Free False Impressions by Laura Caldwell

not only sounded delicate, but fearful.
    “I’ll be there in a half hour.”
    Outside the snow was slowing. Plows and trucks criss-crossed the city and spewed salt in fast streams that looked like smoke, but not much else was moving. I had to walk four blocks before I scored a cab.
    As I took the taxi to the gallery, I opened the window, despite the cold. Somehow, over the past few days or so—since I’d met Madeline, I guess—I’d become more aware of the sounds of Chicago. When we were out the other night, Madeline had said something about using all her senses as a gallery owner and an art collector. And later, she had said that anything could be art—most art simply showed a different way of looking at life. The ideas were fascinating and questions had been growing in my mind since then. Could sounds be art? Could scents—something you had to smell to experience?
    For the last few days, I had paid attention to sounds. I found such an exercise eerie, in a way, because once I tuned in it struck me that those sounds had been there all my life, just waiting for me to turn up the volume.
    Now, through the cab window, I listened to the distant chug of the El, the screech of a snowplow’s brakes, a siren in the distance, a lonely sound that waxed and waned. All these things made me realize how many lives—each one its own form of artwork—existed in the city.
    By the time I reached the gallery, the snow had stopped and the sun was shining, making Michigan Avenue look like a star in daylight.
    The fluffy white snow reflecting the light would soon turn slushy gray. But not now. People were rousing themselves from homes and businesses, stepping out to check the now-friendly weather. A buoyancy played in the air. It was Saturday, it was sunny, it had snowed and it had stopped—the perfect recipe for Chicago city-wide happiness.
    I wondered what Madeline wanted me to see.

18
    I found Madeline in her office, which was tucked in a corner at the back of the building. I’d never really been in there before, and I looked around. It was tiny but fanciful. On one wall, blue curtains were pulled back to show a painting of a window overlooking the Caribbean sea, with islands in the distance.
    On the opposite wall was a lone portrait that depicted a woman who looked a lot like Madeline—distinctive pink lips, long, shiny black hair.
    A tufted purple chair sat in front of Madeline’s black lacquer desk. Madeline nodded at it.
    As I sat, she pushed a latch and lifted up a panel that was built into the desktop. I craned my neck and saw that behind the panel was a tablet computer. Very James Bond, I thought.
    It occurred to me that the panel hiding the technology was also very Madeline Saga—a woman who rejoiced in life and art and love and sex but, I assumed, had other parts that she kept hidden. It seemed obvious that Madeline Saga held layers of complexity—like so many pieces of her artwork.
    After touching a few things on her tablet, Madeline swiveled the panel around until it faced me, then she slid it forward, nearer to me. I saw that the screen had been opened to an email.
    The email had been sent from an address that was a random jumble of numbers and letters. The subject line was empty. I read the body of the email.
    You will never be forgiven for what you did. For your falsity and selfishness, you should be cut and stretched like a canvas.
    “Whoa,” I said.
    I read it again. You should be cut and stretched like a canvas. “Whoa,” I repeated. The words were cold, clinical…scary.
    I looked up at Madeline, who looked very scared herself. “Any idea who sent it?”
    She shook her head.
    “Do you think it’s the same person who left the comments on your website?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “The part about ‘falsity.’ Do you think they’re referring to the forgeries?”
    “I don’t know! This—cut and stretched like a canvas? Why would someone say that?” She turned the panel around, reread the words