Paint Me True
Authors: E.M. Tippetts
Tags: #lds, #love, #cancer, #latter-day saints, #mormon, #Romance, #chick lit, #BRCA, #art, #painter
a
novel
OTHER BOOKS BY E.M. TIPPETTS
The Shattered Castles Series
The Fairytale Series
Break It Up
(a spinoff starring Kyra Armijo)
A Safe Space
(a spinoff starring Lizzie Warner)
The Hunt for the Big Bad Wolf
(Coming Fall 2014)
Standalone Novels
Science fiction and fantasy short stories, written as Emily Mah
Avatar
(co-written with Ty Franck)
Under the Needle’s Eye
(an anthology edited by Emily Mah; it contains
Coyote Discovers Mars
and works by ten other science fiction and fantasy authors)
for Trevor,
I know you must love me
because you read
my rough drafts
S
ix months isn’t a long relationship for normal people, but Len and I weren’t normal people. We were Mormons. For our kind, it was a courtship long enough to be respectable, but not so long that it looked hopeless. Six months was a terrible oversight on my part. One minute I’d agreed to go with the guy on a pity date, and now here I was, being taken on a Big Night Out by the nerdiest loser I’d ever met. What was even worse? I let him take me out on this date. Whether this was out of pity for him or myself, I couldn’t say.
Said date was at a steakhouse. As we walked in, Len held open the heavy, wooden door for me, which had been stained dark and shellacked with a layer of varnish. Odd the details I noticed as I tried to avert my attention from him. His worn slacks, with threads that brushed the tops of his not exactly formal shoes cut a sharp contrast with the warm and luxurious interior of the restaurant. His shirt was threadbare, but he’d ironed it, at least, which meant he’d made a real effort, and he vibrated with nervousness. His gaze darted here then there, not resting anywhere for more than a second, and his fingers drummed against his leg. I’d never seen him do that before.
“Reservation for two, Leonard Hodge,” he told the hostess.
She ran a perfectly manicured nail down the seating chart and blinked in surprise. “Table outside? Under the awning?”
“With the outdoor heaters.” Len nodded. It wasn’t raining at the moment, but clouds hid the late evening sun. And this was Portland, Oregon, so an awning and heaters were no doubt a permanent feature of the outdoor table.
I didn’t even know this place had an outdoor table. It was the most expensive steakhouse in the neighborhood, not a place I dined often, but Len had said he wanted to make this evening, “Something special.”
I’d spent almost as much time on my makeup that evening as I had on the last painting I’d done on commission. Nothing looked or felt right, so I’d washed my face and started over again and again. I didn’t want to look overdone, but I had to hide the puffiness under my gray-green eyes and my sunken cheeks from a sleepless night, and I had to draw attention away from my mouth, as I knew I’d scowl no matter how hard I tried not to. My hair was a mouse brown that wasn’t dark enough to be dramatic or light enough to be notable, but it curled just right and was easy to style. I’d pinned it up in an elegant twist.
The waitress picked up two padded leather menus from her podium and led us through the restaurant and out the back door onto a covered porch, decorated with some potted plants and fruit trees, and a table with two chairs and two long candles burning away, shedding their muted gold light on the dark tablecloth and white china dishes.
Len pulled out my chair for me, and I did my best to compose myself as I sat down. I smoothed my hands down my blouse and skirt, crossed my ankles, and tucked my feet under my chair.
The hostess laid the menus in front of us and slipped back into the restaurant.
“Sooo,” said Len. He took the seat opposite me. From the determined look in his eyes, I could see that he wasn’t going to wait until after the meal.
I squared my shoulders. I could do this. I’d turned down proposals before from guys way better looking and more enthusiastic than Len.
“I- look, you know how I feel about you. These last six months have been unreal, just... yeah, unreal.” Eloquent he wasn’t. “So, I think we should stop seeing each other.”
That was a new twist. He was going to pretend to break up with me and then pop the question? I was supposed to look devastated and then really happy? I’d been planning to look uncomfortable and politely upset, but he’d thrown me off. I laid my wrists on the table and waited for him to continue.
“That’s all,” he said. “Figured we could have one last meal together and make it a nice one. I mean, thank you for the last six months. That was cool, but it’s time to put you out of your misery, you know?”
In the silence that followed, I heard one of the outdoor heaters go tick-tick-tick, as the metal expanded with the heat. A soft breeze stirred the leaves of the plants.
Len covered his face with his hands for a moment, then pumped his fist in the air. “Yes! I did it. I mean... sorry, I don’t mean to be a jerk. Really, I know it’s gotta hurt your pride to be dumped by me, but better than the alternative, right? Look, order whatever you want. You deserve it. You just got broken up with. If you need a filet mignon to deal with it, be my guest.” He gestured at my menu.
All of his nervousness had evaporated and now he grinned a goofy grin. “It’s okay to look happy,” he said. “I mean, come on. You and me? That never made sense, though it was cool to be that guy for a while, you know? The guy who got to date you.” He flipped open his menu and perused the contents.
I looked down at my hands and saw they were shaking. A lump rose in my throat.
“Whoa, what’s wrong?” he said. “You didn’t want this to go another way, did you?”
I shook my head, which wasn’t the nicest thing to do, but he was being honest with me, so I returned the favor. “No,” I said. I dabbed my eyes with the corner of my napkin. “Sorry. You just surprised me.”
“I surprised me too.” He grinned again. “I mean, not that I didn’t plan this. I just wondered if I’d chicken out at the last minute. But look, I am sorry, okay? What do you need? Prime rib? Top sirloin? Extra chocolate on your dessert? Or are you meeting up with your friends for dessert so that you can all gossip about how you almost bit the bullet?”
“What?” That came out before I could think.
“Hey, it’s nice of you to look all surprised, like you don’t know what I’m talking about, but gimme a break. An hour from now you’ll be in the ice cream parlor gossiping with Hattie about this whole evening.”
“No,” I spluttered. Len was a
guy
. He wasn’t supposed to intuit things like that. He was supposed to be clueless and loyal and enamored with me.
“Don’t lie,” said Len.
“It’s in ninety minutes,” I confessed.
“Wow, you must’ve thought I was gonna hire some musicians or something-”
“No.”
That idea now felt absurd, that he’d make some extra effort.
“It’ll give you time to eat dessert here and there, though. I think you’re entitled.”
A tear spotted the tablecloth in front of me. I dabbed at my eyes again with my napkin.
Len stopped smirking and stared. “I’m sorry. You all right? I know this is a real low point for you. I wasn’t sure how to do it. I mean, over the phone is too mean and I knew I’d never get the nerve up to do it on a date unless I prepared so... I did this.” He had the palest blue eyes. Those and his sandy blond hair made him a pretty decent looking guy, if only he’d get a haircut now and then. It wasn’t scruffy kind of long – even that might’ve worked on him. It was “I’m-too-cheap-to-get-regular-haircuts” kind of long, and his shirt was even more worn than I’d noted before. There were holes in the breast pocket. I wondered how many years he’d had it. “E-li-za,” he singsonged my name. “You know you’re happy about this. It’s okay. The waterworks were real nice of you, but enough. I’m flattered. Let’s eat steak.”
Now he was teasing me? I covered my face with my hands.
Len fell silent.
I did my best to compose myself. For a moment I toyed with the idea of making a beeline for the bathroom, but if I did that, everyone inside the restaurant would know I’d been humiliated. I didn’t need to make this moment public. I wondered what was over the fence behind the ornamental fruit trees, and for an insane moment I pictured myself trying to vault it. In a skirt.
Len still stared at me. It was mortifying. “So... did I at least make this date memorable for you?”
How to answer such a stupid question? “Yeah,” I whispered.
“Score.” He said it tentatively. No laughter. “Do you want me to take you home?”
“Can we not go through the restaurant?”
“Liza, I’m really sorry. I thought you’d be happy and relieved. Seriously, that’s what I wanted. But I guess I screwed this up too.”
I made myself take a deep breath, then another, the cool air flushing all of the quivering sadness out of my chest. I could look him in the eye now.
He really did look contrite, and he began to fidget, moving the silverware around on his side of the table as if it wasn’t laid out perfectly to begin with.
I considered my options. We could leave. I could ask him to drive me home and say goodbye to him and have that be that. We could stay, and eat steak in an uneasy silence and I could make him pay, financially, for all this nonsense. The former option seemed like the obvious one. I ought to storm out of this situation and rake him over the coals. It’s what I always did when a guy treated me badly.
But even just the prospect of having a fight wore me out. I wasn’t sure I could sustain the drama for the entire drive home, and if I could, then what? I’d have to be huffy to him at church, maybe? Whisper about him to my friends? Ten years ago, that would’ve been easy. I’d have done it without thinking. Now though...