OPENING PAGES: This the prologue and the first few short chapters of my upmarket caper novel A is for Art Heist. The opening of the book, the prologue, starts in the middle of story, establishes the tone, introduces some of the key characteristics of the five moms who band together to steal art, and reveals the problem that opens the door to the second goal. Then the book starts back at the beginning at a field trip at the art gallery where the idea is first planted and develops the characters, suggests their roles in the heist, and connects the reader to the why behind the heist.
A is for Art Heist
by Elizabeth Rusch
Prologue
After nightfall, when the five moms gather in the kitchen of the hastily furnished red-brick hideout for their fake “Book Club,” Morgan Miller pours them all shots of whiskey. Though these women will never be her drinking buddies, a good leader knows how to ease some tension on a team.
Exhausted and exhilarated, the women collapse on the mismatched paisley, leopard-print and plaid loveseats and armchairs, clink their glasses, and toss back the sharp, woody liquid.
“Does anyone really fucking like whiskey?” Viv Crow, single mother of 10-year-old May asks, slamming her glass down and wiping her mouth. For someone who always brings the crazy, Viv is remarkably subdued. Still, Morgan winces at Viv’s foul mouth and at her very presence, regretting that you couldn’t really cut someone out of a plan when it was their idea.
Yoshi Sage, mother of 6-year-old Eve and CEO of Sage Security, scans every inch of the hideout as she has many times over the past few months—the city maps and architectural drawings on the wall, the forgery studio in the back, the heavy blackout curtains on all the windows. Satisfied, Yoshi peers at Morgan through her cat-eye glasses and gestures to her empty tumbler. “I could use another.” Unlike the others, Yoshi’s wearing work attire, a smart burgundy pants and vest combo.
The rest are still dressed all in black.
Viv glances at Ines Castillo’s gaunt, tense, and unusually pale face. Without her typical baggy cargo pants and oversized hoodie, Ines looks smaller, more vulnerable. “Have you had anything to eat since the…uh?” Viv asks, tucking a piece of flyaway strawberry-blonde hair behind her ear.
Ines shakes her head and covers her mouth with her hand, and Viv jumps up and heads toward the kitchen. “I'll get you something.” Riffling through the cabinets, Viv prepares wholegrain crackers, a ramekin of peanut butter, and apple slices on a plate, and sets it on the large coffee table before her best friend.
“A perfect after-heist snack,” smirks Dasha Fox, mother of twin 3rd grade boys, as she grabs an apple slice. A maven of disguise, Dasha’s the only one who’s managed to remove all the white face paint. But her skin is so colorless, like an albino, that no one could tell the difference.
Morgan, trying not to thrum her fingers with impatience, stands. Towering over them, arms folded, she shakes her head. “All food and drink off the table,” she instructs, and the women hustle old and new dishes and glasses to the kitchen counter or onto the floor.
With a dry dish cloth, Ines frantically wipes away any residue of moisture or crumbs.
“Are we ready?” Viv asks, holding up a large duffel bag. Dasha rubs her hands together. Morgan and Yoshi nod solemnly. Ines hovers near the counter, keeping her distance while nibbling on a cracker. Viv unzips.
From the bag, she lifts out the Matisse and lays it on the wooden table. It’s still in its brushed gold frame. With the overhead lamp shining down on it, Over the Garden looks almost sculptural, with the paper cut-outs creating dimensionality. The women make a soft collective gasp.
Ines sets her cracker down and inches forward. “Wow,” she whispers, leaning over the artwork. “It's so beautiful.”
A collage artist herself, Viv blinks at the arrangement of cut-out papers, tongue-tied.
The blue figure is all fluid movement as if leaping in the sky above the garden. Edges of the colored floral shapes curl upward casting faint gray shadows, like those found on Portland sidewalks on a typical pewter day. Some of the colors of Over the Garden are more faded than the forgery Viv and Ines made. Others seem more exuberant in comparison.
Dasha’s eyes widen in glee. “We actually have a real Matisse, here, right in front of us.”
“We did it,” Yoshi intones.
Morgan nods. “Well done, everyone.”
They all find their tumblers and take a sip of their drinks.
Viv shift in her seat, turning to Morgan. “What now?”
Morgan’s head jerk backward like she’s been slapped. “What do you mean, what now?”
“How do we get the money? For the school?” Viv asks. “What’s the plan?’
“The plan?” Morgan replies, incredulous. “You hand it off to your buyer.”
Viv looks flummoxed. “What buyer?”
Part One
Two months earlier
“Fuck me, that’s a real Warhol,” Viv Crow whispers to her fellow chaperones Dasha Fox and Ines Castillo as they gaze over the heads of third graders milling around the vast public exhibit hall of the Nick Halladay Collection. Dasha snickers. Ines glances around furtively making sure none of the kids overheard.
When the school bus had pulled through the chain link fence entrance and parked in the small lot beside the beige warehouse, Viv and her two friends, known as the Chatman Elementary school “Art Moms,” thought the bus driver had made a mistake. The low squat building that exhibited pieces from the largest private art collection in the Pacific Northwest was under the St. Johns Bridge in the industrial section of the city surrounded by tool machine shops, cabinet manufacturers, and even oil tanks.
As trucks roared and rattled by Jordan, the class clown, had yelled, “We’re being kidnapped!” and the third graders erupted in fake screams and shrieks of laughter. Dasha, Jordan’s mom, enjoyed the minor chaos but shot her son a warning glance to keep things in check. Ines couldn’t help but peer nervously through the steamed-up bus windows and pelting February rain to make sure they were not in fact surrounded by armed kidnappers.
When the students and chaperones disembarked like some disjointed tumbling snake wriggling past the puddles and stepping through the double glass doors, a hush hit them. Inside, the gallery looked like any modern museum, crisp, clean, and bright with blonde wood floors. The gallery’s large, with two partitions stretching from either side of the entrance to the back, creating three, connected gallery spaces. White scaffolding on the ceiling held track lights which shone upon the riotously colorful artwork: a painting of the protest of the 1960s and 2020s; a green and purple graphic of Chinese dictator Xi Jinping;and wall full of national flags cut in the shapes of flowers.
Wide-eyed, the kids seemed gob-smacked by the grandeur of the place.
Keeping an eye on her twin sons for signs of mischief, Dasha sidles up to Viv. They’re both curvy, but where Viv is all color, with long wavy strawberry blond hair, coral lipstick, and a collage of overlapping tattoos, Dasha is as pale as milk. To Dasha, all the world’s a stage and she’s ready to dress up for any role. For this field trip, she’s donned a paint spattered smock and sneakers and a beret over a wig cut in a black bob. She points at a jumbled composition of graffiti, text, and color. “I think that’s a Basquiat,” she whispers.
Ines, loaded down with a soggy backpack, a large fabric grocery bag overflowing with damp sweaters and sweatshirts the kids had peeled off on the bus, and a duffle bag, joins them. She’s surprised that the docent at the desk near the entrance hadn’t made her check the bags or leave them on the bus. Grateful, Ines feels grounded, protected by their weight.
Resembling a long, painfully thin Giacometti sculpture in cargo pants, Ines conducts an automatic head count…twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one. After noting the relative stillness of the students, she takes in the arresting paintings and prints on the walls. “This is actually spectacular,” she says. “One guy owns all this?”
Viv shakes her head in dismay. “It’s indecent,” she spits out through the gap in her front teeth. She’s dressed in hodge podge of thrift store finds – tiger-skin pants, a wide red belt, and flowered blouse.
Indecent? Ines’s heart rate shoots up. Is there something too violent or too sexual for third graders here? She runs her eyes over a large piece that looks like a huge charcoal sketch of a man shouldering the weight of a coal factory; a shimmering print of the word HOPE; and a large mosaic portrait of a Black woman reclining, like the famous Manet but glittering with rhinestones. Nothing here seems indecent to Ines.
“A thousand a year!” Viv whisper-shouts to her friends. “Nick Halladay adds a thousand pieces to his private art collection EVERY YEAR.”
Suddenly shuffling and squeaking arises from the pack of kids. A voice yells, “OUCH!”
Ines scans the herd for the trouble. Dasha sweeps in. “Jordan Fox, you leave her braids alone.”
Morgan Miller, Parent-Teacher Association president and occasional chaperone who had been standing apart with arms crossed, strides forward. She’s dressed for work in beige trousers with a teal blazer, sleeves rolled up revealing her brown muscular forearms. “Hands to yourselves!” she commands.
To Ines, something seems slightly off with Morgan. Usually exuding confidence and ease in her leadership role, Morgan’s face and posture seem tense, and she keeps glancing at the door like she can’t wait to get out of this place.
Ines considers Morgan discomfort for a moment before sensing that something else is wrong. Some kids are rushing toward the back of the gallery.
“Donuts!” someone shouts.
The moms try to head off the food mob surging toward the elegant table that holds a small tower of powdered donuts and a few small bottles of Perrier.
“Drop it!” Morgan orders.
The docent, a twenty-something college-age kid with long hair, a nose ring, and a jacket festooned with patches, saunters toward the mayhem. “It’s fine,” he says to the astonishment of the four moms. “Those are for visitors.”
That’s all it takes for an octopus of small hands to reach out.
Viv, who comes from a family where every morsel of food was counted, notes, “There’s not enough for everyone.”
Morgan gives one boy’s powder-covered hand a light smack. “And he’s gluten free!”
The docent drifts away from the table and away from the fray. “I think we have something for him – for everyone…” He disappears through a door at the back of the room.
The kids who had snagged donuts scuttle away like dogs with a bone.
“Does he have any idea what sugar will do to these kids?” Dasha muses.
Viv can’t believe the docent would leave a mob like this unattended in place so full of valuable art. “Now’s our chance to grab the Warhol and run,” she jokes.
Ines, who can spot trouble through the back of her narrow head, hustles toward a painting of copper pipes, smoking pipes, and muscled arms overlaid with the words Not A Pipe. “No touching!” she exclaims. But it’s too late. Two white smudges of powder like ski tracks mar the bottom right corner of the composition. At least it’s an abstract piece.
She whips a bandana out of one of her bags and gently dusts the sugar off the painting as she scans guiltily for the docent.
He emerges with a platter of fruit leathers. Writhing hands wriggle forth again, some smooth and pudgy, others coated with white powder.
“Just in case their fingers were not gross enough…” Dasha mutters.
Ines dives into her duffle bag. “I’ve got wipes!”
“Of course you do,” Dasha cheers.
“Thank you, Ines,” Morgan adds, striding toward them. Her jaw feels tight and her breathing shallow. Just being in the Halladay gallery boils her blood. She knows public relations when she sees it. Does Halladay really think that showing sixty out of 20,000 pieces of art publicly will distract anyone from his obscene wealth and its origins?
Still, while the Art Moms hand out and collect wipes, Morgan Miller takes her usual position, at the helm. “Criss-cross applesauce,” she commands.
Like a swarm of sleeper agents deactivated by the push of a button, the children fall silent, cross their legs, and drop down onto their butts.
“Hand in laps,” she orders. Their arms button to their sides.
Morgan turns to the docent. “They’re all yours.”
Cuts
Viv jumps out of her seat and leans over the principal’s desk. “You’re kidding, right?”
Doug Ballat shifts back in his chair to put more space between himself and the three Momsketeers. He fully appreciates that Chatman Elementary School, especially the arts and theater programs, would not stay afloat without these women. But the nickname had popped into his head two years ago, when Dasha had dressed all three as swashbuckling pirates for Friday morning assembly to promote the school play. He could not for the life him get it out of his head.
After returning from the field trip to the Halladay gallery, the threesome had hustled through the pounding rain to return their volunteer badges to the school secretary.
The women want to be excited about where their kids go to school but the building is ancient, and worse than drab. Of the four front doors, one is nailed shut, two are made of banged-up wood and one is gray metal. Inside, the floors and walls, once white or cheery yellow, have taken on the murky color of concentrated urine. New LED overhead bulbs save money but cast a blueish light that makes everyone look vaguely ill.
When Ines, Viv and Dasha file into the main office, the principal seemed to be waiting for them. “Can I have a word?” he said. Dasha had hoped he was going to stop insisting on “Seussical” for the spring musical. The show was a hodge-podge of razzle-dazzle with no theatrical heart.
But alas the meeting was more disheartening. Their amazing art teacher Sylvie Wyatt had recently departed for a private school. Instead of replacing her, the position would be cut.
At the news, itchy heat prickles along Viv’s hairline. Art class was the only thing that kept her in school long enough to graduate. Art tethers her daughter to school, too. Bright, quirky, freethinking kids like May don’t do well in schools focused only on test scores and walking in straight lines.
Ines is also abuzz with worry. How will this affect her daughter Luna, son Sebastian, and the whole school? Art is Luna’s happy place and Sebastian needs the physical movement that art class allows. Art, music, and the musical are the only things that keep this one troublemaker from acting out. And there are two really shy girls in Luna’s class who only speak in the art room. Still, she tugs Viv back to her chair. “Let’s hear him out.”
“It’s all about budget cuts and declining enrollment,” Doug continues, rocking nervously. “This term we have nineteen fewer students than we projected so there’s out budget shortfall is even worse.”
Whisps of Viv’s loose ponytail have escaped, and her hair is not the only thing that looks ready to come undone. “If we don’t have enough students, why are the classes so crowded?”
No one begrudges Viv her outrage. She’s saying what they’re all thinking.
“You’re not wrong,” the principal says. “School funding overall in inadequate…”
“But why art?” Ines asks.
“Yeah, why the art teacher?” Viv demands. She imagines the school without the three-times-a-week art class, kids’ shoulders drooping, fights breaking out, tears of overwhelm flowing down young faces. Viv also helps out in art class when she can and has seen how drawing, painting, and working with clay relaxes even the most tightly wound kids. “Why not cut the librarian or P.E. or something?” she pleads.
Dasha’s glad Viv didn’t suggest cutting the part-time music teacher who she needs to help produce the school musical. But she groans at the thought of Jordan without P.E.
The principal clasps his hands together. “P.E. is mandated,” he says. “And volunteers are already running the library.”
The room falls silent for a moment, aside from the ticking of the large round clock over the door and the squeaking of sneakers in the hallway. The secretary’s on the phone asking a parent to pick up their child who had vomited. Dasha wrinkles her nose at the thought. Or maybe it’s the odor of sweat, sour milk, and pencil shavings that pervades the school.
“Plus,” he says. “We have you all filling in, taking students to theart gallery…”
“Oh, for god’s sake!” Viv erupts, jumping up from her chair again. This time, Ines and Dasha rise beside her. “This is ridiculous. We have jobs of our own!”Viv paints, makes collages, and scrapes by in the gig economy; Ines is a printmaker and repairs outdoor gear, and Dasha sells real estate. Viv heads for the door. “Being the art teacher is not a volunteer position!” she says, and she storms out.
Dasha follows, smirking slightly as she mutters, “I imagine we haven’t heard the end of this.”
Ines stays behind. After all, it’s not really Doug Ballat’s fault.
“Isn’t there anything we can do?”
The principal shrugs.
But a firm and confident voice behind her declares: “You could speak at the upcoming school board meeting.”
Morgan Miller fills the doorway, unsmiling. “The arts aren’t the only programs suffering from cuts, you know.”
Late
Morgan only wanted one of the Art Moms to speak at the school board meeting, and Viv is supposed to do it. But she hasn't shown up yet.
“Where r u?” Ines texts.
Ines has never attended a board meeting. and she’s surprised that the room resembles a courtroom. The ten school board members sit at a long, elevated judge's bench with name plates and microphones. A lower table with one chair and a mic facing the bench must be where people testify. The rest of the room is filled with rows of wooden benches for the public. The place smells vaguely of furniture polish and ink.
As the room fills, Ines’s armpits and upper lip moisten. Though she has gathered all the supplies they need, she checks her bags again and again. “Hurry up,” she texts Viv.
A clock behind her shows that Viv is officially late. Waves of worry and fury surge through Ines. Viv’s always late and she always has an excuse. But Ines still imagines tangled wrecks of metal or paramedics thumping Viv’s chest.
The board chair bangs her gavel. “I know you are all concerned about the budget cuts,” she says. “So, let’s get right to it.” The crowd murmurs in agreement.
Morgan leans over to Ines. “I thought Viv was speaking,” she whispered. “Where is she?”
“I don't know.”
Morgan huffs. “If she's not here in time, you'll have to do it.”
Ines’s palms sweat, and she feels an overwhelming urge to pee. She considers running to the bathroom and maybe just continuing out the door.
Ines is yanked out of her panic when the board chair tells the crowd that the cuts are “inevitable” and that the best the board can do is “empower” local schools by allowing them to decide what should be cut.
What? Ines thinks. Everyone showed up to reverse the cuts. Anger shoots down Ines’s spine, and her feet begin to sweat in her work boots. Is this whole meeting about different parts of her kids’ education fighting each other for shrinking pieces of the pie?
All around her, parents shift and grumble. Morgan whispers something to the them about “the long game.”
While Ines stews in a soup of shock, dismay, and nerves, parents and teachers begin testifying about the damage the cuts will wreak in their schools. After 20 minutes, Morgan glances over to Ines and mouths, “Ready?”
Ines shakes her head desperately, pointing to the empty seat beside her. Morgan sighs and sends another parent to the podium, to talk about PE equipment and playground safety. Ines texts Viv once again. “Im going 2 kill u,” she writes, “unless u r already dead”
When the P.E. teacher finishes, Morgan turns to Ines. “It's now or never,” she says. “We need someone to talk about art.”
Ines gulps, gathers her bags, and stands up from her seat.
Art Lesson
As Ines approaches the witness table lugging her infernal bulky bags, Morgan regrets her lapse in judgment. Why did she allow the Art Moms to go last? Dasha, the theater one, isn’t even here. And Morgan should’ve predicted Viv’s unreliability. Now the whole presentation will depend on the quiet sidekick who looks like an emaciated deer in the headlights. Morgan wants to bury her head in her hands, but as the head of a PR firm, she knows she has to keep up appearances for the three reporters she convinced to cover the parents’ testimony.
Ines stands awkwardly next to the table facing the tired and irritated school board members. She glances desperately at the door, willing Viv to appear. Then she speaks into the mic. “Hi, uh, I'm Ines Castillo and my daughter and son attend Chatman Elementary where the principal is cutting our one art teacher.”
She reaches for one of her bags. “I have something for you. Something I want you to do.” She hands each school board member magazine scraps and colored paper, a glue stick, and kid-sized scissors.
Morgan itches to sweep in but knows how awkward it would look.
Ines returns to her mic. “I know, I'm sorry, but this is important,” she murmurs. “I’ve given you materials to make a collage.”
“What’s all this?” the chair asks. “We’re on a tight schedule.”
Suddenly, the double doors in the back swing open and Viv rushes in, unraveling a zebra print scarf and pulling off a red cape raincoat. “You heard the lady!” Viv booms.
For once, Morgan feels a kind of kinship with Ines who looks like she doesn’t know whether to hug Viv or head butt her.
Viv waves her hand in a dramatic sweep. “Your task is simple. As I talk, you cut and glue whatever you want onto the card stock.”
Morgan checks her watch. Viv will surely go over time, destroying any goodwill these board members still have.
Striding back and forth in front of the school board members, Viv projects loudly without a mic. “Ines and I are here,” she says, “because when we were young and our families were homeless, art saved us.” Some of the school board members glance up from their work in surprise, and Viv gazes around the room daring anyone to judge her. “And we know how it saves students in our school all the time.”
Morgan’s throat catches. She remembers when her parents were on the brink of losing their house, how she had hoped and prayed they would never have to stay in a shelter. Suddenly, Ines and Viv’s odd-couple friendship, Ines’s anxiety and Viv’s bombast make more sense to her.
Viv continues, “The shelter where we lived had a decent collection of art supplies like the ones you have there,” and then interrupts herself, “How’s it going?”
“Pretty good,” says one board member, glue stick in hand. Another pipes in: “I haven't cut with little scissors like this in years!” Everyone laughs.
“Part of what we want to accomplish today,” Viv says, “Is to take you back to art experiences you had as a child, so you can remember what it feels like to cut paper, to glue, to work with color.”
Morgan is surprised to notice that many school board members are quite intent on their creations. But two sit with their arms crossed over their suits and ties.
“Now this would never happen in an art class, especially not in elementary school. But I want you to hold up your collages.” The board members hold up their work, some shyly, some proudly. They’re a disorganized jumble of images with little to grab the eye.
Viv starts on the far left and points at the first piece. “I'd give that a D,” she says.
The audience shuffles uncomfortably, and the board member looks like she was punched. Morgan jumps to her feet while Viv grades the rest of the collages pointing as she makes her way across the room: “F. F. D. C minus. F. F. B minus, you must have some arts education,” she says.
Heat rises from Morgan’s chest to her face, and she steps forward to take over. Viv holds her hand up to stop her. “There is nothing wrong with what you all did,” she placates. “Exploring new materials is part of art.” She draws herself upright and takes a deep breath. “But I don't want you to think for a moment that having access to art supplies in elementary school is anywhere near enough. What made the difference for me and Ines in the shelter was an art teacher who came in and taught us skills and gave us challenging tasks to try.”
“What if in addition to these art materials, you had an art teacher to guide you? Someone who could suggest that you think of a theme that matters to you and that you use that theme as a way to choose images? Imagine if an art teacher showed you the importance of a focal point? Looking at your materials now, is there a large or bright or eye-catching image you might choose as a focal point? Where would you place the focal point? In the middle? Off center?”
The board members rifle through their materials.
“Now what if you had some instruction on color theory so that you could choose colors that complement each other or colors that when paired together grab the eye?”
The school board and the audience listen, rapt.
“What might you create if you were encouraged to make a self-portrait using only the materials you have in front of you?” she says. “That's a problem, a challenging creative problem that might stick with you in ways that filling out a worksheet with addition and multiplication problems might not.”
Someone near the back of the room says, “That’s right!”
One of the business men on the board leans toward his mic. “This is all well and good but given the economy and our budget, I think we need to funnel all our funds to the basics.”
Another board member nods. “Scott and I agree that we should recommend that schools only cut extracurriculars.”
Viv winces at the word “extracurricular,” but won’t yield the floor. “Art and art teachers are the heart of elementary schools,” Viv says, her voice rising. Ines can tell by the way Viv is tugging on her hair that she’s getting upset. “That art teacher made us feel safe,like we had some control over our lives. That with nothing but a few magazines scraps and some color paper, we could shape our reality.”
Ines grabs Viv’s hand and leans toward the microphone“It’s really hard when you don't have housing to carry much with you from place to place.”After giving Viv’s hand a squeeze, she digs something out of her bag. “But art can be a lifeline.”
Ines holds up a collage on cardstock, slightly tattered and worn. She rotates it slowly so everyone can see. “Viv here made this when she was nine years old,” she says.
Everyone, even the people in the back can make out what Viv had created: a whirlpool of green magazines scraps that pull the eye inward like a wormhole to a bright red house at its center.
Viv blinks helplessly at Ines with a mixture of pride and shame and frustration as her best friend mutters into the mic, “Please save the arts in our schools.”
Art Lesson Take Two
The room remains hushed as Viv and Ines take their seats. The school board chair leans forward to her mic. “I think we have closing remarks from the head of the Council of PTA presidents.”
Morgan doesn’t move.
“Ms. Miller?”
Morgan nods and rises with a dazed expression.
“I had a speech prepared…summarizing the effects of budget cuts on schools.” She pauses, collecting her thoughts. “But I need to offer some context on the last presentation.”
Morgan never goes off-script, and she feels a bit like she’s about to drive off a ledge. But she also feels like she did as a teenager, when she first thrust her hands into a bag of clay.
Working with clay had started out as physical therapy. She had trained desperately in high school to win a crew scholarship to Santa Clara University. But an injury to her hand in the first year threatened to jeopardize everything. To her surprise, clay therapy became, secretly, so much more. Working with clay got her through the stress of juggling college classes, rowing varsity crew, and facing microaggressions on campus.
Suddenly everything she’s read or heard about the power of art flashes before her. “What Viv and Ines were trying to tell you is true. I’ve read research that found that students who make art feel less anger and are less likely to suffer from anxiety, depression, and helplessness,” she begins. “But the benefits go much farther.” Sometime her brain works like a mind map, and she remembers a pattern of five, four, three. “Kids with art in school are five times less likely to drop out; four times more likely to excel academically; and three times more likely to pursue a bachelor's degree.”
The reporters type furiously to keep up.
“Arts education helps student at every socio-economic level, every age level, and for all races and all genders.”
Morgan’s not sure what’s come over her. She has been lobbying the school board and state legislature for adequate school funding since her son Keon entered kindergarten nearly a decade years ago. But something has shifted for her today. She feels deep in the bones of her hands, in her back, and in her shoulder blades, how vital art has been to her survival as a Black person in so many white worlds.
Looking directly at the pair of school board members who gave Viv such a hard time, she says: “Art is not an extracurricular—it is essential. We need to reverse the cuts to arts education and invest in this powerful tool.”She breathes deeply as if she just completed a regatta.
When the chair realizes Morgan has nothing more to say, she raps her gavel and thanks everyone for coming. “We’ll take all this under advisement.”
As Morgan heads back to the parents and educators, some gape at her stunned, mystified and even angry that she shifted the discussion to the arts. Viv and Ines also stare at her in surprise.
Morgan and Viv’s eyes meet. “You were…” they both say.
“Amazing,” Viv finishes.
Ines mumbles, “I wish there was more we could do.”
Algonkian Pre-event Narrative Enhancement Guide - Opening Hook
in Algonkian Writer Conferences - Events, FAQ, Contracts
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OPENING PAGES: This the prologue and the first few short chapters of my upmarket caper novel A is for Art Heist. The opening of the book, the prologue, starts in the middle of story, establishes the tone, introduces some of the key characteristics of the five moms who band together to steal art, and reveals the problem that opens the door to the second goal. Then the book starts back at the beginning at a field trip at the art gallery where the idea is first planted and develops the characters, suggests their roles in the heist, and connects the reader to the why behind the heist.
A is for Art Heist
by Elizabeth Rusch
Prologue
After nightfall, when the five moms gather in the kitchen of the hastily furnished red-brick hideout for their fake “Book Club,” Morgan Miller pours them all shots of whiskey. Though these women will never be her drinking buddies, a good leader knows how to ease some tension on a team.
Exhausted and exhilarated, the women collapse on the mismatched paisley, leopard-print and plaid loveseats and armchairs, clink their glasses, and toss back the sharp, woody liquid.
“Does anyone really fucking like whiskey?” Viv Crow, single mother of 10-year-old May asks, slamming her glass down and wiping her mouth. For someone who always brings the crazy, Viv is remarkably subdued. Still, Morgan winces at Viv’s foul mouth and at her very presence, regretting that you couldn’t really cut someone out of a plan when it was their idea.
Yoshi Sage, mother of 6-year-old Eve and CEO of Sage Security, scans every inch of the hideout as she has many times over the past few months—the city maps and architectural drawings on the wall, the forgery studio in the back, the heavy blackout curtains on all the windows. Satisfied, Yoshi peers at Morgan through her cat-eye glasses and gestures to her empty tumbler. “I could use another.” Unlike the others, Yoshi’s wearing work attire, a smart burgundy pants and vest combo.
The rest are still dressed all in black.
Viv glances at Ines Castillo’s gaunt, tense, and unusually pale face. Without her typical baggy cargo pants and oversized hoodie, Ines looks smaller, more vulnerable. “Have you had anything to eat since the…uh?” Viv asks, tucking a piece of flyaway strawberry-blonde hair behind her ear.
Ines shakes her head and covers her mouth with her hand, and Viv jumps up and heads toward the kitchen. “I'll get you something.” Riffling through the cabinets, Viv prepares wholegrain crackers, a ramekin of peanut butter, and apple slices on a plate, and sets it on the large coffee table before her best friend.
“A perfect after-heist snack,” smirks Dasha Fox, mother of twin 3rd grade boys, as she grabs an apple slice. A maven of disguise, Dasha’s the only one who’s managed to remove all the white face paint. But her skin is so colorless, like an albino, that no one could tell the difference.
Morgan, trying not to thrum her fingers with impatience, stands. Towering over them, arms folded, she shakes her head. “All food and drink off the table,” she instructs, and the women hustle old and new dishes and glasses to the kitchen counter or onto the floor.
With a dry dish cloth, Ines frantically wipes away any residue of moisture or crumbs.
“Are we ready?” Viv asks, holding up a large duffel bag. Dasha rubs her hands together. Morgan and Yoshi nod solemnly. Ines hovers near the counter, keeping her distance while nibbling on a cracker. Viv unzips.
From the bag, she lifts out the Matisse and lays it on the wooden table. It’s still in its brushed gold frame. With the overhead lamp shining down on it, Over the Garden looks almost sculptural, with the paper cut-outs creating dimensionality. The women make a soft collective gasp.
Ines sets her cracker down and inches forward. “Wow,” she whispers, leaning over the artwork. “It's so beautiful.”
A collage artist herself, Viv blinks at the arrangement of cut-out papers, tongue-tied.
The blue figure is all fluid movement as if leaping in the sky above the garden. Edges of the colored floral shapes curl upward casting faint gray shadows, like those found on Portland sidewalks on a typical pewter day. Some of the colors of Over the Garden are more faded than the forgery Viv and Ines made. Others seem more exuberant in comparison.
Dasha’s eyes widen in glee. “We actually have a real Matisse, here, right in front of us.”
“We did it,” Yoshi intones.
Morgan nods. “Well done, everyone.”
They all find their tumblers and take a sip of their drinks.
Viv shift in her seat, turning to Morgan. “What now?”
Morgan’s head jerk backward like she’s been slapped. “What do you mean, what now?”
“How do we get the money? For the school?” Viv asks. “What’s the plan?’
“The plan?” Morgan replies, incredulous. “You hand it off to your buyer.”
Viv looks flummoxed. “What buyer?”
Part One
Two months earlier
“Fuck me, that’s a real Warhol,” Viv Crow whispers to her fellow chaperones Dasha Fox and Ines Castillo as they gaze over the heads of third graders milling around the vast public exhibit hall of the Nick Halladay Collection. Dasha snickers. Ines glances around furtively making sure none of the kids overheard.
When the school bus had pulled through the chain link fence entrance and parked in the small lot beside the beige warehouse, Viv and her two friends, known as the Chatman Elementary school “Art Moms,” thought the bus driver had made a mistake. The low squat building that exhibited pieces from the largest private art collection in the Pacific Northwest was under the St. Johns Bridge in the industrial section of the city surrounded by tool machine shops, cabinet manufacturers, and even oil tanks.
As trucks roared and rattled by Jordan, the class clown, had yelled, “We’re being kidnapped!” and the third graders erupted in fake screams and shrieks of laughter. Dasha, Jordan’s mom, enjoyed the minor chaos but shot her son a warning glance to keep things in check. Ines couldn’t help but peer nervously through the steamed-up bus windows and pelting February rain to make sure they were not in fact surrounded by armed kidnappers.
When the students and chaperones disembarked like some disjointed tumbling snake wriggling past the puddles and stepping through the double glass doors, a hush hit them. Inside, the gallery looked like any modern museum, crisp, clean, and bright with blonde wood floors. The gallery’s large, with two partitions stretching from either side of the entrance to the back, creating three, connected gallery spaces. White scaffolding on the ceiling held track lights which shone upon the riotously colorful artwork: a painting of the protest of the 1960s and 2020s; a green and purple graphic of Chinese dictator Xi Jinping; and wall full of national flags cut in the shapes of flowers.
Wide-eyed, the kids seemed gob-smacked by the grandeur of the place.
Keeping an eye on her twin sons for signs of mischief, Dasha sidles up to Viv. They’re both curvy, but where Viv is all color, with long wavy strawberry blond hair, coral lipstick, and a collage of overlapping tattoos, Dasha is as pale as milk. To Dasha, all the world’s a stage and she’s ready to dress up for any role. For this field trip, she’s donned a paint spattered smock and sneakers and a beret over a wig cut in a black bob. She points at a jumbled composition of graffiti, text, and color. “I think that’s a Basquiat,” she whispers.
Ines, loaded down with a soggy backpack, a large fabric grocery bag overflowing with damp sweaters and sweatshirts the kids had peeled off on the bus, and a duffle bag, joins them. She’s surprised that the docent at the desk near the entrance hadn’t made her check the bags or leave them on the bus. Grateful, Ines feels grounded, protected by their weight.
Resembling a long, painfully thin Giacometti sculpture in cargo pants, Ines conducts an automatic head count…twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one. After noting the relative stillness of the students, she takes in the arresting paintings and prints on the walls. “This is actually spectacular,” she says. “One guy owns all this?”
Viv shakes her head in dismay. “It’s indecent,” she spits out through the gap in her front teeth. She’s dressed in hodge podge of thrift store finds – tiger-skin pants, a wide red belt, and flowered blouse.
Indecent? Ines’s heart rate shoots up. Is there something too violent or too sexual for third graders here? She runs her eyes over a large piece that looks like a huge charcoal sketch of a man shouldering the weight of a coal factory; a shimmering print of the word HOPE; and a large mosaic portrait of a Black woman reclining, like the famous Manet but glittering with rhinestones. Nothing here seems indecent to Ines.
“A thousand a year!” Viv whisper-shouts to her friends. “Nick Halladay adds a thousand pieces to his private art collection EVERY YEAR.”
Suddenly shuffling and squeaking arises from the pack of kids. A voice yells, “OUCH!”
Ines scans the herd for the trouble. Dasha sweeps in. “Jordan Fox, you leave her braids alone.”
Morgan Miller, Parent-Teacher Association president and occasional chaperone who had been standing apart with arms crossed, strides forward. She’s dressed for work in beige trousers with a teal blazer, sleeves rolled up revealing her brown muscular forearms. “Hands to yourselves!” she commands.
To Ines, something seems slightly off with Morgan. Usually exuding confidence and ease in her leadership role, Morgan’s face and posture seem tense, and she keeps glancing at the door like she can’t wait to get out of this place.
Ines considers Morgan discomfort for a moment before sensing that something else is wrong. Some kids are rushing toward the back of the gallery.
“Donuts!” someone shouts.
The moms try to head off the food mob surging toward the elegant table that holds a small tower of powdered donuts and a few small bottles of Perrier.
“Drop it!” Morgan orders.
The docent, a twenty-something college-age kid with long hair, a nose ring, and a jacket festooned with patches, saunters toward the mayhem. “It’s fine,” he says to the astonishment of the four moms. “Those are for visitors.”
That’s all it takes for an octopus of small hands to reach out.
Viv, who comes from a family where every morsel of food was counted, notes, “There’s not enough for everyone.”
Morgan gives one boy’s powder-covered hand a light smack. “And he’s gluten free!”
The docent drifts away from the table and away from the fray. “I think we have something for him – for everyone…” He disappears through a door at the back of the room.
The kids who had snagged donuts scuttle away like dogs with a bone.
“Does he have any idea what sugar will do to these kids?” Dasha muses.
Viv can’t believe the docent would leave a mob like this unattended in place so full of valuable art. “Now’s our chance to grab the Warhol and run,” she jokes.
Ines, who can spot trouble through the back of her narrow head, hustles toward a painting of copper pipes, smoking pipes, and muscled arms overlaid with the words Not A Pipe. “No touching!” she exclaims. But it’s too late. Two white smudges of powder like ski tracks mar the bottom right corner of the composition. At least it’s an abstract piece.
She whips a bandana out of one of her bags and gently dusts the sugar off the painting as she scans guiltily for the docent.
He emerges with a platter of fruit leathers. Writhing hands wriggle forth again, some smooth and pudgy, others coated with white powder.
“Just in case their fingers were not gross enough…” Dasha mutters.
Ines dives into her duffle bag. “I’ve got wipes!”
“Of course you do,” Dasha cheers.
“Thank you, Ines,” Morgan adds, striding toward them. Her jaw feels tight and her breathing shallow. Just being in the Halladay gallery boils her blood. She knows public relations when she sees it. Does Halladay really think that showing sixty out of 20,000 pieces of art publicly will distract anyone from his obscene wealth and its origins?
Still, while the Art Moms hand out and collect wipes, Morgan Miller takes her usual position, at the helm. “Criss-cross applesauce,” she commands.
Like a swarm of sleeper agents deactivated by the push of a button, the children fall silent, cross their legs, and drop down onto their butts.
“Hand in laps,” she orders. Their arms button to their sides.
Morgan turns to the docent. “They’re all yours.”
Cuts
Viv jumps out of her seat and leans over the principal’s desk. “You’re kidding, right?”
Doug Ballat shifts back in his chair to put more space between himself and the three Momsketeers. He fully appreciates that Chatman Elementary School, especially the arts and theater programs, would not stay afloat without these women. But the nickname had popped into his head two years ago, when Dasha had dressed all three as swashbuckling pirates for Friday morning assembly to promote the school play. He could not for the life him get it out of his head.
After returning from the field trip to the Halladay gallery, the threesome had hustled through the pounding rain to return their volunteer badges to the school secretary.
The women want to be excited about where their kids go to school but the building is ancient, and worse than drab. Of the four front doors, one is nailed shut, two are made of banged-up wood and one is gray metal. Inside, the floors and walls, once white or cheery yellow, have taken on the murky color of concentrated urine. New LED overhead bulbs save money but cast a blueish light that makes everyone look vaguely ill.
When Ines, Viv and Dasha file into the main office, the principal seemed to be waiting for them. “Can I have a word?” he said. Dasha had hoped he was going to stop insisting on “Seussical” for the spring musical. The show was a hodge-podge of razzle-dazzle with no theatrical heart.
But alas the meeting was more disheartening. Their amazing art teacher Sylvie Wyatt had recently departed for a private school. Instead of replacing her, the position would be cut.
At the news, itchy heat prickles along Viv’s hairline. Art class was the only thing that kept her in school long enough to graduate. Art tethers her daughter to school, too. Bright, quirky, freethinking kids like May don’t do well in schools focused only on test scores and walking in straight lines.
Ines is also abuzz with worry. How will this affect her daughter Luna, son Sebastian, and the whole school? Art is Luna’s happy place and Sebastian needs the physical movement that art class allows. Art, music, and the musical are the only things that keep this one troublemaker from acting out. And there are two really shy girls in Luna’s class who only speak in the art room. Still, she tugs Viv back to her chair. “Let’s hear him out.”
“It’s all about budget cuts and declining enrollment,” Doug continues, rocking nervously. “This term we have nineteen fewer students than we projected so there’s out budget shortfall is even worse.”
Whisps of Viv’s loose ponytail have escaped, and her hair is not the only thing that looks ready to come undone. “If we don’t have enough students, why are the classes so crowded?”
No one begrudges Viv her outrage. She’s saying what they’re all thinking.
“You’re not wrong,” the principal says. “School funding overall in inadequate…”
“But why art?” Ines asks.
“Yeah, why the art teacher?” Viv demands. She imagines the school without the three-times-a-week art class, kids’ shoulders drooping, fights breaking out, tears of overwhelm flowing down young faces. Viv also helps out in art class when she can and has seen how drawing, painting, and working with clay relaxes even the most tightly wound kids. “Why not cut the librarian or P.E. or something?” she pleads.
Dasha’s glad Viv didn’t suggest cutting the part-time music teacher who she needs to help produce the school musical. But she groans at the thought of Jordan without P.E.
The principal clasps his hands together. “P.E. is mandated,” he says. “And volunteers are already running the library.”
The room falls silent for a moment, aside from the ticking of the large round clock over the door and the squeaking of sneakers in the hallway. The secretary’s on the phone asking a parent to pick up their child who had vomited. Dasha wrinkles her nose at the thought. Or maybe it’s the odor of sweat, sour milk, and pencil shavings that pervades the school.
“Plus,” he says. “We have you all filling in, taking students to the art gallery…”
“Oh, for god’s sake!” Viv erupts, jumping up from her chair again. This time, Ines and Dasha rise beside her. “This is ridiculous. We have jobs of our own!” Viv paints, makes collages, and scrapes by in the gig economy; Ines is a printmaker and repairs outdoor gear, and Dasha sells real estate. Viv heads for the door. “Being the art teacher is not a volunteer position!” she says, and she storms out.
Dasha follows, smirking slightly as she mutters, “I imagine we haven’t heard the end of this.”
Ines stays behind. After all, it’s not really Doug Ballat’s fault.
“Isn’t there anything we can do?”
The principal shrugs.
But a firm and confident voice behind her declares: “You could speak at the upcoming school board meeting.”
Morgan Miller fills the doorway, unsmiling. “The arts aren’t the only programs suffering from cuts, you know.”
Late
Morgan only wanted one of the Art Moms to speak at the school board meeting, and Viv is supposed to do it. But she hasn't shown up yet.
“Where r u?” Ines texts.
Ines has never attended a board meeting. and she’s surprised that the room resembles a courtroom. The ten school board members sit at a long, elevated judge's bench with name plates and microphones. A lower table with one chair and a mic facing the bench must be where people testify. The rest of the room is filled with rows of wooden benches for the public. The place smells vaguely of furniture polish and ink.
As the room fills, Ines’s armpits and upper lip moisten. Though she has gathered all the supplies they need, she checks her bags again and again. “Hurry up,” she texts Viv.
A clock behind her shows that Viv is officially late. Waves of worry and fury surge through Ines. Viv’s always late and she always has an excuse. But Ines still imagines tangled wrecks of metal or paramedics thumping Viv’s chest.
The board chair bangs her gavel. “I know you are all concerned about the budget cuts,” she says. “So, let’s get right to it.” The crowd murmurs in agreement.
Morgan leans over to Ines. “I thought Viv was speaking,” she whispered. “Where is she?”
“I don't know.”
Morgan huffs. “If she's not here in time, you'll have to do it.”
Ines’s palms sweat, and she feels an overwhelming urge to pee. She considers running to the bathroom and maybe just continuing out the door.
Ines is yanked out of her panic when the board chair tells the crowd that the cuts are “inevitable” and that the best the board can do is “empower” local schools by allowing them to decide what should be cut.
What? Ines thinks. Everyone showed up to reverse the cuts. Anger shoots down Ines’s spine, and her feet begin to sweat in her work boots. Is this whole meeting about different parts of her kids’ education fighting each other for shrinking pieces of the pie?
All around her, parents shift and grumble. Morgan whispers something to the them about “the long game.”
While Ines stews in a soup of shock, dismay, and nerves, parents and teachers begin testifying about the damage the cuts will wreak in their schools. After 20 minutes, Morgan glances over to Ines and mouths, “Ready?”
Ines shakes her head desperately, pointing to the empty seat beside her. Morgan sighs and sends another parent to the podium, to talk about PE equipment and playground safety. Ines texts Viv once again. “Im going 2 kill u,” she writes, “unless u r already dead”
When the P.E. teacher finishes, Morgan turns to Ines. “It's now or never,” she says. “We need someone to talk about art.”
Ines gulps, gathers her bags, and stands up from her seat.
Art Lesson
As Ines approaches the witness table lugging her infernal bulky bags, Morgan regrets her lapse in judgment. Why did she allow the Art Moms to go last? Dasha, the theater one, isn’t even here. And Morgan should’ve predicted Viv’s unreliability. Now the whole presentation will depend on the quiet sidekick who looks like an emaciated deer in the headlights. Morgan wants to bury her head in her hands, but as the head of a PR firm, she knows she has to keep up appearances for the three reporters she convinced to cover the parents’ testimony.
Ines stands awkwardly next to the table facing the tired and irritated school board members. She glances desperately at the door, willing Viv to appear. Then she speaks into the mic. “Hi, uh, I'm Ines Castillo and my daughter and son attend Chatman Elementary where the principal is cutting our one art teacher.”
She reaches for one of her bags. “I have something for you. Something I want you to do.” She hands each school board member magazine scraps and colored paper, a glue stick, and kid-sized scissors.
Morgan itches to sweep in but knows how awkward it would look.
Ines returns to her mic. “I know, I'm sorry, but this is important,” she murmurs. “I’ve given you materials to make a collage.”
“What’s all this?” the chair asks. “We’re on a tight schedule.”
Suddenly, the double doors in the back swing open and Viv rushes in, unraveling a zebra print scarf and pulling off a red cape raincoat. “You heard the lady!” Viv booms.
For once, Morgan feels a kind of kinship with Ines who looks like she doesn’t know whether to hug Viv or head butt her.
Viv waves her hand in a dramatic sweep. “Your task is simple. As I talk, you cut and glue whatever you want onto the card stock.”
Morgan checks her watch. Viv will surely go over time, destroying any goodwill these board members still have.
Striding back and forth in front of the school board members, Viv projects loudly without a mic. “Ines and I are here,” she says, “because when we were young and our families were homeless, art saved us.” Some of the school board members glance up from their work in surprise, and Viv gazes around the room daring anyone to judge her. “And we know how it saves students in our school all the time.”
Morgan’s throat catches. She remembers when her parents were on the brink of losing their house, how she had hoped and prayed they would never have to stay in a shelter. Suddenly, Ines and Viv’s odd-couple friendship, Ines’s anxiety and Viv’s bombast make more sense to her.
Viv continues, “The shelter where we lived had a decent collection of art supplies like the ones you have there,” and then interrupts herself, “How’s it going?”
“Pretty good,” says one board member, glue stick in hand. Another pipes in: “I haven't cut with little scissors like this in years!” Everyone laughs.
“Part of what we want to accomplish today,” Viv says, “Is to take you back to art experiences you had as a child, so you can remember what it feels like to cut paper, to glue, to work with color.”
Morgan is surprised to notice that many school board members are quite intent on their creations. But two sit with their arms crossed over their suits and ties.
“Now this would never happen in an art class, especially not in elementary school. But I want you to hold up your collages.” The board members hold up their work, some shyly, some proudly. They’re a disorganized jumble of images with little to grab the eye.
Viv starts on the far left and points at the first piece. “I'd give that a D,” she says.
The audience shuffles uncomfortably, and the board member looks like she was punched. Morgan jumps to her feet while Viv grades the rest of the collages pointing as she makes her way across the room: “F. F. D. C minus. F. F. B minus, you must have some arts education,” she says.
Heat rises from Morgan’s chest to her face, and she steps forward to take over. Viv holds her hand up to stop her. “There is nothing wrong with what you all did,” she placates. “Exploring new materials is part of art.” She draws herself upright and takes a deep breath. “But I don't want you to think for a moment that having access to art supplies in elementary school is anywhere near enough. What made the difference for me and Ines in the shelter was an art teacher who came in and taught us skills and gave us challenging tasks to try.”
“What if in addition to these art materials, you had an art teacher to guide you? Someone who could suggest that you think of a theme that matters to you and that you use that theme as a way to choose images? Imagine if an art teacher showed you the importance of a focal point? Looking at your materials now, is there a large or bright or eye-catching image you might choose as a focal point? Where would you place the focal point? In the middle? Off center?”
The board members rifle through their materials.
“Now what if you had some instruction on color theory so that you could choose colors that complement each other or colors that when paired together grab the eye?”
The school board and the audience listen, rapt.
“What might you create if you were encouraged to make a self-portrait using only the materials you have in front of you?” she says. “That's a problem, a challenging creative problem that might stick with you in ways that filling out a worksheet with addition and multiplication problems might not.”
Someone near the back of the room says, “That’s right!”
One of the business men on the board leans toward his mic. “This is all well and good but given the economy and our budget, I think we need to funnel all our funds to the basics.”
Another board member nods. “Scott and I agree that we should recommend that schools only cut extracurriculars.”
Viv winces at the word “extracurricular,” but won’t yield the floor. “Art and art teachers are the heart of elementary schools,” Viv says, her voice rising. Ines can tell by the way Viv is tugging on her hair that she’s getting upset. “That art teacher made us feel safe, like we had some control over our lives. That with nothing but a few magazines scraps and some color paper, we could shape our reality.”
Ines grabs Viv’s hand and leans toward the microphone “It’s really hard when you don't have housing to carry much with you from place to place.” After giving Viv’s hand a squeeze, she digs something out of her bag. “But art can be a lifeline.”
Ines holds up a collage on cardstock, slightly tattered and worn. She rotates it slowly so everyone can see. “Viv here made this when she was nine years old,” she says.
Everyone, even the people in the back can make out what Viv had created: a whirlpool of green magazines scraps that pull the eye inward like a wormhole to a bright red house at its center.
Viv blinks helplessly at Ines with a mixture of pride and shame and frustration as her best friend mutters into the mic, “Please save the arts in our schools.”
Art Lesson Take Two
The room remains hushed as Viv and Ines take their seats. The school board chair leans forward to her mic. “I think we have closing remarks from the head of the Council of PTA presidents.”
Morgan doesn’t move.
“Ms. Miller?”
Morgan nods and rises with a dazed expression.
“I had a speech prepared…summarizing the effects of budget cuts on schools.” She pauses, collecting her thoughts. “But I need to offer some context on the last presentation.”
Morgan never goes off-script, and she feels a bit like she’s about to drive off a ledge. But she also feels like she did as a teenager, when she first thrust her hands into a bag of clay.
Working with clay had started out as physical therapy. She had trained desperately in high school to win a crew scholarship to Santa Clara University. But an injury to her hand in the first year threatened to jeopardize everything. To her surprise, clay therapy became, secretly, so much more. Working with clay got her through the stress of juggling college classes, rowing varsity crew, and facing microaggressions on campus.
Suddenly everything she’s read or heard about the power of art flashes before her. “What Viv and Ines were trying to tell you is true. I’ve read research that found that students who make art feel less anger and are less likely to suffer from anxiety, depression, and helplessness,” she begins. “But the benefits go much farther.” Sometime her brain works like a mind map, and she remembers a pattern of five, four, three. “Kids with art in school are five times less likely to drop out; four times more likely to excel academically; and three times more likely to pursue a bachelor's degree.”
The reporters type furiously to keep up.
“Arts education helps student at every socio-economic level, every age level, and for all races and all genders.”
Morgan’s not sure what’s come over her. She has been lobbying the school board and state legislature for adequate school funding since her son Keon entered kindergarten nearly a decade years ago. But something has shifted for her today. She feels deep in the bones of her hands, in her back, and in her shoulder blades, how vital art has been to her survival as a Black person in so many white worlds.
Looking directly at the pair of school board members who gave Viv such a hard time, she says: “Art is not an extracurricular—it is essential. We need to reverse the cuts to arts education and invest in this powerful tool.” She breathes deeply as if she just completed a regatta.
When the chair realizes Morgan has nothing more to say, she raps her gavel and thanks everyone for coming. “We’ll take all this under advisement.”
As Morgan heads back to the parents and educators, some gape at her stunned, mystified and even angry that she shifted the discussion to the arts. Viv and Ines also stare at her in surprise.
Morgan and Viv’s eyes meet. “You were…” they both say.
“Amazing,” Viv finishes.
Ines mumbles, “I wish there was more we could do.”