Chapter 26
Twenty-Six
DECEPTIVE
DECEPTIVE ~
PERCEPUTUALLY MISLEADING—that is how I have always seen myself.
People always tend to label me or make assumptions about who I am. I suppose that’s what happens when you’re different or have a handicap.
I woke up this morning to Phillipe curled behind me, his arms wrapped around my waist and his mouth against my neck. He told me a few days ago that he was done with the collection. He said Sacred was the final image, and he’d already sent it to town.
He was wrong. I knew I wanted him to paint one more picture.
I wanted him to paint Deceptive.
I wanted him to paint me from my perspective.
Stepping into the studio the next morning, I find him over in the chair I first saw him in weeks ago. Not one word is spoken as I move to the easel that is still set up where he left it yesterday. Steeling myself against what I’m going to see, I tell my heart to calm down.
I can feel his eyes tracking me. Instead of feeling uneasy like I did during that first meeting, I feel aware, and I feel loss. I feel the loss of a man I want and know I can never have.
Turning to face the Sacred image, I am once again shocked by the knowledge that he never painted me in any of these replicas. It was always her. This time, I don’t back away from the re-creation of her he has so painstakingly painted. No, this time, I reach out and run my fingers down the violin.
“She truly is beautiful, not only her, but Diva, too,” I whisper, trying to let him know that I’m okay with this. I want him to know that I am resolved to the fact that I can never be her and that I can never have him, but my words are met only with the heavy weight of sobering silence.
I look over all the tiny details he has remembered, focusing on the position of her hands and the scratches on the violin.
It is terrifying in its brilliance, and I know that each and every image he has recently painted is a perfect replica of the originals that are hanging in memory two floors below.
“There are no F-holes on any of the paintings after Solitary and Acquiesce. Why is that?” I ask belatedly.
He rests his elbows on the arms of the chair and his fingers form a steeple in front of his mouth, covering the lower half of his face. Still, he says nothing.
There’s absolute silence.
“Why?” I ask again. I turn back to the image. Examining it, I theorize out loud. “Diva’s there, and she is naked. She is special. Her image to you is sacred, yet Diva is covering her. Why are there no F-holes?”
Blinking slowly, I run my fingers over her again, scouring my brain.
I am desperately trying to think of why.
Why didn’t he include her tattoos, not only here, but on any of the final four?
I am so involved in my own thoughts that I don’t even notice when he moves.
His shadow falls over me from the opposite side of the canvas, alerting me of his presence.
“Why are there no F-holes?”
“It is not my fault that when you look at the images, you see something unhealthy and disgusting. That’s all on you,” he says, reciting from her journal verbatim.
Everything slowly starts to fall into place. The pieces I couldn’t fit together from just moments before join as one.
“You were there that day,” I say softly.
“That day she argued with her mother, you were there, listening to her. Why?” I shake my head.
“Why didn’t you tell her you knew about the argument?
What significance was in leaving them off?
” I finally stop my rapid-fire questions and stare at him, anticipating an explanation.
I allow him time to explain this strange revelation so it makes sense to me.
Closing his eyes, he turns, pushing his hands into his pockets. Slowly, he moves to the open window and stops. I wait impatiently, having learned that it is best to let Phillipe talk than to push him.
“I could tell when I first met her parents months earlier that they didn’t approve of me or of us.
” Clearing his throat, he looks at me over his shoulder.
“They thought I had seduced her. Her father told me so the first time I met him. He didn’t understand that she was a woman.
She was a grown woman who had feelings and desires.
All he saw was the little handicapped girl he had raised. ”
Turning to face me fully, he leans back against the window, and his hair falls forward as the wind catches it.
“They didn’t want to let her go. I understood that.” He pauses again. “I don’t want to either.”
Glancing down at the image before me, I lick my lips and move away from it, walking around the easel to stand in front of it. I leave nothing between him and me—well, nothing except for her.
“That doesn’t explain why you left the tattoos off,” I point out.
Closing his eyes, he shakes his head. “After Solitary, since she had permanently tattooed herself, I decided that I could give them this. I could leave her untarnished for them.”
I realize that I’m fidgeting with my hands, so I clasp them in front of me and tilt my head to the side.
“When I came back from town and heard her on the phone, I knew it was her mother. She was shaking with anger at whatever her mother was saying, but I could also tell by the flush on her face that some of what she was hearing rang true with her.”
I find myself captivated by his story and also baffled by the thought of his believing the tale he was telling me. Before I can voice my reasoning, he continues.
“I decided not to add them out of respect—respect for her parents, respect for her, and respect for the music I defiled. After all, I turned her and her music into something lurid and depraved.”
Eyes full of conviction challenge me as I step toward him.
“You are so wrong,” I say.
He straightens away from the window and wall.
“She wasn’t embarrassed, not at all. Didn’t you hear and read what she wrote about you?”
I search the face I have now grown so passionate about. How can he not see what I see? He’s so wrapped up in her and all that he thinks he did that he doesn’t even see what she left behind to show him.
Taking a huge risk, I reach up and gently cup his cheek. He doesn’t move, except for his jaw tightening beneath my palm.
“She loved you, Phillipe. She was so proud to have those marks on her skin. She wasn’t embarrassed at all.”
His nostrils flare as he leans down so we are eye to eye. “You weren’t there. She was agitated, and she looked humiliated.”
Shaking my head, I stare right into his eyes to get my point across. “Well, we all know that looks can be deceiving. Don’t we?”
“You want me to paint you how?” he asked me again, sounding slightly confused.
“I want you to paint me looking at a wall covered with sheet music,” I stated again.
There was a long silence in the room.
Finally, he spoke again. “What do you mean? As in, you reading the music? You don’t use sheet music.”
I had thought about this many times. The whole emotion behind the piece that I wanted him to convey was one of deception, not really seeing what was in front of you.
What better way to show that than my staring at sheets of music on the wall?
For years, I had learned to play by ear, and for years, people had never really seen me as the woman I was.
“I was thinking of a white room, like my acoustic room. Instead of the sound boards, it will have sheets of music everywhere. It will represent that sometimes what is front of you and what you are seeing isn’t really so. It can, in fact, be quite deceptive.”
Stillness wrapped around me as the room went silent.
A minute passed before he said, “I want to understand why you feel this way. Do you feel”—he paused—“like I don’t see the real you?”
I took a deep breath and shook my head. “Oh no. Phillipe, God no. See, that’s the whole point of the piece. I want to call it Deceptive. I want it to make people think.”
He cupped my cheek and pressed his lips against my own. “Who do you think doesn’t understand you?”
“Everyone,” I replied quickly before shaking my head. “No, that’s not true. My parents, people who don’t take the time to know me, the ones who find out I’m blind and make a split-second judgment.”
I opened my eyes and turned to where I thought he would be. I strained to see, trying to remember everything about my dream from just the night before.
“I want them to see what they think I am but wonder at the title.”
“Deceptive,” he muttered against my lips, trying out the title.
I sighed, and his tongue entered my mouth. He kissed me deeply before pulling back.
“Truer words have never been spoken. You are so much more than they all know.”
“I love you,” I told him.
His hands trembled where they cupped my face. “And I love you.”
Phillipe reaches up and covers Gemma’s hand where she still has it pressed to his cheek. Slowly, he moves it until her open palm is against his mouth.
Keeping his eyes on hers, he kisses her there. “Thank you.” He can see her eyes beginning to fill with water as she blinks, trying to keep her emotions in check.
Shaking her head, she replies, “I didn’t do anything.”
“You have done far more than you know,” he whispers against her soft skin.
“No,” she replies. She moves her hand down his neck, running her fingers across his chest. “Don’t do that yet.”
“Don’t do what?”
He reaches up, intent on removing her hands, but she’s not having it. Instead, she removes them herself and steps forward. Boldly, she reaches under his sweater to touch the top of his pants.
“I feel like you’re saying goodbye to me,” she explains, undoing the top button.