Chapter 19

I glide the paint brush along a table plank and marvel at how the color takes over; aqua, bright and new, covers sanded down dun. Edward is on one side of my mind, acquisitions and curators of art on another. A phone call with Senna painted me with purpose. Like the table, new in color, same structure beneath. Or instead of a new coat, maybe it's more a surfacing light of goals. A glow.

"She said she liked my submission."

"Did she accept it?" Edward's brush strokes on the opposite end of the table are steady—long and even. I could put a straightedge up against his lines and they would be a near match.

"Yeah, but it's not what I hoped or thought." I'm not sure what I hoped or thought, only that it was something other than what I got.

Senna's voice was smooth, currented by confidence. "It's the kind of thing I want to offer my subscribers." An unspoken "but" loomed in her pause. "What did Laurent tell you about payment?"

I tapped the back of my phone. "We didn't get that far." I'd thought it had only been a writing sample she wanted, but I didn't divulge that. It seemed she was implying my article was a true submission.

"Figured you'd say something like that." Her puff of breath crackled down the phone line. "Laurent—he's the details guy, you know? Kinda myopic. He'll tell you about a pearl, say: shiny, luminescent. Tell you all about the way it catches the light, the shape, any imperfections, until you think you can see it, like it's right in front of your eyes. But then he stops talking and you walk away. And you realize he didn't tell you whether the damn thing was still in the oyster or if it was hanging around some old woman's neck. You feel what I'm saying?"

"You're the big picture person."

"Right on. And as the big picture person, this means, for now, I'm the editorial director, the editor in chief, and the webmaster. I'm the curator. We run with a theme and build the issue around that. So we're not always going to have a space for you. We don't do regular columns, not gonna get tied down to something that's there out of routine. We look for what fits."

"Okay."

"Your style persuades. You write in plain English, you lay off the purple. Feels honest. I like that. When we have something to say about money, I'm all about you being the one to say it. Thing is, we're not always going to have something to say about money."

I slide my brush through the paint tray to re-saturate it. "She asked if she could save it for later. She's going to pay me thirty cents per word, and, I mean, I tried to work out how many articles I'd have to write a week just to pay my mortgage, and it's not really viable." Especially when I admitted to myself the total number of articles that would be accepted: one.

"Not easy."

"Nope."

He raises his brush from the table. "I don't think it should be. I wish it was, for you. But it shouldn't be."

"Must be nice, the curating gig." Senna sounded so passionate about it. "Having creative control, you know? She won't be tied down to anything, not even to something like a regular column."

I remember Gallery Man, wearing his pride like an expensive suit, so sure his role as Chooser and Displayer of Art was one of value. How do these people end up in these positions? Senna's job is self-created, but I'm not sure I have the inclination, let alone the resources, to walk that path. My laugh escapes out my nose as I imagine telling my father I'm going to become a curator.

"Curate what?" he would ask. "Unemployment benefits?"

Edward hovers his paintbrush over the tray. "What's so funny?"

"Just imagining my dad's face if I told him I quit my job to write for a progressive e-zine."

"Wouldn't go down well?"

"Definitely not. But I don't think I want to be a writer, anyway. I hardly write." With the back of my wrist, I wipe hair from my forehead. "If someone would just pay me to read…"

I sweep my brush down the edge of my plank. Dribbles of blue splatter onto the drape below. "I used to be a part of the accepting and denying of literary pieces. For a class I took in college. God, I loved that. It wasn't even like school, or work. It was just fun. And the professor was like a friend. That sounds weird, but he was that way with us. You know, encouraging and enthusiastic about the whole process. He made us—our decisions—feel important."

"I get that."

"Senna got me thinking about publishing and acquisitions editors. I could do that. I could love that. Not writing, but being the decider, like a discoverer of literature. But I don't even know where to start."

I rinse my brush as Edward merges our territories on the tabletop.

"Would it be weird if I contacted my professor?

"Who cares about weird?"

"Really?"

"Yeah. I know about this. Listen, getting your foot in a door is about who you know."

"'It's who you know.' I guess that's a saying for a reason."

"It's true. I do what I do because I knew Stanley. And I think people like your professor want to help. I talked to my guidance counselor before I quit school. She advised me to ride it out. Get my degree. But talking it out with her…" He touches the side of his head and turns it into a scratch. "She talked about Grand Destiny. In a figurative sense. She said we have to make it happen, follow the roads available to get there. I got to understand what I wanted. In my destiny. No doubt."

"But you were in school when you talked to her. You really think, years later…" Would Professor Cameron remember me?

"I don't know. It's just, I know you have to take your road. Even if it turns out you were wrong. You have to take it, Bella."

"You're right." Direction is all I would be asking of him. The worst Professor Cameron could do is ignore me or tell me he can't help.

My resolve solidifies as I lever the lid off the tin of red paint with a screwdriver. It's so vibrant. The words life blood come to mind. I stir the paint with a thin scrap of wood Edward produced from who knows where for this purpose, then fill another tray and get to work on the first bench.

We're finished by lunch time. Edward starts cleaning up and when I move to help, he drags the trays and brushes out of my reach. He curls his arm around them, like a kid trying to stop someone from copying their work, and shakes his head at me.

I laugh and let him do it. Inside the loss of sunlight is blinding. I blink hard. Edward joins me, and we make sandwiches. I grab a bag of chips, a couple of Cokes, and add them to a tray.

I look at my tarp-draped patio and the furniture drying on it. "Let's picnic on the lawn."

"I'd have to warn against that." Edward lifts his sunglasses onto the bill of his cap.

"We won't be that long. The grass can't die in an hour, can it?" Without waiting for his answer, I hand him the tray of food and head back inside for a blanket.

"Come on." I push on his stomach, get him moving. He follows me to the shade of the ash, my oldest and biggest tree. White and sunset colored foxgloves now circle its base. I shake out the blanket and lay it down.

"I'm a bad example, not doing more to stop this."

"I'm a bad listener." I sit on the blanket and give him a "come here" gesture with my hand.

"Note that I'm against this. The lawn can no longer be guaranteed."

"Noted. Sit."

He joins me and sets the tray between us.

"Finally."

"If this is how you treat it when I'm here, how will you treat it when I'm gone?" He pulls off his hat and tosses it aside.

All I do is smile and hand him a sandwich. I devour mine. Painting makes you hungry.

"Are you still good with your decision to quit art school for your business?"

"Do I regret it? No. I love what I do. And I like being my own boss. I hope I can keep doing it, somehow. But my dad wasn't into me leaving. I don't get why he cared, he wasn't into me going to art school in the first place. Wasn't that into me getting married, either." He lays back on the blanket, arms bent, his hands crossed to hold his head.

"Parents."

"I know he wants to hit me with a big ass 'I told you so.' He won't, though, which is why he's avoiding me."

I lay back, too, the top of my head meeting his waist. We form a T. My feet fall past the blanket. The grass tickles my ankles.

"He doesn't have to. I can see it anyway. I could sketch the scene, creases in his face cutting deeper as he lectures me over a glass of port. He'd end it all with: 'It's your bed.'" Edward lowered his voice as if his dad's voice is deeper than his. "It is my life. I know that. It's mine to mess up. It's mine to fix. If I can. But I hate that he was right."

I rotate to my side, my forearm holding my weight. "He's only part right. And he had as much chance of being wrong as he did being right."

I tell him about how my parents weren't right about me, how they wanted me to take the practical route with no concern over which route I wanted to take. Parents might be able to set you on the right track, but they have just as much power to set you on the wrong one.

"You'll figure it out, Edward. What does your mom say about it?"

"She agrees with him but she doesn't say much. She tries to, you know, she tries to smooth things out between us. She came over a few nights ago and cooked me spaghetti and meatballs. Garlic bread just slathered in butter and garlic like she did when I was a kid. You know, you bite into it and the butter oozes off the bread into your mouth."

I crumple up my face. I can't help it. That's gross.

"I know. It doesn't sound as good as it tastes."

I stretch an arm out over the blanket's edge and run my palm along the tips of the grass.

"Bella, I..."

Silence stretches the length of my yard until I ask him if he's okay. Something keeps me from looking at his face to appraise his expression. I'm afraid I'll see pain or doubt or worse, signs of defeat and resignation. I find myself tugging on the grass and stop before I pull it out.

"I'm not used to this, someone supporting my side."

"What about your friends?"

"We don't talk about this stuff. Not like we are."

"What do you mean 'like we are?'"

"I don't know. Just open, I guess. Just honest. I tell them I'm getting a divorce and they say 'That sucks,' or 'Sorry,' and it ends there. And I want it to end there."

Divorce. He said it. I lay back down and absorb it with the sun.

"I haven't told anyone about my business."

"How bad is it?"

"We already had more personal expenses than money, and attorney costs are astronomical. I should tell her we're not all Gatsby." He pinches the sleeve of my T-shirt, the "I believe in the green light" one. He gets it. "I could buy a car with just the required minimum attorney fee." He amends this after a second. "A used car."

"Do you have any ideas how to make it better?"

"Get more accounts."

The wind rolls over us. I listen to it wheeze through my new plants and blades of grass.

I'm lying here with Edward. Lying, in my grass, with Edward. I could ask myself how this happened, but I know how it happened. For the past month and a half, I've lived it. But my young self would never believe this. Angela and Riley probably wouldn't believe it.

"You know what you need out here? A fire pit. For the winter."

"It could be like camping. I could roast marshmallows. Or we could just forget that and have a bonfire on the beach."

"I do miss those," he says. "They got crazy in the summer."

"I only went to a couple." I don't have to remind him that we hung out in different circles. "You know what stands out most about back then? About art class?" Besides him.

"Kyle's attempts at critique? 'I don't buy it.' What's there to buy? It's right in front of you, art on the paper. We were supposed to convince him it's there?"

I laugh. "No, but now I remember that."

"Mrs. Molina lecturing like an old-time dramatic-movie actress?"

I laugh again, this time turning to my side and curling up as I remember Mrs. Molina taking on different voices when she talked about art history. Her animated facial expressions, like the horror in her eyes when she told us about Da Vinci studying cadavers.

"Not that either." I flatten out on my back again. "You used to draw people, the class, when you were bored."

"Hmm..."

"Except me."

He doesn't make a sound this time.

"Why didn't you draw me?"

I feel him move. He crosses one leg over the other. "I thought you were going to ask that."

"Are you going to answer?"

"Yeah." It's far away. "Later."

"When?"

"Later."

I think it's the wind until I feel a light tug. My scalp prickles as I realize he's touching the ends of my hair. I lie still, let him play with my hair. Leaves on my young plants tremble in the breeze. I could tell them, "I'm scared, too."

After he goes home I pull my fingers through my ends, looking for the same sensation, but it doesn't work. The tug is too hard every time. It's easier to re-feel it when I just close my eyes and remember.

.