She had to get up. The gallery was supposed to open at ten.
It wasn’t like she was going to get in trouble if she was late; she owned the damned place, after all. And the foot traffic in January tended to be slow, unlike in the summer months, when the tourists kept things busy.
The more she thought about it, the more appealing it was to just lie there and wallow in her misery.
But the misery was too intense to make wallowing pleasurable, so she dragged herself out of bed.
She opened the sliding glass door and stepped out onto the patio. The house where Gen rented her tiny apartment was perched on the side of a hill with one of the best views in Cambria. Normally, she’d have a 180-degree view of breaking waves from the patio, but this morning a layer of fog obscured the view and shrouded the world in gauze. Not uncommon for January. It was cold outside, and the chill cut through the haze of her hangover and made her feel a little bit better. Thank God it wasn’t sunny. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to cope with sun.
When she started to shiver, she went back inside, closed the door, and turned on the big gas fireplace in the corner of the apartment’s single room. She pulled a blanket around herself and went into her miniscule kitchenette to make coffee.
She could hear the sound of footsteps moving around overhead—Kate’s, or maybe Jackson’s. Before Jackson had moved in, Gen would have taken the sound of the footsteps as an open invitation to go upstairs in her pajamas, help herself to the coffee in Kate’s kitchen, and flop onto Kate’s sofa for a little morning camaraderie. But she couldn’t exactly do that when the two of them were likely floating around on a cloud of post-coital afterglow.
Gen sighed, and her head throbbed.
She rooted around in the medicine cabinet for some kind of pain killer, found some acetaminophen, and took two with some water from the bathroom faucet. By that time, thankfully, the coffeemaker was hissing and the smell of French roast was wafting through the room.
As she was pouring, she heard a gentle knock at her door. Still wrapped in her blanket, she went to the door and opened it. Kate was standing there with a steaming mug in her hand, wearing a big hooded sweatshirt that said UCLA. She had a suspiciously big smile on her face.
“Hey,” Gen said, backing up to let Kate come in.
“Hey. I heard you moving around. Thought I’d come down and see how you’re doing this morning.”
“Eeaarrrgh,” Gen said.
Kate nodded. “I suspected as much.”
Gen went back into the kitchenette and put sugar and milk into her coffee. Normally she skipped the sugar and milk—she usually drank it black—but this morning she needed whatever energy the extra calories could provide to her.
She took a long drink of the coffee and groaned.
Kate and Gen went over to the sofa bed, which was, at the moment, a bed, and plopped onto it with their mugs, sitting cross-legged, enjoying the warmth from the fireplace.
“You look ridiculously happy this morning,” Gen said.
“I love morning sex,” Kate replied.
“Shut up,” Gen said. “You and your morning sex smugness. Why don’t you go back upstairs and have more of your damned morning sex, if it’s so great?”
Kate considered. “Well, I could, but Jackson’s gone to work, so it would be awkward.” Kate, five-foot-six with short, tousled, dark hair, had never looked happier, or more beautiful. Life with Jackson, the head chef at one of the local restaurants, was obviously agreeing with her. “You’re testy this morning,” she observed.
“God. I’m sorry. It’s this hangover. The relentless drumming in my head won’t allow for warmth and graciousness.” She drank some more coffee.
“You want me to go?” Kate looked at her, eyebrows raised.
“No, no. Stay. I want you to stay.”
They sat for a while, propped on pillows, letting the caffeine seep into them. After a while, the Tylenol started to kick in and Gen began to feel marginally better.
“Kind of an adjustment for you,” Kate ventured. “Having Jackson move in.”
“Yeah,” Gen said miserably.
Kate reached out and rubbed Gen’s upper arm with her hand. “I’m sorry if it’s hard.”
Gen shrugged. “It’s not your fault. What were you supposed to do, stay lonely and unhappy for my sake? It’s ridiculous. I’m being ridiculous. And I love Jackson. I do. And I’m happy for you. It’s just … ”
“I know,” Kate reassured her.
“Listen, sweetie,” Kate said after a while. “I’ve got to go upstairs and get dressed for work. You going to be okay today? Seems like you really drank a lot last night. You’ve gotta be … ”
At that moment, Gen turned faintly green, put down her mug, dashed into the bathroom, and hurled into the toilet.
“Um, okay, then,” Kate said. “I’ll just … I’m gonna go now.”
Why did she drink so much? Why hadn’t she just stuck with a glass of wine or two? Stupid, stupid, stupid. She wasn’t a twenty-one-year-old having a kegger in the dorms, for God’s sake. That part of her life was over. And good riddance.
She berated herself as she pushed through the fog in her head to unlock the gallery and go inside. The Porter Gallery, just down Main Street from Kate’s bookstore, was bigger than many of the storefronts in this part of town—thought that wasn’t to say it was big. The main part of the gallery consisted of two fair-sized rooms, and she had a small office and storage space in the back. When she’d originally acquired the space, it had been a clothing boutique. She’d stripped it down to its bones until now it was all sleek white walls and gleaming honey-colored wood floors.
Flipping on the lights, she surveyed her business with a sigh. Some of the artwork on display was quite good—she had some abstract expressionist paintings from a young artist she thought had a promising future, and she had a beautiful display of art glass by Jackson’s friend, Daniel Reed—but she also had a large number of the watercolor seascapes she considered to be more souvenir than fine art.
The watercolors were the kind of thing that would prevent her from being taken seriously in cities like New York or Los Angeles. Breaking waves at sunset wouldn’t get you a reputation as a savvy dealer. But this was Cambria, and the seascapes sold. She could advocate for serious art all day long, but in the end, she had to pay the rent.
The rent had been the motivating factor that had persuaded her to stock a display of ceramics and handmade jewelry, as well. The pieces were lovely, and they sold well, but they were crafts, not fine art. She’d adapted to the realities of the art world in a tourist town, but not without some reluctance.