Chapter 15
CAN I PAINT YOU?
ALICE
Three whole days of nothing pass.
But that’s not true.
They exist. Magic exists. And the sadness that squeezes my heart when I think of running away from it all—as confusing as it is—is very much real.
Harley and Jessa have become more to me than strangers, more than acquaintances, and I’m embarrassed with how I treated Harley while coming to terms with this new reality. Confronting Jessa was easy—her candor allows me to push my fear aside and match her frankness. But with Harley, it’s different.
We’re too similar. And like Harley had whispered to me on my front porch, I don’t want to mess this up between us.
It’s that sentiment that pushes me to talk to him, but I still struggle with the act of doing.
It takes me an hour to muster the courage to wrap my hand around the doorknob. It takes another to twist when my fingers meet the tarnished metal. And another after that to step outside.
But once my body makes it over the threshold? I’m free from the shackles of my anxiety.
Funny, how it’s always like that.
The mountain of such a simple task can be torturous to climb.
Insurmountable, as you gaze up at its peak.
You chip away at it slowly, hour by hour, day after day, making vertical progress until you glance back at the slope and think: fuck, I might not make it today, but turning around would be as terrible as continuing.
So, you trudge on. Blisters on your feet. Sweat-dampened shirt sticking to you like a second skin. Sunburn tickling your nose.
Then you reach the top, and you think: fuck, that was stupid of me. That wasn’t that bad at all. Look at the view from up here.
You smack yourself over the head as you sit, basking in the cool breeze of your accomplishment.
And after you pick the flowers that only bloom up on the peak, you start the climb down.
The journey is quicker on this side of the slope.
It’s easier too, but bittersweet—you skip down the cliffside with the understanding that the next time you need flowers, you’ll have to repeat that whole process.
Again. And again. And again. And again.
Turns out, it’s every day that you climb the mountain.
For getting out of bed. For walking down the stairs. For putting your hand on the doorknob, and again for twisting. For stepping outside, even when you know you’ll feel better if you just fucking do it.
For the simple things that are now hard.
For the hard things that were always hard.
I stare up at the library’s entrance, the proverbial tip of today’s mountain, smacking myself over the head for waiting as long as I did to come here.
Time to pick my flowers.
Harley isn’t at the front desk when I walk in, nor is he stocking the shelves of the main room when I drop my tote on the table I favor. I sit and wait him out; I know he’s here. Jessa told me as much via text this morning.
I open my Renoir reference book and his trilogy of dancers stares back at me; in the city, in the country, at Bougival. It struck me last night, after I fudged another update for Steph. I’d torn apart my bookshelf in search of anything to give her, when I found it.
This was how I wanted to paint us: with me, slow-dancing on my blistered heels under porchlight. The memory of his hand on my waist is raw and speaks more of my vulnerability than of his. The picture is vivid in my mind, clearer than crystal.
My pen scratches along the paper, the fourth iteration of us in this notebook taking form with each hatched ink line.
I’m consumed by the act of creation. The person typing at the computers to my left fades away and the air conditioning becomes a droning whir in the background.
All my focus is on us. I smudge a blotch of ink with my thumb, casting shadows on the bottom of my dress.
“Alice?”
My thumb lifts from the page as my head lifts from its hunch.
“Hey,” I say, a whisper of a smile in my tone. “Took you long enough to notice I was here.”
Harley’s pink lips part in shock at my snark before mashing together. Anxiety fills his expression. “Can I sit?”
“I came to visit you, Harley. Of course you can sit,” I say, and he pulls out the seat across from me.
He plays with the rolled sleeve of his cardigan, thumbing the fold like he’s unsure if he should cuff it once more or leave it be. “Jessa mentioned you might come by.”
I nod. “I had a very candid conversation with her the other day about everything.”
Harley’s throat bobs. My gaze follows the pronounced tendons in his neck to the collar of his shirt; back up it roams, to his sharp jaw and around the curve of his ear, until it lands on his messy white hair.
He’s so much prettier in person than in my head.
I’m still contemplating what undertones I should tint the shadows of his locks. Should they match the rusted-red in his eyes or lean earthy-brown, like the freckles that dot the straight slope of his nose, darker now than at the start of summer?
“And?” he asks.
“And I think I’m tired,” I say. “And that I enjoy your company. And that I need to paint something for my exhibition.”
His brows pinch, and I slide my sketchbook across the table. The clock ticks high on the wall, and I realize an entire hour has passed since I arrived; the air conditioning is on its break and the person who was clacking away on the computer has left. An intimate quiet blankets us.
“Is this us?” Harley asks, the knot of his brows tightening as he studies the sketch.
“Yeah. There are more in there, too. You can flip through, I don’t mind,” I say.
He licks the pad of his pointer finger before turning the page. His eyes flick over the sketches, and slowly, the crease marring his forehead flattens. Expression slack, Harley reaches the last one, and his finger traces over the dried splotches of ink.
It’s reverent, the nimble caress, and I can only imagine how the paper feels, to be grazed in such a way. Cherished is a special kind of touch.
“You drew us?” Harley asks again, with different words, as if he can’t trust his own eyes.
“I drew you,” I clarify. “There are more. At home.”
“Really?” It’s an innocent, hopeful gaze that asks the question.
“Mhm.”
Harley’s attention falls on the sketchbook at my hum, and he smiles. A small one. Miniscule. The secret kind. The dainty stretch of lips over teeth you can’t stop because it is pure, unadulterated joy.
I shift in my seat, apprehension climbing up my back. My fingers twitch towards the sketchbook, my nails hooking into the elastic band that wraps around the cover when it’s closed. “Can I paint you, Harley?”
Shock is usually a gray pallor on skin, but on him it’s two dots of peachy pink on his cheeks.
“Why?” he asks.
“Because I want to.”
“Oh.”
“And because I can’t seem to draw anything besides you lately. And Jessa, a bit,” I admit. “It’s… been an issue since Ryan died.”
Harley’s teeth chew on his bottom lip. “Artist’s block?”
I snort, but it’s humorless. “Something like that.”
“I mean, I’m honored, Alice. But this is not what I was expecting you to come here to talk about,” he titters.
“I definitely want to talk about the other stuff too, Mr. Rabbit,” I lightly tease, and he cringes.
“No? Not a good nickname? I’ll work on something else then.
” I close my sketchbook and wrap the elastic around the cover.
“Everything about you makes a lot more sense now. But I figure it’s a deep dive best done in private.
And I wanted to chat with you face to face first, to apologize for ignoring you. ”
“It’s okay.”
“Things between us feel… bigger, if that makes sense?” I ask. “I like Jessa, but it’s easier to separate my feelings from the facts with her. With you—” I cut myself off with a sigh. “With you it’s all meshed together.”
“Alice—”
“I’m not doing a very good job of communicating right now,” I huff, my hand coming over my mouth to hide my grimace. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Harley repeats, firmly but kindly. He leans forward, teeth nibbling once again on his plump bottom lip. “Does this mean we can’t take you out on any more dates?”
My lips twist with amusement. “I don’t think the answer to that question is no.”
“I’ll take a not no over a full no any day,” Harley says, and I laugh, happy he understands what I mean.
It’s a yes, but…
It’s a door cracked open.
It’s a let’s take it day by day.
Harley tries to contain a beaming, hopeful smile, but it doesn’t work, and all his exuberant light shines on me.
“How about we start with you coming over after work?” I offer.
“Like a hang-out on the couch date?”
I shake my head and stand, packing up my stuff. “More like an I’ll paint you like one of my French girls date. With a side of twenty-questions.”
“What?” His face pales, and his glasses slip down his nose.
“I don’t usually paint with a live reference but since you’re here…” I shrug and sling my tote over my shoulder. “Wear your suit if you can.”