Paint Me True (14 page)

“Okay, I’ll come by at... seven? I could bring dinner, but it’d be microwave burritos.”

“No, that’s all right.” I’d slaved yesterday over a lasagna with white cheese and white asparagus – it was a gourmet lasagna, and the thought of eating it alone didn’t exactly fill me with joy. “I’ve got dinner,” I said. “You bring the scandalous European film.”

“Disney is-”

“From Eastern Europe. That whole style of animation is. How uncultured are you?”

“I bet you can’t take an animated character in
World of Warcraft
from level one to level eighty-five in a weekend.”

An original response. That was about the only compliment I could think of for it. “Since that would involve trying-”

“I rest my case.”

“Ye-ah. See you at seven.”

“Okay, see you.” He sounded cheery as he hung up.

At seven on the dot, he was at my door with a bottle of Martinelli’s sparkling cider – not the alcoholic kind. The kind that’s basically carbonated apple juice in what looks like a wine bottle. He presented it solemnly, and it sort of did go with the lasagna, which he regarded with open surprise when I produced it from the oven. “You do art in a lot of media,” he said.

Talk about a stilted compliment. “Thanks.”

I couldn’t tell, as we sat down to eat, whether this was a serious date, with the gourmet food, us being alone at my house, and the movie to follow, or if this was some kind of light hearted, jokey date. Did Len think we were two lonely souls on a Friday night, or something more?

He didn’t try to put his arm around me during the movie. Instead, he was asleep before the end of the opening credits, and he snored so loud that I couldn’t hear the dialogue. Not that I needed to; it was the same
Winne the Pooh
I’d seen a million times as a child.

I turned off the movie and went upstairs to work on a painting.

Len’s snoring stopped just as I’d begun laying down brushstrokes. I was working in watercolor, which I had to do all in one sitting. Otherwise, it was hard to get the colors to blend exactly how I wanted. I gritted my teeth and kept on working.

I was dimly aware of his footsteps on the stairs and braced myself to have to talk to him. I can’t talk and paint at the same time, not very well at least. A lot of artists are like this, something about switching hemispheres of the brain to do our work. Even just paying attention to Len’s approach was slowing me down.

He appeared in the doorway and I shut my eyes, ready to be ripped out of my zone.

He didn’t say a word, but instead came into the room and stepped behind me.

That was even worse. No one came into my studio. It was my space, set up exactly as I wanted it. Since Len didn’t speak, though, it was either break my concentration and tell him to get lost, or keep on working with him there. Neither was a good choice, and since I didn’t know how bad the conversation with him might be, I endured having him there, like a rock in my shoe, intrusive and constantly irritating.

At least his silence let me slip back into deeper concentration. I layered on the colors, letting the water flow into the paper, its threadlike tendrils giving texture to the shapes I’d sketched out. As I worked, the pencil marks faded and the pair of hands, holding a smoke gray lamb came to life, with the blood vessels standing out just so, and the lamb’s adoring eyes directed upward, at the benevolent face out of frame.

Hours could slip by while I did this. I often looked up from a painting to find that, much to my shock, I’d skipped lunch and it was past time for dinner. This time, when I came up for air, I saw that it was only ten. I’d worked fast and the painting was small. I put my brush down and turned to Len, who hadn’t moved a muscle.

“So,” he said, “when you look at something, do you see all those colors?”

“Do I see the colors?”

“To make flesh colored hands, you used dark blue and bright red and even a little green. I wouldn’t have thought those colors had anything to do with flesh tone, but they blend right in to make the shadows and highlights. Do you see those colors whenever you look at human skin?”

“I don’t know.”

Len cocked his head, as if waiting to hear more.

“I don’t look at people and see them as dark blue or green, but if someone asked me how to paint a person so that the light seemed to come in from one side, or directly behind the subject, I know what colors to start with to achieve that effect in the end. It’s just watercolor technique.”

“It’s really interesting. When you look around a room, do you think that the light looks like it’d be best done in watercolor or... or oil paint or... I guess I don’t even know what kinds of paint there are.”

“Depends on the effect you want,” I said. This moment, I thought, was an acrylics moment. Warm full spectrum light with the blackness of night visible through the window.

He glanced at his watch. “I should go. I’m really sorry I fell asleep. I’ve worked a lot of long hours this week. They’re switching out the back office software at the firm, and it’s a nightmare. Midnight last night I got a call that a new Windows patch broke all of our remote desktop capabilities.”

He might as well have spoken Esperanto, that’s how much sense he made to me.

“It’s all right,” I said. “Just try not to come in here, especially not with shoes on. Make sure there’s no paint on them that you might track around the house.”

“Oh, right. Sorry, didn’t even think.”

My doorbell rang.

Len looked at his watch again in confusion.

Dread poured into me. I darted to the doorway, slipped my feet into my slippers, and dashed down the stairs. Hattie stood on my doorstep, a baffled look on her face. “Whose car is-” Her mouth dropped open.

Len had slipped down the stairs behind me. He paused for a moment, looked from me to his cousin and back again. Warm air from my house spilled out into the chill night. “I’ll see you later,” he said. He put on his jacket and went out the door without a backwards glance.

Hattie watched after him, then looked at me. “Long story,” I said. “You okay?”

“Not really. Mike spent more time on his cellphone than talking to me tonight. Can I come in?”

“Yeah, sure. Want ice cream?”

“I shouldn’t.”

“Two scoops or three?”

“I hate you.”

“I have chocolate chocolate chip.”

“You’re evil.”

The night was much better after that. Hattie and I ate ice cream while she recapped her non-relationship with Mike. “I felt like maybe he hadn’t even asked me. Like I misunderstood and intruded on an evening with him.”

“Then keep away from him, if you don’t even know if he wants you around.”

“I think I could really like him if he’d just not be so self-centered.”

And so we’d talked about Mike. Len’s name never came up.

Until two days later, at church. I could see Hattie standing toe to toe with him in the foyer as I approached the glass doors. Once I was through the doors, I had audio to go with the video.

“What is that supposed to mean? You were just hanging out at Eliza’s house? At ten? She have computer problems or something?”

Normally, Len blew his cousin off. More than once I’d see him ignore her when she accosted him to find out the name of the newest guy in the ward. “I keep track of the membership for the Church, not to provide you with the latest news on who’s available,” he’d say, if he bothered to say anything.

She insulted him all the time in public. “Nerd!” she’d declare or, “Loser!” He’d smile as if he considered both compliments.

That morning, though, he looked like she had thumbscrews on him and was cranking them down as tight as they’d go. “Just mind your own business,” he said.

“Just answer my question.”

He looked over her shoulder, saw me, and jerked his gaze immediately back to his cousin. “I...” he began.

As I drew close, he shrank away and still didn’t look at me. I could read his emotions clearly. He didn’t want to hear my excuse for why he was over. It would confirm to him that I wasn’t interested and had just used him a couple of weeks back. I’d been lonely, so I’d kissed him, and it had meant nothing to me. Clearly, it had meant something to him.

I couldn’t be that awful. It was either be Len’s girlfriend, or be a user. I chose the lesser of two evils. “He was over to watch a movie,” I said. “Stop torturing him.”

His expression shifted from guarded discomfort to surprise, then he smiled. The effect was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.

Hattie turned to me. “What?”

“Leave him alone, all right?” I couldn’t defend my decision to date him, but I could at least beat her at her own game. “Sorry if he doesn’t measure up to your standards.” I showed her my back and went into the chapel.

I made it to a pew about a third of the way from the back before she caught up with me. “Okay, okay,” she said. “Sorry. I gotta ask, though, why?”

“He can be nice. He asked. I figured why not and...” I shrugged. “He’s nice.” Not exactly a valiant defense of the guy, but it was all I could muster. I remembered him snoring on my couch and winced. Well, I could figure out how to break up with him later. This didn’t need to be a long term thing. I just didn’t want to kiss him out of loneliness and dump him immediately thereafter. I wondered if two weeks later counted as “immediately”.

Jenna strode in, then, smiling a sly smile like a cat who’d gotten the cream. Hattie pelted her with questions about what had her grinning, and she told us about her latest project at work... I think. I didn’t really listen as my mind was still on Len. He entered the chapel with a smile and an easygoing stride. All throughout the meeting, he stole glances back at me.

“Oh,” whispered Hattie at the end of the first hour, “when I turned on my phone this morning, I had a message.”

“From Mike?” I said.

“Yep.” She grinned. “He apologized about last night!” Her eyes sparkled like those of a little girl on Christmas morning, all eager anticipation. “I’m going over to his place after church for lunch.” Mike’s parents were both professional chefs. He could cook a souffle with one hand while playing his Nintendo Gameboy with the other.

“Just got a text from work,” Jenna announced. “They want me to write the Motion to Dismiss.” She wasn’t pretending to be happy. She genuinely loved her job, and the prospect of more work on a weekend didn’t dampen her spirits one bit.

So the moment church was over, one friend fled to her apologetic, maybe-boyfriend, and the other to her fast paced, lucrative career. I was by myself in the parking lot, facing a day of puttering around the house. I couldn’t paint, as it was the Sabbath and, unlike Jenna, I didn’t have any projects that just couldn’t wait because some corporation was in danger of losing a big case. As all of the other cars pulled out and drove off, I felt this was a metaphor for my life. Everyone was moving on, except me. I was left behind, standing at the curb.

“You okay, Eliza?”

I turned to see Len coming out of the building, a notebook under one arm and a courier bag slung over his shoulder. As always, his PDA was in his hand. Just before the door swung shut behind him, his housemate, Chris, caught it and shouldered his way through. “
Frogger
marathon at our house,” he said to me. “You should come.” He kept on walking right past, though. It wasn’t a real invitation.

Nerds had a weird sense of humor.

Len came over to stand next to me and looked as if he wasn’t sure I’d let him stay there. Chris got in his car and zipped away out of the nearly empty parking lot. The day was dead quiet, not even much of a breeze.

“You really going to play
Frogger
all afternoon?” I asked.

“No. He’s mad because I beat his high score.”

“Here.” I dug in my purse and produced the
Winnie the Pooh
DVD.

Len glanced at it. “Thanks.” He reached out to take it.

I didn’t let go. “Unless you still want to come over and watch it?”

“Okay.”

And that began our ritual. Whenever I was lonely, I could call on Len and he’d be there with a DVD in hand. Or sometimes we went out to the movies, or occasionally I’d show up at his house and he’d microwave me a burrito. And then I’d kiss him and sign myself up for another couple of weeks of dating. His kisses were addictive, though, like hard candy out of a dish. Each one good enough that you kept going back for more and the next thing you know, the dish was empty, even though you hadn’t planned to eat that many.

With Len, I emptied and refilled that dish over, and over, and over. I don’t know what made me feel worse, the fact that I used the guy, or the fact that all those months of using him didn’t cause me to miss a better option. There just wasn’t a better option.

I blinked away these memories and stared at the painting I’d just done. The park looked drenched in sunshine. In the distance, dreaming spires jutted up from the trees, giving the merest suggestion of the ornate stone building beneath the canopy. My aunt sat with her knees to her chin and faced away from the viewer, so she was little more than an oval of shyness. Lounging opposite her was Paul. The expression on his face told the viewer that the woman he beheld was gorgeous beyond imagination. He saw her intelligence and her courage, and he was captivated. I could read a thousand emotions in that face, which acted as a mirror for my aunt.

This painting was good. It was better than good. It was better than I could normally do with a ton of pre-planning. For once, I’d just sat down and painted and the final product looked better than I’d envisioned.

I was definitely turning a corner! I was becoming a better painter. Or perhaps my aunt’s stories were finally giving my work the spark it had always lacked. I’d worked for years on channeling my emotions into my art, but hadn’t noticed that the well of emotion had gone dry. It was filling up again and this brought new color and life to my art.

I wanted to cling to these positive memories of love and Nora’s youth. I hoped against hope that tomorrow or the next day wouldn’t sour these for me.

Before I went to bed that night, I knelt for a long time in prayer. I begged the Lord to spare my aunt and to strengthen me to deal with whatever was to come, if sparing her wasn’t in His plans. It was the kind of prayer that left me feeling wrung out, but at peace for the moment. It let me get myself to sleep.