She'd first met Sarah last week when she'd made a brief, uneventful visit to Annie's Gallery. She was an eccentric woman with lank, graying hair, plain features, and a wardrobe of thrift-store clothes. A debilitating condition necessitated the use of a cane. She hadn't bought anything or asked any questions, and Annie only remembered her because of her unusual appearance— and because she didn't have that many customers. Then, two days later, Sarah called and invited Annie to tea.
With nothing better to do, Annie had accepted, venturing up to Sarah's tiny house on a hill overlooking the city. The strange woman was again dressed in thrift-store clothes but was using a walker to get around instead of her cane. Annie might have dismissed her as a lunatic and politely excused herself but for the canvases haphazardly stacked throughout Sarah's small house. With a grandmother artist, artist friends, and her own experience setting up art displays at the maritime museum where she'd served as director, Annie had developed an eye for art. She'd learned to recognize the real thing when she saw it. And that was what Sarah's canvases were, without doubt: the real thing.
In her excitement over her discovery of an amazing new artistic talent, Annie had perhaps acted in haste in agreeing to represent Sarah at today's auction. She hadn't pressed for any details of who Sarah was or why she wanted the painting or why she just didn't go buy it herself. All that, Annie had thought, could come later.
Now she had her first hint of why Sarah wanted this particular painting. It was her work, undoubtedly an early piece. The technique was awkward in places, unsure of itself, lacking the boldness and confidence of the canvases Annie had seen over tea. But the essential ingredients of what made the reclusive, eccentric woman in mismatched socks and tattered Keds such a compelling artist were there.
The subject was a red-haired girl of fifteen or sixteen with pale ivory skin and warm blue eyes. She wore just a denim shirt and jeans, her long hair pulled back, her casual manner in contrast to the formal, traditional sitting room background. Even in this early work, Annie could see Sarah's hand in the unabashed nostalgic mood of the painting, its subtle use of color, its determination to capture the spirit of its subject and get at who she was, what she wanted to become.
Sarah, Annie thought, could have dispatched her to buy the portrait in an effort to get any strays back under her control before going public with her art. It would be a smart move. But Annie tried not to get ahead of herself in case she was wrong, and this brilliant, unknown artist had no intention of letting Annie's Gallery represent her work.
The auctioneer announced he had a sealed bid for five hundred dollars. Did anyone want to bid higher? His tone suggested he expected no one would.
Jerked out of her stupor, Annie jumped forward in her seat. A sealed bid? From whom? Someone else was bidding on the painting? She whipped around, searching for the culprit. The serious buyers, she'd already figured out, stood at the edges of the ballroom and slipped to the back when something came up that interested them. But she hadn't expected any competition.
Did someone else know about Sarah? To Annie's eye, her talent was apparent in the portrait up on the easel, but it was only a spark, a hint of the explosive work the artist might eventually produce.
"Five hundred. Do I have a bid for five hundred and fifty?"
Annie thrust her hand high up into the air. She didn't care if that wasn't how the professional buyers did it. She wanted to make sure the auctioneer saw her.
"Five hundred and fifty," he said in acknowledgment of her bid. "Do I have six hundred?"
In a half second, he said he did. Annie still had no idea who in the crowd was bidding against her. She raised her hand for six fifty. Sarah had anticipated that Annie would be the only bidder and would get the painting for a few hundred dollars, but, unwilling to chance missing this opportunity, she'd insisted on making the ten thousand dollars available. Annie had dismissed the gesture as overly dramatic.
It was a long way from six hundred fifty to ten thousand, she thought, calming herself. She wouldn't run out of money. She wouldn't fail. "Bid the entire ten thousand if you must. I don't care," Sarah, the mysterious artist, had told her. Annie desperately wanted to succeed, more so than she would willingly admit. Sarah's work was so incredible—Annie knew it was—that it could be the catalyst she needed for her struggling new life.
The auctioneer looked at her. The bidding was up to eight hundred. Annie pulled her lower lip in between her teeth and nodded.
A murmur of excitement ran through the crowd. Even the bland auctioneer seemed to get his blood up. Annie followed his gaze to the back of the ballroom as he asked for nine hundred.
Before she could pick out who he was looking at, he said he had nine hundred and turned his attention back to her. He asked for a thousand. He was going up by hundreds now. Annie hadn't noticed any of the fifteen or twenty well-dressed men and women standing in back make a move. She could feel her stomach churning. Relax, it's not your money. They wouldn't go higher than ten thousand. That would be lunacy. The artist was an unknown, the girl was an unknown. There was no point. Later, when Sarah was introduced to the art world and acknowledged as a major new talent, maybe there would be. But not now.