Page 10 of Twin Deception

What would going home do?

I’d taken this trip for a change of scenery, and giving up on it to fly back to San Diego wouldn’t solve anything. The simple apartment I called “home” was nothing more than a landing pad. In between my commissions and active job sites, I went there. It served no other purpose than to be a place to sleep and store my supplies. Whenever I started a new mural, I found a hotel or rental and called it a temporary home away from home.

Who am I kidding? What if what they say is right? That home isn’t a place but the people you share your life with?

I hoped that wasn’t true. Because I shared my life with no one at all. Part of that was due to habit, but a bigger part of it was due to not knowing what I was looking for in a partner. All I knew was that I hadn’t found him yet.

I may as well just go.It was early days yet, only the very first day of my vacation, but I couldn’t see how my attitude would turn around. Everywhere I looked, I saw all the signs of others being together. Families. Couples. All together and so opposite me—a single loner.

If I gave up on this harebrained idea to enjoy a change of scenery, it wouldn’t be to mope and brood at my apartment by myself. Spending Christmas there would be downright depressing, and I didn’t need that negativity in my life.

I could start that commission in Tampa, though…

My career as a mural artist was an interesting one, and I appreciated that it gave me the opportunity to always be on the move. Since my medium wasn’t a movable item to sell, the pay I received matched the level of complexity of what I had to paint. Private residences paid the most. It wasn’t everyday that a homeowner could commit to an image on their walls forever. My clientele ran more in the public than private sectors of life. Not-for-profit organizations were my number-one source of commissions, and that was done on purpose. I liked the idea that my artwork could better pitch the mission that organizations wanted to stand behind. Animal shelters, churches, homeless centers, halfway houses for women, orphanages, and libraries. Those were the usual groups that wanted to hire me.

I was overbooked, but if I wanted to, I could call that one gallery owner back. Located in Tampa, she wanted a new look for the outside of her contemporary arts gallery since the building nextto it had been torn down and the façade was now visible from the street.

Private commissions were fine. They paid the most. But the non-profits were where I felt the most passion. It was my way of giving back.

“Give it another day,” I muttered as I walked toward the local art museum.

As was my routine, I headed to the epicenter of artwork. Every city and new location I traveled to—for work and the rare times I carved out a period of vacationing—I checked out the art. Of course, I did. I was an artist. It was my love language.

Yet this time, as I ambled through the many galleries and wings of not one but a couple of museums, I didn’t experience that closeness to the paintings or sculptures collected and on display. Fitting in with the other visitors checking out the pieces here, I remained aloof.

Untouched.

Alone.

I had to snap out of this funk!

I couldn’t explain this weird hunch that something was wrong.

With me.

Something bothered me, and I worried that if I couldn’t shake it off, I’d leave.

Hoping my line of business could speak to me, that I would feel more like myself and not obsessed with feeling like I was stuck, I walked a few more blocks to the site where a mural tour would begin. I was already familiar with the name of a couple of theartists who’d done murals in this area. We mural painters were a selective bunch. In the art realm, it really was a case of it being a small world, after all.

Still, I sat on the double-decker bus and smiled at the warmth of sunshine on my cheeks.

Then I felt it. It came back again, that odd sensation I couldn’t ignore.

That strange clutch of my stomach as it tensed.

I furrowed my brow as a cloud passed in front of the sun, robbing me of the warmth that had brightened my spirits for a moment.

Shit.

I had been so stuck in my head, depressed and feeling listless, that I hadn’t realized this was nothing but paranoia, a familiar fear and worry that I’d lived through before.

Someone’s been watching me.

That was what it was. That was what was bugging me in the back of my mind. This sixth sense of feeling someone’s attention on me from afar, yet too close for comfort.

No. That’s nonsense.

No one could be interested in watching me. I was a loner, an artist on a vacation of one. I wasn’t anyone special.

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