Page 22 of Painting Celia

“I’ll be texting you, girl,” Andrew said across him. Celia nodded, eyes tinged with warmth, and they drove off.

“Andrew is being freaking fatherly today,” León complained.

She nodded but kept her eyes doggedly on the road. Was she back to avoiding eye contact? Already? He could make her talk, say something obnoxious she couldn’t resist answering. Or, he could be nice to her.

Nicely, León looked everywhere but at Celia. The car interior was immaculate, just like her house. It was an older car, a Lexus. Upscale but not new. It smelled faintly of vanilla.

Ah, screw being quiet. He was too happy.

“I thought you might be sick,” León said. “You didn’t come out to talk painting yesterday.”

The blush on her cheeks just wasn’t going away!

“I had a lot of cooking to do,” she clearly lied. “Cleaning. Things.”

Wait.

Part of her clicked into place.

“You clean, you boil feet to stretch food,” León said. “You’re no trust fund baby, are you?” If she didn’t grow up rich… “Did you win the lottery or something?”

“Sort of.”

He waited for more, rude or not.

“Bitcoin,” she explained. “I had some. A few hundred.”

Oh, Bitcoin. Whatever that was. It made some people wealthy, but that was all León knew about it. “Do you, like, buy them?”

She shook her head, turning onto the straight sunny boulevard to Andrew’s. “A client where I worked paid me in Bitcoin,” she said. “He thought it would replace the dollar, paid everyone in it if they let him. It was only worth about two thousand dollars, back then. And I kept it.”

Look at her, chatting away! “It went up?”

“Way up,” she admitted.

“Where did you work that clients paid you in Bitcoins?”

“Charity organizing,” she said. “I didn’t run one, I helped people start them.”

Keeping her talking was fun. “Was it rewarding?”

“No,” she said, slowing at an intersection. “Rich people start charities to hide money, and poor people lose what they have, trying to keep one going.”

So, she did have a little bite to her! “Dang, Celia, that’s a little cynical.”

She gave him a sideways glance. Eye contact! “It’s the nicest way I can say it. Charities are just about moving money place to place.”

“Some do good things, surely.” León slowly shook his head. “Money solves a lot of problems.”

“Not real problems,” she said quietly. “It can’t buy talent. It can’t make art.”

“Oh yes, it can,” León said, sitting up. “It buys time! Artists need that more than anything. Time to learn and to practice.” He looked across at her, thumb tapping on his thigh again. He felt pleasantly dizzy from the gin. “You’re giving me the time I need. I appreciate that.”

Her face when she turned to him…her creased brow eased, eyes softening with wary hope. Two! Two expressions!

“And you’ll help me?” she asked. “You’ll show me how to paint like you?”

He smiled. “I’ll do my best. I’ve never taught anyone.”

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