Six
She was cooking again.
León tried to avoid watching Celia across the backyard but often forgot. The pool house was dimly lit compared to that blazing white house of hers, his little glass box dwarfed by the wall of windows across her space. His eyes were naturally drawn there. At night, he could see her walking about, rarely still. She spent hours standing at that stove, chopping and stirring.
She was in pale sweats and a T-shirt tonight, her hair pulled back. Maybe she was getting more comfortable about him being out here. It was probably weird to have him in line of sight. Not that he was looking!
He was thinking about a painting. Yes. A satin nocturne in night-washed greens, tropical shapes lurking, the leaves backlit by a jewel box of brilliant…gleaming…nope. This wasn’t true inspiration. He was just looking up at the house instead of his canvas, avoiding work.
He’d holed up in the pool house for three days straight, painting yet another storyless mess of colors. At this rate, he’d have exactly zero good paintings for the exhibit. Way to start a career on a new coast, showing work you don’t believe in!
He was going to have to emerge for food soon. Andrew and the rest were coming tomorrow night, but León had finished the last of his cold pizza this morning.
Maybe it would save time if he went up to the house real quick? She’d offered food before. What was Celia cooking?
“Want some squash curry?” she asked when he knocked on the back door. He wasn’t sure until the fragrance hit him.
“Oh my god!” The whole house smelled of roasted spices and tangy sweetness. “I absolutely want some.”
Her shy smile as she ladled him a small bowl was nice to see, though she kept her face down. She’d been cleaning, he saw now. The knees of her sweats were dirty. How? There wasn’t a smudge in the whole place, let alone actual dirt.
He offered to take the food back to the pool house, but she served him at the kitchen island and began asking questions as though he were a guest. Did he need towels? Should she turn off the pool lighting at dusk? Was he warm enough?
He agreed to take more bedding after admitting the mornings could be chilly. He scraped up the last of his curry, spicy and sweet and savory, as she went to collect blankets. Jumping down and following partway, he stopped at the hallway entrance, glancing into the dim craft room.
Hey, she’d been practicing.
Quite a few canvas boards sat in the shadows, all with a red vertical line in the middle. Celia, with varied colors coalescing around her. What feelings had she been trying to paint? There was a lot of yellow.
A few had a solid black shape at the top, a horizontal line, an arch above, and bars connecting them. A bridge. Looked like someone had an idea!
She emerged into the bright hall again, nearly hidden behind an armful of striped blankets, then stopped as she saw him looking into the craft room. He ducked his head, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Thanks for these,” he said, moving forward to take the bedding. “And for the food.”
“It’ll taste better tomorrow,” she said, chin raising slightly. “You know everyone’s coming over?”
He nodded, and she went to open the sliding door for him.
“Um,” she said as he edged out sideways. “I asked about towels because you keep hanging one on the pool house door. Does that mean you need more?”
He gave her a grin. “No. That means I’m working. Do not enter.”
“Oh,” she said. “Of course.”
“Text if you need to come in, though. It’s still your place.”
She nodded solemnly as he left.
···
Celia hadn’t been exaggerating about her food. The curry did taste better the next day. Andrew and the rest demolished the meal around the firepit, joking and laughing. Celia didn’t lean back into the shadows as much but didn’t join in their high spirits.
León’s face smoldered at her in the firelight, frowning every time the group laughed, and she didn’t. He was sitting across from her, for once, not jumping out of his chair every few minutes. Still, his knee bounced, and he turned his fork over and over in his hands, the silver flash bouncing onto her rhythmically.
Why was he annoyed? What had she done?
She was quick to follow Andrew and Trevor into the house when they carried dishes up for her.
“So,” Trevor said, “how are lessons from the new tenant?”
She decided to be charitable. Her practice hadn’t gone well, but she’d learned a little.
“We’ve only had the one, but I think it went okay. You were telling me about putting emotions into art, but he’s showing me the steps. Slowly. Here, wait.” She went to get the painting León had made of her little emotional story. Both Andrew and Trevor gathered to look.
“You painted this?” The surprise was slightly insulting, but Celia shook her head, accepting it.
“León did, but the lines and colors were from me.” Finally, having a painting she was partially responsible for sparked a little excitement. “Can you tell what it is?”
Trevor smiled. “Abstract art isn’t objects you identify. It’s ideas. But I will say this is two figures, one in motion, maybe running away?”
Andrew nodded.
“Definitely motion. Running toward? The blue lines have energy, and the yellow line here is like stability. So, is this one León?” He pointed to the energetic line.
Celia laughed. “Nope! I’m the one with energy this time.”
It was funny to see her friends bemused. She wasn’t always predictable!
···
“Celia’s right,” Kelsey said, waving her phone toward the house. She didn’t seem to put it down often. She was draped sideways in her chair again, looking over her feet at León.
He turned from the house and raised eyebrows at her. He didn’t know what to make of Kelsey yet. She acted chirpy and affected, but no one treated her that way.
“You look at her a lot,” she said.
León snorted. “I look at everything.”
“Not me.” The firelight illuminated her amused smile.
Oh, it was like that? “I’m not here to look at girls. I’m here to work.”
“We’re not girls.”
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “You mean Celia’s still thinking I look at her too much?”
“She mentioned it. We all got used to not making eye contact when she’s quiet, but you’re new.”
“That’s just weird,” he said. “You guys are all friends, but you can’t look at her?”
Kelsey sat up a bit, tugging her top back into place. “She wasn’t always that way. She’s so much fun, really. She’s just in a rough place right now.”
“Right now,” he repeated, looking back at the house. “How long have you known her?”
“Oh, it’s been years,” Kelsey said. “Before the money. She was at a club, and I got her to buy tickets to my concert. After that, we just started talking and got along.”
“You play music? Or sing?” Andrew had said his friends were artists, but not what Kelsey actually made.
“Oh no,” she laughed. “I was just pushing tickets. It’s what I did before I started at La Creche.”
“What’s that?”
“The clothing store I work at. Melrose. Fancy-ass clothes that cost more than my rent.”
That did not sound like art. “Why were you pushing tickets, then?”
“Promotion. I was a street team kid.” His face must have shown his confusion because she laughed again. “You know, hired by whatever company. We’d dress up and go into clubs to get people to buy a brand of vodka or talk about sneakers.”
Oh, he’d seen that in New York. Years and years ago.
“It was so fun,” she said, “but I aged out of it. No one believes you’re cool if you’re over thirty.”
“Andrew said you were an artist, though,” León said.
“Only sort of. I model for Trevor, and I’m picking up some photography tips from him.” She waved her phone again. “The shop can be boring, so sometimes I style the mannequins and take pictures, and the social media guy posts some of them for the store.”
“Well, that’s art.” Sort of. He wouldn’t judge, though.
“Nah, it’s promotion. I just like buzz. It’s fun when someone comes in asking about something I shot.”
“Modeling is an art.”
She nodded. “I guess. Trevor and I get each other. His paying gigs have cast models, but I sometimes help on his personal projects.”
León remembered an earlier conversation. “Celia said he dropped her after she introduced you.”
“Nah,” she said, “he still shoots her sometimes. She’s better for fine art, though. She used to pose at the college all the time. She’s good.”
But how? She was so inexpressive! “I have a hard time picturing her doing that.”
“Doing that well, you mean.” Kelsey didn’t pull punches, apparently. She swiped on her phone. “Look.”
She scrolled for quite a while, then handed the phone to León. Trevor’s Instagram.
The photo was moody, the background a black unlit studio, a snowy white figure in the center, mid-pirouette. Celia. She wore slim white pants and a gauzy white button-up shirt tied at the waist. Her hair was longer, her face obscured, but definitely her.
“Nice tits,” he said.
Kelsey grimaced. “Really, dude?”
Well, they were pretty obvious, the spotlight from the side outlining her breasts under the shirt. Her nipples were dark shadows pushing against the fabric.
“Keep scrolling,” she said.
He swiped on the photos. Same shoot, different poses. Celia bent at the waist, fingers splayed around her calves. Celia, on tiptoe, stretching tall but hands behind her head, elbows akimbo. Celia hunkered down, knees spread wide, her hands clasped and dangling between them. She was smiling in that one. Pretty.
She really could pose! She looked like she was in motion but was actually holding complicated postures. That took strength. Her angles were well-considered, meeting the camera with no foreshortened shoulders or feet disappearing behind the other.
She didn’t look like a dancer or a professional model, someone who’d studied how to point a toe or extend an arm. Instead, she looked authentic and natural, like she’d been candidly caught standing that way.
It reminded him of their painting lesson. Her body gave her away, expressing things she thought she was hiding. Truth seeped out of her naturally, and the lack of filter kept it pure. The turn of her waist in the first picture was tender and raw, honest—
“All right, quit staring.” Kelsey reached for her phone.
León frowned. “I was just—”
“I know, looking.”
···
The day of the second lesson dawned. Celia turned her phone off first thing. No interruptions today.
When she heard León enter, she was reading in her bedroom, lying on her stomach across the bed. Nonchalant. She heard him moving around, looking in the craft room across from her bedroom, then he poked his head in her open doorway. She looked up as though she hadn’t heard him.
“Oh, hey,” she said. What a farce.
He held up a laundry bag. “Can I wash these while we paint?”
She jumped up, glad to be able to start with something she knew how to do. “Sure, I’ll show you.”
The clothes started in the washer, she looked at him almost bashfully. His look at her was sharper.
“What are you feeling right now?” he asked.
Unexpected question! Somehow, her tongue ran away. “Nothing. Embarrassed. Nervous.”
He smiled, taking the sting out of barking at her. “Why?”
Well. She was trying to get better at this, right?
“It’s new. I want to learn fast and get better at it. I’m excited about it, but I feel silly.”
He grinned. “If you enjoy it, why not be excited? But let’s get going. This might be quick today. I’m going to that gallery with Trevor later.”
She didn’t feel deflated at all. This was just a lesson. She already knew she was too excited. She breathed slowly to calm herself.
They moved to the craft room, where she again had supplies set out casually. Her experimental canvases were put away, and she picked up a brush, itching to find out if her practice had been worth it.
“Actually,” he said, “we’re doing something different today. I’m going to paint first.”
But she’d had a plan!
“You do life modeling, right?” he asked. She nodded. “Let’s do a little of that. I’m going to name an emotion, and you’re going to model it for me. First, I’ll capture some lines, then we’ll identify why certain shapes show emotions.”
She felt her cheeks getting hot again.
His face clouded, then cleared. “Oh. Clothes on, of course.”
“Of course.” She moved uneasily further into the room as he put some black on the palette, addressing the canvas board.
“Let’s do sadness. How would you pose for that?”
She chose to sit on the floor, one knee up across her body, and sank her head onto it. Her arm lay limply at her side, trailing onto the ground.
“That’s good,” he said. “Really good.”
“Thanks,” she said, her voice muffled.
The quiet sounds of brush on canvas came to her, but she concentrated on her task. Sadness, Celia. Pretend. Do what sad people do.
“Come see,” he said, far sooner than she expected.
She stood and became herself again, quiet and composed. León gave her a questioning sidelong glance as she walked back. Why?
She came to look and was astonished. It was her! The bare black lines were practically a caricature—every minute detail definitely her, despite being so simple. He was so talented. She’d never achieve this level of painting, not ever.
She sneaked a look at him and caught him doing the same.
Back to the canvas! “Is this what you meant by painting lines last time?”
He shifted to his other foot beside her.
“No, you did exactly as I asked then. This is a figure study, different from what we did.” He looked at the canvas, shaking his head slightly. “I was going to give you some pointers about expressing emotion physically, but you don’t need them.”
He exhaled hard. Was he unhappy about that?
“Okay. It’s your turn,” he said. “I’ll watch, and you copy this study. Just do the lines the same way as I did.”
Yeah, right. “I’m not as good as you, León. I can’t replicate that.”
“Humor me.”
She gave it a shot, aware of him judging her the whole time. The brush trembled in her fingers a little. He shook his head as the line of black wavered.
“Here, this is an old trick.” He turned the canvas upside down, so the lines lost human meanings and looked more random. “Now, paint that pose again, down here. Paint exactly what you see.”
She gave it another shot, a little less nervous this time. When she finished, León reversed the canvas again, and she was surprised to see how much closer she’d gotten. Her little figure actually looked sad.
“Why has no teacher ever shown me that?” she asked. “That’s amazing.”
“I guess it depends on the teacher. Some just teach things like shading and musculature. We’ve got to work on your visual honesty. Emotions don’t come from shading. They come from the human body, the heart, the sensations you get when you feel them.”
He pointed to the line he’d painted of her arm, trailing to the ground.
“This line is numb, hopeless, empty. It’s frail. Weak. You held the pose beautifully. Did you feel sad when you did it?”
She shook her head. “Not really. I sort of imagine things, a story where I would feel the way I’m supposed to.”
He scowled faintly. What was she doing wrong?
He cleared his throat. “Your first try with the brush,” he said, “you were aware of how an arm should look. You made it heavier here at the top, which makes it look tense. The elbow is bent a little more. It gives it more purpose and less weakness. But on your second try, you just painted with your eyes. You didn’t make an arm. You made the line.”
She saw what he meant. But… “How do I use this in a real painting? I’m just copying you.”
“For now. But we’ll practice painting what you see, not what you think you see. And then we’ll talk about what you really saw and why it works.”
It was all so abstract, though he made it sound reasonable. He was challenging what she thought painting was. Something to practice! Wheels turned in her head, taking in the new rules.
“How do you feel right now?” he asked. Celia turned to face him, a little startled to find him focused on her with those dark eyes again, his body turned to her, his head lowered to make direct eye contact.
“Excited,” she admitted. “It’s new.”
“How does ‘excited’ make your body feel?”
She closed her eyes without him asking. “Interested. I want to try—”
“No, in your body, your heart, your fingers.”
She hesitated, trying to get to where he was aiming her. The silence went on too long.
“Your breathing is faster,” he prompted. “Your neck is hot.” She raised a hand to feel it. He was right. How did he know?
She shivered and opened her eyes to his.
“I feel it,” she breathed, surprised. “How do I paint it?”
“Colors, lines, shapes. What comes to your mind?” She started considering. What was the correct answer? “Quick!” he barked.
She jumped. “Orange. Wavy lines. Small waves. Not like fire, like….”
“Don’t think of an analogy. Feel it.” He reached out and grasped her wrist, feeling the pulse there. For once, she didn’t stiffen up.
“Fluttering lines,” she said, set upon her task. “Pale bubbles rising, tiny ones. Movement, expanding over the whole canvas.”
He smiled proudly. “You’re starting to get how feelings can translate visually.”
“Can I write this down?” she asked.
He laughed, releasing her wrist. “Sure. Are you going to try to paint it?”
“Do you want me to?”
“It’s your feeling. You decide.”
She grinned. “I guess it depends on if I get any homework. Maybe I’ll try it. Maybe I’ll try other feelings too.” She went to a side table to write down the words she’d listed. He stayed to look at the quick line study he’d made.
“Just remember to paint when you feel it,” he said. “You can’t force it.” He bent to look closer at his little study. “When you want to paint something, you’ll know.”
She wrote silently behind him, jotting down everything she could remember, closing her eyes to recall more clearly. The physical feelings had been faint and subtle.
She was so accustomed to feeling nothing that she had to concentrate, but she could practice. If she could force emotions, like with a scary movie or sad song, she could practice alone. But she could also try to practice in real life. Surely there would be opportunities.
When she turned, he was still studying the figure. And frowning! Celia’s fledgling emotions drained away in response.
“Is something wrong?”
He exhaled, a scowl still twisting his mouth. Then he tried to relax, soothing himself, calming his features. She brightened, knowing that technique now.
“I should go,” he said. “I know this was short, but you made a big breakthrough there. It’s a good place to stop.”
Oh.
He picked up the canvas board as if to take it with him. Then he set it back down just as quickly.
“I’ll be busy this week,” he said. “I’ll see you in a few days, I guess.”
He was already heading for the door.
“León, wait!” He paused impatiently. “Sometimes, I get bored with my usual stuff. Is there maybe some exercise I could do then?”
He still looked a little irritated, his eyebrows lowered.
“Paint boredom.”
She stared as he stalked out.