Page 32 of Fruit
CHAPTER SEVEN
Life trudges on.
I thought something fundamental would change when I finally started painting again, but it doesn’t. There is still work and the youth centre and a meal with Sebastián every Saturday. Nina blinks in and out of my life every week, but the shared custody starts feeling natural.
“Watchu got there?”
I turn my head to see Iván peering over my shoulder as I sit at my cubicle desk.
“Nothing. I’m hard at work on very important graphic design projects, can’t you see?” I say snarkily. Iván snorts. “Nothing, I was just thinking about a few ideas for that art program group thingy I’m doing at the youth centre.”
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
“Well, I don’t know, I’m trying to think of, like…ways to explore emotion with art without it being too guided or heavy. Like, I was thinking about having the kids think of a particular memory tied to a particular emotion, but I think that might be too risky cause…what if one of them has a really bad memory, you know?”
“Yeah. Do you have any trained therapists or something in the centre?”
“No. I mean, that would be great, obviously, but that’s not really what we’re about, in the sense that it would be a little irresponsible to offer mental health services when we’re not, you know, a mental health service with all the appropriate…safeguards or whatever. It’s about giving them a safe space? So I don’t want to, like, therapise the kids, but it would be nice to have them know they have a space to be able to…feel what they’re feeling and express it how they want without being judged or whatever.”
“Well, maybe you should just tell them that? Like…the program you’re doing can be just a bit of drawing or teaching basic skills to those who want it, but it can also be somewhere they can go after a bad day and just let it all out if they want to without having to talk about it.”
“Right. Yeah. That—thanks, Iván. I think I was trying to make it way too complicated,” I admit. Iván smiles down at me.
“So…it’s going good with that guy, then? The cat-stealing asshole?”
“Sebastián? Yeah, I guess. He’s all right,” I say, shrugging.
“Mmhmm.”
“What?”
“What? I didn’t say anything,” Iván says, but he has an annoying little smirk on his face. I narrow my eyes at him.
“Go away, then. Can’t you see I have work to do?” I sniff at him, my nose in the air. Iván chuckles, getting up from where he was perched on my desk.
“Mmhmm.”
“Asshole.”
“Mmm—ouch.” Iván rubs his head where he’d been hit by a ball of Blu Tack.
“Go away!”
“You are very defensive about—okay, okay! I’m going, jeez, workplace harassment much?” Iván disappears after sticking his tongue out at me.
I turn to my desk, my smile fading as I’m faced with my to-do list for the day. I sigh, putting the stuff from the youth centre away and concentrating on my actual work. Time to plug back into the matrix.
**********
I watch Marja lift different pieces of coloured cellophane paper up to the light.
“We could do something with this red.”
“We could set everything on fire,” Gwyn suggested.
“We could set the scene in hell,” Marja bursts out, grinning at Gwyn.
“Oh my God, yes.”
