Professor Vitebskin did not bother knocking at the door and waiting for admittance. He knew no servant would open it for him as the family was too poor to employ one and anyways, he was supposed to be here. Shelby was expecting him.
He pushed open the door and stepped into the grand, empty atrium brilliantly illuminated by light cascading through the enormous roof opening two stories overhead. The wide, polished, outdated hall table was the only piece of furniture. The two curved staircases rising to the second floor and then the rooftop terrace above framed the space. Their elaborately carved, golden balustrades added just the right, florid touch, glinting in the yellowed sunlight the dome permitted. He turned around slowly, admiring all the blank wall space just waiting to display the paintings of his most favored students. Shelby Bradwell would not be in that august group, although, perhaps, hmm. No, it was far too soon to toss her a crumb this large. She still had many semesters of school to go and he had plenty of time for her. Other sweet young co-eds abounded.
No, he shook his head regretfully. An affair with any student right now might come to the attention of the witch and would cost him dearly in the upcoming divorce. That barren witch, the professor thought grimly, knew quite well how she had supplanted Mrs. Vitebskin number two and was always on the lookout for potential younger, presumably fertile rivals. It would be foolhardy to provide her or her lawyers with ammunition.
'So, pure and unadulterated art it is,' he decided. 'Who would best benefit from being showcased in this marvelous space?'
He stroked his fashionably razored short beard as he considered how the sunshine from far above would flow over the walls, illuminating the paintings in a way that oil lamps never could, followed by a slow, sensuous decline into twilight and velvety gray darkness. Then the oil lamps would be lit, their flickering light showcasing different aspects of the same paintings. Could he persuade the Bradwells to turn on their expensive electric fixtures? They would insist the Collective reimburse them for the cost and that would be an argument he might not win. More seriously, was the quality of electric light as warm and rich as what the oil lamps provided? Electric light was steady and boring, never changing and that made it dull. No, it was better and more aesthetic to not bother. And all the while, no matter what he chose, the opening overhead would continue to provide a soft, low-key glow but it would no longer flood the space with light as it did during the day. Rather, it would act as an unobtrusive focal counterpoint to whatever lighting he chose, there but not there.
It was a demanding and aesthetic challenge, particularly since each painting he selected would not be isolated, to be admired alone, but instead be surrounded by its fellows, competing for the eye of the viewer. Moreover, the paintings he chose for the atrium would set the tone for the rest of the paintings in the ballroom. Which ones should be saved for the grand finale? What paintings could stand alone? Were there those that would only look their best when contrasted with another? What would be the best order of presentation? Paintings would progress from the atrium and around the ballroom so the show would build like a visual symphony, its finale surprising, yet inevitable and correct, when the viewer evaluated what had led to that exact moment.
"Professor Vitebskin, you surprised me," Auntie Neza said, right in his ear. "I didn't hear a knock at the door."
He jumped, his trance broken, disconcerted at how quietly the stooped old lady moved with that tacky cane of hers. She had, for some mysterious reason, chosen a gaudy, shiny hot-pink enamel finish rather than something more appropriately sedate. That pink, the professor thought with a grimace, was a color only suitable for a teenager's nail polish and even then, only when he would never have to personally observe it.
"Veronica told me to come on in," he replied quickly, mentally cursing himself for feeling a twinge of guilt over how he and the PanU Artists' Collective were using the Bradwell family's sole asset. The Collective should have been paying far more for this elegant space and the even more spacious, high-ceiling ballroom than with just door receipts, commissions on any sold paintings, white-washing, and cleaning the building free of Panschin's ubiquitous carpet of terraformers. This space was worth real money.
When Shelby Bradwell had showed up in his studio classrooms, after he had rejected her wretched portfolio, Professor Vitebskin had made a point of finding out how a scholarship needing girl had been able to afford PanU. The bursar's secretary had been deliciously accommodating and told him everything one night after an exhilarating tussle between the sheets. He had then carefully investigated this social-climbing interloper and discovered all the facts about the Bradwell family and what Mr. Bradwell had inflicted on his clients.
It was all very sad.
Shelby Bradwell should have never been admitted by PanU as it showed a distinct lowering of standards on both the social and the artistic levels. Nonetheless, as the Professor admired the ornate crown molding rather than meet the old biddy's piercing gaze, he had to admit Shelby Bradwell's home was useful. She had offered it to the PanU Artists' Collective in exchange for acceptance and they had taken full advantage of her naivety and her family's ignorance of the value contained within the White Elephant.
"Well," Neza Molony said tartly, "I'm glad to know that my niece gave you free range of our home."
"I would never presume otherwise, Ms. Molony," the professor replied. What had happened, he wondered. The old biddy had always been sweet and welcoming at previous shows. She had a new, hostile manner.
He said "I was admiring the atrium. It needs the right paintings, to do it and them justice. The choice of paintings for the entry, where they will be seen first by visitors, should not be a casual or hasty decision."
"Well, I suppose that's true," Neza said, sounding only somewhat mollified.
"It is true. Now about those easel placements. Veronica implied that you needed assistance with setting them up."
"We wouldn't need assistance if those lazy students of yours did more of the work, rather than expecting an old lady like me to do the heavy lifting." She shook her garish cane at him, making him turn his head from the spectacle of it flashing in the roof opening's light.
"I see." Professor Vitebskin frowned awfully as her words penetrated the shiny pink slashes her cane burned across his retinas. "More shirking. We'll see about that."
He strode off towards the ballroom entrance thinking angrily of the Collective work party he had sent ahead to get the place set up. Those fools. Didn't they understand how important a show like this was? He had been running adverts in all the important journals, posters had been tacked up all over Panschin, and deep-pocketed collectors would be attending to see the new crop of artists. Most importantly, everyone who saw the show would acknowledge his own genius for recognizing and nurturing new, groundbreaking talent. The artists he mentored today would fill the museums and collections of tomorrow, lauded by the ages, and every one of those artists would know who they owed their careers to: it would be him, Professor Lemuel Vitebskin with his golden eye for artistic aptitude, that's who.
He stopped just short of the ballroom entrance and watched silent and unnoticed, fuming at what he saw. Neza had been correct on all counts. She had no idea, even after several shows' worth of practice, how to set up an easel for display as evidenced by the ones laying on their sides. Most of the easels sent ahead were still waiting to be unpacked, despite the work crew being fully briefed on what to do. Worse, while Shelby was struggling to open a crate, half-heartedly assisted by that feckless poseur, Kip McGrant, everyone else he had delegated was standing around gossiping. Worst of all, not a single painting had been unwrapped and placed on an easel to allow him to make the critical decisions about placement. They stood, still encased in their shipping cocoons, in anonymous stacks.
Professor Vitebskin snarled silently at the ballroom, coldly furious. His time was extremely valuable. It was not to be wasted setting up easels or unpacking paintings. That work was for other people, people who were still on the bottom rung of the ladder of success. Every one of those students knew he made careers but did they care? Apparently not.
Neza, standing beside him, hissed, "See? Only my Shelby wants to make the PanU Artists' Collective show a success. She's the reason anything got done at all. Every time there's a show, the Collective sends over lazier students. Who chose those kids anyway?"
Professor Vitebskin had hand-picked the delegation currently milling about uselessly but he wasn't about to admit such a thing to the old biddy.
He stepped forward, clapped his hands sharply and yelled "What is the meaning of this? I expected results, not this shirking and lazing about!"
Everyone he was watching gasped, started in shock, stared at him in horror – many of them recalling suddenly that their participation in the exhibition was being graded – and sprang into action. As he and Neza watched, the crates were rapidly crowbarred open, easels assembled, and paintings unpacked. As the Collective worked feverishly, Professor Vitebskin tapped his gaspingly expensive watch (a genuine heirloom from Olde Earthe) pointedly.
"We have a show to put on, people. A show! Important patrons will attend this show, see your paintings, and decide if any of you students are capable enough artists that they want your art hanging in their homes," he announced, spurring still greater efforts.
The professor strode around the ballroom as his students slaved, watching intently to see who was particularly diligent. Shelby, he noted with disgust, worked the hardest. She had the smallest amount of talent in the room -- even less than the buffoon Kip who had abandoned her to suck up to a girl more important but less attractive -- and was the least likely person present to sell a painting or acquire a patron. Yet did his more talented protégées work harder, striving for the glittering reward that lay before them? They did not.
You would think, Professor Vitebskin thought with even more disgust as he passed a slacker who he had believed would excel, they didn't care about a career in the fine arts and were just passing the time while they wasted their parents' money. It was depressing, spending years of his life trying to nurture talent and this half-hearted effort was the result.
Ingratitude, that's what it was, and frustrating to boot. At least none of the current crop of ungrateful little lackwits showed any of the sneakiness of Clyde Monez. He now knew what to watch out for. He had made careful overtures to the instructors in the PCC commercial arts department, offering them a chance to show their own, personal efforts (pitiful though they were). In exchange, they promised to inform him if any of his students were subverting a calling towards high art by prostituting themselves on the altar of commerce.
Professor Vitebskin smiled grimly -- alarming the student who caught his expression into rearranging a previously perfectly placed painting -- thinking of his former protégé's betrayal. If he ever caught any of his students slumming in the commercial arts, he'd toss them out of his studio forthwith. If they wanted a career drawing ladies' shoes for department store adverts, they didn't belong at PanU, taking up precious space. His studio and his instruction were reserved for serious artists, not commercial hacks.
********
Hours later, the easels had been finally arranged to Professor Vitebskin's satisfaction and most of them contained paintings. The ballroom and the entry hall had been swept clean again, removing all traces of packing material and student effort. The exterior of the White Elephant was as white as it could be, short of a fresh coat of whitewash and that wasn't on the schedule for this exhibition. The gravel walks had been re-raked by a grumbling student, a sop the professor threw to Veronica after she pointed out that she would have to re-rake them to make them sparkle and she wasn't sure if she had the time to get to the job.
Professor Vitebskin addressed the gathering of students, Veronica, Shelby, and auntie Neza in the entry hall from his position on the second-floor landing. He gazed down at the crowd anxiously awaiting his verdict.
"The display looks," he paused for effect, "acceptable."
The waiting crowd, tired and wrung out, breathed out a collective sigh of relief.
"For now."
The crowd wilted. Veronica managed to keep from groaning out loud. Neza frowned at the floor and worried over how soon she could get some more liniment for her joints from Florence. Shelby squeezed her eyes shut and wished the other students would leave. More than one person had asked her if she was related to 'that Bradwell'. The gossip was apparently spreading at last.
When the muttering subsided, Professor Vitebskin said, "I will return tomorrow afternoon before the show to arrange the last, few paintings from some of our graduates. Those will be delivered tomorrow. I will, at that time, make any last-minute corrections in placement. These members of the Collective," he rattled off a list of names and the time, "must be here to assist me. I expect everyone in class tomorrow morning. No more shirking! I expect much better than this from the future artists of Panschin. Do not disappoint me."
Professor Vitebskin then descended the staircase slowly, watching his students for any signs of disgruntlement. Those malcontents would have to exhibit stellar workmanship in the future to offset their laziness today. Actions had consequences and it was time they learned that fact. He took his leave of the Bradwells and headed out the door of the White Elephant.
He strode along the streets, whistling cheerfully all the way back to the PanU campus, secure in the knowledge of a job well done. Tomorrow, Professor Vitebskin knew, would be a superior show. He would make it happen.
Back at the White Elephant, Veronica took charge as soon as the door closed behind the professor. She did not want to give anyone a chance to escape before she had her say.
"You guys the professor said to report tomorrow? I expect you to be early! Not. On. Time. Early! There's still plenty of work to do and I want this place immaculate when the professor arrives." She pointed her finger at each of the previously named students in turn, starting with the outside crew. "Now get out of here and close the gate behind you."
Veronica then positioned herself carefully on the right-side staircase, across from Neza, and watched the PanU Artists' Collective leave the White Elephant through narrowed eyes. Not one person spoke to Shelby standing by the door, smiling and holding it open for their exits. Not a word of thanks, not a good-bye, not a statement of 'I'll see you tomorrow'. Her sister might have been a parlor maid for all the consideration she received. Veronica watched, stone-faced, as Shelby's own face slowly fell and sadness settled on it.
Shelby knew how she was regarded by the other students in the PanU art department and now Veronica knew too.
***
At the end of evening, after Shelby had fallen into bed, Veronica spoke quietly to Auntie Neza.
"It's settled in my mind. As soon as you can, I want you to talk to the bursar's office about PCC. Maybe we can get Shelby out of that pile of tailings. No wonder she was ready to quit and scrub floors in Dome Six."
Neza fumed, "the nerve of those students. This is our home and not one word of thanks to Shelby or to us do we get. I don't see any of their families opening their home to a parade of strangers to look at ugly paintings."
"Nope," Veronica replied. "I wonder if we should host the Collective again. I do get the White Elephant swept down from top to bottom, even white-washed, but it's such a hassle dealing with the Collective, those awful paintings, and Vitebskin lording over us all. I was sure it would help Shelby but, well …." Her voice trailed off.
"I don't think it does," Neza said slowly. "Not any more. I'll make an appointment for first thing next week."
"Do that. Get some sleep. Tomorrow's going to be a long day, what with the show and all."
Neza suddenly smiled at her great-niece. "It will be a better day, dear girl. We deserve one."
Veronica laughed, suddenly cheerful again. "Yep, a new day so why not a better one? It could happen."
****
Shelby grimly endured the morning's classes. She was no longer just Shelby Bradwell, poor and talentless hack. She had become, overnight, Shelby Bradwell, daughter of the notorious Simon Bradwell, problem gambler, thief, swindler, liar and embezzler, who then suicided rather than face justice in the courts of Panschin or confront his defrauded victims. The fact that Shelby had nothing to do with her father's investment business or his crimes didn't matter at all. Wherever she went on the campus -- the classrooms, the hallways, the cafeteria, the studio, even the grassy quad -- the whispers and finger-pointing followed her. Everyone knew who she was now, making the quiet anonymity of being ignored become a huge pleasure in retrospect.
The instructors were better behaved. They had the decency to wait until she left their presence to rehash old stories.
It was with relief that Shelby left the campus for the long walk home to the White Elephant. She didn't wait around today for Lulu and Florence. Even though she would see many of the students from the Collective again at home, she'd have some peace before they arrived for the final preparations. Afterwards? Well. Shelby fumed as she walked along, ignoring for the first time ever the flamboyant pansies spilling from the planters and smiling up at her. Maybe it was time to quit hosting the PanU Artists Collective. She'd still have to gut out the remaining semesters that Neza had paid for but she wouldn't have to have those people in her home ever again.
The question Shelby chewed over as she walked along, head down, was would Veronica agree? The money from the door receipts was needed, far more desperately than she had realized. Plus, Veronica got plenty of free labor. They would have never been able to keep the White Elephant white-washed or its exterior walls swept clean without the Collective doing those tasks. Their donated hard work allowed her sister to wring out every bit of energy from the sunshine the dome permitted through. The less prepossessing vegetables she grew were food for their own table while the more attractive specimens earned coin at the Dappled Yak, coin that Veronica used to pay the lease. That meant the Collective paid twice.
It would be awful, whichever way Veronica chose. As she walked through the small downtown area, Shelby noticed the Dappled Yak. The restaurant had a sign in their window advertising fresh, locally grown vegetables. They were Veronica's vegetables, although the sign didn't say so.
She stopped and sighed wistfully, staring through the plate glass window at the small round tables filling the room. She had never eaten there, never even gone inside past the back door to the kitchen when she helped Veronica make a delivery. Each table had a cheerful yellow gingham tablecloth, a vase with a bright red zinnia, and many of those tables had customers. Maybe the Dappled Yak would take her on as a waitress. She could do the minimum effort required by the university, work an afternoon or evening shift waiting tables, and help keep the wolf from the door. Then Shelby noticed some people she recognized from PanU sitting around a table, laughing at some joke. She'd be a joke, waiting on people who would despise her still more. It hurt to think about, but the same chance of discovery lurked if she worked almost anywhere in Dome Six. At the Dappled Yak, she'd be closer to home, closer to escape.
Shelby shuddered, then jerked away from the window and plodded home, her head down. The day couldn't end soon enough for her, but the gallery showing meant that she had hours and hours to endure before she could fall into bed and oblivion.
***
Malcolm Cobb lingered over his tea, the last of his lunch, and a slice of wintenberry pie to come. He'd taken to enjoying an early lunch at the Dappled Yak. He could afford it, it was convenient, he had to eat anyway, and it got him out of the branch office of the bank. It hadn't taken him long to realize he didn't want to eat with his new colleagues. They watched him like hawks, looking for any fault in his table manners. It got tiring to be on guard all the time, particularly when he suspected he had to meet higher standards than they did.
The food at the Dappled Yak was very good and he was coming to recognize how fresh the salad vegetables were. They didn't have that off-taste that said they'd been shipped in days before from the open-air steppes farms far to the south or the metallic pong seasoning everything that came from the hydroponics facility. It was far too early in the season, or so the waitress said, to get fresh food from Panschin's own farms. The steppes were still iced over, trapped in the thrall of the endless Martian winter. But the Dappled Yak, she noted with pride, had fresh vegetables supplied by a local grower.
He thought about that as he sipped his tea. A local grower. Who could that be? Did that grower's lease belong to the Second National Bank of Panschin? Agriculture was one of the many things that had never been supposed to happen in Dome Two; ornamental gardening was fine since that demonstrated good taste and money to spare. Malcolm had been immersed in leases since his arrival at the local branch office. He had been reviewing them, starting with the ones coming up for renewal, and figuring out what the wording meant.
Leases here were stranger than what he had studied in school, as most of them dated back to Dome Two's earliest days when it was assumed only the wealthiest people would live here and they would never move. Many of those leases had been modified extensively. But the bottom line said the lease holders could not do whatever they damn well pleased. They had to get permission first if they wanted to do something that was not in accordance with the lease.
Did this grower ask for permission? He picked up the last radish and bit into it thoughtfully, relishing the sharp, peppery taste.
How flexible could he be in a negotiation? He would have to persuade his supervisor who was already proving to be troublesome to work with. Desmond Wong didn't like change, probably because any improvements in how the local branch was run would demonstrate exactly how incompetent he was in running the place. The other hacks in the office were much the same. They worked every day in the same way, like wheels turning in a comfortable and familiar rut. None of them were going places. All of them held onto their jobs because of inertia and family connections.
It would be a shame to shut down a local grower who provided vegetables like this. This local grower, whoever he was, was quite likely one of the reasons the Dappled Yak stayed in business. The tiny business district depended on supplying local customers since no one came here from outside of Dome Two to shop or dine.
He would have to be careful, Malcolm realized. He wanted to demonstrate the value inherent within Dome Two, not damage existing businesses. It hadn't taken long to see how many of the local shops were hanging on by their fingernails. During his short time living in Dome Two, he had come to enjoy the openness, the freedom to walk around through the vast interior, and the fascinating mix of high culture and seedy bohemians. The cultural amenities were amazing and most of the time, they sat empty.
A movement at the window caught his eye. He put down his fork and stared, his slice of wintenberry pie forgotten. There she was again, the brown haired, willowy beauty he saw sometimes when he was out exploring Dome Two. Her hair caught the light, making a fluffy cloud framing her beautiful face. Unusually, she was alone, not with her two regular girlfriends. More unusually, she looked miserable.
He wondered again who she was.
Malcolm had seen her several times now. Each time he saw her, he felt his heart wrench. He had figured out that she was probably a student at PanU based on where he usually saw her, coming and going about her business. Once he had spotted her sitting cross-legged in front of a planter of flowers, drawing something in a sketchpad. Like always, she wore a neat, clean coverall, like so many people in Panschin did, but she didn't look to him like a low-caste girl from the mines. The way she carried herself said upper-caste. Her profile, her slim hands, her beautifully even deep blue-green complexion; they all said she was not the kind of girl who would ever talk to a jumped-up scholarship boy from the mines.
How could a beauty like that be miserable?
He knew what those girls were like. He'd met enough sisters and cousins of the upper-caste boys he shared classroom space with, first in various prep schools and then at the Panschin School of Business. Those charmed girls floated through their golden lives, insulated from any kind of hardship or pain. Those girls never gave him the time of day. He didn't exist for them. Except when he did and no one was there to watch a princess from a tower in Dome Six indulge in some fun, safe slumming with a bad boy she wasn't supposed to meet. Malcolm smirked at the window, remembering. He'd had plenty of fun too, but it was riskier for him, since he had more to lose. Unlike him, those girls wouldn't end up in the Dirac mines on trumped up charges. It was risky, but worth it.
This girl though. He could feel his heart seize in his chest again as he watched her expressive, woebegone face. He smiled warmly at her, standing on the sidewalk on the other side of a sheet of glass, but she didn't see him. She never saw him. He didn't exist for her either.
He made a move to stand up. This time he would introduce himself, and not stand there tongue-tied. He, Malcolm Cobb, may have been a scholarship boy from the mines but he had real value. He was smart, he worked hard, he was ambitious, he was fit, he was attractive in a rough-hewn sort of way (a classmate's sister had told him that in bed), and not one girl he'd ever been with had a problem with his company. They came back for more.
But as Malcolm stood up, another expression flashed across her face as she stared inside the restaurant at another table of customers. She turned away from the window and vanished down the street, without ever noticing him. He was invisible, a man made of glass, and she didn't see him.
He sat back down again, his heart aching. He saw her. Malcolm stared down at the table lost in thought. Next time, he would introduce himself to that pensive beauty and then, perhaps, she would see him.
The chipper waitress came by, happy to flirt again with a good-looking customer. He was no longer feeling flirtatious, so he paid his tab and left the Dappled Yak to stand on the street, staring down it to where he thought his Dome Two princess went. He wouldn't hesitate next time.
In the meantime, he had work to do.
He had been seeing posters tacked up all over the business district for a gallery showing of fine art presented by the PanU Artists' Collective. Normally, Malcolm wouldn't have bothered with an art show but according to the posters, this one was located in a house in Dome Two and not at the university. The street address indicated the house was a property leased from the Second National Bank of Panschin. This was a chance to go inside one of the leased properties without anyone knowing who he was and getting a better feel for the needs and activities of Dome Two residents. If he showed up at the door as himself, the assistant manager of the bank, he'd be allowed in but it was doubtful anyone would be friendly and willing to talk.
The show was tonight and he was fairly sure he knew which house. It was the surprisingly well-kept white house that had real plants growing in the tiny garden. In the meantime, he would dig out the lease from its tomb in the wall of filing cabinets, confirm his suspicion as to whether or not the house was one of his, and read it through to discover what was allowed and what was not.
Reading fine print would be a good distraction and keep him from thinking about her, who she was, and why she was so unhappy. And that look on her face, the very last one he saw before she turned away and darted down the street without ever seeing him. Was it fear?