44 Charles Street

With a determined look, she headed down to the kitchen. On her way back up, she put a towel on the banister to absorb the leak. There was nothing else she could do until she told Todd about it in the morning. He was away for the weekend with friends, but he could deal with it when he got home. It was exactly why he wanted to sell the house. He was tired of coping with the problems, and if they weren’t going to live there together, he didn’t want to own it. He wanted out. And if she could find a way to pay him, the problems were going to be all hers, on her own. With a sigh, Francesca walked back upstairs to her bedroom, and promised herself she’d call her stepmother in the morning. Maybe she could think of something that Francesca hadn’t. It was her only hope. She wanted her leaky house and her struggling gallery with its fifteen emerging artists. She had invested four years in both, and no matter what Todd and her mother thought, she refused to give up her dream or her home.

Chapter 2

THE CALL TO Avery was easier to make the next morning than Francesca had expected. Once she spoke to her, she felt better. They chatted for a few minutes and laughed about her father’s latest antics. In many ways, he was charmingly adolescent, which Avery found lovable, and Francesca had learned to forgive his failings as a father. And after an easy exchange Francesca got down to business and told her what was going on. With a catch in her throat, she told her about the breakup with Todd, and her dilemma about the gallery and the house, and how upset she was.

“I’m so sorry to hear it,” Avery said immediately with compassion. “I had a feeling something like that was going on. We haven’t seen much of Todd in the last few months.” In fact, they hadn’t seen him at all, and Francesca had visited them alone in Connecticut several times that summer. She had made excuses for him, but Avery had suspected there was more to it than that. And Henry had said as much himself, but didn’t want to pry and intrude on his daughter, who was always extremely private. “She’ll tell us when she’s ready, if something’s going on,” he had commented to Avery, who agreed with him. So when she heard the news, she wasn’t entirely surprised. “And that’s tough about the gallery and the business. Are you losing money at the gallery?” She wondered if Francesca could sell it.

“Not really. But we’re barely breaking even. I don’t think anyone would buy it with no profit. Todd thinks that if I raised prices, I’d be showing a profit in another two or three years, but he says that if I stick to emerging artists, it’s never going to be a big money-maker, and I really don’t want to start selling bigger artists. That’s a whole different deal and not what I wanted to do when I opened.” She was very idealistic about art, which was one of Todd’s complaints about their business. He wanted to get more commercial to increase what they made, and it was a compromise Francesca hadn’t wanted to make, but she realized that now maybe she’d have to, although she would hate to do it. She loved serious artists, even if they were unknown, and commercial art wasn’t her thing, even if it was Todd’s. She had just acquired a new Japanese artist, who she felt had enormous talent. He had received great reviews on his first show, and she was selling his work for next to nothing. But she didn’t feel she could charge more for an unknown. She was very ethical about what she sold, and how she sold it.

“You may have to compromise a little on your ideals, and sell a few midcareer artists,” Avery told her practically. She had learned a great deal about art from Francesca’s father, and knew a lot about the business end of it. But his art was in a whole different league, and thanks to Avery, his work now sold for huge prices. “Why don’t we talk about the house first? Have you got anything you can sell to raise the money to pay Todd his half?” she asked practically, and Francesca felt miserable. She didn’t. That was the whole problem.

“No, I don’t. I put everything I had into the house. I can barely scrape up my share of the mortgage payments every month. I’ve figured out what I can do about that. I can take in roommates. I think with three, I can make it, which would solve that problem at least.”