EVE OTTO
Ch.1
Christopher Jay sat quietly on the sofa, trying to ignore the frantic shuffling of furniture in the room next to him. He sipped his now lukewarm tea and tried to remember what exactly he’d said about the painting in front of him. At fourteen feet tall, its loud colors towered over the room. To him though, it was a screaming skyscraper of orange and yellow nothings. But that’s not what he’d said that upset Madam Eve Otto.
The thumps of platform boots on the concrete penthouse floor broke his trance. He looked up to see someone in a turtleneck covering half their face approaching.
“Our sincerest apologies for the long break, Mr. Jay,” they said. “My name is Ao. Please enjoy these treats while you wait” Ao set down a tray of nine identical orange slices and eight cherry scones --all perpendicular to the square coffee table. “Madam Otto will be back as soon as she is re-balanced.”
“Thanks, Ao. I’m sure feng shui can be therapeutic for someone as... meticulous as Eve.” Jay smiled as wood screeched along the floor of the next room. “Will she be out soon?”
“At this rate,” Ao said, adjusting their turtleneck, “I am unsure. She normally waits until clients leave to do this.” Their eyes crinkled as they hurried out of the room. “Please, do enjoy the refreshments. We apologize for the delay.”
The noise from the other room began to die down as Jay bit into an orange slice. It upset him to remove it from the perfect arrangement. As the citrus ran along his tongue, Jay tried to find an object in the room that was even slightly out of place. He failed. Each painting was flush with the others to accentuate the exact 45 degree slant of the ceilings. The potted plants faced opposite directions, with an even number of leaves leaning toward each side of the couch as if they were clones. The whole room began to feel as vapid as that painting.
That was it --vapid! She seemed put off by that word, but not as upset as when he suggested making it “less perfect.”
He shook his head and bit into a scone. Vanilla, perfectly triangular and in line with the now tarnished orange display. He touched the worn edge of the blush velvet couch. Finally, Jay thought he'd found one normal thing about the room, until he saw an identical patch on the opposite side of the sofa. He tried to look somewhere else, but the entire room --down to the snack tray --could be folded in half along a perfect line of symmetry. His stomach turned. Everyone knew Madam Eve Otto has a proclivity for perfection, but this felt unnatural.
He set the rest of the scone on a napkin. Would the crumbs surrounding the unevenly bitten scone upset her, too? If anything else went wrong, Chris would likely lose the chance to work with the great Madam Eve Otto for his museum’s debut. So he scooped up the napkin and its contents in search of a garbage bin only to find Ao at the foyer standing next to it. They balanced a tea tray in one hand and adjusted their turtleneck with the other.
“Hey Ao,” Chris’ eyes shifted between them and the other room as he spoke. “Just… looking for--”
“You’re dropping crumbs,” Ao interrupted. They bent down, keeping the tray exactly where it was and collected Christopher Jay’s careless sprinkle of scone on the floor, one spec at a time. Ao collected the crumbs in a square napkin, folded it 4 times and placed it on the outer edge of the garbage bin. Chris peered in. Each tissue had been placed in a perfect Fibonacci spiral, stirring his stomach in the same sort of pattern.
“Now, what did you say you were looking for?”
Chistopher Jay’s brain felt like bees. Swarming, slamming chaotically for an escape from their artificial entrapment. He backed away from the bin and faced the den.
With a crumbly scone in his jacket pocket, Jay wrung his hands. What kind of person was he trying to work with? This whole place made his stomach churn. He should just thank Ao, say he and Madam Eve Otto just aren’t compatible. No. He had to stay for the museum.
As he took a deep breath, he realized the room next to him was silent. The clicking of heels made their way around the corner, and a very tall, lean, robotically symmetrical woman strode toward him. This was his chance to smooth things over. Jay turned on the charm and bore a tremulous smile.
“Eve! Glad you’re feeling better.”
“Are you now, Mr. Jay?”
--
Ch. 2
Jay scooted to the far edge of the couch. Madam Eve Otto mirrored him. She placed herself at the opposite edge --between him and the exit -- and eyed the painting with a smirk. Jay needed her work to rake in museum patrons, but this piece would flop. Maybe he’d work to understand her. He thought that, plus his charm, might sway her to compromise.
“So, miss Otto.”
“It’s Madam Otto.”
“Madam?”
“Yes, Madam. Madam Otto. Madam Eve Otto. Eve, if you must. Kindly remember to refer to me by the palindromic titles listed in my contract.”
“Palin-what…?”
Madam Eve Otto’s neck twisted exactly ninety degrees to face Jay. “Palindrome, noun. A word or phrase that reads the same backwards as it does forward. You attended primary school, yes?”
Christopher Jay stared at the painting, hoping Madam Otto would turn away. So much for charming her.
“So, where were we?”
“The painting,” Jay muttered, his eyes glued on it.
“Ah, yes, you were insulting my craft.” Her electric eyes sent shocks along his skin.
“I didn’t mean to offend, Madam Otto. I thought we were still work-shopping it.”
“That implies working to perfect a piece of art I have already completed.”
“I think you misunderstand--”
“Unless you use the term ‘vapid’ incorrectly, I think I do understand.” Her voice rang like glass.
The two sat in silence until Ao checked in. They glided in to refill tea and gather Jay’s napkins and orange slices. Jay felt the scone crumble a little in his pocket.
“Ao, this horderve display is quite lovely,” she said through her even, pearly smile. “Just one note.” She arranged the seven remaining scones in an overlapping, circular pattern. “If you must use odd numbers, deceive my eye into symmetry.” She lifted one scone and the six toppled into tessellation.
Ao blinked, eyes wide. They yanked at their turtleneck. “Yes, madam. I did not notice the odd number... my apologies.”
Jay felt the eighth scone in his pocket crumble.
“Aren’t they just wonderful,” Madam Eve said. “Ao is my personal assistant. They’re a graduate student from that robust arts program in Ontario. Many worry about their extreme OCD and anxiety, but I for one find those to be key contributors to Ao’s success.”
Jay shook his head. She must’ve not seen the strain Ao was under to perfect every task. Or how they picked at their turtleneck out of habit. Jay spoke against his better judgement. “But help might make them more at ease, don’t you think?”
“Oh please, Christopher,” she hummed. “Ao needs no help. They have a better understanding of the grid than most. People who break it, like you, make them uneasy.”
“Grid, Madam?”
Eve Otto smoothed the pants of her pina cloth utility jumpsuit and curled one strand of charcoal hair behind each ear. The two turned to mirror one another on the velvet pink sofa.
“The grid on which we all live but only few of us see.” She spoke methodically. “As I am sure you have noticed, Mr. Jay, nature has a way of developing patterns. Some are chaotic, like the inconsistent carving of a canyon from billions of years of stone. But some patterns maintain order, and when the human eye discovers them, the sight is satisfying. It fits a grid that your brain knows exists, even if your eyes are blind to it. Her pupils narrowed, sending the bees in Jay’s head swarming. The scone crumbling.
“But I am not blind to this grid, Mr. Jay. I can see it. And because I see it, I live by it, always.”
Christopher Jay tucked one leg under the other only to watch Madam Eve Otto do the same. He felt the scone in his pocket crumbled to powder.
Ch. 3
“While I understand you dislike this sort of perfection--”
“It’s not perfection, Eve, It’s impossible.”
“If we’re going to work together, you mustn’t be so rude.” Her smile disappeared. Her eyes seemed to zoom in, calculating how equidistant his pupils were from his nose. “You need my services for your museum to profit. I need to sell a painting.”
Jay squinted, unable to read Madam Otto. “I thought I’d have lost your business by now.”
“It seems as though my work doesn’t make a big enough of a statement for some art collectors.” she pursed her perfectly peach lips. “So, since we are going to work together, you mustn’t be so rude.”
“Okay Eve, then we’ll have to find a compromise. I can’t have this piece in my museum.” Jay’s eyes fell as he spoke. Everything about this painting disturbed him. Years of pouring over visual art magazines, studio coursework, and every art documentary made taught him the only constant art has ever had: humanity. Even the Pollocks and decorative pieces of the world feel human and with purpose. This didn’t.
Madam Eve Otto’s work had never been his favorite. But he knew her. A revivalist of magical realism, she sought to create dreamy, images that stirred a medley of soft feelings in the viewer. Many claimed they were strangely satisfying. She’s been famous for a number of years, but she hasn’t publicly produced work in a while. This would be her first painting in half a decade. He combed his fingers through his undercut and began again, softly. “Perhaps we could work around the grid.”
“You seem to misunderstand the grid, Mr. Jay. You either live by it or you break it.”
“How long have you lived by it?”
“I saw the grid when I was small. I’ve lived by it since.”
“How much would it take you to break the grid?”
Her level breathing became choppy. Her pupils dilated. “No money can make me break it.”
“You act as if it’s not in your programming.”
Madam Otto took a breath, inhaling for exactly as long as she exhaled. “Well what is it you’d like me to do?” She leaned towards Jay, she could hear the static of his brain waves. He was sure of it. “Would you like me to trip and fall to one side instead of scuffing both my shoes, evenly? Would you like me to paint a crooked line just to prove I can? How much anguish would you like me to be in?” Her nose was a millimeter from his. She smiled. “It might literally kill me to dance like the monkey you would like me to be Mr. Jay.” She leaned away.
Her apartment, her artwork, her words. Her. It was all so synthetically perfect. She couldn’t be real. He stood his ground. “Machines won’t rip their hair out in anguish, why would you react any differently?”
Eve’s face contorted into a pained smile, tiny tears ran along the apples of her cheeks. Startled to see her display emotion, Jay stood up. The scone is his pocket crumbled along one side of the blush velvet sofa. The grid was broken.
The moment the crumbs landed, Madam Otto’s breathing became erratic, her face became pale.
A calm suddenly washed over Jay. This was his chance. If her grid was broken, Madam Otto might see things his way. He walked to her painting. He could almost smell the citrus coming off the orange and yellow hues.
“Now, that you’re off the grid for a second, let’s talk about what we could change--”
As Jay tried to scoot the piece, his crummy fingers met fresh paint. He hadn’t realized it was still drying. He pressed his fingers down and felt orange paint squish under his fingers. It slid to the side. Jay gripped the canvas, trying to keep it from toppling. The thin canvas began to rip as Jay saw Madam Otto’s eyes flash with fear. A second later, Ao rushed in to see the massive piece, the first Eve Otto had made in years, punctured and on the ground thanks to Jay’s crummy hands. The two of them turned to see Madam Otto, motionless and unbreathing, on the pink sofa.
Ch. 4
If there had ever been a moment more quiet in Christopher Jay’s life, he couldn’t recall it. Ao froze in the doorway, unsure what to tend to first. Eve broke the silence when she stood and her heels clicked along the concrete floor. She knelt, equidistant between the coffee table and her canvas and wept for her painting. Her tears trickled evenly along her cheeks to meet at the tip of her pointed chin.
Her peachy lips trembled. “This is unusable now.”
Ao began to approach Madam Eve Otto. His turtle neck slipping below his nose. Before they could reach their two arms out to help her up, she raised a finger to their covered lips.
“I kindly ask you to clean this up, put it with the other garbage, and rebalance my living room. I will be in my office, starting over.”
Jay had no clue what starting over meant. He looked once more at the smeared citrusy hues and the crumbs that tarnished the painting. He looked at Madam Otto, wanting to apologize. She stood, still not looking in his direction.
“Mr. Jay, you still need a painting for your museum debut next week, yes?”
Before he could respond she spoke, her voice as smooth and glassy as it was before. “I will be in my office. Do not interfere with my process, if you want the piece to be complete.”
While Ao fixed the living room, Jay stared at the fourteen foot painting. The crumbs ruined the line work on the torso. The hole was above the belly button, and looked sorely out of place. He’d ruined it.
“She spent eight months on that piece,” Ao said over the quiet wirrs of the vacuum. “It was her favorite in a full body series.”
More silence.
“Who all can see this grid?”
“A lot of people can,” they replied. “But they only see the grid sometimes, like when painting or organizing their bedroom. Grids are easier to forget about when you don’t see them all the time.”
“So it’s like… a prison for her?”
Ao paused, looking at the torso. It was plainer than her other work. But the vibrant colors drew beautiful lines in his brain, he could see Madam Otto’s decisions as they were being made. “It’s also a gift. Just one you can’t see. I suggest you go home for now.”
Christopher Jay found himself without so much as a phone call from Madam Otto five days later. He wrung his hands worried he may have to postpone his opening night.
He found himself banging on the door of Madam Eve Otto’s penthouse to hear nothing. No scurrying, no moving furniture, nothing. He looked to see many pieces of mail stuffed in the mail slot. He jiggled the doorknob to no avail. He began to panic that something grave had happened. He called Ao’s number and got voicemail.
“Ao, it’s Jay. Is Eve ok? I haven’t heard from either of you in about a week and thought we’d have met up by now. Call me back.”
Jay didn’t get a call back. When he went to Eve Otto’s apartment the next day, the door was open. There was tape on the door.
Jay felt static again as he pushed past the tape and through the untouched apartment to Eve Otto’s office. Before someone from forensics could stop him, Jay walked to Eve’s metal office door to see her lying on the floor in her own oil paint. Even in death, she was symmetrical.
There were eight tiny canvases sitting all over the room, in a grid. Jay could not see what they depicted, but he swiped one from her office before a man with gloves on dragged him out.
The cause of death were two simultaneous brain aneurysms on either side of her head. Eve Otto had no family, so she left her work to Ao. When Jay asked for the seven piece collection, Ao refused. Jay feigned his despair, knowing there once more was a piece Ao hadn't accounted for.
But when Jay got back to his house, relieved his museum could live on, he pulled the eighth piece from his pocket to find it covered in crumbs from a vanilla scone.