August 15
I woke up this morning, and all the color had drained out of my life. Do I have a future of beige and cream and white? If color seeps back, will it ever be as brilliant as I remember?
Aly at www.The-Art-Of-My-Life.blogspot.com
Cal stacked paintings against the plate glass window of Aly’s Gallery. Magenta sun reflected off the glass, blinding him, and he pictured his foot stepping into the coil of anchor line lying on the Escape’s deck. If Aly rejected him, threw the anchor overboard, he’d be jerked to the bottom of the Intercoastal.
He pulled the door open, and tiny bells tinkled overhead. He glanced through black sun spots at Aly sitting on a stool behind a cash register as he shuttled the paintings through the door and leaned them, face down, against the ledge separating the window display from the gallery.
Air conditioning closed in on him as Aly moved around the counter and walked toward him. “Thanks for coming.” Her expression was wary and hungry at the same time.
His lungs seemed to forget how to extract oxygen from the air he sucked in. He felt tossed back to the first time he saw her at fifteen, walking down the aisle toward him at Jesse’s wedding rehearsal.
His knuckle grazed the pale skin on her cheek almost without conscious thought. “You’re so beautiful.” He felt awkward, stupid—things he never felt around Aly. He backed up half a step, tried a grin. “This is my favorite look of yours—the girly shirt, swishy skirt.” He fingered the crinkled silky fabric of her skirt. He yanked his hand away. “Sorry. It’s the artist thing, texture.”
Aly gave him a nervous smile. “You look good yourself.” She ran her eyes over his damp hair he’d pulled into a ponytail, his lime polo, plaid shorts, and flip flops—formalwear for a Monday evening. What she couldn’t see was a guy who was about to punt his heart and pray she’d catch it.
Something familiar tugged at his subconscious, and his gaze honed onto a painting mounted on the wall behind Aly—one of the few watercolors he’d ever done, a surf scene. His attention jumped to the picture beside it, an oil of Henna’s house huddled under the Spanish oaks. His gut clenched. In the next painting palms shaded an infant Chase at a family picnic.
His gaze flew around the room. Aly had put up a one-man show.
She shifted from one foot to the other. “I rifled through your relatives’ garages and attics for paintings. I thought I’d borrow first, ask forgiveness later.”
“And why would this be a bad thing? The only other one-man show I’ve had was years ago at Atlantic Center for the Arts.”
“Well, it’s not like I get a lot of traffic through here.”
Cal quirked his brows.
“If you don’t count the UPS man, I’ve had twenty-five people come through since I opened.”
He felt her failure as if it were his own. This was her dream. On the heels of the failed charter business, she must be devastated. He wondered if she’d go back to work at the bank. “I’m sorry, Al.”
Aly grinned wryly. “Eight of them were family, and most of them came through twice.” Her voice sounded anything but discouraged.
“What are you not telling me?”
“The-Art-Of-My-Life Blog is topping thirty thousand hits a day and ended up generating a healthy mail-order business selling prints and posters. The UPS guy brings me coffee—”
“Do I need to tell him to keep it to coffee?”
“What? No.” Aly shook her head as though he were crazy. She strolled over to the counter and propped herself against it. “The thing is, Cal. There’s been a lot of interest in your work. A week seldom goes by without someone inquiring about the artist whose paintings border my blog. Since I opened the gallery, I’ve featured one of your pieces along with whatever I’m pushing that week.”
Aly shoved herself away from the counter and walked through a doorway. “Did you know your mother kept every picture you ever drew from pre-school on? She’s got them filed in bins in the attic. I worked backwards through them. I stopped at middle school. I didn’t think you’d want your Power Rangers’ up for public display.”
Aly’s words hardly registered. A second room filled with his work winded him. The back of the gallery held a bank of windows letting in natural light, now a milky maize streaked with rust. In the corner stood a pristine easel on a spotless drop cloth.
“Someday, I’d like to have artists do residencies here to attract gawkers.” She walked back to her desk and sat down. “Have a seat. I have a business proposition for you to think about.”
Cal sunk into an art deco chair beside her desk. He blinked away the memory of sitting across the desk from Aly begging for a loan.
“I’d like to sell your art for you at fifteen percent commission. Some of your pieces lend themselves to posters or prints. When those start selling, interest will increase in your paintings. Paintings are big-ticket items I don’t expect to sell on the Internet. But people who fall in love with your work will travel to take a look at your paintings.”
Cal stared at her dumbly. “I’m starting back to college in a couple of weeks.”
Aly slumped against the back of her chair. “Maybe we could try it later, when you’ve got more time.”
“You’re disappointed I’m going back to school?”
“I thought you hated college. And you have enough art credits for an art major, you’re just missing the cores—which, I don’t think you need.” Aly sat back. “Sorry. I’m not telling you what to do. I was so excited about all the possibilities, I got carried away.”
“You’re right. I flunked every core course I tried. No, that was the problem. I didn’t try.” He leaned the chair back on two legs. Aly’s excitement bubbled up in him. “I’ve been dragging my feet registering….” He plopped all four legs of the chair down. “Do you think I could make a living drawing and painting?”
Aly stared at him trying to school the enthusiasm that shot from her eyes, fighting to keep her lips from twitching up. “Yes.”
“I’m in.”
Her eyes widened. “Really?”
Maybe now he could do what he came here for. “Really.”
Aly jumped out of her chair. “I’m so glad. I have a good feeling about this.”
He stood, put his hands on her hips and pulled her toward him. “Hmm, stocking shelves at Winn Dixie or watching you in swishy skirts every day—which sounds like more fun?”
Aly stepped back, and his hands fell away. The wariness returned to her eyes. “I didn’t mean you had to paint here. We can do most of our business by e-mail. And… and… I think one of us should move off the boat.” She sunk to her chair behind the desk.
So, that was her answer. She didn’t want a pothead ex-con. He felt like an idiot for misinterpreting her proposition. She valued his art, not him.
He stood staring at her, remembering how she tasted, how I love you sounded on her lips, how waking up beside her felt. He had to try.
He narrowed his eyes and planted his palms on the desk. “I’ve got a proposition for you, too.”
A spark of interest resurrected in Aly’s lifeless eyes.
He spread the paintings he’d brought along the rear glass wall of the gallery in chronological order. “I’ve always communicated better with paint than words. Read me, Aly.”
She switched on the lights.
Her eyes whirl-pooled with emotions he couldn’t catalogue and spun him into a sea of desire. Fear tasted like turpentine in the back of his throat. He dug his hands into his pockets and waited.
Through the gallery doorway he could see out the front windows. A kid pedaled down the sidewalk on his BMX bike. A primer-coated Ford pick-up rattled along Canal Street. A Mustang convertible, top down. A chalky vintage Beetle. Two teens dusted in dusk paused in front of the window. The guy snagged the girl’s hand, and they kept walking.
Aly’s gaze swept the row of paintings—all with her as the subject—catching the progression. She felt Cal’s passion intensify in each painting. A wisp of hope fluttered to life from the dead place inside her. “Where did you hide these?”
He cracked his knuckles. “Behind Fish’s crap in my folks’ garage.”
She stood in front of the first painting, completed when she was fifteen. It was the only one she’d seen, the only one she’d sat for. Even though Cal’s skill at seventeen was hardly as well-developed as it was now, he’d captured the virginal quality about her.
Her gaze slid over the other paintings, spotting the same essence in all of them. Could Cal really not hold her past against her?
In a painting in the middle, she lay on the fold-out couch in Cody’s garage, half asleep. Her white T-shirt stretched tight across her breasts revealing the outline of her bra. Her hair spread out around her. The half-lidded look held no awareness of her sensuality, yet the picture oozed with it.
Cal had painted the picture while he thought he was in love with Raine, weeks before he gave his virginity to Evie. He’d told her he’d stayed sober for a week so he could paint it. A week he spent wanting her. And she never knew.
He’d painted Raine. Once. He’d never painted Evie that she knew of. And he’d painted her nine times, once for every year she’d known him.
Cal cleared his throat where he leaned against her desk, arms folded across his chest. “I have a lot more paintings of you, but I just brought my favorites.”
Oh.
In the last painting, she sat in her bunk the night he almost kissed her. A tease of leg, a softness to the curves beneath her Gators’ jersey made her look beautiful, wanted. Her lips were parted, shiny, the focal point of the painting. Her eyes brimmed with desire for him. So, he’d noticed.
She looked up at Cal. “I thought you didn’t want me.”
He crossed the gallery in three strides. “My God, Aly. I’ve wanted you since I met you. I wanted you on Christmas when I showed you my tattoo. I’ve wanted you every day since you got caught in a thunder storm and spent that first night on the Escape. How could you think I didn’t want you?”
“Herpes.” Her fingers whitened where they clenched her upper arms.
His hands covered hers and gripped her arms. “I probably know the face of every guy you slept with. Do you think I can’t handle a disease? Give me credit.”
She dropped her eyes from his. “I’m sorry… the guys—”
He pressed his fingers to her lips. “I forgive you.” He laced his fingers loosely through hers. “I’ve been clean for eight months, working steady for three. I was planning on going back to school. I want to prove to you that you can take a risk on me. I love you so much.”
“You’ve avoided me since you got out of jail.”
He heard the hurt in her voice and hung his head. “I was terrified you wouldn’t want—me, that I couldn’t keep my hands off you, that I’d screw up any chance I had by rushing things.” His eyes met hers, pleading. “Love me, Aly.”
Cal watched the emotions swirl through Aly’s eyes. He gripped her fingers tighter.
“Forever.” The word rushed out with her breath, sweet and airy like cotton candy and wonder.
He crushed her to him and held on.
A divine finger flicked his scalp and pitched him back to the prayer he’d prayed in the ocean at seventeen.
Aly.