Art and The Artist

(This one is inspired by a great friend’s great suggestion.)

Art hadn’t broken a single law in his 65 years of life. He barely even broke the rules.

But this didn’t seem to fall under either of those categories. The mayor hadn’t said anything about entering buildings. The company hadn’t said anything about locking down the office. He’d heard that an an email was sent to the official staff about working from home, indefinitely. But Art couldn’t work from home. His work required the office. It was the office.

“Arty, this stroke is your blessing in disguise,” Helen had said. And she was right. Six years ago he got pulled off the pressure-cooker car parts line for the set-your-own pace world of cleaning. Their neighbor three floors down ran a team that did five midtown office buildings. They’d just picked up a sixth and needed a new guy. Art took the job. 300 Madison Avenue. 10th Floor. 44 blocks from his apartment. The walk there would be his daily cardio. The work inside would help with his strength. Helen didn’t like the idea of it, so she made him wear one of those silly buttons that you press to call 9-1-1. He tucked it under the polo shirt with his neighbor’s company name so no one would see.

Helen had cleaned houses on the weekends when their children were young so she showed him the ropes and tricks. A wet paper towel leaves streaks, a wet cotton rag does not. Vacuum in a square, dust in a circle. And the one he could never seem to follow, never stop to look at their things or you’ll never finish.

Art started his shift after the company employees went home. He was supposed to finish the entire floor in two hours, 7-9PM. It typically took him three, but was easily four around the holidays when the Christmas cards arrived. Where was the Jacobs family photographed that had so much bamboo?? Why did a Katie and a Mike name a baby Mississippi?? Did Grandma Jackie live with the Katz’s? If so, why did she get her own photo square on the back??

Art rarely saw the actual people who received these mysterious cards, but he knew some of them like the guys on his old assembly line. There was the VP with the thousand post-it notes. The assistant with the collection of road race medals. The HR exec with the cacti she thought she kept alive but Art saved every day. And his favorite - though he was careful not to admit it with extra cleaning of her space - the girl with the desk at the window who drew what she saw outside. The Artist.

A pile of taxis. A hot dog stand. A duckling-row of kids. One time she did a perfect replica of the giant billboard for the latest Marvel movie. Another it was a sketch of the guy that sat in the office window directly across her way. Maybe she likes him? Maybe she knows him?? Maybe she’s going to leave this office job to pursue her art with him by her side??

“Art the Artist!” his shift-mates used to joke. “Every screw perfectly placed, no matter how much it backs us up!”

He’d roll his eyes and wave them off. Art didn’t paint or draw or even have a nice camera for photographs, but he did take pride in the details of his work. He did consider every car that came down the line his canvas. That’s why he loved The Artist. She took the time to stop and look while everyone else just kept rushing.

He saw her once, months before the city shut down. She was still there at 7PM when he arrived to start his shift. Art froze at the sight of her sitting in her usually empty chair. He’d had no idea what she looked like; her desk never featured any photos. But he wasn’t surprised by what he saw: long dark hair; soft peach skin; a tall, strong frame. She would definitely look at home in front of an easel.

Art didn’t say hello. He couldn’t speak to her without confessing his love of her work, and that would mean admitting the breach of his own. So he watched as she sat hunched over her desk finishing what must have been a very complicated assignment. She was deeply focused. She was clearly struggling. She didn’t get up until 8PM and when she did, Art noticed that she’d been crying.

Damn these high-pressure jobs, he thought. What kind of world do we live in that a young woman needs to be alone and upset in some midtown office this late into the night? He watched her gather her things and walk slowly toward the elevator, all the while wanting to reach out and give her the kind of hug he’d give his daughter Sasha after her own tough days.

Once The Artist was gone, Art went to her cube. The paper she’d just finished toiling over was sitting in the middle of the desk. He wanted to pick it up and throw it in his large, rolling trash bin. To say, whatever’s keeping you from your art is garbage. But as he got closer he realized that it was one of her sketches. She had been bent over for extra hours, teary-eyed as she drew.

Art couldn’t place the image from what he saw outside her window, or even around her space. It was a portrait, but not of anyone he’d ever seen in any photo inside the other cubes. And it couldn’t have been someone through another building’s window; it was too close-up. Plus, Art realized, the subject was far too old to be among the mid-town office set - a woman that could very easily have been in her ‘90s given all the perfect wrinkles The Artist had added to her sweet, smiling face.

This wasn’t something she’d seen with her eyes as she looked around the room; it was someone she knew in her heart. And quite possibly, Art now understood, someone she’d just lost.

By 7PM next day The Artist was gone, but the sketch of her beloved someone was now pinned inside the bulletin board just beside her desk. Whoever she was, The Artist needed her nearby - an ink and pen guardian angel.

This was one of the sights Art could not imagine missing when his neighbor reported that the office was closing, indefinitely. The cleaning team was on temporary leave. He could afford to pay one month severance, then Art could apply for unemployment to ride things out until life went back to normal.

But Art’s life relied on his current normal. He needed his 40 minute walk down 3rd Avenue. He had to push the heavy vacuum for strength in his back and upper arms. And what would happen to the HR woman’s cacti? His neighbor never asked for the office swipe card back. And there was no security guard to stop him when Art showed up at the service entrance door.

So he kept going. Every single night. From 7-9PM.

It was easier to clean because nothing got dirty. All the trash cans stayed empty. There were no coffee rings on any desks. Soon he was finishing the shift in just under an hour, which meant far less exercise than normal. He had to make up for it somehow. There would be no more strokes.

At first Art tried to do his old calisthenics from his time in the army. Push-ups, sit-ups, a few jumping jacks. But that proved a little too challenging. Next he tried out doing all his cleaning twice, but he realized he’d run out of supplies that way, and re-stocking was tricky for more than one reason. So Art decided the simplest plan was to extend his walk. He would go the 40 blocks from home to work, then 40 more from work to the village, then take the subway back up. A little pumping of the arms and some high steps would help with muscle. Maybe he’d even steal those weights Helen wore like puffy bracelets.

Art discovered the park on his third walk downtown. It was hidden just to the left of the subway station that took him back home. Just inside was a relic from his childhood in this very city: a tiny, rolling ice cream cart. Helen had taken him off sweets after the stroke, but surely all this extra walking earned him one cone a week? He decided he’d walk at a quicker pace tomorrow to make extra sure he earned the treat.

That’s when he saw her - The Artist. His Artist.

She was sitting on a bench opposite the ice cream cart with her own ice cream cone - vanilla and chocolate swirl. And just like she was on the day he saw her in the office, she was sad. Was someone sick? Had someone hurt her? Or was the whole world just too much right now? Art would understand if that was the answer. It was often too much for him, these days. He found himself sitting slumped over, deep in thought while Helen watched TV.

“What’s wrong,” she said just the other night. “So much,” he’d replied.

Art knew this was his chance to finally say hello. They were outside the office. It was a safe space with people around, so he wouldn’t make her uncomfortable by approaching. He could just let her know that they work in the same space, then wish her well. He didn’t even have to say anything about her art, but, if it happened to come up…somehow…he could finally say that he was a fan. That she should be selling those sketches. That she should leave whatever she did on the 10th floor behind. Certainly that was worth hearing in these awful times.

Art took a nervous breath, then started toward The Artist.

But just as she did, her cell phone rang. She saw the caller on the screen and took a nervous breath of her own.

“Hi,” she said as she answered, then “Yeah…I’m okay…it’s just so disappointing…”

So something had recently happened. So help the person that hurt her…, Art’s fatherly instincts kicked in.

The person on the other end spoke for what felt like a very long time as The Artist listened. Then Art saw her eyes glisten over.

“You know…I read something that made me think of Aunt Mare the other day,” she said, “And it just made me burst into tears.”

That’s her, Art knew. The old woman from the sketch on that one late night. She was an aunt, not a grandmother. And she was as important as Art has suspected - a guardian angel. Of course The Artist missed her in this moment when things were heavy and her heart was hurt.

If the moment is right when we speak, I’ll hug her, Art decided. Then he remembered these times they were in. If it would have been strange to hug her in the before, it was almost criminal right now. He’d have to find a safe-distance way to offer some love.

But Art didn’t get the chance. Before he could approach The Artist she got up, phone still to her ear, and started to walk away.

And so Art followed.

This was a risky move, he realized. It almost certainly meant he could not say hello once she ended her call. Hello, I’ve followed you for blocks…in the dark…because I secretly know you.

But he kept walking none-the-less. He wanted to make sure she was safe. It was almost 9PM on a quiet Wednesday eve. What if someone saw that she was distracted and tried to take advantage? This is what Art told himself as he followed The Artist a full seven blocks to the front of her building, a clean-looking brick in a corner of the West Village. She finished her call just before she opened the door.

“Thank you for calling,” she said, “I’ll be alright.”

And then, once again, she was gone.

Art played it over and over in his mind the next night while he vacuumed around her cube. In a city of miles filled with millions, what was the chance of their meeting, twice? Especially right now with everyone mostly locked-up indoors? He was not a religious man, but this felt almost divine. He’d seen her draw the sketch, then the very next time their paths crossed she was referencing the person she’d drawn. He needed to close the open loop. To complete the work he didn’t know he’d been doing all these weeks spent cleaning the empty office. If she called the company to report on him, so be it. But somehow Art knew that wasn’t her style.

***

Annie dragged herself out of bed at the usual hour, though it had been harder this past week. Running gave her time to think, even if the thoughts were tough.

“I can’t believe you get in a 5K every single day,” her neighbor one floor down said as they sipped wine on the “roof deck.”

“It helps me to keep a routine,” Annie said.

What she did not specify is that the routine was two-fold. She ran 5K because that’s the distance it took her to get to the office at 300 Madison Ave and back. Annie had “gone to work” every single day since the office shut down. Once she even took her scan card. She thought she might slip up to grab a few special things off her desk. But Annie had never broken a single rule in her 35 years of life, and she certainly wasn’t going to start in the middle of a pandemic.

It was raining harder than she’d realized this morning. She got down the five flights of stairs and considered going right back up. But something leaning against the outside door caught her eye. It was a Duane Reade shopping bag with a note taped to the top. Annie’s eyes went to the words on the water-stained index card.

To The Artist of 300 Madison Ave.

She didn’t connect herself to the first words, but the address made her body tighten. Her office. This was for her?

Touching unknown things was risky, but Annie was too curious. She opened the door, grabbed the bag and shifted to sit on the inside stairs. Then she opened it. Inside was something that warmed her in a way that made her realize just how cold she’d been. The sketch of her Aunt Mare. And just days after she’d read the email that brought her to tears.

But how? And who? And why hadn’t they said who they were? Obviously someone from the office? A co-worker? But which? Annie kept to herself at work. It was just a job to bide her time until she could sell enough art to move on.

The truth is that the who didn’t really matter. What Annie obsessed over most as she jogged through the rain was how she could express her gratitude. Some equally surprising way to thank this mysterious office elf...

Annie thought and thought and thought as she made it do 300 Madison Ave, then home. By the time she arrived back at her front door, she had her plan. All that IT work she did to pay the bills was finally going to pay off.

***

The circle had been closed, as far as Art was concerned. He’d returned the art to The Artist. And there had been no furious call from his neighbor boss to say someone reported his breach. Maybe he’d see her again at their ice cream park? Or maybe all the interacting they were supposed to do was done.

Art was on to thinking about other life things by the time his vacuum delivered him to her cube. But the minute he looked up from the floor to her desk, his body tightened. Typed out on her computer screen was something that warmed him in a way that made him realize just how cold he’d been.

Hello. If you’re reading this, thank you so much for your gift. It was exactly what I needed to help me remember how to push through. It was like a perfect hug. -A

Art didn’t bother wondering how in the world she made that happen. He just stared at the magic as his eyes glistened over.

“A for Artist,” he heard himself say aloud. “How perfect an ending is that?”