Each year the Midwest School of Art and Craft graduates 150 painters, sculptors, illustrators, logo designers, rock guitarists, web animators, and cartoonists. Many become Wells Fargo tellers, Caribou baristas, and Nordstrom floorpeople.
Li-Li Feng was determined not to be one of them.
She was an artist, not a waitress. And she suffered like an artist, or so she imagined, including a failed romance with a filmmaker, another graduate who sold carpet and rolled vinyl for Louie’s Warehouse Direct, Your Best Deal Every Day. Li-Li hadn’t gotten the best deal every day. Or any day.
She moved out. But when she roomed in a warehouse loft with two young women, also former students, she found she made yet another mistake. They thrived on chaos. After sincere attempts to keep up with their alcohol and marijuana-fueled escapades, often involving the seediest dives on Hennepin Avenue where she was invariably left to be pawed over by derelicts, Li-Li threw in the towel. She lacked endurance. Also, quite literally, she was not that kind of girl.
She moved back to the suburbs, into her old bedroom and the loving attention of her parents. Her father was especially concerned. The family had arrived in America as penniless refugees from Vietnam, fleeing the Communist regime’s ethnic persecution. They bought a corner grocery store, then a second, and her father made ends meet by working eighty hours a week. Of Li-Li’s life, he understood nothing. For this she was grateful.
John Schatz is also a refugee. A refugee, one might say, a bit poetically, of the heart. Of all the things he missed, the large home, the power of money, the respect of peers, he most of all missed women.
Li-Li arrived carrying an armful of catalogs. Reba’s new assistant dropped these on her work bench and took off her coat. Her boss sipped coffee from an almost comically oversized cup. It came from a new collection, Big and Bad. Everything was big. The bowls. The plates. The salt and pepper shakers were huge.
Reba walked over. The catalog on top read, Renovation Hardware. She liked their chairs and sofas, the clean and modern lines. “Where did you get these?” she asked.
Li-Li removed her mask and smiled. “Mr. Schatz.”
Coffee sprayed the floor. “You what?”
The young woman put a hand to her mouth.
“When was this?” Reba demanded.
“Yesterday.”
“You saw him yesterday?”
“I went to his office.”
“You mean that warehouse?” she asked. “Off Fillmore?” Schatz had no office, the liar. Years ago he lost all his stores. A friend gave him a desk at Etcetera Furniture’s NE warehouse, in Will-Call. Probably to keep him out of trouble.
Li-Li looked terrified.
“Why would you do that?”
“He called me.”
“What did he tell you?”
“We had coffee. He said I should study end tables.”
Reba was short and to the point. You are not to go over there, young lady. Or meet with him anywhere. John Schatz is a customer. I mean a wholesaler. I mean an agent.
In truth, she didn’t know what John Schatz was.
She put the girl to work pounding the air out of clay. It involved picking up bricks of raw clay and throwing them with a whack against a muslin-wrapped table. Whack! The sound echoed. Reba walked the hallway dialing her phone.
“Reba!” Schatz said, delighted. Whack!
“Don’t you Reba me. What were you doing with Li-Li?”
“Li-Li? Nothing.”
“Then why was she over there?”
“She’s wonderful. You’re very lucky to find her. By the way, were you able to fix that vase?”
“Never mind the vase. Keep your hands off my assistant.”
“Please. She’s younger than my daughters. Much younger.”
“That’s what I mean.”
“I assure you my interest is entirely professional. Young people are the future of our industry.”
“Is that what you call young girls?”
“Young artists, yes.”
As usual you could get nowhere with him. “Don’t bother my staff, John. You and I need to make money. At least I do, and the optics aren’t good.” She used one of his favorite words. Optics.
He chuckled. “I should be mad at all these insinuations. But I’m not. As a matter of fact, I’m flattered. Quite.”
The chutzpah!
Reba hung up, and set herself to arranging pots. Every third Saturday the cooperative threw open doors and allowed the public to roam the halls. Once well-attended, visitors had dwindled to a socially-distanced few.
.
“Knock Knock,” someone said.
Reba straightened up.
It was Catherine Baker. That Catherine Baker, of Baker and Fox, the appliance dealers. They had met once or twice, but shared no social attachment. They were not equals. Catherine was rich, and in her Reba saw all the flaws of the rich. The imperious eyes. The indifference to common problems. Li-Li whacked clay against a table. Whack! It filled the studio.
“Hello, Catherine.”
Though careful to conceal it, Baker liked Reba. The potter was one of the few who weren’t afraid of her. “How is business?”
“Good, actually. I just got off the phone with a dealer.”
Catherine examined vases, in her casual way. “Which dealer, if I may ask?”
“John Schatz.”
“Indeed.”
“You know him?” Reba knew she did.
“Quite well,” Catherine said, then added, as though this was somehow disreputable. “In a professional sense, of course.”
“Of course.”
Li-Li threw another brick. At the sound Catherine raised her chin. “How does Schatz represent you? Out of curiosity.”
“He places my work with collectors.”
“And he’s successful?”
“Occasionally.”
Reba invited her to sit and brought her coffee in a Big and Bad cup. The two sat at a work table. Both women were about forty, Catherine older, perhaps, businesswoman-blonde, expensively dressed with bracelets and rings, attractive in a jaded way. Reba rather liked her. For all her artistic feeling, her disdain for wealth, she admired strength in women.
As for Catherine Baker, people without social prominence seldom interested her. When they did, she scarcely questioned why. ‘We worked together for many years,” Baker told her.
“At Lock and Key.”
“At Lock and Key.”
“I suppose you have stories”
“Too many.”
Reba called for Li-Li to stop throwing clay and the girl began experimenting with one of the wheels, which she was allowed to do on slow days. The soft whir of the motor came on and off.
“He really has nothing,” Catherine said. “The final year, he talked of buying a jet. Now, he doesn’t have a car.”
“He’s got a Mercedes,” Reba said.
“No he doesn’t.”
Reba blinked. So much for the notorious Mr. Schatz.
“Be forewarned. The man is not what he appears.”
Or very much as he appears. “I can handle John Schatz,” Reba said.
“I thought so, too. It was a mistake.”
“How so?”
Catherine sighed. “Two years ago I gave him some business. My company sold a wholesale line of appliances, stoves and refrigerators, to a new high rise under construction. We needed an agent to handle the details, and Schatz seemed like a good choice. And he needed help. Then he promptly involved himself with the developer’s niece, and the whole thing fell apart.”
“Impressive,” said Reba.
“That’s one word.” Catherine examined her cup. “I’m not vindictive. Quite the opposite, I would like to see Mr. Schatz back on his feet. With the proper guardrails, of course.”
“Of course.”
They spoke for thirty minutes about decor, furniture, interior trends like wall color (everyone wanted white). Then Baker said she must be going. She tied her scarf and adjusted her mask. “That’s an unusual cup,” she said, handing it back to Reba.
“It’s from a new line of dinnerware,” Reba said. “We’re getting some interest.”
“May I see?”
She led her to a display. Catherine picked up a large, slightly irregular plate. “Can it be done in lavender?”
“Of course.”
A folded tag showed the price. “I’ll take ten settings.”
“It might be a month.”
“Perfect. Very pale lavender.”
“I know what you mean.”
Baker glanced about the studio. “I hope you don’t mind my saying this,” she said to the potter. “But I enjoy talking with you. Let’s have lunch some time. I have some contacts, if you’re looking for additional exposure.”
Reba said she’d like that very much.
As they walked to the doors they passed a table with a large fractured pot, in jagged pieces. “What’s this?” Catherine asked.
“A vase.”
“What happened?”
“Someone broke it.”
“Who?”
“Schatz.”
Richard Donnelly lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Classic flyover land. Which makes us feel just a little… superior. He publishes a weekly column of essays on the writing life at richarddonnelly.substack.com