Page 14 of Painting Celia

Bare feet whispered across the lush lawn and Andrew’s form emerged from the dark, a wet towel around his shoulders. He shivered visibly as he stepped into the soft glow from the house windows. “It got dark,” he said. “You done for today?”

León tossed his paint rag into the box of paints. “I guess. My stuff’s wet, though. We can’t load your car just yet.”

“Can’t we keep it in the pool house, Celia?” Andrew asked.

“Of course,” she said, rising to pick up a smaller box full of jumbled brushes and palette knives. Both men trailed after her to the pool house.

León nodded at the space and went back for his gear. Andrew stayed to towel off, his bare chest dusky and bronzed under the dim overhead light. Celia scanned the tidy square room, shelves and day bed by the door, huge black windows looking over the city behind her. As León brought in his things, she made space for his smaller boxes on the shelves. The painting was brought in last.

Andrew leaned close and squinted at the unfinished canvas. “What’s it about?”

León shrugged. “I’ll find out soon enough. Two more nights, at least.”

•••

It wasn’t until the men left that the backlash hit.

“Why do you want to make art?” León had asked. A normal question.

There were so many sane answers Celia could have given, but no. Her crazy ass had to dump a weird truth into the conversation. “Art might save me.”

Celia heard the melodramatic, laughable, pathetic phrase drumming in her head all night.

It was still there the morning after.

“Art might save me,” she mocked under her breath as she made her morning tea, grimacing. How could she say something so cringeworthy? León must think she was off her theatrical rocker. How could she look him in the face again?

What could she possibly need saving from? The wealth, the free time, the utter privilege? People scraped their knuckles bare working for this, and it had fallen in her lap. She didn’t earn a living. Funny, that implied living had to be earned, could be deserved.

The thought chased her around the house all day, getting more insistent. She recognized her spiral but was powerless to stop it. Her one chance was to stay too busy to think.

She cleaned her house, scrubbing furiously. Any room, any surface, it didn’t matter.

She sidled into her craft room, untouched for the last month but dusted regularly. Nothing to clean here. All her art supplies were conventionally stored in floor-to-ceiling storage units. Everything in her life went behind white cabinet doors.

Get that mess out of sight, Celia Rose!

Her famous art list, written in earnest capitals, hung neatly by the door. She’d poured true hope into this, but every item on the list had been crossed off. Tracing the words with a fingertip was like poking a bruise.

In six years, she’d finished every class at the college. She was out of ideas. Art hadn’t saved her.

She didn’t want to tell her friends. They’d ask what was next.

She closed her eyes tight. A leaden knot sat in her chest, and she didn’t know how to budge it.

Wondering if swimming would help but knowing it was too late to stop her gloom, she drifted out to the pool house to look at León’s painting. Unfinished, but already better than anything she could ever do. Expressive. Colorful.

She would never squeeze something like that out of her cold little heart.

The painting on its easel looked at home here. She’d always thought the pool house would make a good studio. It was partly why she’d bought this too-big house. She’d intended to work through her art list out here but had ended up turning a spare bedroom into the craft room.

Don’t take up so much space, Celia Rose!

Could she clean out here?

Her eye fell on the daybed, its head near the main door. She patted the thick, orange-striped cushion, watching for dust, but no cloud rose. She settled for scrubbing the tiny bathroom and the little drinks fridge, then scrounged up a lesser-used table lamp from her house to put near the daybed. The overhead light had felt dim when putting away León’s things last night.

In the area near the big windows, overlooking the pool and view, she swept and mopped. The windows were tall, but she was able to give them a good cleaning with a step ladder.

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