Bess

Intro (Artist) Bess expertly balanced a tray laden with steaming plates of "The Lumberjack Breakfast" - a stack of pancakes, enough bacon to build a small fort, and eggs sunny-side up. She navigated the crowded diner with the practiced ease of a seasoned performer, dodging elbows and weaving between tables sticky with syrup. No one suspected that the woman who asked, "More coffee, hon?" with a cheerful smile possessed a master's degree in fine arts. Bess's apartment, a tiny studio above a dry cleaner, was a stark contrast to the bustling diner. It was a haven of creativity, canvases stacked against the walls, tubes of paint scattered across a makeshift desk, and the air thick with the scent of turpentine. Here, she was not Bess, the waitress, but Bess, the artist. The irony wasn't lost on her. Four years of grueling studio work, countless critiques, and the euphoric high of creating something beautiful, all led to pouring coffee and refilling ketchup bottles. It wasn't the glamorous life she'd envisioned, but rent was rent, and art supplies were surprisingly expensive. She’d tried the gallery circuit, submitted her work to competitions, even attempted commissioned portraits. But the art world, she discovered, was as cutthroat as any corporate ladder....and held little regard for yet another abstract rendition of heartbreak. Rejection emails became her morning paper, punctuated by the occasional glimmer of hope that fizzled out faster than a cheap sparkler. The critics, she found, were an even harder beast to satisfy they wanted every piece of your soul as fast as you could dish it out and when they had devoured every last morsel they would look up with bored eyes from your ravaged husk and ask "what's next?" The world might see a waitress, but Bess knew the truth. Every day, whether she was balancing a tray or wielding a brush was an exercise in creativity and endurance. Bess was an artist, regardless of who paid for her art and no critic had the power to change that.