Amanda painted one last stroke and completed her latest work: a heart. She considered it tacky, ridiculous, very pink, and something she would never want to show anyone. She had been daydreaming and doodling with her brush … and that’s what happened. She didn’t care, though. She was going on a date with Ethan. It was one day away: close enough to be exciting, but far enough to keep any serious anxiety at bay.
“Get it through your thick skull: they’re going to keep being a problem until we do something!” Nikki was in the bedroom on a private call, which wasn’t private at all. Her booming voice and the paper-thin walls made overhearing the only option. “You said that already. … I don’t care! Everything they stand for is an obstacle for us and what we’re working toward!”
Amanda turned back to her art and tested the paint on the canvas. It was still wet but couldn’t stay out to dry. This was definitely not the first piece of art she wanted to show Nikki. She slid it under the couch—and just in time too.
Nikki flung open the door and marched over to the fridge. “Damn it, I need a beer.”
“Is everything okay?” It seemed like the right thing to say, though Amanda didn’t want to get involved.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s fine. Work stuff.” Nikki waved her hand around. “I have a really dense coworker.”
“People can be a hassle.” Amanda swished her paintbrush in a cup of water.
Nikki sighed, pacing back and forth. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve got things under control.” She took a long swig and then looked at Amanda’s array of brushes and tubes of oil paint. “So whatcha workin’ on?”
“Well, nothing right now.”
“Paint me!”
“Okay.”
Nikki eyed her. “You serious?”
“I mean, I should prove myself. Then you can honestly recommend me to your friends.” Amanda picked up a fresh canvas and positioned herself on one of the kitchen stools, her easel before her.
Nikki crashed onto the couch, her purple-striped toe socks propped up at the other end.
“You don’t need to sit in one position. You can read … take a nap … tell me your life story.” Amanda studied Nikki and began to block in the shapes.
“Good. I couldn’t sit still for more than five minutes anyway. Oh yeah! Awesome! There’s a new issue of Liberated Woman out.” Nikki fished under the closest pile of clothing for her magazine.
Amanda had mastered the painting of objects. People, on the other hand, were a different matter altogether. Inorganic objects were straightforward: basic dimensions … specific textures and colors. An individual, however, was not just a height, weight, and eye color; a person had an inward expression. To paint someone, she had to go beyond the outward appearance, past Nikki’s brown eyes or sleek auburn hair; she needed to somehow reveal Nikki’s inner self.
The time passed, but Amanda hardly noticed. Nikki moved from reading her magazine to making another call. When she wasn’t thus occupied, she chatted away.
“So I grew up here in the Bronx, in a high-rise just a few blocks away. When I was twelve, my father took off with a girl he met in a bar.” Nikki checked the nail polish she’d just applied and then waved her hands back and forth, trying to get her nails to dry. “You can imagine the type: blonde, flirty, naïve. At first, I wasn’t that sorry to have him gone. He mostly just sat on his lazy ass, watching football and smoking cigarettes all day. Well, at least when he wasn’t gambling our money away and sleeping around, of course. Yeah, he was a real gem of a father.”
“Sounds like it.” Amanda leaned closer to the canvas, inspecting her last stroke.
“He died a couple of years ago. He got sick, and no one gave a crap to foot his medical bills. So he went to Hoboken, New Jersey. That’s the closest quarantine area for the sick and dying who can’t afford treatment. It’s one of the smartest things our government has done: ending any welfare or aid to these ‘hobos,’ these bottom-dwellers.”
“Your dad died in quarantine?”
“Maybe. Or maybe he acted on his freedom to die and went to Hoboken’s Dying with Dignity Center. I don’t know. Don’t really care. He sucked as a father, but sometimes I wish he had stuck around, if only because those who came after him were even worse.
“I spent my whole childhood watching my mom trying to pull things together and failing completely. After Dad left, she had a long string of boyfriends—all of them much worse than my father. And that’s saying something, believe me. But, no matter how bad things got, my mom would never kick anyone out or fight for something better for us. She needed that guy in her life, even if it meant bruises on her arms and increasing disappointment.”
“Can you turn to the right for just a sec?”
“What? Oh … yeah. I learned my lesson well: a woman cannot rely on a man. At some point, he will let you down—use and abuse you. I’ve come to realize the misery of every woman’s plight: men have completely abducted our rights … from the workplace to even our bodies. But times are changing. We’re making great progress. For the first time, we have a woman president. The National Citizens Party is making incredible strides for freedom—women’s freedom especially.”
“Yeah, that’s great …” Politics interested Amanda as much as advanced calculus.
“Just think what we’ve accomplished in such a short time!” Nikki sat up straight, her face lit with zeal. “The federal government is probably a quarter of the size it used to be, maybe even less than that. We’ve trashed all the enslaving and unnecessary laws and regulations that have been beating down our liberty. Public education is done. Now private academies with entrance exams make sure only bookworms—like yourself—are enrolled. We have a flat tax: Why rob the rich from the income they rightfully earned? When I’m making boatloads of cash, no one’s taking a cent away from me! No more government aid to the Unfit—those who aren’t helping advance our society. The JPD protects against the only crime the state should concern itself with: treason. And if someone is seeking justice, private police can take care of the job. Soon we’ll be the land of the free once again.”
“You sound like an ad for the NCP.”
Nikki sat back against the couch cushion, her face pensive. “The NCP changed my life. I didn’t score high enough on the exams to get into an Academy. I didn’t know where to go. Waitressing was staring me in the face, but that was my mom’s life. I didn’t want that for me, you know? But I didn’t know how to escape it. Then Chloe invited me to an NCP meeting. The idea of freedom … of nothing holding you back from reaching your potential … that was exactly what I was looking for. They offered me a job—bottom rung of the ladder, of course, but I got my foot in the door. I’ve been climbing that ladder ever since. The NCP sees my abilities and values me for them. And I can use my talents to advance the cause of freedom. I wouldn’t want to do anything else with my life.”
Amanda grunted. She needed a darker shade for this corner …
“Well, can I be done here?” Her monologue over, Nikki stood up and stretched.
“You can go. Let me just take a picture of you on my phone. I can work from that.”
Amanda kept painting, barely aware of Nikki’s movements about the apartment. At one point, Nikki left and Amanda just waved wordlessly, her gaze not leaving the canvas.
Much later, she set down her brush. She had finished. She slid off the stool and stepped back, examining her work. She nodded with satisfaction: it looked professional. The lines and shape, the color, the light and value, the balance—it was perfect. She wouldn’t change a thing.
Or would she? Technically speaking, this was outstanding. But the meaning of the work? She had followed the interior instinct that drove all her personal paintings. It was a sure guide, though most times ambiguous. She bit her lip and cast a closer look at her piece. This time, the meaning was very clear … frighteningly so.
A deep burgundy filled the background, giving an ominous feel to the picture. In the foreground, Nikki stood with her back to the viewer, though her head was turned, looking over her right shoulder. She wore a sleek black top, and her auburn hair was slicked close to her head. Her facial expression was the most striking—and alarming—facet of the painting.
It was not the bright, welcoming face that Amanda met when entering the apartment for the first time. Instead, Nikki’s black eyebrows slanted inward, drawn together in a deep, low crease. Her eyes squinted in fury and hate. Her crimson lips snarled underneath flared nostrils. This Nikki in the portrait looked nothing short of sinister.
What went wrong? Amanda had followed her inspiration, just like she always did. But the portrait in front of her seemed the inverse of the Nikki she had come to know. This was anything but flattering; it was disturbing.
She clenched her jaw. Why did she ever agree to paint Nikki’s portrait in the first place? Now whatever growing friendship she had with Nikki would be ruined. She rubbed her chin, debating. Maybe she could fix it somehow? Or paint a new one? She glanced at the clock. … How much time until Nikki returned?
But footsteps were already coming down the hallway … closer, closer. Amanda froze, hoping the person would stop at another door, enter another apartment. Yet they kept approaching: clickety-click. Those were Nikki’s heeled shoes.
Amanda dove for the portrait and made a beeline for the bedroom. Outside the apartment door, Nikki’s keys jingled, probably as she fumbled for the right one. Amanda shoved the portrait underneath her bed and then sprinted for the sofa.
She had just landed on the cushion when the door opened and Nikki breezed through. “Well it’s about time! I was going to kill you if you were still working on my portrait. Let’s see it!”
“I don’t think it turned out very well.”
“Look, I totally get it: it’s scary to show someone your work for the first time. Don’t worry! It’s just me. I’m sure it’s amazing.” Nikki took off her peacoat and flung her purse on the counter. “Now come on. You know I’m not a patient woman.”
“Right …” Amanda avoided Nikki’s stare. “So I did it kind of symbolically.”
“Very cool. Let’s see it!”
“I—I just want you to be prepared. It’s not really an exact replica of you.”
“Seriously, it’s okay. Just show it to me!”
“Okay. Hold on.” Amanda reached underneath the sofa, pushing pieces of clothing aside and trying to grasp the canvas.
Nikki cocked an eyebrow. “You hid it?”
“Well, you know, suspense and all …” Amanda found it. She pulled the canvas out, keeping the image from Nikki’s eyes. “So just remember—”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it!”
Amanda turned the canvas around, revealing the jovial pink heart she had painted much earlier in the day.
Nikki’s mouth dropped open. A vein in her temple began to throb, and she put her hands on her hips. “That’s bull. You couldn’t possibly have worked on that all day.”
“It seemed too predictable to just paint you.” Amanda hoped her voice didn’t sound too shaky. “Everyone knows what you look like. So I went with an emblematic image.”
“Do I look stupid to you? Just because I didn’t go to an Academy, you assume I’m some kind of an idiot? You didn’t spend six hours working on that!” Nikki’s voice rose in a growing crescendo of anger.
Amanda began to sweat, though her stomach felt like an icy pit. “How do you know?” Her words sounded feeble, and her plan, unsurprisingly, was unraveling fast.
“I don’t care how bad of an artist you are, it wouldn’t take you so long to paint that.” Nikki stepped forward, eyes slit. “Where’s the real portrait?”
“I’m sorry.” Amanda rose from the couch, the heart picture toppling to the ground. “The truth is … I don’t want to show you the real one.”
“Why? It didn’t turn out well?”
“No, not really.”
“What, you painted me as fat as an elephant? You chose the wrong color for my hair?”
“No, nothing like that. It just isn’t very flattering.”
“Show me. You agreed to paint a portrait of me. I wasted three hours of my afternoon posing for you. Show me the stupid thing!”
Amanda shrank before Nikki’s fury. For the first time, she glimpsed a shadow of the Nikki in her portrait.
“Okay, alright, I’ll get it.” Amanda hurried to the bedroom and came back with the canvas, no longer sure what would make Nikki angrier: withholding the portrait or showing it. “Here it is.” Holding her breath and bracing herself for the worst, Amanda revealed her work.
Nikki’s face was an emotionless mask at first. She walked forward toward Amanda, her eyes wide in disbelief, her voice hushed. “How did you do this?” Nikki reached out, then hesitated, and finally took the portrait to hold it in her hands and examine up close.
“I … I don’t know. I just paint. I never meant for it to look so bad, honestly.” Amanda hung her head. “I’m not really good at getting close to other people. I never had any close friends at Valor Academy. I like you. I feel like, you know, we were getting along.” She stopped for a moment. This degree of disclosure was painful. “I’m sorry about the portrait. I don’t know what happened. Clearly, I need to learn a thing or two at the Masters Academy. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, and I’ll paint you a new one, a better one. We can get rid of it.” She grabbed the canvas from Nikki’s hands and walked toward the garbage can in the kitchen.
“No!” Nikki jumped forward, reclaiming the portrait.
“What … you like it?”
“It’s …” She seemed to struggle trying to find the words. “The Nikki you painted is powerful. She’s somebody no one would take advantage of.”
“You don’t have to be nice. You can call it trash. It’s fine.”
“No one has ever painted a portrait of me like this before. You’ve done something incredibly unusual.” Nikki studied Amanda, a strange admiration in her eyes. “Is it okay if I hang on to this?”
“If you want to …” Amanda shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Excellent!” Nikki propped the portrait on the floor in the corner of the room. “I think it’ll be better in the bedroom eventually. Until then, I want to leave it here where I can see it.” She grinned. “I’m starving! Do we still have that leftover Chinese food?”
Without waiting for a reply, Nikki turned on her music and began taking two plates out of the cabinet.
Baffled, Amanda watched until something subtle caught her attention—a monophonic beeping. She looked around the kitchenette for the source, then asked, “Do you hear that noise?”
“Sounds like an ancient cell phone.” Nikki spooned a heaping pile of noodles onto one of the plates.
Amanda gasped. “That’s my phone!” She raced for the bedroom, practically careening into her bed, reaching the phone just at the end of its ring.
“Hello?”
“Amanda?”
“Yeah, and this is Ethan?”
“You got it.”
She could detect a smile in his voice, and it made her grin in return.
He went on, “I was thinking of what we could do tomorrow, and I wanted to run my plans by you, to make sure you’re okay with things.”
“Alright. Thanks.”
“There’s this great restaurant that I’d like to take you to, and then, afterwards, maybe we can go for a walk. It’ll give us an opportunity to talk and get to know each other better.”
“That sounds great.”
“I’ll pick you up around six, then?”
“Sure, thanks. I live in the Bronx at 875 Dawkson Street. It’s apartment 406.”
Pause. “Did you say apartment 406?”
“Yeah, 406.”
Silence.
She checked to make sure her phone was still working. “Umm … did you get that?”
“Oh … yeah, sorry.” He seemed distracted. “Just jotting it down.”
“Do you need directions or anything?”
He laughed. “That won’t be necessary. Thanks, Amanda! I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.”
“Me too.” He had no idea just how much …