Page 129 of Painting Celia

Twenty Five

León was coming back.

Celia had to take a moment after reading the text. Actual nausea swept through her, sweat prickling at her hands and temples. She couldn’t trust him. She wasn’t sure she could trust herself.

But good god, she wanted to see him again.

She looked around her nearly finished loft space. She’d been assembling a nightstand when the text came, watching the crew paint the long back wall a cheerful apple green. Glossy black doors for the bathroom and little guest room had been hung this morning. Near the big front windows, new open shelving waited to be filled with her art supplies.

Construction. Decor. Planning. It was hard to break the habit of burying herself behind it.

He was coming back!

She was different. She could talk to new people without freezing; her contractor Carlos and the other hundred people she’d had to speak to had given her practice. She’d stepped outside of her comfort zone and taken charge. She wouldn’t be a fool this time, caving in to his charm.

Or was he different too?

She read the texts again. Kelsey had told the buyer to come tomorrow evening. León would be back by then, staying at Andrew’s. And tomorrow night, he would be here, in Incubadora.

She had to prepare. She abandoned the nightstand, went downstairs, and found Carlos to tell him the crew could have tomorrow off. A paid holiday, in thanks for getting so much done so quickly. She’d have to scramble to fix the schedule later, but she didn’t want drills whining while someone considered buying one of León’s paintings.

She barely slept that night, trying and failing to distract herself with thoughts of her project. She decided around dawn to hang all of León’s finished paintings, one after the other, down the length of the long central brick wall. They looked more impressive when seen together. Maybe it would help the sale. Okay, it was a bit much, but she couldn’t keep the canvases in her house forever.

Early in the morning, she carefully dressed up, did her hair, put on makeup. She drove all of the paintings to Incubadora, her nerves buzzing. León would be here in mere hours.

The shiver every time she thought that!

She wore white wool pants and sweater, so pulled out one of the just-delivered aprons, slipping it over her head and tying it behind her. She brushed her fingers over the embroidered Incubadora logo with a small smile. Protected, she lugged a ladder and laser level from the crew’s equipment on the second floor. Hanging the canvases would be easy, the rosy brick gallery walls already equipped with hangers and lights.

Before climbing up the ladder, she paused and looked around the hushed expanse of the ground floor. Closing her eyes, she breathed in the peace, the safety of sheltering brick walls on the precipice of transformation. She soaked in the moment, alone, the only expectations and voices her own. This was her place.

A lovely upwelling of joy filled her, a tingling rush like the softest brushstroke along her spine.

Then she stepped up on the first rung of the ladder. There was work to do.

She hung León’s paintings one by one in the order she remembered them being painted. Each one pricked her senses, reviving the time she’d posed for them.

The tender, vivid blue one that started it all.

She could clearly see León’s awestruck face when he saw her getting out of the pool, the silly way he’d darted back into the pool house as though to hide, then popped right back out to face her. He’d been frantic about her ever since that night.

The yellow painting should have come next but was already in someone else’s home.

She remembered León’s dance when celebrating his first sale on his new coast and his pained eyes as he realized he was giving it up. That sunlit girl with a geometric face like a sunflower, maybe powerful, maybe submissive.

The shadowy purple image of her reaching for the lamp.

He loved this one almost as much as the blue. He said it was supposed to be her inner self, untouchable, but she just remembered that first night together, turning out the light so he’d stop looking and start touching. He was always seeing things in her that she would never have thought of on her own.

The red painting, her seated cross-legged and telling him off.

It had been one of the first times she’d pushed back on his infuriating way of thinking of himself first. Oh, her irritation as he sat outside on her patio for hours! Not his first apology nor his last. He always seemed to know what he’d done badly but never did better the next time.

The leafy green goddess rising from the garden.

Had he seen her like this, then? A provider that offered herself but didn’t ask anything in return? The nobility in the profile wasn’t hers, she knew. Maybe this one had shades of his mother.

The orange painting of her lounging in the armchair, predatory, weary. Contemplating round two.

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