#bellstart

The metal frame of the chair creaked as his elbows pressed against the table top. There weren’t too many people in the restaurant, which made sense considering most preferred to spend their time outside when the weather was this “pleasant” as they put it. He had overheard some of the employees discussing their weekend plans, and one had exclaimed that they wished to visit the coast, weather permitting.

The tailor’s blue eyes flickered to the nearby window. The weather was permitting.

Pale fingers tentatively touched the side of a ceramic coffee cup, as if testing the waters before allowing his palm to curl about the mug. On the table before him lay a newspaper, the economics section scattered with stocks statistics and updates that he knew far too much about via his father. The DOW was down again, a fact that had ceased to surprise him, and with a slow nod he raised the coffee to his lips.

“She doesn’t have Facebook, Jay, she’s... cool. All she has is Instagram, and... it’s set to private, so.” 

“Well... you fucked up, my dude.”

Jaya sounded positively gleeful, and Ari grimaced. “Shut up.”

“It’s like an epic Bollywood romance. Or a horror movie, where she gets stalked by an ex. You gonna win her back?” He could hear her click her tongue. “Hard to do when you dumped her.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose and begged for patience. “No, I’m definitely not going to do that,” he said evenly. “I’m gonna try to never even see her, actually. It’s a big place, and I---I know her.” Even he thought that reasoning was a bit shaky, now. “I know where she’ll be and where she won’t. So. We won’t run into each other, and if we do, I dunno. I’ll hope she’s. You know, reasonable, like she can be.”

“Yeah, sounds like a solid plan. Good luck with that.” He could still hear the laughter in his sister’s voice. “Hey, I’ll call you back, my laundry’s done and I don’t want someone stealing my shit from the dryer while I talk you through your new hell. Love you, bhai.”

“Right. Later. Love you too.” 

The canvas stood clamped up on an easel, though the blank, gessoed surface stared accusingly at Stella Rosenthal. So many masterpieces have passed under her delicate hands – be it from Rosenthal Fine Art Restoration or within the museum archives. Her own work often remained unnoticed. Anything besides restoring voids and losses, or finding the intended luminosity of old works was far too much. Stella was a vibrant creature, but she crafted her life and created things with such subtle grace and nuance. If you could notice her work outside of the original artistic vision, she had gone too far. She dabbled in honing her own artistic abilities, but she was struggling to find her muse when so much of it was spent vanishing it into the background. The empty canvas was just an echo of her internal frustration and mockery. The knock upon the studio door was a welcome distraction. Clients typically caught her in the office space, so she was anticipating a friendly face as she stepped nearer. “You can’t use the digital microscope to find your common sense.” Stella teased, should anyone be coming to shed their weekend’s regrets in her company, before finally swinging the door open.