a farmer's market stall after all. Sure, I'd be selling expensive paintings and statues instead of bunches of tomatoes, but in the end, the mechanics seemed fairly similar. Listen to customer, ring up purchases, accept cash or credit card, get signature and hand over items.

"Not too bad," I said, telling myself mentally that yes, I could totally handle this.

Preston nodded. "It really will be a great chance for you to get back on your feet," he said, looking over at me with a little bit of worry still lingering in his eyes. "And of course, if you can sell some of the larger pieces, there's commission..."

That made my ears perk up. "Commission? I earn commission?"

"Well, of course!" my uncle answered, smiling once again as he saw me cheer up. "Five percent on everything! Always good to offer an employee a commission, I always say."

I nodded, trying to imagine raking in a fat commission on some of the art pieces. Some of these paintings and statues had five figure price tags! Just selling one of those art pieces could net me an entire month's worth of rent!

"Well, that's put a smile on your face, I see," Preston finished, clapping his hands together once again. "So, I've got faith in my favorite niece-"

"Uncle Preston, I'm your only niece," I pointed out.

"Still. I believe that you'll do a great job at managing my gallery for me." He chuckled, and for a moment reminded me of a Santa Claus on summer vacation. "And it will give me a lot more time to go get my tan on by the pool and check out all the fine ladies!"

"Eww, not at all what I want to hear!" I protested, holding my hands up to my ears. "Besides, don't you go to the rec center, where all the women are past menopause?"

"So am I," he replied, and then frowned as his brain caught back up with his mouth. "Oh, you know what I mean. So, are you taking the job? Willing to be the new manager of the Halesford Gallery?"

I didn't consider the question for more than a second. On one hand, I really never thought of myself as someone who should be working retail at all, much less the kind of person who could sell expensive art pieces to tourists who wandered into our gallery. But on the other hand, I really needed a job, and any port in a storm, right?

"You bet," I told my uncle, accepting his handshake. "I can't wait to get started."

Chapter Two

*

Forty minutes later, I arrived back at my apartment, locking the door behind me and heading straight over to collapse down on top of my couch.

"Well, I've got a job, at least," I announced, trying to cheer myself up by looking on the bright side. That had been a recurring recommendation from friends after my divorce, and even though it didn't seem to help nearly as much as they expected, I still did my best to say at least one good thing about my life out loud each day.

With a soft little gurgle, my roommate announced himself, sauntering in from my bedroom. I narrowed my eyes at him. "Yeah, and what have you done today? Anything productive at all? Have you contributed to this household?"

In response, he yawned at me, blinking a few times, then wandered a few steps closer before dropping down to sprawl out on the floor, limbs akimbo as he watched me, taunting me with his idleness.

"Didn't think so," I sniffed, as he lost interest in me and started licking himself, showing off a range of flexibility that would make a yoga inspector bite straight through her rolled-up mat.

After a few minutes of furious swiping with his pink tongue over his black fur, he sat up again, blinking big, green eyes up at me. "Oh, I can't stay mad at you," I told him, rolling off the couch and over so that I could scratch him right behind the ears. His eyes squeezed almost all the way shut, down to slits, as he leaned into my hand and started to rumble.

My roommate's name was Salem, and he'd been with me since the divorce. In fact, as soon as I announced to that slimeball Barry that I was divorcing him, the next thing I did was head straight to the shelter to adopt a cat, just to drive the point home. He always complained about my wanting a cat, how he hated the creatures for acting so stuck-up? Well, suck on this, Barry! Your ex-wife's now a proud cat owner!

To my surprise, however, Salem turned out to be much more than just a way to spit in my former husband's eye. I didn't intend to grow so attached to the big lazy lump, but I soon found myself holding him in my lap whenever a wave of tears hit me, and his purring seemed to help reassure me that this wasn't the end of the world, that I wasn't going to be a pariah for the rest of my life because I went through a bitter divorce. I grew used to feeling his warmth on top of my feet when I went to bed, and he acted as an ersatz alarm clock each morning, wandering up to sit on top of my chest and, while purring, bat at my face to encourage me to come and provide him with his breakfast.

I'd gladly trade away a couple of cans of cat food each day for keeping Salem as my companion, and occasional therapist. Now, sitting comfortably in my arms, he purred deeply, squeezing his eyes shut at me in the feline equivalent of a warm hug.

After a few minutes, however, Salem oozed out of my grasp, getting up and arching his back as he stretched, flexing his claws on my rug. He tore at the carpets sometimes, but I'd read online about how declawing cats was basically the same as chopping off the last little third of their toes, and I couldn't bring myself to do that to the poor fellow. He'd already lost his testicles, I told the vet. He didn't deserve to lose anything more, just so that he could be a pet. I could handle his scratching.

Now, Salem meowed at me, turning in a slow circle. I'd read that cats showed their butt to their owners as a sign of trust, but that didn't mean that I liked looking at him from that particular angle.

"What?" I asked, as he continued meowing. "Come on, Salem, use your words. Tell me what's wrong."

Finally, after it became clear that meowing wasn't getting his message across, Salem turned and took a few steps towards the little kitchen area of the bare-bones apartment before glancing back over his shoulder at me. "Are you getting this, dummy?" his eyes seemed to ask me.

"Right. You probably want food." My stomach rumbled a little. "Apparently I do, too. Let me get up and I'll give you your dinner."

In the kitchen, I found a can of cat food in the cupboard and popped the little tin lid. Salem purred and wove his way through my ankles as I pulled open a drawer and grabbed a spoon. "Remember, you only get a quarter can per meal," I warned him. "After all, the vet says that you already don't get enough exercise, and you're gaining weight. Need to keep you slim and slender."

Salem just purred harder, clearly intent on charming me into giving him as much food as he could manage. Feeling my willpower slip away, I decided to give him a third of a can instead of a quarter. Maybe he'd been burning extra calories as he worried about me leaving him to go to my interview.

Once Salem was noisily chowing away at his lump of wet kitty pate, I turned my attention to the fridge. I pulled a couple slices of bread out of the loaf on my counter and began assembling a sandwich, really pushing the limits of my limited culinary abilities. I spread peanut butter on one side of the bread, grabbed the other slice, and grumbled as I searched the fridge for jelly.

Oh yeah, I remembered a minute later. I'd already used up the last of the jelly. A sticky note clung to the door of my fridge, reminding me that I needed to buy more food. I turned my eyes back to the bleak contents of my refrigerator, searching for something else to put on my sandwich. Pickles?

Surprisingly, a peanut butter and pickle sandwich turned out to not be completely awful. Hopefully, now that I had this new job, I'd be able to afford to buy more jelly, or maybe even some actual food that didn't seem like I'd stolen it from the larder of a college student.

I tried pouring myself a glass of milk to help wash down the taste of the sandwich, but that just made the pickle flavor more pronounced. Sighing, I dropped back down onto my couch, not too worried about the crumbs.

"This is my life now, isn't it?" I called out despondently to Salem, still gulping away at his cat food in the kitchen like it might vanish at any second. "Living alone in a single bedroom apartment with my cat, eating a peanut butter and pickle sandwich without a plate. This is who I've become."

Salem didn't disagree with my evaluation.

I fought against thoughts of how I'd been previously, but they came welling up like bubbles out of mud in a marsh. I remembered how, three years ago, I'd been so certain that my life would be perfect, charmed, that I'd be the one that all of my high school friends envied at class reunions.

Hah. Now, I'd be lucky if I avoided getting outright pity.

In my defense, things really had been going well. Too well, I now knew, but they'd felt comfortable. I'd convinced myself that I was comfortable, if not exactly head over heels in love. Sure, Barry had been short and chubby and already going bald a bit, even though he tried to comb his hair over that spot, but he'd provided for me, hadn't he? He'd paid for the nice house (where he brought the other women when I wasn't around), sent me off on spa weekends (so that he could invite the other women to spend the night with him), and let me fritter away his money on little trivial gimmicks like ceramic cookware (so that I'd have hot dinner waiting for him every night).

Barry even paid for my truck. That had been one of the few sore spots in our relationship (before all the lies came to light); he'd expected me to get a cute, girly little two-seater, a Mazda or maybe a convertible. Instead, however, I remembered borrowing a pickup truck from a high school friend when I needed to move to college. I loved the feel of riding high on the road, having all that power under my foot. Barry protested, argued with me, but I remained firm.

I got my truck, a blue Toyota pickup, small enough to fit in a parking spot without scraping the paint off my neighbors' cars but still with plenty of "go" under the accelerator. I'd taken loving care of the truck, up until I found out that Barry had been cheating on me for the entire short length of our marriage - and earlier - and drove it straight through his garage door and over his damn overpriced black BMW.

I might not have the house, the disposable income in the bank account, or the simpering husband around any longer, but I still at least had my truck. It was parked down the street from my apartment, just visible when I glanced out the window. Hopefully, I wouldn't end up having to sell it to cover my bills.

"But maybe it will all work out," I said aloud hopefully as Salem came back into the living room from the kitchen area, dropping back down into his usual flopping spot on the rug where he could gaze up at me. "I'll sell a bunch of art, stone penises and things, and make a hundred thousand dollars in commissions and totally pay back Barry for all the money I owe him. Won't that be nice?"

Salem just blinked at me again, but I took his silence as assent.

For a moment, I dwelled on how much money I still owed Barry. After the divorce papers were in, the fees kept on piling up. I'd managed to take care of most of them, giving up equity in his business, the house, everything we'd owned together - but I still had one last bill from him hanging over my head. A doozy of one.

But I didn't want to focus on that now. I needed a distraction.

I felt something hard poking me from under the cushions on the lumpy couch. I shoved my hand into the crack between the cushions, digging out the remote to my television. I clicked it on, not especially caring about what I watched. I just needed something to distract me from thinking too much about how my life had fallen apart.

Tomorrow, I repeated silently to myself. Tomorrow, I'd start taking the first real steps to getting my life back together, moving past Barry and that whole chapter.

I'd get up, get some coffee, open up the Halesford art gallery, and learn how to manage the place. Maybe I'd even meet some interesting people, I thought to myself in a vain attempt to cheer myself up. Artists were sexy, weren't they? I tried to think of someone with chiseled muscles, someone tall and intimidating, maybe with a European accent. The anti-Barry.