Harper
The book feels heavy in my lap. Professor Albright’s name is stamped in gold leaf on the worn, leather cover. A name from another life. A life where I was more than just a decorative object.
My phone is a cold slab of glass in my hand. I have his number memorized, a relic from a time when he was my entire world, my academic north star. My thumb hovers over the call button. What do I even say? ‘Hello, Professor, it’s your most disappointing former student. The one who threw away a fellowship to marry a monster. Can you help me?’
I close my eyes. I see Isla’s smug face. I see my grandmother’s locket resting on a table beside her. A trophy. A spoil of war.
My thumb presses down.
The phone rings once. Twice.
“Albright,” a familiar, gravelly voice answers. A voice that has lectured on Caravaggio’s chiaroscuro and Goya’s dark despair. A voice that has always sounded like home.
“Professor Albright,” I say, and my own voice is thin, a stranger’s. “It’s Harper. Harper Thorne.”
I use my maiden name. The word ‘Vance’ tastes like ash.
There’s a pause on the other end. I can hear the rustle of papers, the faint scratch of a pen. “Harper. My goodness. I was beginning to think you’d vanished from the face of the earth.”
“Something like that, Professor.”
“Nonsense,” he says, his voice warm, utterly without judgment. “A talent like yours doesn’t just vanish. It goes dormant, perhaps. Waits for the right light. To what do I owe the honor?”
My carefully rehearsed speech dissolves. The truth, or a version of it, tumbles out. “I’m no longer married, Professor. I’m starting over. I was hoping… I was wondering if you ever hear of any positions. Research, cataloging, anything.”
“Ah,” he says. The single syllable is full of understanding. He doesn’t press for details. He doesn’t ask what happened. “The world of academia is a slow moving beast, my dear. And you’ve been out of the game for a while.”
“I know,” I say, the hope in my chest deflating. “It was a long shot.”
“But,” he continues, and I can almost hear the smile in his voice. “The world of art is full of strange, dusty corners that need a good eye. And you, Harper Thorne, have the best eye I’ve seen in thirty years of teaching.”
My breath catches.
“I always told you that, didn’t I?” he says. “It’s not something you learn from a book. It’s a feeling. A deep, cellular understanding of the artist’s hand. You could feel a lie in the paint.”
“My… my ex husband thought it was a useless skill,” I confess, the words a bitter pill.
Professor Albright lets out a dry chuckle. “Your ex husband is a man who deals in numbers and spreadsheets. He wouldn’t recognize true value if it was hanging on his own wall. Which, I suspect, it often was and he never knew it.”
I am silent. I think of the fake Renoir. Of the ‘lucky guess’ that saved Damian ten million dollars.
“Can you meet me for coffee?” he asks. “My treat. For old times’ sake.”
We meet an hour later in a small, cramped café near the university. The air smells of burnt coffee and old books. It’s a world away from the hushed, sterile restaurants Damian favored.
Professor Albright looks older. His tweed jacket is a little more frayed at the elbows, his white hair a little wilder. But his eyes, behind his round spectacles, are as sharp and kind as I remember.
“You look well, Harper,” he says, after we’ve settled with our mugs. “A little tired around the edges, perhaps. But the fire is still there. I can see it.”
“I feel like I’m running on fumes,” I admit.
“That’s just the engine turning over after a long winter,” he says, stirring his coffee. “Now, about this work. As I said, I don’t have a tenure track position to offer you out of my pocket.”
“I don’t expect that.”
“But I do have a proposition. A project, of sorts.” He leans forward, his voice dropping conspiratorially. “A friend of mine, Edgar Mellinger, passed away last month. A lovely old chap. An absolutely atrocious businessman, but he had a passion for collecting. Bought what he loved, not what the market told him to love.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I say.
“Thank you. Edgar’s children, however, do not share his passion. They’re practical people. They see a house full of junk. They want to clear it out, sell it to the first dealer who makes them a decent offer, and be done with it. They called me for a cursory appraisal.”
He takes a sip of his coffee, his eyes twinkling over the rim of his mug. “I walked through the house yesterday. Most of it is, as they suspect, sentimental clutter. But there are a few pieces. A few things tucked away in the studio he kept. Things that gave me a… feeling.”
“A feeling?” I repeat, leaning in.
“You know the one,” he says, pointing his spoon at me. “The little hum a piece gives off when it’s right. The silence it emits when it’s wrong. My old eyes aren’t what they used to be, Harper. And I’m too close to it. I was Edgar’s friend. I want there to be a masterpiece hidden under a layer of dust.”
“You want me to look at them,” I say, my heart starting to beat a little faster.
“I want you to go and feel them,” he corrects gently. “I need someone with your instincts. I need the eye. I can’t offer you any payment, I’m afraid. His estate is a mess. It would just be my eternal gratitude and a chance to get your hands dirty again.”
Unpaid. It doesn’t matter. The money isn’t the point. It’s a test. A chance. A key to a door I thought was locked forever.
“When can I start?” I ask, my voice steady for the first time in months.
He smiles, a broad, genuine smile that reaches his eyes. “I have the key right here.” He pulls a small, old fashioned brass key from his pocket and slides it across the table. It looks like a key to a secret garden.
“The address is on the tag,” he says. “The studio is out back. Take your time. Let the paintings speak to you.”
I pick up the key. It’s cool and solid in my palm. A real, tangible object. A beginning.
“Thank you, Professor,” I say, and the words are not enough. “Truly.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” he says, waving a dismissive hand. “You might find nothing but competent forgeries and dashed hopes. But Harper… it’s good to have you back.”
The house is a forgotten Victorian on a street of manicured lawns. Paint is peeling from the siding, and the garden is an overgrown jungle of weeds and defiant roses.
The studio is a small carriage house in the back, half covered in ivy. The brass key feels ancient as I fit it into the lock. The tumblers groan, then click. The heavy wooden door swings inward with a protesting squeal.
I step inside.
The smell hits me first. It’s a scent I haven’t smelled in years, but my body recognizes it instantly. Turpentine and linseed oil. Old paper and canvas sizing. A faint, dusty perfume of potential.
The room is chaos. Canvases are stacked against every wall. Some are framed, some are bare. Some are covered in white cloths, like ghosts. Easels stand at odd angles. Jars filled with murky water and stiff brushes clutter every surface. Sunlight, thick with dancing dust motes, streams in from a large, grimy skylight.
It’s a mess. It’s a disaster. It is the most beautiful room I have ever been in.
I walk to the center of the room, my footsteps silent on the paint splattered floorboards. I don’t touch anything. I just stand there, breathing it all in. This is not the cold, curated silence of Damian’s penthouse. This is a living silence, full of stories waiting to be told. Full of secrets held in the warp and weft of canvas, in the chemistry of pigment and oil.
A small canvas is propped on a dusty easel, half turned away from the door. It’s the only one singled out. I feel a pull toward it, an invisible string.
I walk over, my heart a quiet drum against my ribs. My fingers, trembling just slightly, reach out and gently turn the canvas to face me.
It’s a portrait of a young woman, her face rendered in soft, almost ethereal strokes. It’s unsigned. The style is unfamiliar, yet… there’s something. A flicker of genius in the way the light catches her eye. A confidence in the brushwork on the lace collar.
I lean closer. My gaze traces the lines, the layers of glaze, the subtle craquelure of age. The world outside this dusty room, the divorce, the humiliation, Damian, Isla, all of it fades away to a dull, distant roar.
There is only this. This painting. This puzzle. This quiet, exhilarating conversation between my eye and the hand of an artist long dead.
A feeling I thought was dead and buried inside of me begins to stir. A tiny, warm ember in the cold ashes of the last five years.
It’s a spark.
For the first time since I can remember, I feel alive. I feel like myself. And I smile.
