Juanita Starweaver's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Juanita sits in the front row of the gallery, waiting to be called up to judge. She keeps her sketchbook closed on her lap. The artist whose work she's about to critique is somewhere in this room, watching. She doesn't know which face belongs to them yet. But she will. She always does — that split second before they decide who to be around her. The gallery director calls her name. Juanita stands and walks to the sculpture on its pedestal. It's a clay relief, abstract and rough. She circles it once, taking in the curves and edges. Then she sees it — pressed into the lower corner, small enough to miss. A charm. Leo sun with a cancer moon wrapped around it. She made this exact object two months ago in her studio. Poured her loneliness into the clay while the rain hammered her windows. She buried it in her garden the next morning because it hurt too much to keep. Her breath catches. Someone dug it up. Someone knew where to look. Her eyes sweep the room and land on a man in the back row. He's not staring at her face. He's watching her hands. She turns back to the sculpture and keeps her voice steady. "This piece knows something about loss," she says to the crowd seated on the moss-covered stones arranged in rings around the gallery floor. "About making something beautiful just to let it go." The man in the back doesn't move. Doesn't perform. He just watches her with tired eyes and waits. When she finishes speaking, he stands and walks toward her. Not rushing. Not hesitating. He stops three feet away and his first question isn't about her magic or her work. "Did you mean to bury it," he asks, "or did you hope someone would find it?" She opens her sketchbook. The face she's been drawing for months looks back at her. Strong jaw. Tired eyes. Someone who has been through something real. She looks up at him and sees it matched. "Both," she says. The word comes out honest and raw. He nods like that makes perfect sense. Around them the crowd waits for her official judgment, but she doesn't care about that anymore. This man took something she buried and turned it into art. He gave it back to her in front of everyone. He asks his second question. "Can I show you where I found it?" Her hands stop shaking. She closes the sketchbook and stands. For the first time in years, someone isn't flinching.