Free Perfect on Paper by Janet Goss

dried-out nib.
    “I still think you should slow down, Dana. Just because I couldn’t find him on
America’s Most Wanted
’s Web site doesn’t mean he’s not on someone’s.”
    “He is—the
New York Times
’s. A few years ago the House and Home section ran a spread about a row house he’d restored. The owner referred to him as the Brownstone Whisperer!”
    Elinor Ann sighed. “I know. I saw it online. Just… be careful, would you?”
    Pushing through the throngs of Thanksgiving Day travelers, I finally reached the gate and took my place at the end of the line. I carefully counted the people ahead of me and noted with relief that there were only thirty-seven of them. This was indeed cause for thanksgiving. I would make it aboard the first Kutztown-bound bus.
    In fact, there was more to give thanks for than ease of transit and the perfect boyfriend. The previous afternoon, Vivian had banged on my ceiling with her broom until I went downstairs, where she’d presented me with a check.
    “Hannah’s got a patron,” she announced.
    I inspected the piece of paper in my hands. “Uh, I think you put too many zeros on this. I’m positive there were only two paintings left.”
    “There were. I doubled the prices—should’ve tripled them, but I’m too damn nice for my own good. Do you remember that fat chick in the Comme des Garçons getup who came in a while back?”
    “How could I forget? She was my first customer.”
    “Well, she’s on her way to becoming your only customer. She asked me to call her immediately whenever my picker got back from Maine with more Hannahs. And then she gave me this.” Vivian waved a business card long enough for me to make out the words GALERIE NAIFS .
    “She’s a dealer?” I said.
    “ ‘Representing the Finest Examples of American Intuitive and Self-Taught Artists Since 1994,’ ” she read from the card.
    It seemed I had finally arrived—at the outermost fringes of the art world.
    And the outermost fringes were exactly where Vivian expected me to stay, judging by the way her fingernails obliterated the dealer’s name.
    “We’ll stick with the fifty-fifty split,” she said. “This could be big for us!”
    Gee. Thanks a lot,
I thought.
    Then again, what if Elinor Ann’s allegation turned out to be correct? If peddling outsider art of dubious provenance indeed constituted fraud, wouldn’t Vivian be the one perpetrating it?
    “Gee! Thanks a lot!” I said.
    The couple waiting in front of me had been engaged in an argument ever since I’d joined them in the bus line. It had grown so heated, I was beginning to wonder if they were staging some sort of guerrilla performance piece.
    “Drop it,” he growled.
    “Not until I find out who that call came from,” she hissed. “Let me see your phone.”
    “I mean it. Drop it.”
    “It was your ex, wasn’t it?”
    After a while all that growling and hissing started to make my temples throb. I leaned forward to peer through the grimy pane in the door leading to the boarding area, but all I could make out were clouds of exhaust.
    The gargantuan man who was first in line decided to make himself comfortable on the floor, landing with a loud grunt and setting off a chain reaction. One by one, all but the most germophobic passengers behind him followed suit. I joined them, balancing the bag from Ess-a-Bagel squarely on top of my duffel in order to ensure the greatest possible distance between the food and the dingy linoleum.
    It was at that moment Hissing Woman managed to wrest Growling Man’s cell phone from his grasp, yanking so hard that her arm ricocheted into my pile of luggage. I lunged for the food bag, but not in time to salvage the topmost bagel. It rolled an impressive fifteen feet or so, finally coming to rest in front of a pair of Converse All Stars worn by an impossibly cute guy at the tail end of the line.
    He grinned, picked up the bagel, and pantomimed taking a big bite.
    I grinned back, felt myself flush, then