Struck by Lightning. Christa Maurice

shrugged. “I guess you’ll just have to start walking the neighborhood.”

      “I might.”

      * * * *

      Rebecca walked into the gallery the next morning to find Max and Bess already there, moving things around. Tall, lanky Max was doing most of the labor, while Bess, shorter and thicker did the bossing around. Lack of sleep had Rebecca’s eyes feeling like sandpaper and she wasn’t up to gallery politics this morning. She’d been awake most of the night listening to the rain on the roof. This morning she had pulled on jeans, a t-shirt and an embroidered vest in her hurry to get to the gallery in time to open it.

      “My, my Rebecca, don’t we look perky this morning.” Bess sneered.

      Rebecca dropped her bag under the desk and kicked off her shoes before she headed to the coffee pot. “What are you guys doing?” she asked when she had a cup firmly in hand and half-finished.

      “Little change of scenery,” Max said.

      Rebecca nodded, only now realizing that all but one of her pieces had been moved to the back of the gallery while most of Bess’s occupied prime wall space right up front. She retreated to the desk to wait for them to leave. Once they left she could move things around so they were more equitable again.

      “There’s a woman from the paper coming by,” Max announced.

      Bess hissed at him.

      “Oh?” Rebecca asked. That would explain the sudden move in the gallery. “How come?” she asked as innocently as possible.

      “She’s reviewing us for the paper.” Max started juggling three of his ceramic shelf goblins. Rebecca watched them rise and fall, waiting for the inevitable drop and smash.

      “Will you stop that,” Bess snapped. “We don’t have time to clean up after you. Help me move this.” She stood next to the case containing Edie’s jewelry.

      Max caught all his goblins without dropping any and lined them up on the shelf before helping Bess move the case back two feet so it butted against his shelf.

      “Bess, are you going to leave anything up front?” Rebecca asked. She walked over to Max’s goblins. They were oddly cute little monsters and sold quite well. He somehow managed to get a different and appropriate expression on each little face. The one he called Trouble had his legs hanging over the edge of the shelf and crossed at the ankles and was twiddling his thumbs trying desperately to look innocent. She picked up Trouble and turned him over in her hands. His expression reminded her of that firefighter last night. Fiendishly virtuous. “Hey Max?”

      “What?” Bess had him up on a ladder hanging another watercolor that had been in the back room. He stood on top of the ladder with the screwdriver dangling from his hand and a mouthful of screws.

      “Can I have this?”

      “You want Trouble?”

      Rebecca sighed. “I have trouble. I just want this little guy.”

      “Why are you taking stuff out of stock?” Bess demanded. “You can’t just take stuff out of the gallery stock like that.”

      “I asked if I could have him.”

      “What are we supposed to sell?”

      Rebecca looked around the room pointedly. “It looks like we’re supposed to sell watercolor landscapes.”

      Bess scowled. “I’m trying to make the place look good for the woman from the paper.”

      “Claudia Sanchez.” Rebecca snapped her fingers. She smirked. Bess used to be a likable, pleasant person to be around, but the gallery had brought out a previously unknown competitive streak. When they first opened, she had been outselling everyone else with her inoffensive, competent landscapes, but when Rebecca had turned to high art and been discovered by the local art crowd Bess had stopped being the gallery star and started being a huge pain.

      “Claudia Sanchez?”

      “The art reviewer at the paper. She bought one of my pieces the other day.”

      “She what?”

      “She bought one of my pieces. Look at the log.” Rebecca gestured to the desk where they kept the sales log so they would know at the end of the month how much commission each of them was owed. “So Max, can I have this guy or not?’

      Bess stalked over to the desk and flipped through the log.

      “You can have it,” Max said from the top of the ladder.

      Rebecca smiled and ran her thumb along the edge of Trouble’s ear. Behind her she could hear Bess grumbling. She carried her goblin to the desk and slipped him inside her bag. “You know, this does look nicer. The floor is so open now.” She walked across the middle of the gallery and stopped in front of the window. “Hey Max, could you run a wire across the window about a third of the way from the ceiling that we could hang a couple of Edie’s necklaces from? I think they would catch the light really nicely.”

      “I have to go to work.” Bess slammed out the front door.

      “Why do you do that to her?” Max asked when the windows stopped rattling.

      “Because she makes it so easy.” Rebecca shrugged. “I want to move the jewelry case back where it was too. Why do you let her talk you into this stuff when you know I’m just going to make you move it back?”

      Max shrugged and straightened the watercolor he’d just hung. “So you want a wire across the window?”

      A customer walked in, so Rebecca went to work helping her while Max moved the jewelry case back. By the time the woman left, having purchased two of Max’s larger goblins as bookends, Max had the wire strung. Rebecca climbed on the window’s deep sill to start hanging a few of Edie’s larger necklaces. She had three clasped around her neck to keep her hands free.

      “You have students this afternoon?” Max asked.

      “I have a student this afternoon.” Her student, Monica Raines, had been taking lessons for two years. Monica didn’t want to be a professional, she just wanted to be good at her hobby. Rebecca suspected she also wanted to contribute to Rebecca’s income. She looked out the window. The owner of the second-run movie theater across the street was changing the marquee, and the woman who owned the newsstand next to the theater was putting up a new window display. A group of people walked out of Meechan’s Kitchen. Not many people roamed on the sidewalks at this time of day, but school would be out pretty soon and they would have to chase kids out of the gallery before they broke stuff.

      A blond guy ambled along the sidewalk looking at the shops with interest. Rebecca took another necklace off her neck and reached up to hang it in the window without taking her eyes off the guy. They didn’t have a lot of trouble in the neighborhood, but everybody tended to keep an eye on suspicious people too. She watched him turn slowly, taking in the bank and the grocery store. Just as he focused on the gallery, she recognized him. Leaping out of the window, she bounced a few steps into the gallery so she stood in shadow where he wouldn’t see her.

      The professional hero. What was he doing strolling down the street so intently today? She didn’t remember ever seeing him around before. In fact, she didn’t remember ever seeing him before last night. He wasn’t looking for her, was he? Her heart skipped, but she wasn’t sure if it was with hope or fear.

      “What’s the matter?” Max asked. He looked out the window.

      “Nothing,” Rebecca said. Her face felt hot. He was still standing under the marquee of the theater staring down the street at the library or the apartment building next to it. He certainly did look like he was searching for something. Or someone.

      Max walked closer to the window and peered out. “It didn’t look like nothing.”

      “Get out of the window.” Rebecca grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled