Rich Dreams

The sky was heavy and grey. It reminded Emma of the ugly sweater that her Grandmother had made for her last Christmas. It had ended up in her closet amongst the pile of stuff that she would never wear but couldn’t throw away without hurting someone’s feelings.

A cool morning breeze made its way through the window, swirled through the kitchen and brought Emma a delicious smell of coffee, maple syrup and petrichor. She sat at the table, fiddling with her watch and tapping her heels nervously on the tiled, white floor. Today was the day. The day that her twenty-eight-year-old dream would finally come true.

Emma was an artist. A really good one. She had first started drawing when she was about five years old. She would use the little stubs of wax crayons that had been handed down from her brother to her sister, and finally to her. Emma would draw pictures of a world that was filled with purple clouds and pink trees. She would dream of floating in the sky, over the moon, under the stars and through a rainbow. But then, she would hear the noise of yelling and breaking glass coming from the living room and remember that she had no wings. 

Once in a while, her tired, frail mother would come into her room and look at Emma’s drawings. She would smile and pretend that they were the most beautiful thing in the world. As a child, Emma always wondered why her mother didn’t have any drawings on her walls. Only peeling paint and dust.

When she grew up a bit, she forgot about drawing for a while. Amongst the crippling self-esteem issues, truckloads of homework, and babysitting her two little brothers, it was all she could do to get to school on time each morning. It was in high school that she picked up her brushes again. She had gone through so many phases, so much confusion before she finally decided what she was going to do with her life.

First, Emma thought about becoming a doctor, but decided against it when she found out how much med school would cost. Then, she wanted to become a scientist. But when she took the chemistry course in school, she realized that science was more than cool explosions and bubbling test tubes. So, the “scientist” dream went into the bin. After that, came the music and theatre phase. That didn’t work out too well either. Singing and playing the piano was alright. Until someone started watching. If she was going to become an actress or a singer, then she would have to learn to deal with being stared at, discussed and criticized. That, she couldn’t do.

Finally, Emma landed on art. It wasn’t really a plan or a dream. She just got home from school one day and cracked from the pressure. By the time Emma got a hold of herself again, she was sitting in a nest of crumpled papers filled with drawings and scribbles.

From that day, she slipped back into the world that she used to be a part of when she was five. Except now, being able to fly didn’t seem like such a difficult feat. She experimented with everything, from scenery to anime. Once, she even found herself pouring entire tins of paint over a canvas in a dazed frenzy. The only explanation she could provide to her furious father was that she was making “contemporary art”. 

It had taken a while to find her style, but when she did, she went into a blissful heaven of colors and lines and blank canvases. After that, her life completely changed. She would shut herself in her room and paint for hours on end. Sometimes, when she finished a painting that had taken weeks to make, she would stare at it for a good five minutes, then toss it into the fireplace. It was one of Emma’s rules that no painting worse than the best ever went outside of her room. 

She worked in crappy fast-food places that smelt like ketchup and kids to put herself through art school. And as soon as she graduated, she moved out and started making paintings. For the first few years, her paintings never sold for more than fifty dollars. Then, her career slowly grew. She established new contacts, her art suddenly became worth several hundred dollars, some even sold for a thousand, and she was able to move into a decent house. It felt like someone was dragging her out of a sewage tank.

About three or four weeks ago, a rich Italian woman had seen one of her paintings in the gallery and offered ten thousand dollars for it. Ten. Thousand. Dollars. When Emma heard the news, she couldn’t even breathe for a few minutes. Her father had always told her that her silly paintings would get her nowhere in life. 

"You need a proper job to fill your belly" He would say, scowling at her art. After a while, Emma had begun to believe those words herself. But now, she had hope again. She had always wanted to get recognized for her work; she wanted someone to value her paintings as more than decoration. People who paid so much for a painting understood an artist's work. They understood the emotion and meaning that went into each stroke of the brush.

And for Emma, besides the joy of recognition, came the realization that her parents would no longer have to suffer with debts. She would be able to pay some of it off. Naturally, she’d accepted the offer and agreed to meet up with the woman at the gallery.

Presently, the noise of a soft bell dragged Emma back to reality. An alarm was ringing, indicating that it was time for her to leave. Pulling on a black coat over her shirt, Emma grabbed her car keys and set off to the gallery.

…

Emma was sitting on a white, leather couch in front of her customer. The woman couldn’t have been older than forty-five. Her black hair was tied back in a perfect bun, and an immaculate ring of pearls sat on her neck.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Emma.”, she said, extending a hand that sparkled with diamonds. Emma took it, trying her best not to fall apart under the woman’s scrutinizing, blue-eyed stare.

“It’s great to meet you too, Mrs. Castelli”

Mrs. Castelli revealed a set of teeth that had a similar to her perfect pearl necklace. She gave a silent instruction to her secretary, and drew out a checkbook from her Louis Vuitton purse.

“Let us get straight into business, shall we?” Mrs. Castelli wrote out the check, casually adding the zeroes and handed it to Emma with a nonchalant elegance that could unnerve the bravest person in the world.

Emma accepted the check and rose from the couch. “Shall I go bring the painting, Mrs. Castelli?” The woman motioned for her to sit down. As if on cue, her secretary gave the two women a perfectly mechanical smile and walked out of the room.

“Now dear, I want to ask you for one more thing.” Emma sat down, giving Mrs. Castelli a quizzical look. What did she want?

“I understand that you have submitted one of your paintings to this competition, yes?” She said, showing Emma a card.

“Yes”, Emma nodded. What about that? she thought. That was a month ago. How did the woman even know about her submission?

“Well, I want you to withdraw your submission” She paused to look at Emma’s reaction. It didn’t take much effort to see what was running through her mind. Emma’s jaw was hanging wide open, and her eyes were almost as huge as Mrs. Castelli’s diamonds.

“You see darling, I have a daughter, about your age. Unfortunately, she has no artistic talent whatsoever. She wants to become a pilot.” When she uttered the word “pilot”, her perfect composure faltered a bit and Emma saw the distaste pass through Mrs. Castelli’s eyes. “Such nonsense is running through young minds these days.”

“But you see, this world is a cruel place Emma. She will go nowhere with just dreams and a pretty face. It is up to me to help her stay afloat. You understand?” The woman bared her teeth into a crocodile smile once more.

“I have some connections in the board of judges who have informed me that they have chosen you as a winner. These connections however, are not strong enough to change the winner. So, I have travelled all the way here, to see you. If you withdraw from the competition, it would be easier to make my daughter the winner. After that, the fame would be enough to help her a build a career. I know that your kind heart will help me and me and my daughter. Am I correct?” The woman leaned back, waiting for an answer. She had a smirk across her face, an expression that showed that she wasn’t really waiting for an answer. Because she hadn’t asked or requested. She had commanded.

Mrs. Castelli’s overpowering Channel perfume poured into Emma’s lungs and made her feel sick. So much rage filled her that it took every ounce of patience not to punch this arrogant jerk in the face. This woman couldn’t care less about Emma’s painting. Oh no, that was just an excuse to bribe her without looking sketchy. All that hope, all that excitement for finally achieving her lifelong dream, it was all just part of a plan for some rich woman’s daughter to stroll through life like it’s a walk in the park.

Emma pulled out Mrs. Castelli’s ten thousand dollar check, ripped it into two halves and handed it to her with a smile. “Best of luck to your daughter Mrs. Castelli. Enjoy your day.” With that, she made her way out of the gallery and drove home.

When Emma got home, she kicked off her shoes, grabbed a tub of ice-cream from the fridge, and sat on the couch, shoveling spoonfulls of the dessert into her mouth to keep the tears from coming. She sat there for a while, listening to the pounding of rain on her rooftop. Emma knew that Mrs. Castelli would find a way to tamper with her career. There was even the possibility that she would completely destroy it. But on this day, in this moment, she had won. One for Emma and zero for Castelli and her Louis Vuitton bag.