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He lurched forward, his joints still clumsy with the heaviness of sleep, and jerkily pulled the phone from where it rested on his bedside table and glanced at the screen. Dread unfurled in his stomach as he read the name GAVIN in bold, bouncing letters. Zach blew out a hard breath as he tried to expel his nerves before he finally pressed “Accept” on Gavin’s call.
“Hello,” Zach said as he pressed the phone to his ear.
Throwing back the covers, Zach pushed himself up off his mattress and began pacing his large, Rochester apartment. The space was impressive, with large, floor-to-ceiling windows and an open concept that allowed for a lot of natural light. He’d kept the décor simple, not wanting to cloud his creative process by making his environment too cluttered.Now, however, in the cloudy morning light, he realized it just made the place look desolate and unlived in, even though he had been living there for years.
“Hey there, Zach! How are you this morning?” Gavin’s voice drifted to him through the speaker, loud enough that it made his head pound.
Zach briefly wondered how much sleep he had been able to get. If his aching, sluggish body was any indicator, he knew that it couldn’t have been much. He paced through the living room and then on to the kitchen, glancing at the clock on his stove. It was just after 8 A.M. Zach hadn’t gone to bed until after 5, so he was running on only three hours of sleep, and the realization made him have to fight back a groan. But at least it explained his muddied thoughts.
“Zach?” Came the voice on the other end of the line, making Zach remember that he had been asked a question.
“Yeah, Gavin,” Zach mumbled groggily. “I’m doing all right. What’s going on?”
He knew that if he was receiving a call this early, it couldn’t be good news. Gavin Bagley was the owner of an art gallery that currently was the only place Zach was selling his paintings. His canvases had been displayed and selling there for five years now, and up until recently, it had been quite lucrative. But for the past nine months or so, Zach had been unable to find inspiration or motivation to create anything worthwhile.
“I’ll be straight up with you, Zach.” Gavin’s voice was brusque, and he was speaking quickly, as if he wanted to get the information out of him as fast as possible. “Your canvases haven’t been selling very well as of late, which I’m sure you’re aware of.”
“I am,” Zach said in a low, cautious voice.
“Right, well, we thought that perhaps it was just a lull. But everything you’ve turned over for almost a year had been just a shadow of your previous work. It’s almost like someone is trying to impersonate you, and they’re doing it badly.”
Zach winced at Gavin’s words, but he couldn’t quite refute the truth of them. He could hardly remember the last time he had felt inspired enough to sit down and really create. When this particular batch of painter’s block had hit, he’d had a few works that hadn’t been displayed yet. So he’d given those to Gavin and hoped that by the time they had sold he’d have clawed his way out of the funk. But now it was nine months later, and all Zach had was an apartment filled with half-finished canvases and no hope of being able to create anything else.
It hadn’t been for a lack of trying. In fact, it was the reason he had been up so incredibly late the night before. For the entirety of his life, the middle of the night had always been the time where Zach had felt the most inspired. There had always been something about the quiet of the moon and feeling like you were the only person in the city that was awake that had filled him with a vigor and an urge to paint. So he’d stayed up night after night, staring at the blank canvases and praying for inspiration to strike, only to be let down when the first rays of sunshine began lightening the sky.
Running a hand through his auburn hair, Zach blew out a frustrated breath.
“I know. I’m just having a bit of trouble finding that spark, you know?”
“I’m aware.” Gavin’s voice was firm, but not exactly unkind. And it made the blow that came next hurt Zach all the more. “I’ve tried as hard as I can to get the new paintings to sell, but they just aren’t. And everything that you’ve been giving me is even more uninspired than the last batch. I hate to do this, bud, I really do. But we have to drop you from the gallery.”
Zach had expected it for a while now. Honestly, he had been surprised that Gavin had held out as long as he did. But it didn’t stop the words from hitting him like a punch to the gut.
“I understand,” he said in a low, dejected voice.
“I don’t want to do this, man. You have to understand. And if you can get me stuff in the future that’s up to your standard, I’d love to have you on my walls again. But I just can’t keep going with what you’re producing right now.”
“I understand.” Zach repeated the words as he hoped for the conversation to end.
“Okay. Well.” Gavin’s words trailed off awkwardly, and a few seconds of silence lasted between the two men. “If things change, just let me know. Take care, bud.”
“Thanks, Gavin.” Zach hung up the phone and his heart pounded wildly.
He turned in a circle, his eyes roving over the canvases pressed up against walls, leaning against furniture, stacked by his workstation. Each one was more depressing than the last. Suddenly, that room, the apartment, the entire city felt like it was too small and was pressing in on him.
He walked over to his workstation and raked his eyes over what he’d been trying to paint the night before. But he felt absolutely nothing as he looked down on the swirls of paint that covered the white background.
Zach sighed heavily as he walked over to the large, floor-to-ceiling windows on the far side of his apartment and looked out at the city beyond. With a flutter in his chest, he realized that there was nothing for him there. Somewhere along the way, he had lost himself. And that was now being reflected in his art. He needed to figure out a way to reconnect with who he was, his inspiration, and why he fell in love with art in the first place. And there was one thing that he knew for sure, he wouldn’t be able to find any of that if he stayed in Rochester.
* * *
Lacy Morse had never met a problem that she couldn’t solve. She had ventured out on her own and studied abroad in France before earning her business degree. She had become one of the highest regarded consultants in St. Louis, and then again in Snowy Pine Ridge. She had renovated her grandfather’s beloved mansion and turned it into the go-to event space, and had even taken on the task of hosting the annual Christmas party for the townspeople.
But now, as she wobbled on the rungs of a ladder and struggled to maneuver around her growing belly to hang the Christmas lights, she feared that she had finally met her match.
Letting out another stubborn huff, Lacy pushed herself a bit farther up on the ladder, reaching for the hook she’d had her husband, Derek, place in the ceiling the other day to drape the string of lights across. The ladder wobbled unsteadily under her, making a little squeak of surprise fall from her lips, and a worried voice rang out from down the hall.
“Oh, hey,” Derek said as he rushed toward her with a worried look on his face. “What are you doing up there?”
