Painless (33 page)

Leave it to my mom to finally go and ruin things. Her timer had ticked down to zero before my dad’s. It usually did.

The second we were alone at the Zoo today, Mom had taken the opportunity to pounce. Had we been standing outside the tiger enclosure, I’m sure the hungry tigers would’ve cheered her on and licked their chops, waiting to take a bite out of my carcass when my mom was done with me.

“His true colors?” Dad asked.

“Yeah, Mom,” I said, “what true colors?”

“Christos’ drinking,” she said with arch superiority. “I see the way he drinks at every meal. Every. Meal.”

“What do you care?” I sneered. Christos had been drinking less since they’d arrived, and it was the last thing I was worried about. At the moment, my parents scared me ten times more than Christos’ drinking.

“What do I care?” Mom frowned. “I don’t want you shacking up with an alcoholic.”

“I don’t see where that’s any of your business,” I growled. I glanced around and noticed that for the moment, there were no people hovering around this part of the chimpanzee exhibit. The last thing I wanted was an audience while my parents treated me like I was a child. At least the chimpanzees on the other side of the glass didn’t seem interested.
 

My dad said, “Sam, who you’re living with is certainly of concern to your mother and I.”

“Thanks for caring, Dad,” I scoffed.

“Don’t talk that way to your father,” my mom barked.

“Why not? It’s not like you guys are doing much in the way of parenting anymore.”

“I beg your pardon?” my mom said stridently.

“I went to the financial aid offices, you know,” I grumbled, “and they told me that I can’t get more student loan money as long as I’m your dependent, because of how much money you guys make. The government says it’s your responsibility to help pay the difference. Last time I checked, you refused.”

“Now, Sam,” my dad said with an edge, “we discussed this at length. If you are willing to change your major back to Accounting, like your mother and I asked, we’d be happy to pay the difference.”

“But I don’t want to change my major back,” I said. I did my very best to keep any hint of whining out of my voice. Why was it that I seemed to have regressed around my parents since they’d arrived? I didn’t like how their presence made me feel and act fourteen again. Like I was a little kid who didn’t know anything and my parents had all the answers, which I knew they didn’t.

“If you don’t want to change your major back,” Dad sighed, “then there is very little your mother and I can do.”

“Then why don’t you leave me alone?” I whined. “Why don’t you go back to Washington D.C.? I’m doing fine here by myself.” I folded my arms across my chest. “I don’t need your help.”

My mom chuckled, “I doubt that.”

“What do you know,” I growled at her. “I have a place to live, a job, and I like studying art. And I have an awesome boyfriend who cares about me. If you’re not going to help me, stop telling me what to do.”

“Are you sure?” my mom scoffed. “With all those naked young women around him day in and day out, it’s only a matter of time before Christos’ eyes start to wander. Then where will you be? Without a place to live would be my first guess.”

And like a bullet through window glass, my remaining confidence shattered into useless fragments. How did my mom manage to do that so easily? My heart skipped a beat or ten and my throat filled with porcupine quills as I tried to swallow a dry lump of dread that wouldn’t go down.

If I’d learned one thing about Christos since his trial, it was that he didn’t tell me everything that was going in his head. Was he thinking about the long term with me? Or was I passing fancy? Maybe he was interested in Isabella, or one of the other naked women he painted seven days a week. They were all gorgeous models. I wasn’t. I was just a regular girl from D.C. trying to study art. Why would a stud like Christos be interested in plain old Sam Smith when he was surrounded by supermodels?

No, that couldn’t be right. Christos had asked me to move in with him and had voluntarily hauled all my stuff into his house. That meant he was serious, right? He was in it with me for the long term. Right?

So why were my mom’s questions making me so nervous?

I felt tears begin to well. I needed to hide them from my mom or she would use them against me and go in for the kill. Before she had a chance to attack, I turned away from her and my dad to watch the chimpanzees to distract myself.

One of the older female chimps had walked over at some point and sat beside the glass only a few feet away from me. She looked up at me with the deepest, darkest, most compassionate eyes I’d ever seen, like she was looking into me, communicating on some primal level and trying to comfort me. She puckered her lips at me in a strange gesture. Was she trying to tell me something? No, that was crazy.
 

A young chimp ambled over to her on all fours and fell into her lap like it was his favorite place to hang out. He wrapped his arms around his mother’s neck and she wrapped her arms around him while making kissy faces at him. She began gently grooming him. He looked like he was in heaven.

I wish that mother chimp was my mom too.

“Christos isn’t like that,” I said timidly. I wiped tears from my eyes before turning to face my mom.
 

A maleficent smile curled her lips. She looked like the Evil Queen from every storybook ever written.

Oh, boy. I needed some ice cream.

“All men are like that,” my mom said victoriously.

Quick as a blade, I asked, “Is Dad like that?”

A flash of anger danced across her eyes, but she didn’t respond.

There was a long, tingling silence.

“Yes, Linda,” my dad said with nervous humor, “am I like that?”

My mom’s eyes widened noticeably in surprise. She flicked a quick glance at my dad, then chuckled and drilled me with her stare, “No, your father is not like that.”

Wheels turned in my mind, “Mom, how do you know so much about men? This isn’t the first time you’ve mentioned men cheating. It sounds to me like you’ve had some bad experiences? If not with Dad, then who?”

My mom was taken aback. Heck, I was taken aback. I couldn’t believe I’d asked her that.

Mom chuckled, “That’s none of your business, Sam.”

“Is it any of my business, Linda?” Dad asked innocently.

“There you guys are,” Spiridon said, walking up with an armful of water bottles.

“We got some ice cream bars, too,” Christos smiled, “in case anyone wants a snack.” He held one up to me. “Chocolate dipped vanilla with butterscotch filling. I thought you might like one.”

“Thank you,
agápi mou
,” I said warmly as I took the ice cream bar and peeled back the wrapper. I leaned against Christos while I ate my ice cream. He put his arm around me as he ate his and we watched the chimpanzees together. I was in heaven.

Christos was nothing like my mom wanted me to believe. The ice cream bar he’d brought me was proof because it was the yummiest ice cream bar in the history of ice cream bars.

My mom was such a bitch.

===

“When are you going to realize that you’ll never make any money as an artist?” my mom asked as she sipped her tea on the couch in the Manos’ living room.
 

Christos and Spiridon had gone out for dinner to give my parents and me time to talk alone. I’d begged them to stay, but Spiridon had insisted. I think he understood my parents wanted to talk to me in private.

“Your mother is right, Sam,” my dad consoled, like he was being nice and supportive. “It’s unlikely that you’ll ever make any money as an artist. If you ever hope to have a career, pay a mortgage and a car payment, you need to pursue a sensible career path like Accounting.”

I’d heard this argument a thousand times from my parents, and my dad had always provided facts and figures to back everything up. As a teenager, I had always believed them. Every time we’d argued, my resolve had crumbled and I’d reluctantly given in to their ideas.

I was done with that.

This was my world, not theirs.

“Look around you, Dad,” I motioned at all of Spiridon’s paintings hanging in the room. “You heard Spiridon yourself. He paid for this house with his paintings. What makes you think I can’t do it too?”

Dad said thoughtfully, “Well, for one thing,—”

“Ha!” Mom interrupted, “you think a few cartoons can compare to the paintings Spiridon has done?”

“I can paint!” I whined.

“All I’ve seen is your horrid cartoons of that degenerate wombat,” Mom cackled. “What do you know about painting?”

“I took an oil painting class last quarter, and I got an A.”

“I’m sure you painted a bowl of fruit or two,” she chuckled, “but any beginner can do that.”

“I’m no beginner.” I stood up and stormed out of the living room.

“Where are you going?” Mom snickered.
 

I stopped in my tracks. Minding my parents like always. Like their slave.

“It was always like you to give up easily,” Mom said. “Your father is right. You don’t have what it takes.”

“I’m not giving up,” I barked. I strode into the studio and picked up two of my best oil paintings. One was from my class and one was the calla lilies I’d done in the studio. I thought they were really good, considering I’d only been painting for three months. I shoved them into my parents’ hands when I returned to the living room. “See?”

My dad held the calla lilies at arm’s length. “This isn’t half bad,” he said thoughtfully. He hadn’t said half good, but my dad was never an optimist.

Mom sneered at my painting of sunflowers she held in her hands. “So? What is this supposed to mean?” she asked. “It looks like any other painting of sunflowers.”

“Exactly,” I growled. “It looks like sunflowers. And it doesn’t suck, like you seem to think everything I draw or paint does.”

She shook her head and scoffed. “There’s a long road between a painting of sunflowers and making any money.”

Dad set the calla lilies painting on the coffee table gently. At least he didn’t drop it in the trash. “Your mother is right, Sam. While these paintings of yours show promise, I don’t know that painting will lead anywhere for you.”

“Are you kidding?” I asked, my hands on my hips as I stood in front of them. “Look around this room! Spiridon has painted thousands of paintings and made millions of dollars. That sounds like a great career path to me.”

My mom smiled smugly and raised her eyebrows like she was the Queen. The Queen of Evil Bitchery, maybe. She said, “Bill, would you care to explain it to your daughter in logical terms she can understand?”

What, did she think I was stupid? I huffed and rolled my eyes.

My dad nodded. “Sam, what your mother is trying to say, I think, is that Spiridon is, well, how can I put this?” Dad spread his hands apart and a pained look tightened his features. “Uh, Sam, well, Spiridon is amazingly talented, and I think, if I had to characterize your skill, well I guess, you see, the thing is…”

Mom placed a stilling had on Dad’s knee. “Your father is trying to tell you that you’re not talented enough. You’re not a Spiridon, or even a Christos.”

CRACK!
 

That was the sound of my heart breaking in half. I was frozen in place where I stood. I couldn’t speak, or even breathe, like all of my internal organs had suddenly exploded into fragments along with my heart. I had the distinct impression that if someone were to cut me open right at that moment, they’d find a hollow person with small piles of red glass shards pooled in the empty feet. Those red shards would be the broken remnants of my broken heart.

Mom continued, “Not that I’d want any daughter of mine painting pornography for a living like Christos, but I have to admit, Spiridon’s landscapes are very good.”

I was so hurt by what my mom had just said, I couldn’t respond. I stood silently and gaped at the two monster impostors pretending to be my loving parents. They were evil. I wanted to run out of the room, but I couldn’t move when my heart was broken and my insides were hollowed out.

“I don’t know that I would say ‘not talented enough’, Sam,” Dad said quietly, “but it’s clear to me that Spiridon and Christos have both been painting for a long, long time. And I suspect that Spiridon had a large hand in educating Christos in art from birth. Sam, you’re starting late in life. You’re nineteen years behind Christos. More if you factor in Spiridon’s instruction. In my estimation, for you to pursue art would be an unsound business decision. Conversely, you’ve been surrounded by numbers and accounting principles since birth,” my dad smiled.

He was so fucking proud of his accounting.
 

He continued, “In the same way that Spiridon has given Christos a head start, I’d like to think that your mother and I have given you a head start in business. You are well suited for a career in Accounting. You will excel and make good money while you’re at it.”

Something about my dad’s logic infuriated me beyond belief. I’d been hearing it all my life. He was always missing the point. I was so angry, I think the heat of my irritation melted those red glass shards in my feet and they melded back together. Now my heart was pumping red hot resolve through my entire body.

“You don’t get it, Dad,” I said. “I never wanted to be an accountant. Don’t you see that? You don’t, do you? You and Mom have never been able to see what I wanted out of life. You just dumped all your ideas on me like I’d automatically love them. Like I was a junior version of you two. But I’m not. I’m a different person. I don’t want what you want out of life. I have my own dreams, my own ideas. I’m going to live life my way. Not yours.”

“Then don’t expect any more money from us,” my mom laughed.

“I told you before,” I said stridently, “I don’t want your money. I don’t need your money. I’m doing fine on my own.”

“Even if you manage to sell some paintings,” my dad said, “how much do you really think you’ll earn over a lifetime? You told me yourself that Christos has made over six figures already. How much have you made selling your art, Sam?”

“I DON’T CARE!” I shouted. “I don’t care if I never make ANY money! It’s not about the money! I HATE accounting! I want to do something I enjoy. Maybe you guys like what you do, but the idea of going to the office every day makes me sick. I can’t live like you, and I don’t care how much money I do or don’t make!”