Disclaimer: Not mine. Also, titles are really hard you guys. Escape-fic provided me with a lot of excellent ideas but there's no one to blame for this mediocre title but myself. And Florence Welch, who is responsible for the song the title comes from. But you can't even blame her because her songs are awesome.
A/N: So this story is the result of a conversation between Wogs and pictureswithboxes and then further pressure from pictureswithboxes, so I would like to blame her for what you are about to read. The story is also for thefutillitarian because she seems to need some cheering up and for Pip, just because ;)
"Spectrum"
"I think I'm sick."
"Nice try."
"No, seriously. I've been feeling off all day. Now I'm feeling…I think I have a fever. I'm probably contagious."
"Don't be such a baby, Bree." Chloe chides, shaking her head at her girlfriend. "You act like I'm forcing you to stand in front of a firing squad."
Aubrey sighs and, in a move that she learned from Chloe, flops down face first onto the couch in the living room. "I don't know why I have to go." She mumbles into the fabric of the couch pillows.
Chloe sits down on her back and Aubrey groans but doesn't move. Chloe isn't sure if she should accept this as a sign of defeat or resignation on her girlfriend's part. "It's going to be fun. There's going to be wine and painting and it's going to be fun. And you can meet some of the people I work with." Aubrey mutters something that Chloe doesn't quite catch. "And I want you to go."
Chloe can feel Aubrey sigh underneath her and the blonde shifts so that she can look up at her girlfriend. "Fine. I'll come. But I don't want to paint."
"That's the best part!" Chloe hops up and tugs Aubrey off the couch. "Okay, well, there's wine too but…the painting is totally the best part. You have to paint." She informs Aubrey, who crosses her arms over her chest. "Why don't you want to paint?"
Aubrey shrugs. "I'm not artistic."
Chloe waves her hand dismissively. "It's not like that, Bree. You don't actually have to have any artistic talent. They tell you step by step what to paint. It's easy. It's foolproof. That's why they give you wine too."
"Fine." Aubrey mutters, only because she can tell that she's not going to win this particular argument. If Chloe wants her to drink wine and throw some paint onto a canvas than that's what she's going to do. "But it's going to be horrible."
Chloe rolls her eyes. "I doubt that. Everything you do is perfect. You're totally going to have the best one." She remarks as she walks over to the coat closet to get out their jackets and scarves. "I can't wait to hang it up in the bedroom and tell people it's like by a professional painter or something."
Thankfully, Chloe misses the deer-in-the-headlights look that crosses Aubrey's face as her girlfriend speaks. It seems pointless to point out that the only class she ever made a B in during high school was art because Chloe already seems to have it in her head that Aubrey is going to be some sort of master painter who is about to tap into her previously undiscovered talent. Well…Aubrey can only hope.
On the way to the painting place, Chloe gives Aubrey a brief rundown on the coworkers that Aubrey will soon be meeting and she doubts that she's going to be able to keep them all straight. She'll probably confuse Bailey with Kellie and is Emily the one with the dog or is that Molly? Though, these people have featured in Chloe's very colorful tales from work so Aubrey thinks it will be nice to be able to put faces to the names. Though she's still not sure why Chloe is so adamant that she tag along because this is clearly co-worker bonding time. But she never has been good at saying no to Chloe.
The class is about the start by the time Chloe and Aubrey arrive and the spacious room is crowded with chattering women and easels and purses and jackets and Aubrey isn't sure how they're supposed to be expected to do anything creative in this environment. But the spatial issues don't seem to bother Chloe, who spots her cluster of coworkers and grins and waves at them after she hands her debit card over to the woman behind the counter. The woman looks slightly annoyed at their late arrival but she just hands them their brushes and empty paint trays and instructs them to find an empty easel.
Chloe drags Aubrey over to where her coworkers are gathered and lets loose a string of introductions that Aubrey does her best to keep straight. She just smiles and nods and shakes hands and hopes that painting is as easy as being the dutiful girlfriend.
Unfortunately, the downside of being late to class is that the few remaining easels are spread across the room and one of Chloe's coworkers (Wendy? Candice?) gives Aubrey an apologetic smile. "We didn't know you were coming." She explains. "Otherwise we would have saved two spaces…" The other women nod their agreement.
Chloe looks at Aubrey with a slightly stricken expression on her face and Aubrey smiles and shrugs. "It's not a big deal. And that way you can't see my painting until it's perfect." Unless she throws it into the trash before anyone can see it, but now doesn't seem like the time to mention that.
Chloe still looks slightly pouty as Aubrey heads off to find another easel but Aubrey figures that Chloe will have fun and do the co-worker bonding thing and Aubrey can focus all her attention on painting this stupid picture and everyone will be happy. She finds an easel at the end of one of the rows toward the back and she gives a diplomatic smile to the woman next to her, who is wearing the paint stained clothes and the serious expression on her face. That woman looks ready for business. It makes Aubrey really want a glass of wine.
The unhappy looking woman that had previously been behind the counter is also apparently in charge of teaching the class. Aubrey opens her bottle of wine and pours some into the complimentary Sips and Strokes tumbler that was also provided for her and tries to pay attention to what the woman is saying but the fact that she's about to drink wine out of a plastic cup with a straw is proving to be a little too distracting at the moment.
The instructor, whose name is Erin, holds up the painting that they will be striving to emulate. It's a seasonally appropriate painting of a group of trees by a lake and all the leaves are turning orange and red and gold with the approach of autumn. Aubrey sips her wine and feels relieved as she looks at the picture. How hard can it be to paint a bunch of trees with changing leaves? She can totally do this.
When the whole class leaves their easels to go fill their paint trays, Chloe grins at Aubrey like it's been five months, not five minutes, since they've last spoken. "This is going to be fun." Chloe tells Aubrey as they get their paint. "I'm excited. We should come to these painting things more often." The fact that they haven't even started painting seems to make no difference to Chloe.
Aubrey smiles and gives Chloe a quick kiss. "You're cute." Chloe crinkles her nose and smiles and Aubrey is a little less annoyed that she got talked into attending this class. The fact that she's only going to have to paint a few simple trees helps get rid of some of her annoyance as well.
Back at her easel, Aubrey is ready to create her masterpiece. She doesn't even want to wait for Erin to lead them through the steps. She's not in elementary school anymore, she doesn't need someone to tell her how to paint a tree.
Aubrey dips her brush in the brown paint but stops when the woman next to her gives her a haughty look. "What?" Aubrey questions. And if her tone is a little haughty well…this lady started it.
"You have to paint the canvas white first." The woman tells her as she begins to do exactly that.
Aubrey gives her a doubtful look. "Why? It's already white." She hates it when things are obvious and complicated unnecessarily.
"It helps even out the colors and smoothes out the canvas." The lady tells her.
Aubrey is about to protest but Erin, the instructor, tells the class to do exactly that and the woman gives Aubrey a smug look and Aubrey trades out her brown brush for a clean one and does as instructed. Clearly this woman next to her is some sort of painting expert. Well, Chloe wasn't lying when she said that Aubrey was great at everything. This is going to be no exception. She's going to make the best painting of autumn trees ever produced and she'll give it to Chloe and Chloe will be proud of her abilities and this painting lady will be jealous of Aubrey's masterpiece.
Aubrey is still painting her canvas white and mentally planning out her success as a painter when Erin instructs the class to move onto the next step and it takes Aubrey a second to clean off her brush and follow along.
The first step is to paint the bank upon which the trees will stand and Aubrey finds it a little bit distressing that there is only one shade of brown for them to use. How are people supposed to tell the difference between the trunks of the trees and the ground? She highly doubts that Monet or Picasso only had a few different colors to work with.
But the first sign of real trouble comes when Erin tells the class that they can make the banks however they want. "It's up to you how big or small the bank is, whether it's flat or curved or how much will stretch down into the lake." She tells them with a smile on her face. "The choice is yours."
Aubrey frowns and studies her currently blank canvas. With instructions like that, how is she supposed to know how to create the perfect riverbank? She looks at the completed picture in the front of the room but she's too far away to really judge the size and she huffs out a breath. Aubrey can follow directions; she's great at following directions. But do whatever you want is not a directive that she's all that great at following.
From where she's standing, Aubrey can see Chloe and feels a stab of envy when she looks at her girlfriend. Chloe is laughing at something that one of her coworkers has said and she doesn't even seem to be paying much attention to the paint that she's putting onto her canvas. Her brushstrokes are sloppy and uneven but Aubrey can still see the image of a bank coming together, whereas Aubrey has nothing but an empty canvas.
As though she can feel her watching, Chloe looks over her shoulder and smiles at Aubrey, waving at her girlfriend. Aubrey smiles and rolls her eyes good-naturedly and then returns her attention to her easel. How hard can this painting thing really be? She can totally do this.
Aubrey purses her lips as she picks up her brush. She hesitates before putting bristles to canvas. What if she messes up? It's not like you can just erase it and start over. What if she completely ruins it and everything else looks horrible because she couldn't paint the perfect bank?
"Okay, now that you've finished up with that," Erin is saying and Aubrey looks up at the instructor, surprised, "we're going to go ahead and start with the river. I recommend mixing together the blue, white and grey in order to get that perfect water color."
How can she possibly paint a river without a bank? This is not going very well so far. Aubrey quickly paints what she hopes passes as a riverbank onto her canvas. She instantly regrets that action, because her bank looks way too fat and there's not going to be hardly any room for the lake and the trees are going to have to be huge in order to make up for all the extra space.
Aubrey's river looks just as miserable. She's pretty sure that she mixed in too much grey because her river looks a little bit polluted or like it's suffering from a influx of melting snow.
The sky that Aubrey is instructed to paint next is almost the same miserable shade, though this time with a little bit more blue so it looks too cheery compared to her depressing river. All in all, Aubrey's painting is far from the masterpiece that she envisioned in her mind. She feels panic begin to set in and Aubrey wishes that it was possible to start over. This is a disaster. She is not good at this.
But their instructor hardly seems sympathetic to the plight that Aubrey is suffering. She just continues on without a care in the world. "Okay, now we're going to start on the hills in the background." Erin picks up the completed painting and holds it up for the class to see. "As you can see, these hills are going to be primarily green and grassy. Picture beautiful rolling hills in your mind and put them down on your canvas. Using the skinny part of your brush is a great way to get that grassy look." She advises the (mostly) eager painters in the room. "You can even add a little bit of brown or yellow to your hills. It's up to you!"
Aubrey frowns at her canvas like everything wrong in her life can be traced by to this thing sitting on her easel. To be fair, she feels like all her problems can be blamed on this painting. Hills. Okay, she can paint hills. Who doesn't know how to paint hills?
Apparently Aubrey Posen. Ten seconds ago, she'd been sure that her painting couldn't quite possibly get any worse. Until she added the hills. Which looked a little bit like she'd been trying to draw the humps on an alien camel and they don't look rolling or grassy at all. They just look disastrous. The proportions are all out of whack and it looks like a mess.
Aubrey can't help but sneak a glance at the woman next to her, who has been painting away cheerfully without further commentary. Her painting looks almost like a direct replica of the one that Erin had shown the class moments earlier and Aubrey has no idea how that's even possible. She is supposed to be good at everything. How hard is it to paint a freaking river and some hills?
The woman glances over at Aubrey and then checks out Aubrey's canvas and smirks. It takes all of Aubrey's self-control not to put her fist through this lady's painting and wait for Chloe outside.
"So we're going to take about three minutes to just let that paint finish drying before we start to add the trees." Erin tells the class. "So take a look at everyone's paintings so far, mingle, talk to the people around you and we'll regroup in a minute."
Aubrey takes her canvas and turns it around so that the attempt at a painting is hidden and she glares at the lady beside her one more time for good measure. The lady just smirks again and shakes her head.
Luckily Aubrey is distracted from thoughts of retribution by Chloe, who comes walking over with a smile on her face. She holds up her half-completed painting for Aubrey to see and even though Aubrey can see the touches of Chloe in the artwork, it looks a lot like the original. Chloe's river is appropriately blue and her hills look like they could be alive with the sound of music.
"What do you think?" Chloe questions, looking at Aubrey expectantly.
"It looks great, Chlo." Aubrey tells her sincerely. "Perfect."
Chloe smiles and looks pleased with herself. "Let me see yours."
"No!" Aubrey steps in front of her easel, just to be on the safe side. Chloe looks at her quizzically. "I…I want it to be a surprise. I don't want you to see it until it's finished."
Chloe arches an eyebrow and gives Aubrey a doubtful look but she doesn't press the issue. She just shrugs. "Are you having fun?" She questions instead.
Aubrey smiles and nods. "Yeah. It's great." Usually Chloe can read her like sheet music but she hopes that she's not quite so transparent at the moment.
Chloe just smiles. "Do you want to go out for coffee afterward, so you can really meet everyone? I hate that we're not all together." She pouts.
Aubrey is a little relieved about that fact, because she can at least retain her dignity for the time being. "Sure, that sounds great." She says, relieved that the topic of conversation has shifted away from her painting for the time being.
Erin calls the class back together before they can say anything else and Chloe gives Aubrey a kiss on the cheek before heading back to her easel. Aubrey sighs and turns her painting back around and frowns. Yep, still the same disaster as before. Maybe there's still time to turn it around.
The next step, according to Erin, is to start on the trees. Aubrey feels a surge of confidence. She can definitely paint trees. And the trees will be perfect and that will save her entire painting. People will think that she chose to paint everything else so horribly wrong because her trees will be awesome and she'll be like some sort of abstract-art genius.
Unfortunately, Aubrey soon discovers that painting trees is also not her forte. Her tree trunks are crooked and some are freakishly tiny while others look like monstrosities because she's trying to compensate for the ones that she painted before and it just turns into a mess. One of her trees even ends up so close to the edge of the bank that it might as well be in the river. Aubrey groans and ignores the look her neighbor gives her. Aubrey does not need her approval. She's a super successful and confident lawyer with an amazing girlfriend and a great wardrobe. Who gives a shit if she can't paint a tree? Though Aubrey makes a mental note to file the woman's face into her memory so that if she ever needs legal council, Aubrey can be sure to turn her away.
The leaves that Erin tells them will be the finishing touches on their paintings do little to salvage Aubrey's artwork. Her trees look diseased instead of ready for autumn and the "staccato brushstrokes" that Erin suggested look less like leaves and just like blobs of paint clustered together on skeletal limbs.
Aubrey turns her painting around again as she gathers up her brushes and joins the rest of the class by the sinks to wash them off. Chloe puts an arm around Aubrey's waist as she comes up to stand beside her in line. "This was so fun." Chloe says with a grin. "I think we should do this every month. Don't you?" She looks up at Aubrey expectantly.
Aubrey is about to tell Chloe that she does not think they should do that but she laughs instead. "You have paint on your face." She tells her girlfriend. "How did that even happen?"
Chloe just shrugs. "Art can be messy, Bree."
Aubrey rolls her eyes and uses her thumb to rub the paint off Chloe's nose and cheek. "You're a mess." She says affectionately.
"But I'm your mess, right?" Chloe grins cheekily at Aubrey. "And you love me."
"Sometimes." Aubrey replies and Chloe rolls her eyes.
Once they clean their brushes and trays and return their supplies, they rejoin Chloe's coworkers and make plans to go to a coffee place a few blocks over that's open late and apparently has great scones. Chloe picks up her painting and looks at it, pleased with herself, before tucking it carefully under her arm.
Aubrey thinks that she's in the clear when they start walking toward the door but before they can actually get outside, Chloe turns to face her. "Bree, you almost forget your painting!" She says this like it's a tragedy the likes of which she can't possibly comprehend.
Aubrey wrinkles her nose. "Oh, right."
It's a good thing that the woman that was painting next to her is already gone, otherwise Aubrey probably would have lost a bit of dignity and paid her a hundred dollars for her painting. But there's no avoiding showing her painting to Chloe now and Aubrey squares her shoulders as she hands the canvas over to Chloe.
Chloe looks at the painting and then at Aubrey and the expression of shame and humiliation that she sees on her girlfriend's face makes her want to give Aubrey a big hug and never let her go. It's enough to make Chloe bite back any sarcastic remarks that she might have made otherwise.
Instead, she just smiles at Aubrey. "I love it. It's great, Bree."
Aubrey rolls her eyes. "It's horrible. You don't have to lie." She mumbles.
"I'm not." Chloe insists. "I think it's great. Everyone else's paintings all look the same but yours is unique. It's special." She smiles at Aubrey. "I love it."
Aubrey can't quite explain the rush of emotions that she feels in that moment and she can't quite explain why she feels like crying either. She just feels a rush of love for Chloe and her heart constricts and she feels like words will never be enough to rightly say how to feels right now so she just mumbles, "Thanks," and looks down at her feet but she's pretty sure that Chloe understands anyway. Because Chloe usually does.
They spend the next hour at the coffee shop with Chloe's colleagues and only leave when the barista informs the group that the place is closing. Thankfully no one asks to see Aubrey's painting and she has a lot more fun just talking with Chloe's coworkers and getting to know them than she did painting. All in all, she has to admit that it wasn't a completely horrible evening.
Back at the apartment, Aubrey leaves her painting leaning against the wall by the coat closet and hopes that it will just stay there until she can finally throw it out without Chloe noticing. She goes into the bathroom to shower and try to get rid of the residual anxiety and disappointment that she feels from her failed attempt at painting.
Aubrey gets out of the shower and puts on a pair of old sweatpants and Chloe's Barden sweatshirt before heading into the bedroom. She is not amused by what she sees there. "What is that." Her eyes are fixed on the wall above the bed.
Chloe grins at her, clearly pleased with herself. "It's your painting."
"But why is it hanging above the bed?" Aubrey questions, looking over at her girlfriend.
"Because I like it." Chloe tells her. "I wanted to hang it up."
Aubrey grimaces and shakes her head. "No, it's horrible. Take it down, Chlo."
But Chloe just shakes her head. "No, I like it. So I think we should hang it up."
Aubrey sighs as she gets into bed, feeling like she's lacking the energy to win an argument against her stubborn girlfriend right now. "You don't have to make me feel better. I know it's horrible. You can be honest."
Chloe climbs into bed beside her and snuggles close to her girlfriend, resting her head against Aubrey's chest. "I'm not just trying to make you feel better. I really like it. I think it's special."
Aubrey wraps her arms around Chloe and kisses the top of her head. She has her own ideas on what's special around here and her painting is definitely not one of them. "I love you." She says softly against Chloe's hair.
"Do you love me enough to go back next month?" Chloe questions and Aubrey can hear the smile in her voice.
Aubrey rolls her eyes. She makes an indecisive noise and Chloe pokes her in the side. "Maybe…"
Chloe smirks. "Okay, I can work with that."
end.