Mikey’s screen door slamming shut wakes me. I sit up and rub my face slowly.
I dressed in just a T-shirt and underwear after the shower. I must have dozed off, tired from my long day at True Grit. I scramble for my overalls, turning around so Ariel can’t see the scars on my thighs. I’m sore from all the lifting I did today. I haven’t used my muscles so much in months.
Ariel is bent down, flipping through my sketchbook, making a sound like a hungry bee. She pauses on the sketch of my father. I’m protective of my drawings, and him, so I pull the book away, pressing it to my chest. She shrugs, standing up.
“Prescription bottles. Interesting choice, but too distracting. In portraiture, it’s the eyes that explain the person, that give us our window. If you put the whole story in his teeth by making them pill bottles, it’s too easy for us. You just gave us the ending to the story. Why would we stick around? We need to move over the whole face, we need time to think. You understand?”
Move over the whole face, time to think. Before I can ask what she means, she says briskly, “Come. Let’s have breakfast. I love breakfast for dinner, don’t you? I bet you’re starving.”
I slip a hoodie on and pull on my boots hastily. I’m not going to turn down free dinner. Even though I ate before my shower, I’m hungry again. I guess I have a lot of space to fill inside. My mouth waters as we cross the yard. I look up. The stars are perfect pinpricks of white.
Her house is airy and comfortable. The cement floors are painted with large blue and black circles. It’s like stepping on bruised bubbles, which is kind of cool, and I like it.
I’ve never been in a house that had so many paintings and it takes my breath away. Ariel’s cream-colored living room walls are slathered with large, blackish paintings. Some of them have slanted strips of light cutting through the darkness, like light from beneath closed doors or up through the branches of tall, old trees. Some of them are just different shades of darkness. Some of the paint is so thickly applied, it rises off the canvas like minuscule mountains. My fingers itch to touch them but I’m afraid to ask if I can. Everywhere I look, there is something to see, and I love it.
Ariel stands in the doorway of the kitchen, watching me. “You can touch gently.”
I do, very carefully laying a finger on the tiny hill of one particularly dark painting. It feels, strangely enough, cool to the touch, and very firm, almost like a healed, raised scar.
Ariel says, “What are you thinking, Charlie? Speak. I always tell my students that whatever they feel about art, it is true, because it is true to their experience, not mine.”
“I’m not sure…I don’t know how to say it.” The words bubble inside me, but I’m not sure how to arrange them. I don’t want to sound dumb. I don’t want to be dumb.
“Just try. My ears, they are as big as an elephant’s.”
I step back. The paintings are so large and dark, except for those tiny sprays of light. “They make me…they make me think of being stuck somewhere? I don’t know, like weighted down, but then these little patches…” I falter. I sound stupid. And looking at so much darkness is kind of pulling at something inside me, because, I think, only a very sad person could have done these paintings and what would have made Ariel so sad?
Ariel is behind me now. “Go on,” she says quietly.
“Those little parts that stick off ? It seems like the darkness is almost trying to leave the whole thing, because the little light is back there, and it’s turning its back on the light. That’s stupid, I know.”
“No,” answers Ariel thoughtfully. “Not stupid, not stupid at all.” She walks away, back to the kitchen, and I follow her, relieved that I don’t have to say any more about the painting, at least not right now.
Her glossy red kitchen table is laid out with an iridescent platter holding sliced strawberries, chunks of pineapple, scoops of scrambled egg, and red, soft-looking meat. “Chorizo,” she says. “You’ll like it.”
I’m almost ashamed at how ravenous I am for real, cooked food. I calculate how much to put on my plate so it doesn’t look like I’m being too greedy all at once.
The chorizo isn’t hot so much as spicy; it has a strange, mashed-hot-dog quality that’s slightly gross, so I eat some eggs instead. It’s been a long time since I’ve eaten a real meal in someone’s house. Maybe the last time was with Ellis and her parents, at their grainy dining room table, the one that leaned a little to the right.
The silverware is cool in my fingers, the plates sturdy and definite. I try to eat slowly, though I really do want to shove everything into my mouth at once.
Ariel takes a large mouthful of chorizo and egg and chews luxuriously.
“Where are your people? Your mama?”
I make a pile of strawberries and top them with a wedge of pineapple, like a little hat. I fill my mouth with food again so I don’t have to answer Ariel.
“Maybe you think she doesn’t care, but she does.” She turns a strawberry between her fingers. I can feel her watching me.
“Michael says you lost a friend. Your best friend. I’m so sorry.” She looks over at me. “How awful.”
It’s unexpected, what she says, just like the fresh tears that suddenly well up in my eyes. I’m surprised Mikey told her about Ellis, but I don’t know why. And I also feel weirdly betrayed that he did. Ellis was…is mine. “I don’t want to talk about that right now,” I say quickly, jamming pineapple and strawberry into my mouth. I blink rapidly, hoping the tears stay put.
Ariel licks chorizo grease from her callused fingers and wipes each one with a napkin, dipping the edge of the fabric into her glass of ice water.
“Most girls your age, they’re off to school, they fuck boys, they gain weight, they get some good grades, some bad grades. Lie to Mommy and Daddy. Pierce their tummies. Tramp stamps.” She smiles at me.
“That’s not you, though, right? Michael says you didn’t finish high school, so you can’t go and study boys and fuck books.” She laughs at herself.
“I did finish,” I answer defensively through a mouthful of food. “Well, almost. Sort of. Soon.”
Ariel nibbles her pineapple. She regards me steadily, her eyes slightly enlarged by the lenses of her glasses. Then she makes a crackling, explosive sound low in her throat. “Boom!” She spreads her fingers. “You keep people inside you, that’s what happens. Memories and regrets swallow you up, they get fat on the very marrow of your soul and then—”
I look over at her, startled by her strange words. Her face softens as she says, “And then, boom, you explode. Is that how you got those?” She gestures at my arms, safely hidden underneath the hoodie.
I fix my eyes on my plate. Boom. Yes.
She smiles again. “How are you going to live this hard life, Charlotte?”
The sound of my full name makes me look up. Pinkish powder dusts Ariel’s tan cheeks, minuscule lines of lipstick swim into the wrinkles above her mouth. I can’t imagine ever being her age, how she got here, this airy house, her life. One day from now is hard enough for me to imagine. I don’t know what to say.
She reaches across the table and brushes the scar on my forehead. Her fingertips are warm and for a second I relax, sinking into her touch. “You’re just a baby,” she says quietly. “So young.”
I stand up, clumsily knocking into the table. She was getting too close, I was letting her. The food and her kindness made me sleepy and complacent. Always be alert, Evan would warn. The fox has many disguises.
She sighs, squares her shoulders, and brushes crumbs from the table into her cupped palm. She raises her chin toward the back door: my invitation to leave.
On my way out, my hip bumps against a slim table. Something glittery peeks out from under a jumble of envelopes and circulars. I don’t even hesitate before sliding it into the pocket of my overalls. Ariel has taken a little from me tonight and so I am taking a little of her.
