When We Meet Again by Kristin Harmel

Author:Kristin Harmel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books

* * *

Because we’d booked our travel so late, my father and I were separated on the plane the next morning. I dozed a bit during the ten-hour flight, but when I was awake, I was thinking about what he had said about forgiving myself. Still, by the time we touched down in Atlanta just before three in the afternoon, I felt unsettled to be back. We rented a car and set out on I-85, but as we passed familiar exit after familiar exit and saw the skyline that I knew so well, I felt myself coming quickly undone. It was one thing to try to find peace over the decision to give up Catherine. It was another to find closure over the way I’d dealt with Nick. He still lived here; it’s where his advertising agency was located. With every mile I drove, I felt like I was getting closer to my past.

My mother was here too, in every sight and sound. I remembered going to Turner Field with her for Braves games a few times a season. The last time she took me to the Coca-Cola museum, when I was twelve, felt like just yesterday. There was Centennial Olympic Park, where we’d both volunteered during the 1996 Olympics, and the Georgia Tech campus, which we’d visited my junior year of high school while I was trying to decide on colleges. The world passing by outside was so familiar, but it all belonged to a previous life.

“You okay?” my father asked as we got off the highway at exit 251A and took a right.

“Mostly.” We turned right on Peachtree, passing the High Museum of Art, where Nick had once taken me for what he jokingly dubbed a “grown-up date.” I swallowed hard as I tried not to remember the way it had felt when he kissed me that Saturday afternoon in front of my favorite Monet. It was all still vivid in my mind, perhaps because I’d made such a conscious effort to lock it away.

We turned right again a quarter mile later onto a side street, and a half block down, we drew to a stop in front of a squat, gray building with a metal statue of a ballerina out front. “This is it,” my father said as he put the car in Park. “The Ponce Gallery. We should have a half hour before it closes. Let’s go.”

Inside, the lighting in the entryway was dim, and there was no one at the reception desk. While my father went off in search of the owner, I gazed around at the art on the walls.

I’d only been here once—at a Christmas party for my mother’s office, back when I was sixteen—but it looked the same. Tall, white walls. Black-framed monochromatic photographs. White-framed modern art with bold pops of color. It felt more like a wealthy person’s apartment than an art space, but that was the gallery’s charm. It apparently survived—and thrived—on donations from some of Atlanta’s wealthiest families, who considered it more exclusive and personal than the High Museum.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.