Chapter 9
Elle
The van has been unloaded, we took a break to eat, and now Jorge is in the studio with me unpacking everything and putting it in its place. We work silently for a while, but I know it’s coming. I’ve just set up my paints when I look at him. He’s staring at me, like he’s trying to decide how to start.
He blows out a breath and I know my time is up.
“That is a fine piece of meat,” he begins.
“Jorge, everybody’s a piece of meat to you,” I remind him.
“Yeah, but he’s like prime rib perfectly cooked with a side of au jus. And a big…potato.”
“We just ate. Why does everything have to remind you of food?”
“I’m a man, baby girl.”
“Are you?” I smirk at him.
“Fuck you,” he laughs.
I rub my hands over my face, knowing that I have to talk about this with someone and I can’t do it with the girls. They’d start planning a fucking wedding.
“J, I don’t know what to do,” I admit.
“What do you mean, you don’t know what to do? Do about what?”
I watch as he sets up an easel on the floor in front of the window just how I like it before I say anything.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on. I feel like I’m lost.”
“Because you had a breakup with some guy you didn’t even really like?”
“No, it’s more than that. I just feel like I’m failing at life.”
“Why do you feel that way? You have friends, a successful art studio and career. Why would you feel like you’re failing?”
“I guess I always thought at this point in my life, I’d have found somebody that wanted to be with me for me. Not for my family connections. Not for my money. And it just seems like everybody wants to use me.”
“I think Chelsea would be very upset to hear you say that. I’m a little hurt to hear you say that.”
“Jorge, no. I know I have you two and that you both love me for me, but unless you want to settle down and have kids with me, it’s not the same.”
He walks over to me, pulling me into his arms.
“I know what you’re trying to say, and I still call bullshit. You’re a strong woman, and when the time is right, if settling down is what you want, it’ll happen with who it’s supposed to happen with. But you know you can’t force it. And since when did you decide you wanted kids?”
I roll my eyes at him. “I don’t know that I’ve decided, per se, but I would like to know the option is there for me before my eggs shrivel up and die, you know? That’s all.”
“Maybe you’ll find that here. Removed from your name—the family one and the famous artist one. And I know you’ve already made friends here, because you can’t help it. And they can’t help it either. You’re easy to love, Elle. Really.”
“I have made friends, but I feel like they’re Tiny’s friends and they just put up with me.”
“Fuck that noise. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this. If people don’t like you, they wouldn’t hang around you. Or invite you to things. Or have drunken nights in with you.”
“Maybe.” I shrug my shoulders. “I feel like I might have failed somewhere. Like at some point in my life, I was a bad person and this is karma here to finally collect her due. I just don’t know what I might have done to earn it.”
Jorge lifts my chin to look into his eyes. “Baby girl, I love you, but this mood of yours. Does it have anything to do with the dead flowers?”
“Maybe?”
“Have you heard anything from that fucker since the banquet?”
“Not a word. Have there been any more flowers left?”
“No. But I’m still pissed that you didn’t tell me something was going on.” He purses his lips.
“What did you want me to say? So, hey, since I broke up with creepy guy, I feel like I’m being watched?”
“Yes! That’s exactly what I expect you to do. It’s part of my job to keep an eye on you and make sure you stay safe. We put it in my damn contract, remember?”
“Of course I do. My brother made us, but I just didn’t think there was anything to worry about.”
“Well, you were wrong.”
“I felt like I was being silly.”
“After what happened before? No, you weren’t being silly. Because of who you are, you have to be careful. You have to stay vigilant, Elle. So we don’t get a repeat of the past. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you.”
“Good. Then I’ll move on.”
“Let me have it.”
“Are you happy here? Or can you be happy here?”
“Honestly, yes, I really think so. The people in this place are great. The atmosphere is wonderful. Mable at the diner is so fantastic.”
“Then what’s the issue?”
“I still feel like I’m lost. And I don’t know how to fix it.”
“You’ll find your way. You always do. And you have people in two places now that want to help you. And I fully expect a meet and greet with all these new people and the hot men.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll make sure you get to meet them soon.”
“And you’re going to get your mojo back. You’re going to relight your spark and do your art thing.” He pauses to look around the room. “Speaking of, where is the sketchpad you keep telling me you have?”
My ears get hot, and I avoid looking at him. “I don’t want to show you.”
“Fuck that. Gimme,” he laughs.
“You’ll laugh at me,” I whine.
“I’m already laughing at you, so give it up. Let me see what you’ve got.”
I can never tell the man no, and he knows it. He also knows all of my deepest and darkest secrets, so I go into the kitchen and pull the three sketchpads that I’ve filled up in the last two weeks out of the top drawer and slide them across the counter to him. He raises his eye brow at me before flipping open the first one.
It’s a really great drawing of Ginny the night we got drunk at my place. She’s got her head tilted back and she’s laughing at something. She looks relaxed and beautiful.
“She’s hot,” he tells me. “Reminds me of one of your French ladies,” he says in a horrible accent.
“Okay, Leo,” I laugh. “That’s Ginny. She’s pretty great. She lives across the street from me so I see her more than the others.”
“More than your brother’s girl?”
“Yeah. She’s got her own shit going on right now, so we’ve been letting her get through that. Ginny and I seem to always show up at the same times, so we’ve grown closer. We’re also the single ones.”
“Is she single?”
“She should be, but that’s a subject for another day.”
He flips the page to a drawing of Harper, Trish’s sister. That’s an odd relationship. Like, their dad is there, but wasn’t always there, but Harper and her brothers still live with Trish and Davis. And Harper is the best eleven-year-old I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. She’s been all ‘damn the patriarchy’ for years from what I’ve been told. She’s sitting on the couch at Trish’s home, reading. She’s always reading.
“Who’s this?”
“That’s Harper, the best pre-teen you’ll ever meet in your life. You’d love her.”
He continues to flip through the pages as we go through everyone I’ve met in town down to Miss Mable at the diner, carrying a tray full of coffee cups. Tiny and Lottie are there with my favorite seven-year-old, Nat. Trish with Davis at the bar, the look of love on his face almost tangible as he rubs Trish’s almost there baby bump. Davis behind the bar with his arms crossed and a towel over his shoulder, looking like the ruler of the world. Joker at Zach’s sitting at the bar looking grumpy as usual. His eyes focused on something behind me. Probably Ginny. And then we get to the part of my Boulder Canyon artistic journey that I’ve started calling the ‘Moody, Broody Phase’. There are a few drawings of Barbie at the counter in the shop and at her station, but most of them are not. There’s Ranger in his station, setting up his ink, Ranger sitting behind the desk at the front counter of the shop. Ranger standing in the doorway, Ranger getting on his bike, Ranger sitting in his truck and then leaning against the front end. Ranger with Joker at the bar having a laugh, both of them smiling. That had to be captured because the moment was so rare.
Jorge looks up from the last page. “You’ve got yourself a man problem, you know that?”
“There’s just something about him I want to capture.”
“Yeah, his penis.”
“No,” I laugh. “Well, maybe yes, but also no. There’s a pain in his eyes that I’ve only ever seen—”
“When you look in the mirror.”
“Yeah. He’s been hurt. I don’t know who hurt him. I’m guessing it was a woman named Vanessa, but I don’t know how, and I don’t know why, and I don’t know what happened, and—”
“And you want to,” he interrupts me again.
I nod my head slowly. “I think I kind of do.”
“You know I gave him the talk. And you know which one.”
I smile at him. “Did you threaten to rip his balls off, Jorge?”
“Of course I did.”
“God, why?”
“Because that’s what friends do. Good ones, anyway.”
“And you’re the best.”
“One day the two of you will figure your shit out and get your emotions on track.”
“There’s no emotions.”
“Oh, baby girl. You might not want them, but you’ve got them. Both of you.”
“Fuck that,” I gag.
“No, fuck him. Go fuck him. That’s what you want to do.”
I laugh, shaking my head at him. “Can we change the subject now? Please? Want to go try some of Mable’s pie?”
“Is it fruity?”
“Of course it is.”
“Should have led with that.”
We’re laughing as we lock up and head to the diner. I can’t get our conversation out of my head though. And it brings me back to all of my questions. Who hurt him? What caused him to cut people off? Where is his family? And why does he hate me so much?