The hazy light of dusk was starting to creep across the office floor as I asked Phoenix what seemed like the three millionith mock exam question of the day. He wanted to make sure he would pass the bar exam on his first attempt so as to avoid embarrassment and additional delays in getting his life back on track so we had been hitting the books hard any time I didn't have a case, which sadly was most of the time.

So far, Mr. Wright had been doing well. He was more book-smart than I had given him credit for. He was such a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants kind of guy I never thought about the wealth of knowledge he must have hidden somewhere under that ugly-ass beanie of his.

But I was done- I couldn't take this anymore. When I had passed my bar exam I had thought I was done with cramming for exams and even though I kept reminding myself that I was only helping him to study and not having to retake the test myself I was still super tense. I felt as though my eyes might rupture if I had to look at those books any longer. Law texts have to be some of the driest material on the planet. I hate reading them so much I sometimes wonder why I ever became a lawyer.

Phoenix's attention was also fading. Whether it was from fatigue or because Maya had just entered the office after being away all day, I couldn't say.

"Hey, Nick! How's it goin'?"

Nick shrugged and smiled weakly up at her and she came over and climbed in his lap.

"Nick, you look awful. I think you're working way to hard, you and Polly both. I'm taking you out tonight. Trucy and I have it all planned."

His shoulders slumped. I think he was hoping for a quiet evening at home.

"But it's Zombie Gore Galore! Trucy's really excited."

Phoenix sighed. He could never win against Maya and when his daughter was involved he may as well not even play the game, he lost before it had even begun.

"You wanna come, Polly?" Maya's invitation was sincere but only a matter of formality. Everybody knew that now that Vera and I were together I didn't go out much other than for work. I'd just miss her if I went out to have fun without her.

I shook my head. "I'll take a raincheck."

"How much longer is she going to be under house arrest?" Maya placed her finger on her chin in thought. "I wish there was something we could do to get it over with quicker…"

Phoenix laughed. "Maya, I told you I'm working on it. You're such a slave driver sometimes." This was the first I'd heard of this. I figured I had managed to get her off with as light a sentence as anybody could, given that she had fully admitted her guilt in forging a number of important artifacts and documents. But instead of feeling like Phoenix was second-guessing my skills I felt genuinely happy for his support.

"Thanks."

He laughed and winking at Maya said, "Well, if I keep going out surrounded by all these beautiful young women by myself people are bound to talk."

"Speaking of talk," says Maya. "Word has gotten out about you and Vera. I heard Klavier talking about it at the coffee shop at the courthouse today. Nick, how much do you think this is going to hurt Polly?"

"Apollo's a brilliant attorney. I think they'll forgive him some indiscretions. I mean it's different than if Edgey were here" and Phoenix rolled his eyes. His former classmate was a stickler for the rules.

Phoenix didn't often compliment my skills. His endorsement of my abilities was more often by inferrance. By inviting me to move in and referring to me as his partner he had shown a certain amount of trust in my abilities, but to hear him say he thought I was brilliant made me proud. I had never believed he thought so highly of me.

"And he is much more organized than you" Maya said pointing to the color-coded tabs on the sides of my reference books and my neatly stacked pile of file folders.

"Well, he has a better assistant…" teased Nick as he started tickling her sides. She was laughing hysterically and begging for him to stop so she could get some air, but it was all a ploy because as soon as he let up she was all over him.

It made me wonder what Vera was up to today. Normally, she checked in around lunchtime either by texting me or coming down to take a break with me and even though I'd seen her just last night I felt myself missing her. Despite my attempt to start the relationship off slowly I was crazy about her. I wanted to spend as much time as I possibly could around her and when I wasn't with her I thought about her constantly. She was intoxicating to me. I loved everything about her and I knew that if she invited me to move in with her I would succumb without a second thought.

My phone buzzed as if she knew I was thinking of her.

When u r done come over. Wear something u don't mind getting dirty. I'm putting u to work.

I looked up at Phoenix hopefully, but it was actually Maya who dismissed me. "Go. He's done studying for now. I'll quiz him more later"

I dashed out of the office as Maya continued teasing with her teasing, "If you buy us a jumbo popcorn I'm sure Trucy and I will find it in our hearts to go easy on the quiz questions."

I bounded up the stairs two at a time re-energized by the thought that Vera had something planned for us.

She greeted me at the door with a gentle kiss on the cheek.

"So, what's up? Are we moving furniture or something?"

"No, we're painting." I looked at the walls. She had painted them lavender with sunny yellow accents the first week she moved in. Surely she wasn't already tired of them. Even I liked them though I would never admit it to anyone other than her.

"I have this idea…" Her face was turning crimson and I was somehow getting the suspicion the work she had called me up here for did not qualify as a typical household task.

"Ok…what do you need me to do?" I said wondering what could possibly be embarrassing her.

She walked over to the dining table and picked something off it. "Well… I noticed you don't have any art in your bedroom." Vera is a firm believer that every room needs to have color or art of some kind and my room was entirely devoid of personality.

I could tell she was deeply debating something, maybe even close to losing her nerve. She glanced down and started to tremble ever so slightly.

"Are you OK?" Now I was really wondering what she was up. What scheme had possessed her brain? I had a feeling that Trucy and Maya's bad habits were rubbing off on her.

She started walking towards me, but wouldn't make eye contact."…and I thought you needed some art…and that we could make it together." She smiled shyly.

"Vera, you know I can't paint." Those words had done it. Her head popped up. She looked me in the eye and shook her head. Then she started slinking up to me like a lioness going after its prey. I was beginning to wonder if I should be worried. Maybe I was about to be punished for not having the eye of an interior decorator. Well, that could be interesting, I guessed… though it didn't seem much like Vera's style.

Keeping a wary eye on her I said, "I have no artistic abilities. You know that."

"I just don't believe that, Polly. I have a theory. I think that because you believe it, you make it so." Whoa. This was deep stuff. It reminded me of philosophy class in college, but I wasn't buying it, not for an instant.

"Vera, I know you have this dream of opening an art school-"

"For low income kids." She elaborated. She had told me all about it.

"Right, but I don't think I'm the best test subject for your teaching abilities."

Now she was laughing. She touched my waist and said, "Oh, no I won't be doing this with any of them. This is a special Polly only training method reserved for low income lawyers with crazy spiked hair." And with that she whisked a blindfold over my eyes and took me by the hand with a devilish little giggle.

She led me over to the corner where her easel always stood.

In a professional voice she began her lecture, "Art is about emotion, passion, beliefs. You, Polly, have an abundance of those things and I am convinced that if you didn't over-think everything all the time you could make beautiful art. So, we're going to start with the color that most represents your personality, red. It's all about passion and strength-like you."

Then matter-of-factly she added, "That's why it looks so good on you." And I opended my mouth to say something in response but she cut me off, again with her business like tone.

"It's association with life and death make it a powerful color…and you my dearest friend are going to paint with it." I felt a fat paintbrush be placed into my hand. Gently, she adjusted my fingers around it. Then her hand with her long fingers came to rest beneath my elbow and extended my arm to the blank canvas on her easel.

I was feeling nervous. I wasn't exactly sure what I was supposed to do. I wasn't sure this existential painting business was going to work and I hated to disappoint her.

"Whatever you do keep the brush on the paper, but let it go where ever it wants to. Absolutely no thinking allowed." She whispered in my ear. As she did I felt my head and hand twitch just a little and the brush moved a little on the canvas.

"Just feel." She instructed.

And then she kissed the back of my neck and my hand reflexively bowed down. I heard her giggle and then her lips were gone. I stood there feeling awkward and then I felt her hand guide my hand with the brush back toward the blank canvas. Then I felt her fingers on the side of my face. Then they were at the back of my head ruffling my hair. Occassionally, I'd lift the brush from the canvas as her methods of inspiration got more personal, but then she'd stop and I'd obediently place the brush's bristles back on the canvas.

I made a comment that surely paint was dripping on the floor, but she told me to hush up and then I felt her hands roaming under my clothes and I ceased to care about the mess.

I felt like I was playing some kinky version of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. I could hear her giggling as she saw what I was creating. I was sure it stunk, but making it together was sure a lot of fun.

"Now," she said. "For my color. Lavender. Purples are calming, soothing, regal." She replaced the brush in my hand with a different one and we started the process over again.

"You'll know when you're done with the purple."

"You aren't going to tell me?" I asked.

"Nope. You'll know."

"But what if I just want you to do this all day?" it seemed like a very real possibility to me, one that Madame Art Instructor should have considered earlier.

"Polly, be quiet," she scolded. "You're thinking again."

She was careful never to kiss my lips. I think she feared that would completely distract me, but it was pretty hard already not to want to grab her. So I just tried to concentrate on keeping the brush on the canvas as her lips and tongue danced over my body and then I felt the impulse she had told me I would.

"I need a new color." I said.

She squealed. "Ok. Which one? Don't think-just say what color you see."

"Blue- blue like the sky." I heard her move things around nearby and then a brush was back in my hands.

I lost all track of time, but after the fifth color I felt a sense of completion.

"That's it."

My red, lavender, sky blue, forest green, and sunny yellow masterpiece was complete. I told her so and she said that I knew best and she took me by the hand and led me back a few paces. Her hand went to untie the blindfold, but I caught it first and grabbed her wrist and spun her in front of me before easing her to the ground kissing her all the while. Eventually the blindfold slipped off and I spied my painting in the corner. It was actually kind of pretty. Definitely not gallery worthy, but the lines had a sense of motion to them.

"See?" She said grinning at me with self-satisfaction. "You're an artist!"

"Only because of you," I said and it came out sounding very cheesy and she fell over giggling.

The next day I got to the office kind of late toting my masterpiece under my arm. I was very glad that Vera had intended it to go in my bedroom because I couldn't look at the thing without blushing. If it were in the office I wouldn't get any work done.

"Sorry, I'm late!" I said dashing into the office wearing the same clothes I had worn when I left the evening before. Maya and Trucy looked up from the sea of law books they were surrounded by and Trucy launched into the questions.

"What's that? Let me see. Did Vera paint it for you?" She was running over to try to get a better look.

I knew I was blushing. I had to keep telling myself they couldn't read my thoughts. They didn't know how Vera had "inspired" my artistic 'talents". To them it was just a regular ole piece of modern art.

Phoenix didn't raise his head from the papers he was studying at his desk but said, "You could hang it out here if you want. It would spruce the place up having some original art." I shook my head a little too emphatically as Trucy tried to pry my hands off the canvas.

"No, it's ok. It's not very good. I painted it, not Vera. She was teaching me about color theory."

"Is that what you young people are calling it these days?" Maya said and winked at me. Dammit. Leave it to Maya to be on to me. For someone who seemed like she was perpetually 14 years old she had a real naughty streak. I could imagine what a handful she must have been for Phoenix when they were first working together and she was so young. Poor Phoenix having such a minx as an assistant!

I grabbed a hammer and nails and hung the painting on the one real wall in my room and tried to decide if it really constituted art. Vera said that it did. It amused me that a person such as herself with boundless amounts of talent was so willing to share the title of artist with anyone. In her mind anyone who created something was an artist. It was an interesting theory, but I had always felt there needed to be some talent there to really call something art. But Vera's way of looking at the world was so much…nicer.

I thought about her dream for the future, every kid with access to art supplies and mentors regardless of their family income. She said that her life might have been different if when she was young she had had a resource like that. Part of the reason her father had started having her create forgeries was so that they could afford the supplies and equipment she craved. He had recognized his daughter's gifts and wanted her to get the best art education she could so he did what he could to get the money. The irony was that once they got the money to afford a top-notch art education Vera was never able to go to art school, because her father needed to protect her from the very same underworld contacts he had gotten the money from.

Standing there in my room looking at the piece of art we had created I was struck by the fact it wasn't beautiful, but it was something that hadn't existed before. It was one of a kind and I thought I was starting to understand a little better how she felt about art. It wasn't about how good other people thought it was, it was about creating something new and unique. She had definitely been gifted with enormous talent, but she didn't feel that the joy of creating should be limited to those who were best at it.

I imagined Vera with paint streaks on her hands and face guiding children as they painted and sculpted, giving them encouragement and offering suggestions when they felt frustrated. I could hear her sweet voice telling them that it didn't matter what they created as long as they made something they were proud of that was uniquely their own: a painting, a song, a poem, whatever. I could see the school and the kids it was helping and I made a commitment, too.

This idea of hers was a pretty lofty goal especially for someone with virtually no contacts other than a few book publishers, a couple of penniless attorneys, a few spirit mediums, and an up-and-coming magician. I had a strange feeling that in pursuing this dream of hers Vera and I might find our relationship becoming strained. This was no small thing Vera wanted to do, and it would probably take all her time and energy. It would probably totally overtake her life and her other pursuits, including her relationship with me, but I made a vow.

I'll help you make it happen, Vera. I promise.