Galleries were always depressing, for Mae at least. Manufactured lights made to simulate sunlight, as so few of them had wide open, or any windows at all. Expensive wines in fluted glasses, women in backless dresses and designer heels with designer mates trailing behind the click-clack of shoes. Her gut always twisted a little tighter hearing them speak of her paintings; little condescending phrases about how quaint or heart warming her creations were. How cute or how vague while others ripped to shreds behind plastic smiles works she'd poured hours, weeks, months into.

At first' At first she'd been starry eyed over it. Dressed herself to the nines and mingled in between all the Chanel number fives and Prada bags, smiling and schmoozing until her mouth and cheeks hurt with all the forced sweetness.

At first. Now, however, it was her agent in the backless little red number, champagne glass in hand and cheeks pushed upward in reasonable pass at a smile.



"Look at you. Jeans and a poet shirt"you look like a hobo," her sister murmured, giving her a critical eye in the bathroom mirror. She was lean and tall, a shark in a woman's suit in red, red, red. A smear of tube, twisted, colored her lips something delicate and soft to keep the eye on the hourglass poured into silk.

"It doesn't matter what I look like." Mae mumbled back. They were kids again and her sister was pulling her hair until she cried. Until she gave up what she wanted.

The older of the two leaned away from the mirror, dropping lipstick into one of ridiculously over sized trendy bags that looked like ugly suitcases instead of fashion. "Don't you care what anyone thinks anymore" Jexus, Mae, they think you've all lost it and turned into some sort of crazy hermit."

"I don't care," lack luster reply. She didn't. Mae's eyes, her sister's eyes met in the mirror again. Her sister was giving her a hard, long, disapproving look that appeared too much like their momma's look. The one she gave before the spoon came out, of the fly swatter, or the shoe.

"Fine, just don't screw this up for me." Mae's sister smoothed the silk over her hips checking for any flaws, then tilted about like stalking cranes on long legs to prowl for the door. Mae didn't even lift a brow when her sister said that now, because it didn't matter. Nothing mattered.



Nothing mattered really, even as the distant whir and click of no-flash cameras captured canvass. Mae leaned against the door frame lingering on the edges of the gathering. No one noticed the woman in jeans compared to the ever swirling clash of perfection in dark suits, glittering gowns.

She could hear her sister"

"A pleasure, Senator Ronson, Mrs. Ronson. We're so glad to have you?.Why, yes, that's right. I'm Marissa, her"exactly! Her sister."

Words fading out. Then back in.

"I'd love to. Won't the two of you come this way' Let's start here. This particular piece has always spoken the loudest to me?" Fade out. Mae knew the routine by now, practiced and pitched flawless. Mae always thought Marissa would have made good car salesmen.

Mae watched them however, as they made their rounds. The senator was a tall imposing man cut clean in a suit that no doubt cost the equivalent of a well made car. His teeth were flawless, so much so that Mae's fingers twitched to want to paint them a little crooked, more real than what they seemed now. His wife was a stunning plastic-surgeons dream come true, with ageless breasts and in a gown that plunged so far between them one could almost see belly button. Delicate straps and criss cross weavings held her diaphanous coverings together as she floated about, a pale hand wrapped around her husband's elbow. What interested Mae was not the two of them, but the aid which traipsed about behind them. A dress suit that looked second hand, well worn and out of place compared to the two. She had freckles and a wealth of natural fire-engine red hair piled strict and tight atop her head. Compared to the senators wife she was bread and butter clattering in the dust of stars.

"And this piece,? Mae heard her sister begin. It was at that moment the senator's wife dropped her champagne glass to shatter into a million pieces while the aid dropped her notebook from lifeless hands.

The senator himself seemed speechless.

Mae's eyes narrowed. The first real expression she'd made since her sister drug herself here.

A sprawling apartment with an endless view of a city which never slept. So many little lights that winked and out, they reminded Mae of stars. The irony for her, of course, was that they were so much brighter than and often made it impossible to see any stars at all. Reddish yellow, florescent white, some neon always splashed more color here and there while the street lights far below, broken by the never ending snake-twist of cars hurrying added their own soot-orange glow. She lay on the leather couch picked by her sister in an apartment bereft of everything Mae was...Her sister had decorated it after all. So it was designed for her tastes, not Mae's.

Mae didn't know what she liked.

Who am I"

Dark brown eyes could see well enough with the wall to wall glass overlooking spacious balcony. The horizon was filled with a thousand little lights of all different shades. At night, like this, when she could not sleep" She adored it, a modern, living canvass.

Behind her, the phone rang again. It had been ringing all night. The click of the answering machine drifted over the soft strains of Julie London's Cry Me a River.

"Mae. Look"Mae...Mae; please...Pick up baby doll. Your sister is worried sick and half beside herself with guilt. She's sorry, baby, can't you see that' Mae" Pick up the phone, please. Mae" I'm talking to you, baby doll. It's your Momma, you come now and pick up the phone y'hear"" It started out worried. It always did. It didn't take long for the message to derail into shouting; Mae's attention had already drifted however back to the tableau before her eyes. The answering machine clicked off.

She counted the heart beats idly in between that call and the next.

Click. "Mae..." Her sister. "I'm sorry. I am really, really sorry." Quiet and shaken. Mae half-listened, was it because she was worried" Or because—"You know you need me, you can't do this without me." Mae mm'ed faintly, she'd expected that. "We need each other, Mae. Everyone's worried about you, too. Look, ACA Galleries called, Angles Gallery, C&M arts—they're all ready to pull out Mae. Do you really want that to happen" After all everyone's done for you?"

Mae rolled over onto her stomach, propping her chin up on the leather arm of the sofa.

"Come on, Mae. Pick up. You can't do this to yourself after everything! After everything I've done for you!" Her sister's voice breaking down in frustration, fear. Without Mae, after all, where would her paycheck come from' "Answer the god damned phone, Mae, or I'm calling the cops! You hear me" Answer—"

The machine clicked off. Mae took a finger and traced the buildings through her balcony windows.