The Masterpiecers (Masterful #1) Read Free Page B

When I wake up, I don’t feel rested, but I don’t feel as horrid as I’ve felt this past week.
    I take in Manhattan. The waning sun softens the sharp edges of the buildings. Gray, white, beige, glass, and metal collide in a lovely, linear landscape. I snap a mental picture of everything to reproduce with fabric when I get home…or maybe on the show.
    The car lurches to a stop at a red light. Danny spins around. “Oh, you’re not sleeping! I was worried I was going to have to wake you. I hate interrupting someone’s peace. Although you didn’t sound too peaceful.”
    I frown.
    “You were mumbling all these things.”
    “Like what?”
    “I couldn’t understand much. Heard the words man and quilt a couple times.”
    I concentrate on the outside world to forget my inside world.
    “Must be the stress from the competition,” he says when I don’t speak for a long time.
    “Yeah.”
    When we pull up, there are swarms of people with flailing arms and smartphones propped in the air.
    “Ready, sweets?”
    “Ready.”
    He smiles and hops out his door to open mine. “I got your back.” He extends one arm.
    “I’m good,” I tell him, pushing out of the car, but he keeps his arm over me anyway. The stench of wool and perspiration prickles my nostrils.
    I hear my name. It’s being screamed left and right. I also hear number eight hollered. I raise my eyes and get lost in the grand stone building before me. Voices and street noise die away. It’s just me and the block-long museum I’ve longed to visit since my early teens.
    “My wife just saw us on the news,” the driver says, pocketing his phone. “She’d like an autograph. Can you do me the honor?” He already has a pen and a dollar bill out.
    As we push into the museum, I sign my name across the creased green and white paper.
    “Break a leg, Eight.”
    And then he leaves through the revolving doors and I’m alone in the mammoth entrance, underneath a row of carved columns holding up a mezzanine. I step further inside, looking up and around like Charlie when he entered Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. The walls stretch up neck-breakingly high, vaulting together into giant arches and wrapping around magnificent skylights. The octagonal desk at the center of the space has been turned into a giant vase enclosing a landscaped mound of orchids, peonies, and calla lilies.
    “Thought you’d never make it.” A woman in jeans, a black tee, and a headpiece is standing right in front of me.
    I didn’t hear her approach.
    “We got to get going. The show starts in an hour. Follow me. Number Eight’s in the building, Jeb.” I don’t see anyone else around, so I assume she’s speaking into her mic. When we arrive in front of an elevator, she says, “I’m Cara, your assistant.” The doors open and we step in, and then they close and we’re whisked away from the beautiful lobby. “You’ll be on the third floor throughout most of the competition. The other floors are off limits, unless you’re escorted there. Receptions and events will take place in the Temple Room. I’ll be accompanying you everywhere.” She pushes her short, bottle-blonde hair behind her ear to clear her mouthpiece. Her roots are shockingly black.
    The elevator pings and the doors open. Cara goes right. I follow. We continue down a short hallway toward an open doorway. The walls inside the vast room are wainscoted wood with a repetition of pale rectangular patches at eye level—probably where paintings were hung.
    “They removed the artwork for insurance reasons,” she explains when she notices me studying the walls. “Your prep table’s over there. Number eight.”
    There are eight stations with the same three-sided mirrors adorned with round light bulbs. The numbers stick out above the top of the mirrors, large and gold—impossible to miss. People are milling around. Most are dressed casually and sport the same headpieces as my assistant, though I spot some sitting in front of