27. Chapter Twenty-Two George Devereaux
Chapter Twenty-Two: George Devereaux
F or our second-last night in Italy, we were supposed to have a fancy Italian dinner with all the students before heading over to an art museum. However, everyone appeared to have eaten some bad calamari and they were all suffering for it.
All of the students aside from Georgia. I’d escaped, since I hadn’t touched the calamari. There was something about eating an animal with tentacles, even if the food itself wasn’t tentacle-shaped, that grossed me out.
So unfortunately for Hunter and all the other students, Georgia and I were the only ones standing in the hotel lobby tonight.
“Where is everyone?” she asked, checking her watch after five minutes past our scheduled meeting time. “I thought we were supposed to meet for dinner. ”
I showed her the messages I’d received from them, one after the other. “They’re not coming.”
An expression of dawning horror came across her face, like the victim in a slasher flick who realized the axe murderer was right behind them. It wasn’t particularly soothing to my ego. “I’m glad I didn’t have the calamari.”
“You didn’t? I thought you loved seafood.”
“I’m beginning to think you have some kind of weird spidey sense when it comes to my dietary habits.” She arched a brow at me.
“Yes, it’s called caring about your health. You caught me.”
“I’m fine.”
I wanted to believe her. I’d even seen her eating pasta, bread, and pizza as well as ordering lattes on this trip, so that had to be a good sign. At least she wasn’t surviving off black coffee, which I knew she despised.
“How about we have a truce tonight?” I suggested. “We can talk about whatever you want and it won’t involve your eating habits. We’ll go to that fancy restaurant that we have a reservation at, and I’ll be on my best behaviour. Promise.”
She took a step closer. “Swear it on your favourite painting.”
“Georgia—”
“If you step out of line, I want your favourite painting.”
“You already have it.” I’d given her the one of the knight and the maiden with the sword strapped to her back.
“Why is that one your favourite?”
“Because it’s yours.”
“Then pick a different one,” she said after a moment. I didn’t miss the near-imperceptible change in her blue eyes, how they softened at my admission .
“Fine. You can have my second-favourite painting if I step out of line.”
“Excellent.” She checked her reflection in a nearby mirror hanging in the lobby, reapplied her lipstick, and tucked a strand of her hair back into place.
Then she marched toward the hotel door. “Are you coming? I thought we were going to dinner.”
“I’m coming. Someone has to make sure you don’t get lost.”
“Hey!” She laughed. It was the most carefree, exquisite sound I’d heard from her in ages. Maybe it was my fault for being too overprotective and pushy with her. She needed to be free, not caged. “I know my way around Rome.”
“Not like I do.” I rested my palm on the small of her back. “The restaurant is that way.”
I jerked my chin in the opposite direction of where she’d been going.
“It’s not my fault Italian streets all look the same,” she said with a mock-disdainful sniff. “Besides, you’re the one who insists on using terms like north and south instead of left and right.”
“You mean the terms that cartographers have used for hundreds of years?”
“Do I look like a cartographer to you?”
She looked like everything I’d ever want for the rest of my life, but I couldn’t say that.
“George?” she said, poking me with her elbow. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“This is how I always look at you.” It might have been more convincing if my voice didn’t come out as a strangled croak. I wanted to paint her—to capture her under the golden glow of the streetlights mingling with the moon smiling down on us. But more than that, I wanted to know how she’d look in the next moment, to preserve what she’d do in the one after that. To depict her expressions and laughter and poses, for the rest of our lives.
She arched an eyebrow but fell quiet.
We fell into companionable silence on the way to the restaurant, neither of us feeling the need to say anything else.
“ Buonasera, signor, signorina ,” the waiter greeted us when we stepped into the cozily furnished restaurant. With dark red wall hangings, velvet chairs, and golden wood tables that shone as if freshly polished, the restaurant was a feast for the senses. The aroma of cheese and fresh pasta and crusty bread only added to the ambience. “Do you have a reservation?”
“Yes, under George Devereaux, for six. Unfortunately, four members of our party fell ill, so it’ll just be the two of us tonight.”
He led us to a small, intimately cozy table in the corner by the window. “Your waiter will be with you shortly.”
I pulled out the chair for Georgia before she could do it herself. She sat down, and a wave of her perfume washed over me.
“Thanks,” she said as I sat across from her. The waiter came by and brought us two menus, his gaze lingering on Georgia for longer than I liked.
Or perhaps I was being paranoid.
We aren’t together. We never really were. The more I tried to remind myself of that fact, the more I wanted to change it.
“Would you prefer tap or bottled water?”
“Tap is fine,” Georgia said. I bit back a smile, remembering how the first time we’d dined together in Italy, she’d been surprised by how they charged for water and in some places, had even charged a “sitting fee” on top of the bill .
“Here is the wine list,” the waiter added, laying a laminated sheet of plastic in the centre of the table, next to a flickering candle.
I tucked it to the side. I needed to keep my head, and ordering alcohol wouldn’t help with that. We were in public after all, on an academically sanctioned trip.
They brought us complimentary breadsticks with our water as we perused our menus. I was a sucker for lasagna, so I decided on that. I snapped off a chunk of a breadstick and dipped it in olive oil.
“Did that menu offend you in some way?” I joked as Georgia shut her menu after glancing at it for only a second.
“Nope,” she said too quickly for me to believe her. “I’m just sure about what I want to order.”
“As long as you don’t get calamari, I think you’ll be fine. I haven’t been here before, but I’ve heard the food is amazing.”
Sebastian had been the one who recommended the restaurant to me years ago. But I didn’t mention that. I didn’t want to say anything more about the food, since I’d promised not to talk about her eating habits any more. Though I was happy to see her ordering something more substantial than salad and water.
We ordered. I had the lasagna with a dish of meatballs as an appetizer, and Georgia got the mushroom ravioli.
“Have you been working on any new art lately?” Georgia asked me.
“Not recently, no. After my dad died, I fell into an artistic slump. You saw my apartment in Los Angeles. It was a mess.”
Georgia had seen my place in California when she’d gone with Katerina and Alexander to track me down. My sister had then brought me to New York so I could attend her wedding. They’d seen the wreckage of my creative breakdown—a short phase when I’d given up painting and tried working with a camera instead. It hadn’t gone well. My apartment in L.A. had been strewn with paintbrushes that I’d chucked at the wall in anger and grief, along with dusty cameras I’d bought on a whim.
“I’d never seen so many broken paintbrushes in my life. And I thought you never liked photography.”
“I prefer painting to photography. Photography feels too… harsh. Too clinical. I dislike the constant need for staging and lighting. It’s over in a moment when you click the button. I’ve always preferred painting because it takes time. You have to practice, to slowly build a collection of brushstrokes into a masterpiece.” Not that I was dismissing photography as an art form—there were some truly incredible things people had captured in photographs, but painting had always felt more human to me. More organic.
“I never thought of it that way.”
“Have you ever thought about taking up some art form? As a hobby?” I’d asked her about it once during our brief time together in Italy. We’d talked about almost everything that mattered back then, yet none of the particulars. I’d never told her who my family was or why I had left Canada. She’d never told me that she was supposed to be fake-dating that jerk, Sergio Cavalli, when she got back to New York, or that she was a model.
“No, I thought we were talking about your artwork.”
“We can’t do both?” I rested an elbow on the table, leaning my chin on my palm.
“Let’s talk about yours first. You promised me your second-favourite painting, remember? But which one is that?”
“You were willing to accept my second-favourite painting for winning a bet, but you don’t know which one that is? What if it was truly horrendous?”
“Nothing you paint could be horrendous. I loved watching you paint. ”
During our brief time together, I’d invited her to come spend time with me while I painted. Something I’d never done with another woman.
“Thank you. My second-favourite painting is A Maiden by the Pond. But I’m thinking of starting a new series inspired by what I’ve seen on this trip. Perhaps I’ll paint some famous monuments in Italy, or depict nature and the ocean.“ Safe things. Nothing that required people’s faces.
Nothing that required her face.
“I thought you preferred painting human beings.”
It was true. I barely had any landscapes or anything besides portraits and human-focused paintings in my portfolio after meeting her. My artwork mostly depicted people with pastoral scenes in the background. But I hadn’t told her that it was because after I’d seen her face, nothing in nature could compare as my muse.
“I haven’t found any inspiration for people lately. Maybe I’ll have better luck with nature.”
The waiter arrived with our food before I could tell her anything else. I paused before digging into my food to say grace, something I’d only done with Pastor Tony before.
Lord in heaven, thank you for this food. May you please bless it to our bodies and bless our conversation. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.
“I didn’t think you were religious,” Georgia said when I opened my eyes and looked back up at her. She cocked her head to one side, examining me. Her tone wasn’t judgmental—I knew her too well to think she would judge me for something like that, especially when she’d just gone to church with her family the other week—but she did sound curious. “In fact, when we met, I thought you disdained the idea of stepping into a church except to be inspired by the artwork inside it. ”
“Perhaps I’ve realized the church’s artwork that inspired me was also inspired by something greater,” I said, taking a bite of a meatball. It was delicious, a mixture of pork and veal; the marinara sauce was the perfect complement. “Do you want some?”
“Sure.” Georgia took a meatball, her gaze faraway as it rested on the view outside. “It’s gorgeous here.”
The sun was setting over Rome, casting a soft, golden glow on the ancient buildings. The sun limning the domes of cathedrals in gold and peach, and the glint of the sunlight reflecting off the water in the nearby fountains made me smile.
“It is gorgeous here.” My gaze rested on her though, as tired as she looked. The beauty she wore wasn’t one of merely physical features arranged in perfect symmetry. It was a radiant glow that came from how she carried herself, how she loved her family, and how she embraced life with such joie de vivre. She looked more vivacious than she had in New York. “Do you remember that motorcycle ride we took to the fountain?”
“The turtle fountain?” A soft smile quirked one side of her mouth upwards. “Of course I do. How could I forget my first time on a motorcycle?”
“I’m glad I could be the one to kickstart your motorcycling hobby.” I’d loved being able to give her that experience. After she’d gotten off the bike and taken off her helmet, blonde hair coming undone, the flush in her cheeks had made her look irresistible.
“You are the reason I have my own bike now.” I’d seen her Kawasaki Ninja; it was sleek and sporty, the perfect bike for her, wrapped in electric blue that matched her eyes. “Thank you for that. For our time in Italy. I’ll always cherish those memories, even if…”
I filled in the blanks for her. Even if they never happen again. Even if nothing came of them except what we are now .
I couldn’t say the same. “I’m glad you found it a memorable time.”
“Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I’d left with you,” she said. “If we’d run away together to Los Angeles.”
We’d been on opposite coasts, with me in California and her in New York. Yet we had never met again until that fateful day when Katerina and Alexander had tracked me down so I could attend their wedding.
“Maybe it was God’s will for us to end up here all along.”
“Was it God’s will for that restaurant to serve bad calamari?” She raised an eyebrow.
“Now that I can’t say,” I said with a chuckle before raising my glass. “To bad calamari.”
“To bad calamari,” she echoed. “But seriously, though. I can’t believe you’d be thinking of painting… the ocean or whatever. I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with the ocean, but it’s not your style. I love your paintings. I followed your career even after I left Italy. I have prints of your Medieval Knight series hanging on my wall.”
Her admission struck me like a cement truck. “You… you do?”
“Of course. I never found a place to hang up the painting you gave me, but I bought the prints for your other ones and… Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I just didn’t know you cared that much. I thought you went back to New York and forgot about me.”
“Yeah, well, I thought you ran away to California and forgot about me .”
“I could never forget you, Georgia.”
She sighed and finished her water. The waiter cleared our dishes, and asked if we wanted a dessert menu. Georgia declined, and so did I. I paid our bill and left, walking out of the restaurant. Though we didn’t get far, as we stepped into the secluded alcove next to a shop selling touristy knickknacks. The store was closed, its awning cloaking us in shadow.
I stood next to Georgia, face to face as people walked past, lost in their own conversations.
Georgia teased, “Are you going to say something cheesy about my looks being unforgettable?”
“It’s never been about your looks. It’s never been about your clothes or your jewelry or even that red lipstick that I always want to kiss off your lips. I don’t love you for your body. I could be blind, and I’d love you.”
The words poured out like a confession. I shouldn’t have been saying them—I shouldn’t even allow myself to speak them in the privacy of my mind. It certainly wasn’t the right thing for a teacher to say to his student. But I’d held in my feelings for her for so many years that suppressing them for another moment would be impossible.
Her expression changed from cynical to shocked. Could she really not know how I felt about her?
“It’s not your lips that I love; it’s the way you smile at me like you do for no one else, like we’re sharing a secret. I could care less what colour your eyes are, as long as they’re looking into mine. It doesn’t matter to me how tall you are, because I know you were made to fit perfectly in my arms.”
I reached down and brushed a tear off her cheek, her face warm against my fingertips.
“I love you. And the you God made is so much more than a pretty face.”