Cut to the Chase Read Free Page A

work.
    Upstairs, Hollis studied the large canvas. The day before, she’d saturated sheets of tissue paper with a transparent water colour. Now she tore the paper into smaller pieces and coated each fragment with the acrylic medium she used as an adhesive before layering it on the canvas. Laying the paper pieces over the gold paint allowed the gold to partially shine through. She wanted the viewer to wonder what lay beneath. She stood back and shook her head. What a mess. Tempted to grab a wide, commercial paint brush, slather white gesso over the entire surface and begin again, she resisted the urge and took her brushes to the sink in her tiny minimalist kitchen. Better to forget the painting for the time being and work on it later. Maybe inspiration would filter into her subconscious while she did something else.
    Something that made money. Dollars and cents mattered now that she’d relinquished a regular paycheque from the Ottawa community college where she’d taught history.
    She moved carefully to her work space, a long trestle table set up on one side of the room. Being almost six feet tall, she had stopped bumping her head on the sloping roof only after several weeks of living in the small apartment.
    At the trestle table, she created life-size papier-mâché animals. Mostly cats and dogs, but there was a waiting list for parrots and other birds. Although she loved malevolent crows, brightly coloured macaws appealed to a wider audience. The craft store on Yorkville Avenue sold them as fast as she produced them and charged astronomical sums. These beings weren’t “art”, but they engaged her energy, and she enjoyed the creative process. Each animal acquired a personality as she worked. When she finished but before she sent the creatures into the world, she attached appropriate name tags.
    Chickens, a flock of five, sat partially assembled on the oilcloth-covered table. She finished wrapping and stapling chicken wire around their wooden frames and reached into the container of thin plastic gloves. These not only protected her hands, they also allowed her to dip paper strips into paste without feeling the paste’s slimy consistency. She applied a first coat of paper strips.
    Not her day.
    The last chicken, supposed to have its head down and tail up as if pecking in the dirt, was lopsided. She ripped off the paper and pried the wooden frame apart. Before she forgot, she scribbled “Buy eyes” on her shopping list. The chickens would look great with beady black eyes. Buttons would do, but eyes would be better. The doll hospital sold a good variety. The question was, would buyers like chickens with blue or green or even violet eyes? Hollis felt her mood lighten when she considered making them with a variety of colours. Maybe she’d name the group—chicks flick eye tricks. Different rhymes, some scatological, raced through her mind, and she laughed aloud. Oops, this was scary. She definitely needed to get out more if this was the kind of conversation she was having with herself.
    While she cleaned up, she listened to the noon news on the radio.
    Lunch time. She headed downstairs. MacTee bounded ahead of her.
    When she knocked on the shiny black door, she noted a patina of small handprints on the lower half. Maintaining a pristine house and a happy toddler were mutually exclusive goals. She smiled. Invited to enter, she stepped into the kitchen, which was immediately to the left of the front hall. The entryway’s cream-painted wainscotting continued in the kitchen. The glass-fronted cupboards with old-fashioned brass knobs, green slate floor and green granite countertops gave the room a warm country kitchen appeal. Elizabeth, bibbed and waiting, sat in the high chair beside an antique pine table.
    â€œHi Howis, hi Tee.” Elizabeth accompanied her greeting with a barrage of spoon-banging on her high chair tray.
    â€œSorry if I’m late. Sometimes time escapes me when