“Come here!” he called from a far window. “Look!”
I spun in place, trying to absorb the entire room at once. This was the original “artist’s studio” from all the Dutch masterpieces I had ever seen. A private, rustic apartment in an attic. Even the softly filtered light from high, north-facing windows was perfect.
I jogged toward the small side room where he stood facing the windows. As I entered, I stepped past a few tall stacked crates and tried to see what he was seeing.
“Look, there,” he said. “What do you think?”
I peered over his shoulder into the garden we had just been in, far below. From this vantage point, the design of the garden made perfect sense. It was a set of interlocking geometric shapes, perfectly balanced and harmonious.
“It’s beautiful!” I agreed. “Thank you for showing it to me.”
“Well, not just that,” he persisted, walking out into the room with his hands out and making a wide, sweeping gesture.
“OK,” I said, not really getting the point but trying to follow him.
“All of this,” he said, leading me to the center of the room. I mimicked him, turning slowly and seeing it all again in more detail: the antique trestle tables, the inset shelves, the beautiful windows, and the crates and crates of…
“Declan, what is this?”
“This is yours,” he whispered dramatically, his eyes wide like he was letting me in on a triumphant secret.
“This is my what?”
He shrugged as though irritated by my slowness. “Your studio, Margot.”
I glanced again at the crates. Those were my crates, from home, now here in Amsterdam.
“OK, let’s pretend for just a second that I am like, really, really stupid…”
He quirked an eyebrow at me.
“Explain it to me like I’m five. What is going on here?”
He crossed his arms in front of his chest.
“Are you saying you don’t like it?”
My head started to feel overfilled and wobbly.
“There is no way in the world I could say I didn’t like it.”
“Well, then,” he grinned.
“Yeah OK… I’m going to need a little more information than that.”
“Oh, Margot,” he sighed irritably, “it’s a studio. Probably the best you’ve ever had. In fact, say the word and I will make it the best anyone’s ever had.”
“This is…” I started, barely daring to even say it, “this is for me?”
“Pretty sure I just said that.”
OK, why does a conversation with this guy always feel like a wrestling match?
“Oh, my god.”
“Now you’re getting it.”
I pointed to the far wall. “So that really is my materials in those crates?”
He nodded. “And then some. Everything you could possibly need. I can have an assistant here in the morning. Actually, I can have four, and you can fire three just to get started.”
“No, that’s OK--”
“All right, you can fire all four,” he joked.
I swayed in place, feeling very high up and unstable like the floor was suspended on cables and moving from side to side under my feet.
“I really… I mean… I don’t want an assistant,” I stammered. “This is… oh my god wow.”
“You said that already.”
I looked around, hoping that taking another tour of the space would give me a few minutes to clear my head. I felt like I couldn’t really understand what was going on, though the simple facts were plain: Declan just bought me a museum to live in, to work in.
Wait, did Jackson know about this?
Was this what they were silently bickering over? I wondered as I touched the spinning wheel lightly with my fingertips. The slight touch sent the machine into quiet, efficient life.
Jackson knew, I felt sure as I stared into the motion of the machine. This was a test, or some kind of competition between them. This was some kind of ongoing conversation, and I had just been blind to it all.
Hadn’t it always been this way?
I stretched back to the first days I knew them, then to the very first day I knew them. Right there on the jet, I should have known it then. Declan had said if I couldn’t make a decision, then they would decide for me.
It had always been there, and I just didn’t see it. It was a contest, and I was the prize. I was the diamond M pendant Jackson had given me on that night at the gallery show, suspended between two lengths of a fine golden chain. I was being pulled from both sides, and someone was going to win.
It seemed preposterous. Me? Little old me? Did they realize what a ramshackle, feeble prize they were getting? I was at the bottom of a Crackerjack box. And, oh god, Bridget was right. I’m a toy.