Is There Somewhere?

Part 18

The first week of her return, she'd had Marcus send out her paintings to Lexa Woods' office downtown without a second thought. If she wanted to move on and figure out how she felt about the other woman, she had to completely avoid anything about her.

A month after returning to New York and Clarke felt like a new person. Inspiration seemed to appear out of nowhere, taking control of her hands and forcing her to create things she had been dying to but didn't have the willpower to complete before. It seemed like she just couldn't stop even if she tried now.

Clarke threw herself into work, coming up with so many different projects her studio was full of canvases covered in paint. More often than not, she was covered in it too. Her ideas didn't stop at her collections, but they extended to potential exhibits for Marcus' gallery.

Her studio was in the back of the gallery dedicated to artists that Marcus commissioned constantly when the man himself approached her. The rooms reminded Clarke of classrooms, the same size and shape across and next to each other down a blank hallway that ended at Marcus' office. Her name was hanging on the door, engraved into a golden plate to indicate that this was her personal space.

"Clarke, can I speak with you?" Marcus leaned into the room, he smiled happily at her.

"Yeah, give me a sec," Clarke stood from her chair and hopped over cans of paint, plates of mixed colors that she'd discarded because they just weren't the right ratio or shade. It took several moments and a near trip into a bucket of red paint before she was standing before the older man.

"I'm glad you're back to it, Clarke," he smiled at her. She was covered in all sorts of different colors. Her inner arm had stripes of paint all the way down it as she'd tested the different shades and her overalls were covered in caked on paints. There were blue streaks in her hair and a smear of green on her cheek, as if she'd rubbed her hand over it without realizing she had paint on it.

"Thanks, Marcus, I feel a lot better after going home."

"I'm sure it has to do with getting that stressful Woods case closed off," Marcus placed a gentle hand on Clarke's shoulder. He may not speak to her much and she may be his employee, but he was observant and knew that somehow, the Woods project was doing something to her. He hadn't liked it, but Clarke was an adult and if she wasn't able to handle it, she would have told him.

He saw the way her face fell and her eyes dropped to the floor for a split second, "Yeah, that one was hard. But what's up? Need help with something?"

"I was actually wondering if you wanted to plan the next exhibition? I have a couple of buyers interested in doing something to get this place further on the map."

"And what's the idea?"

"That's the thing, I want you to come up with it."

"Me?" Clarke touched her chest, eyebrows raising as if the idea of that was completely outrageous.

Marcus nodded and turned, gesturing for Clarke to follow him down the hall into his office. They took their seats before he spoke again. "You've been with me for the longest, you've made a lot of money and you're very talented. I've seen some of the things you've been working on recently and I think that you need to move forward. So, for the next gallery show, I want you to give me a theme and then I want you to manage it."

"You want me to be you?" Clarke asked incredulously.

"Essentially, yes." Marcus nodded. "Do you think you can handle it?"