The Curiosities Page 5

  Now, Nell’s voice pulled Paige’s attention away from her phone.

  “Do you have anything you wanted to ask me?” Nell said. “About the program or anything?”

  “Sorry,” Paige said, stuffing the phone into the back pocket of her jeans. “Um, how many other artists will be here?”

  “Just two. I don’t have all the details yet, but they should be arriving within the next couple of weeks.”

  Paige had assumed the woman in charge of the program would know a little more about it. Her advisor had insisted that being chosen for the residency was a big deal, but now Paige wasn’t sure what to think. She was grateful, certainly, for the room and board. But she was less excited about the prospect of living with two strangers whom apparently even the director knew next to nothing about.

  She felt her phone vibrate again. She ignored it, though it took a lot of willpower to do so. She felt naked, listless without something tactile to occupy her hands—a paintbrush, a cigarette, the prickly stubble on a boy’s cheek.

  “I know you must have more questions than that,” Nell said.

  “Can I see my room?” Paige asked.

  “Sure, I can take you upstairs. I have to be honest, though. I haven’t been up there myself yet.” Nell gave her a sheepish smile. “I was just hired this week to replace someone else, and haven’t had a chance to, um, settle in yet.”

  At least that explains some of her cluelessness, thought Paige. She walked behind Nell up the curved staircase, taking the opportunity to pull out her phone and read another message from Dylan: I have to work till 9 tonight. How about tomorrow?

  Another girl might have just suggested they get together when she got back from her trip. Another girl might have just let it go altogether. But then again, another girl might not have given her phone number to a stranger at the bus stop in the first place—might not be in the habit of looking for connections whenever and wherever she could.

  Paige paused on the landing and responded: Leaving tomorrow for a week. Where do u work? I’ll meet u when u get off.

  She put the phone back into her pocket and took the last leg of stairs two at a time.

  Chapter Four

  Nell

  PIECE: Robert Louis Stevenson, A Child’s Garden of Verses, 1942 edition.

  Nell stood at the top of the steps, waiting for Paige to look up from her phone. She couldn’t figure out if Paige was arrogant, rude, socially awkward, or some combination of the three. She kept trying to ask the girl questions, to draw her out and learn a little more about her, but nothing Nell said seemed to be as interesting as whatever message or internet meme was on that backlit screen. Nell started down the long hallway, peeking into each doorway she passed. She figured Paige would follow when she was ready.

  What a shame, Nell thought, that the couple who lived here had never had any children. The house would have been an incredible place to grow up. She wondered if Betsy had ever felt the weight of all these empty bedrooms, like she did whenever she passed the spare room in her own home, the one Josh had taken over as his office.

  Here, the bedrooms all had plush white carpet and furniture that looked like something straight from a museum decorative arts collection. Massive four-poster beds mixed with carved highboy dressers and fainting couches were beautiful for a bed-and-breakfast, Nell thought, but probably not practical for a working artists’ colony. She might have to make some changes.

  She stepped into the largest bedroom, overlooking the lake. She assumed, from the rose-colored velvet curtains and the damask bedspread, that this had been Betsy’s room. An open door revealed a massive walk-in closet, still full of clothing, bags, and shoes.

  Nell’s first reaction was one of awe. She ran her hand across some of the fine fabrics—a featherlight chiffon dress in dove gray, a cream-colored blazer made from soft woven wool. But her second thought was What am I going to do with all this stuff? She had assumed, or maybe just hoped, that the house would be cleaned out and move-in ready for the residents. Now, with every doorway she walked through, her to-do list grew. Remembering the combination Don had given her, Nell pushed aside some of the garments on hangers to see if perhaps the locked safe he’d mentioned was hiding behind the rows of clothing. No such luck.

  She heard footsteps somewhere above her, and went back out to the hallway, where she noticed a narrow set of stairs at the far end of it, leading upward.

  “Paige?” she said. Nell headed up the steps, which creaked under her feet. At the top, the staircase opened up to the inside of the third-story cupola. The space was small, but bright and empty, illuminated by sunlight from windows on all sides.

  Paige stood in the middle of the round room, looking at the exposed ceiling beams and the plank floors, the window seat on the lake side of the room. “I want this space,” she said.

  Nell blinked, surprised by the girl’s boldness after she’d hardly said a word since arriving. “I think we should wait on any room assignments until all the residents are here and we’ve had a chance to assess everyone’s need for space.”

  “Okay.” Paige crossed her arms in front of her chest. “But just so you know, this is the only room in the whole house I’ll be able to work in. The light’s not right anywhere else.”

  “I saw that you brought your portfolio with you,” Nell said, hoping to change the subject. “Do you mind if we go back downstairs so I can take a look?”

  Paige shrugged. “Sure.”

  Back downstairs in the living room, Paige unzipped her portfolio and spread her screen prints out on the floor. Nell could see immediately that what the girl lacked in social graces she made up for in talent. The pieces ranged in subject matter from abstract patterns to natural objects and landscapes. They employed bold color combinations—crimson layered over orange and turquoise, magenta with emerald and gold. In the midst of January, the saturated hues were a balm to Nell’s color-starved soul. Goose bumps crept across her skin.

  Nell used to get goose bumps a lot. When she lived in Chicago, she used to view original artwork more frequently than she did her laundry. She would take the bus to the Art Institute at least once a week, just to feel the shivery tingle that ran up her spine when she stood in front of the neon-hued Warhols, the blurred and haunting Toulouse-Lautrec paintings, and Chagall’s blue stained-glass windows. Something about the balance of color and space, the dance between precision and imperfection in Paige’s prints brought back that shivery feeling for Nell.

  The spell broke, though, when Paige pulled out her phone again, in the middle of a question Nell asked about one of the pieces. Instead of responding to the question, Paige began to gather up her artwork before Nell was even done looking at it.

  “I’ve gotta go,” Paige said, zipping the last of the prints inside her portfolio. “I’ll be back in a week to move in my stuff.”

  “Let me know if I can help out in any way,” Nell said to Paige’s back. “Do you want my number?”

  But the girl had already put on her coat and was halfway to the front door. “Bye,” she yelled, almost as an afterthought and without turning around.

  After the front door slammed shut, Nell went into the office, where the trust document still lay open on the desk. Even after she’d read it twice, taking notes, she wasn’t certain what, exactly, her work as director was supposed to be. The artists had all been handpicked by Betsy. Nell, on the other hand, had stumbled into her role at the Colony. If it hadn’t been for the previous director leaving on short notice and Nell’s desperate need to pay down debt, she wouldn’t be here it all.

  Outside, the sky was going purple and a crescent moon glowed low on the horizon over the frozen lake, even though it was just past five o’clock. Nell opened the desk drawers and found a file folder filled with applications. At the top of the stack were three applications paper clipped together and affixed with a Post-it note that said, simply, “Yes.” Paige’s application was the first in the bunch. In the section asking the applicant to describe his or her
work, Paige had written: “Oil pastel drawings of human subjects in motion.”

  That’s weird, Nell thought. The works Paige had shown her earlier didn’t include any pastels or human subjects.

  Clipped to the application was a typed letter on letterhead from the university.

  Dear Betsy,

  Thank you for sending word about the residency program you are establishing. I encouraged one of my outstanding students, Paige Jewell, to apply, and I’m writing in support of her application.

  Ms. Jewell is a remarkable talent across multiple forms of visual art. She moves brilliantly and effectively from one medium to another. She shows strong aptitude for the technical skills of drawing, painting, and printing, as well as a keen eye for innovation. However, it is my firm belief that she would benefit from focusing, for a longer period of time, on a single medium. The work she produces is consistently excellent, but I fear she is only skimming the surface of her abilities. My hope is that a residency opportunity would provide her with the environment she needs to nurture a drive to go deeper.

  Sincerely,

  Michael Murray, MFA

  Nell turned to the next application, for an artist out of Minneapolis named Odin Sorenson. Stapled to it were professional photographs of stunning metal sculptures—graceful representations of birds, trees, and other natural forms, twisted and molded from steel and burnished copper.

  When she picked up the third application and read the name, her hands froze.

  “Annie Beck,” she said aloud.

  Nell had admired the artist’s work since studying it in grad school. Ms. Beck was well-known for her public art installations, often with political themes. She’d been a member of the famous Feminist Art Collective in the seventies. Nell had read dozens of interviews the artist had given and watched documentaries about her work. She wondered what the one and only Annie Beck could possibly want with a fledgling residency in a midwestern university town.

  The application provided precious little information about Annie’s recent work. It said only that she was working on a “groundbreaking photo essay on human pain.” Nell pulled her laptop from her handbag and opened it up to Google Ms. Beck. But as soon as she tried to log in to her account, a message popped up on her screen: “You are not connected to the internet.”

  No Wi-Fi? she thought. She added “set up internet” to her growing mental list of things she’d need to do before the residents arrived.

  Nell put her computer back in her bag and picked up the phone instead. She dialed the number written on the application and had to hold in a squeal when she heard the voice mail message: “This is Annie. I’m probably in the studio. Leave me a message.”

  Nell hoped her voice didn’t waver when she said, “Hello, this is Nell Parker. I’m the director of . . .” She paused. She wasn’t sure what to call the program. Its legal name, the Barrett Foundation for the Arts, sounded so stiff and impersonal. She thought quickly and blurted out, “I’m with the Mansion Hill Artists’ Colony in Madison. I wanted to speak with you further about our residency program and your plans for arrival.”

  She left her number and then played back the message to make sure she sounded more like a professional program director than a fangirl. When she heard the recording of her voice repeat the impromptu name she’d chosen for the program, she knew it would stick. It pulled in the history of the neighborhood, while also highlighting the community aspect of the residency.

  The automated voice on the other end of the line said, “If you’re satisfied with your recording, please press one.”

  Nell pressed one and, just like that, the Mansion Hill Artists’ Colony was born.

  BEFORE THE ARTISTS arrived, Nell brought a contractor through the mansion to get quotes for setting up Wi-Fi and doing some other updates to better accommodate the house’s new use as an artists’ colony. The contractor, Grady, came highly recommended by one of Josh’s colleagues, so Nell thought nothing of giving him a key so that he could get started.

  When she arrived at the mansion on the day Grady was scheduled to start working, Nell followed the sound of tapping and thumping to the living room. There, she saw that the small painting by Wisconsin-born Georgia O’Keeffe that usually hung on the wall had been taken down, as had a larger Lee Krasner piece. The Krasner, an abstract expressionist painting, leaned sideways on the floor, resting against an end table. Had Nell not looked at the piece dozens of times since she first stepped foot in the mansion, she might not have noticed that the painting was positioned on its side. The gray, maroon, and black curves and splotches inside the frame looked almost as interesting from this perspective as they did when the painting was upright.

  The O’Keeffe, though, didn’t make any sense upside down, which was how it now stood propped against the leg of a chair. Upended, the black hills in the painting looked as though they hung suspended from a smoky lavender sky.

  Maybe giving the contractor a key was a mistake, Nell thought. He stood on a ladder a few feet away, his right arm inserted up to the elbow into a hole in the wall. Plaster dust covered the wood floors beneath him.

  “Um, Grady?” Nell said.

  At the sound of Nell’s voice, Grady twisted his body toward her. “Yeah?”

  “So . . . I’m a little concerned about the artwork that’s been taken off the walls.”

  He climbed down from the ladder and wiped his hands on his jeans. “Okay. I won’t move anything else without talking to you first.”

  Nell looked around for a suitable place to put the displaced paintings. She moved a stack of art books from the coffee table to the top of the fireplace mantel to make space. As she did so, a photograph fluttered out of one of the books and down to the floor.

  She picked up the small snapshot and recognized the unmistakable image of Andy Warhol, with his shock of white hair and curious, unsmiling expression. Next to him stood Betsy Barrett, beaming. Nell recognized her from the portrait that hung above the mansion’s staircase, but she was much younger here. From the dress Betsy was wearing—a ruched black cocktail number with puffed sleeves—Nell surmised the photo was taken in the eighties. She flipped it over, hoping for a date or a notation, but saw none. She tucked the picture back into the book it had fallen out of, which was, appropriately, a hardcover collection of pop art prints.

  With utmost care, Nell picked up the O’Keeffe painting and placed it faceup on the now clear coffee table, then followed suit with the Krasner piece.

  “It’s my fault,” she said. “I probably should have hired some art movers to take all the pieces down properly and store them somewhere safe. But I had no idea simply getting the place wired for internet would be such a process. It amazes me that Betsy had the vision to hire someone to put up a website for her art foundation, yet didn’t even have internet in her own home.”

  “It shouldn’t be very complicated,” Grady said. “But . . .”

  Nell rubbed her forehead. “What is it?”

  Grady shined his flashlight into the hole in the wall, illuminating a labyrinth of black cords and dusty white cylinders that looked like some sort of unstable pulley system.

  “Live knob and tube wiring,” Grady said. “It’s a major fire hazard. And likely a code violation. You’ll want to get this replaced.”

  “Is it something you can take care of?” Nell rubbed her forehead. It had been hard enough to find Grady on short notice. She didn’t want to have to start calling other contractors as well. She wished, for the hundredth time, that she’d had a little more time to prepare for the directorship and to get the Colony ready before the residents arrived. As it stood, she still didn’t know when they were all showing up. Annie hadn’t returned her call, and Odin hadn’t responded to the introductory email she’d sent him.

  “I know an electrical subcontractor who can probably do it,” Grady said. “But you’ll also want to get a plasterer in here to take a look at things. These walls are really thick. And look here.” He climbed back onto the ladder and f
ished around for something in the recesses of the ancient plaster. A moment later he pulled a wad of straw and newspaper out of the wall cavity and handed it to Nell. “Here’s your insulation. Guess it explains why the house is so drafty. You’ll probably want to have it replaced it with some blown-in insulation if you’re gonna open up the walls anyway.”

  “Okay, so what does all this mean, in terms of time frame? Maybe an extra couple of days?”

  “Longer, if you want it done right. I’ll make some calls but, depending on the schedules of the guys I want to get in here, it could be weeks before they can come take a look.”

  Nell rubbed her forehead and looked at the priceless works of art lying on the coffee table as casually as if they were magazines. She brushed a layer of plaster dust off the mantel, then rubbed her temples. She was beginning to feel as if she’d signed up for her own season of This Old House instead of an art directorship.

  She pictured her own aging home, though much less grand, just a mile away. When she and Josh moved in, they’d made a list of all the things they wanted to tackle, in terms of renovations. They’d envisioned remodeling the bathroom, but saving its classic black-and-white hex tile and claw-foot tub. They’d dreamed of refinishing the basement, which, although a little musty now, could eventually house a playroom or a guest bedroom. But that was all before they, or rather Nell, started funneling all their spare funds toward fertility treatments. But Josh didn’t know about all that, and she intended to keep it that way, at least until she had a few paychecks under her belt to put toward the credit card debt.

  “Did you get a chance to look at the floors upstairs?” Nell asked.

  Grady wiped the plaster dust from his hands onto his jeans. “I pulled up a corner of the carpet in a few of the bedrooms. The hardwood looks to be in good shape, just needs refinishing, so my original quote still stands. I could get started on that while we’re waiting to hear from the plaster guys.”