Unspoken (15 page)

“A sketch artist who didn’t care about her paper would surprise me more.”

“I’m kind of the same about my pencils and pens.”

Bryce laughed. “Expected that.”

They fixed themselves their salads, lifted slices of sizzling pizza from the hot stone, and took the meal over to the table.

“I’ve not been over to the Dance and Covey Gallery yet,” Bryce told her. “My apologies. I’ve been a bit busy, thanks to you. But I plan to change that fact soon.”

“I think you’ll enjoy it,” Charlotte assured him. “You’ll find hundreds of my framed sketches at prices that make me wince. Six of Marie’s oil paintings, five on loan from their owners, one on display pending being priced for sale. I’m guessing Ellie will price it around eight million. Marie and I are an odd combination for a gallery’s exclusive artists, but it works. The main hall showcases whatever artist Covey has brought in to feature for the month.

“Ellie manages the business affairs for Marie and me for the art we create. Covey deals with the rest of the artists and the business of the gallery. It leaves Ellie free to do whatever traveling she wants, be at the gallery when she wants. Covey gets a partner to help keep the business profitable while still running the gallery as his. It’s a good arrangement, has been a stable one for the last fourteen years.”

Bryce got up for more pizza. “Why select a gallery in Chicago?”

“Just the way it happened to work out. We considered Texas, but both Marie’s and my work is Midwest in its flavor. Ellie grew up about two hours south of here. The city is large enough it
has a vibrant art community and can support a specialized gallery. Ellie knew Covey through her uncle. Covey’s been in the business thirty-two years, and he’s a guy with solid integrity. It works. This pizza isn’t half bad, Bishop,” she said as he slid another piece onto her plate.

“Not frozen, and there’s no recipe, so don’t ask me to repeat it. Every pizza I put together comes out different. But the sauce stays the same.”

“I’m mildly impressed,” Charlotte promised. “I’m not in Chicago very often,” she continued, reverting back to the prior conversation, “and I’m rarely at the gallery. CRM is known as the artist who does interesting work but carefully keeps her privacy. Ellie has made that a feature rather than a drawback with collectors. Covey would recognize me, but I doubt his staff would know me by sight. Marie is the same—she’s not one to make public appearances to sell her art. You can tell from the prices that it hasn’t hurt her sales or reputation among collectors.”

“You know her?”

Charlotte took another careful bite of the hot pizza. “I know her very well.”

“Let me show you around outside while the evening light is still good.” Bryce walked through the kitchen into the sunroom where he opened the French doors that led out onto the back patio.

Charlotte, carrying her glass with her, had stopped in the sunroom. She was looking down the length of the room with a stunned expression. “What is this, about forty feet?”

“They built the sunroom to run alongside the garage addition, so thirty-six feet by fourteen feet wide.”

“Forget the room. I’m looking at all that gorgeous expanse
of white wall and thinking of the art it’s missing.” She looked to the open French doors and the patio beyond him, laughed. “This just keeps getting better.” She stepped out onto the paving stones. “This is like an oasis in the city.”

“The woman who built this home bought four lots. She planted the blue spruce trees around the perimeter knowing in twenty years they would create this sanctuary. Trees have been replaced over the decades as they age, but the concept has been kept. I get the benefit of her foresight.”

The distant noise of traffic was a steady backdrop, along with some sounds of neighbors. But the backyard was white birch trees, some flowering shrubs, roses, against those year-round evergreens.

Charlotte rested her hand on the back of one of the patio chairs. “You must spend a lot of time out here.”

“Not as much as it deserves.” He nodded to the windows to their right. “But my home office looks out over the yard, so I get to enjoy the scenery. The birds consider it a safe haven and nest here in large numbers. I’m partial to the sparrows, oddly enough.”

“This is why you bought this house.”

“It is. The property will also appreciate in value faster than other homes in the neighborhood because of the yard and the oversized garage.”

Charlotte laughed. “Always the businessman.”

“I’m wired that way, so I’ll say thanks for the compliment. I like the combination of practical decisions along with long-term thinking that drives most decisions I make. Life stays interesting that way.”

Charlotte smiled. “I like that about you, Bryce.”

Charlotte liked Bryce’s living room. It was casual and well lived in, the couch and chairs chosen for comfort, the books
on the shelves indicating the man probably read as much as he watched TV. She set her drink on a coaster on the coffee table and sank into the plush leather of a chair. “Good food, a comfortable chair . . . you’re going to lose my attention.”

Bryce turned on the TV and found the baseball game, set the volume on low, then took a seat on the couch. “You nod off, I’m not going to be offended.”

“I won’t, but thanks.”

“There’s a reason I want a few evenings of conversation with you,” he mentioned, “and I was semi-serious when I suggested we could talk during commercials. I’d rather have you take a question, mull over your answer until the next commercial, and give me some depth to your answer, than simply give me the surface answer you think I want to hear.”

“An interesting way to put it.”

“So here’s my first question. I need you to think about the approach you want to take to your giving. Do you want a top-down approach with objectives, categories, and I find ways to give which express those objectives? Or do you want a micro approach, where the giving is lists of specific items to fund where the criteria are simply whether it’s a useful gift?”

She picked up the paperweight on the table and idly shifted it from hand to hand as she considered him. “In order to ask me that question, you’ve already been thinking about how each approach might look. Can you describe what you’re thinking?”

“The first approach is to focus on, say, three categories: extreme poverty, hunger in the U.S., supporting and developing vibrant churches. You would target funds to each priority through existing organizations that are already operating at scale. For extreme poverty relief, for example, ten million to Samaritan’s Purse and ten million to World Vision. To address hunger, ten million divided up as five thousand to each of the existing major food pantry distribution hubs, and another ten
million for program grants of fifty thousand each. To support and develop vibrant churches, ten million could go to the Willow Creek Association for developing church leadership worldwide, and another ten million spread across the hundred twenty-five evangelical churches averaging over a thousand in attendance. The sixty million gets deployed in ways that produces results but doesn’t expand an organization or create a reliance on your continued funding.”

Her hand holding the paperweight stilled. “I think I just heard your preferred plan for the cash. You’ve already thought this out.”

“An enjoyable endeavor,” Bryce offered. “It’s one recommendation. It would take a few weeks to further refine the idea so the sixty million could be made even more effective. But the core approach is there. Your gifts would make a serious impact, and the decisions you would need to make are reasonably contained. I rather like it for its simplicity. But it’s not necessarily the right approach for you.”

His comment surprised her. “It’s not?”

“Pardon me for saying it this way, but you’re a single woman giving away a fortune. You might not need this cash yourself, but whether it’s sixty dollars or sixty million, you’re making a sacrifice in giving away the money. Thirty years from now, looking back, you might feel better knowing more about who you’ve helped. No matter the amount involved, this is a personal gift.”

He pointed to the folder on the coffee table. “Option two is the micro approach. A food pantry in Denver needs eight thousand for a used van. A group called Clean Water Today is raising funds to drill a well in Nierra, South Africa. Micro is when you fund very specific needs. And if they need four thousand, you don’t give them five. You find another specific need for the other thousand.”

He considered her for a moment. “Charlotte, I can give you
a businessman’s advice and plan for what to do—nice, neat, organized, and it will accomplish a lot of good. Or I can give you specifics until the sixty million is given away. Either way, you should think like a treasurer, for that’s what this is. A treasure to disperse.”

She set the paperweight back on the table. “It would be an extraordinary amount of work to find sixty million in micro needs rather than allocate the funds to organizations and let them work down to the line-by-line decisions.”

“It’s more time, but a lot more personal. That’s the decision I need from you. How much do you want this to be hands-on giving, Charlotte?”

She shook her head again. “If you’re helping find the micro ideas, it’s your time too, far more than mine.”

“Your cash. Your decision.”

She leaned her head back against the chair cushion. “Let’s watch a few innings of the ball game. This is not an easy question, Bryce.”

“Take your time and ponder it. The Mets are playing tonight, and it should be a good game.” He reached for the remote and turned up the volume.

She took an hour to think about it. “I like the idea of knowing who was helped with the money.”

He muted the commercial and turned to face her. “Then micro it is.”

“Can you come up with that many specific needs to fund?”

“We’ll find out.” He reached for the folder of micro ideas. “There are a few ways to organize it. Let’s try this.” He handed it to her. “I’d like you to remove any ideas that don’t appeal to you, put a check mark on pages you’re okay with, and put a question mark on items you want to think about further. I’ll
check out the organizations’ financials and staff before you make a donation.”

She accepted the folder and flipped through the pages, nodded. “I can do that.”

“Having a page of items to write checks from has worked well so far, so we’ll continue to do that. I’ll put together that page each week. It would be wise to order checks that can run through the printer so all you need to do is sign them. If the average gift is five thousand dollars, we’re looking at twelve thousand checks over the next year.”

“I’ll mention it to Ellie.” She found a pen and took the first page from the folder to read.

“You’re welcome to take that folder with you to review.”

“I’ll do it now. I want to finish the game.”

“I didn’t know you liked baseball. I thought you were humoring me.”

“Watching a Mets game—I’m humoring you. But when you see the sketches at the Dance and Covey Gallery, you’ll realize I’ve probably watched more sports than even some sports reporters. You want a good penned sketch, give me a live sporting event.”

“You don’t like to be cooped up inside.”