Julia's Chocolates

by Cathy Lamb

  I trooped behind her up the stairs. We walked down the hallway, past two bedrooms. One was definitely an office for Lara’s husband, and one was a sewing room. I peeked into their master bedroom. Again, it was perfect. And barren. And bleak. I just could not imagine someone who looked and acted like Lara sleeping in that room. It was like dumping an orchid into a bagful of needles.

  She took a key off the top of the door trim, inserted it into the lock, pushed the door open, and we climbed about ten steps into the attic. “Can’t have any of the church ladies coming in here, I’ll tell you that,” she said, before a little hyena-like laugh erupted from her lips. Lara turned on the light, and I followed her in. Then stopped at the threshold.

  I froze when I saw what was in that room. Stunned beyond stunned

  In front of me was the most expansive, colorful artist’s studio I could ever imagine. Every inch of it looked like Lara—the real Lara. “The previous owner had the room remodeled and the skylights put in,” Lara said, looking relaxed for the first time. “He needed a third-floor office. Apparently he had a porn business. At least that’s what two of the neighbors told me. He was a deacon in one of the local churches here, too.”

  On each of the four walls of the attic Lara had painted a mural. One was of the New York skyline, the way it would look if you were sitting on the top of one of the many tenement buildings. On all the other buildings, other people of all races and ages were out on the rooftops, too. Some were playing instruments, others were dancing, many were alone, staring at the sky.

  In another mural, Lara had painted a group of people at a picnic together, only all of the people were famous historic and present-day figures: Abraham Lincoln, Rosa Parks, Tina Turner, Oprah Winfrey, Bono, Sandra Day O’Connor, Nelson Mandela, and Amelia Earhart.

  On another wall, she had painted a huge quilt, and in every square of the quilt, she’d painted families from all over the world—Japanese, Chinese, African, and so on. Some were laughing, some crying, some looked tired, others happy.

  On the fourth wall, she had painted a scene from an art gallery. Every painting on every easel was different. And all the paintings had Lara’s name in the corner.

  The ceiling was painted a light blue with sunflowers. The sunflowers looked like van Gogh’s sunflowers: distressed, unhappy, living, breathing things, caked with paint.

  And scattered all about, against the walls, up on two different easels, were paintings that Lara had done herself. I walked around the easels, stunned at the paintings, then looked through the art stacked against the walls. I knew brilliant artwork when I saw it—had, in fact, been praised many times by my boss for noticing the quality of a new artist’s work, or the lack of it.

  One painting made me catch my breath. It was of a naked man, wrapped around a sunflower. The sunflower was taller than he was. It was exactly as Caroline had described it during one of the Psychic Nights. It had sounded ridiculous then, even though Caroline had said it with such seriousness.

  The floor seemed to shake a little beneath my feet. Of course, maybe Caroline had heard Lara talk about her latest painting, but I had seen Lara’s reaction to Caroline’s statement: she had been shocked, but not surprised, and Lara had said she didn’t let anyone up here, so I knew Caroline couldn’t have already seen it.

  I guess you get like that when you hang out long enough with a psychic. They shock you, but you’re not surprised they know what they do.

  While Lara had used only paints with some of the canvasses, like the one with the naked man and the sunflower, with others she had used bits of crumbled-up newspapers, buttons, confetti, twigs, a miniature bird’s nest, crayons, pages from books, and dried flowers.

  The effect was stunning.

  I sucked in my breath. The woman was an amazing artist. I looked around the room. This was what Lara looked like to me, not the sterility of downstairs. Not the boring perfection. This room was raw and emotional and throbbing with energy. It was alive, so very, very alive, as if a soul had been sprung loose from a cage and erupted with artistic enthusiasm.

  “I don’t even know what to say….”

  “Don’t feel like you have to, Julia.” Lara gathered up paints and brushes that had been left haphazardly around the room. I could tell by her tone that she had about as much confidence in her artwork as I did in ever permanently escaping Robert.

  “It’s incredible,” I said. The words were so soft, I didn’t think she would even hear me, but I was so awed, so dumbstruck, I could barely speak.

  “Oh, please, Julia.” She turned to face me, skepticism all over her classic features. “You don’t need to humor me.”

  I stopped looking at the artwork, faced her square-on. “I’m not humoring you, Lara. People did that to me in the past, and I hated it. Hated the sanctimonious, patronizing looks on their faces while they lied to make me feel better about one thing or another. I told you your work is incredible because it is. I should know. I worked in art galleries for years.”

  “You really like them?” Her tone was so hopeful, so unsure. So like me. I felt myself connecting with Lara where before we hadn’t.

  “I’m positive. Your work should be in an art gallery, not hidden up here in your attic. You should share it with everyone, and you could sell it if you wanted.”

  She shook her head then, and I could see that latent anger and frustration rising in her features. She spread her skinny arms out, indicating her artwork. “How could I possibly do that?” she snapped. “Have you really looked at these? Some of the men and women are nude. Look at this one.” She held up a painting with two women and a man. They were all lying down, the man between the women. One of the women was older, with gray hair and glasses. Alongside her were miniature smiling children, a house, and older couples that looked like parents and in-laws.

  The other woman was young with flowing blond hair and huge boobs. Alongside her were a miniature cruise boat, jewelry, cash, and a fancy car. In between them was a man who was good-looking in a pretty, soulless, self-centered, annoying way. The two women glared at each other over him.

  “How about my nude garden series?” she said, snatching up one painting, then another. In one painting, a nude woman, shown from the waist up, stood in her garden holding a birdhouse in front of her. She wore a straw hat and a smile. Birds swirled around her head.

  In another a nude man tended his garden, surrounded by cornstalks. In the third painting, three middle-aged women sprawled on a quilt, roses in their hands and threaded through wreaths around their heads. They smiled at one another. “Can you imagine the outcry in this town if people saw this?”

  Yes, I could. Small towns are not usually known for their liberal attitudes. But the paintings were so vibrant, so striking.

  “My husband is a minister.” She dropped the three women, then yanked up another of a couple naked and laughing and hugging on a bed of marigolds. “He’s the head of a church. I teach Sunday school. I work half-time as the church secretary. I lead choir practice on Tuesday night. A very proper and boring choir practice, I’ll have to say. Sometimes I feel like I’m going to go to sleep directing these people.” Her shoulders slumped. “I can’t possibly let anyone see these. And I’m not even thinking about what my father would do. God. He would probably set up camp here in the middle of my living room, not letting me or my husband out until we all died from starvation.”

  I dragged my eyes away from the art and thought about that. It actually didn’t seem out of the realm of possibility. I envisioned myself rappelling down the fireplace to give her food.

  “No. I absolutely cannot show these pictures to anyone.” She flung a paintbrush across the wall. It clattered to the floor. Then she picked up another. And another. All of the paintbrushes went flying. I grabbed her as she reached for one of the water cans.

  One dry paintbrush would not do much damage, but I couldn’t let a bunch of dirty paint-water splat across one of these paintings. I had one arm around her waist, the other on her arm,
as it was poised in the air, water splashing out of the can. She was so skinny, so very, very skinny, and pale and sad.

  “I am losing it, Julia.” She let the can drop, and all the water splashed on our legs.

  I turned her around and hugged her, and she sobbed on my shoulder. I could feel her bones through her skin.

  “I’m losing it, Julia. Every day I wake up and I grit my teeth and I wonder how I can get through the day. My schedule is insane. I am often meeting with people from seven in the morning until ten at night. They all need me, all expect me to be perfect, to have the answers, to fix their problems, to soothe their souls, to be prayerful. And I feel like such a hypocrite. I try to counsel people, try to guide them in their faith, but I’m not really sure I even believe in God anymore.”

  She pulled away, dragging both hands through her hair again and again.

  “And if there is a God, he’s either ineffectual or uncaring. Do you ever watch the news? There are millions of people who suffer every day, suffer horribly. How can I believe in a being like that? And all the time, I can hear my father’s words echoing in one side of my head.” She deepened her voice. ‘Hell awaits you, Lara, as you waver daily in your faith! He knows your unbelieving heart, knows your many, many sins! You must repent and embrace the Lord before the devil takes over your soul.’ And on the other side, I’m hearing the needs of everyone around me. All the time. God, I’m trying, but it’s never enough. I am never enough”

  I sank onto a nearby stool and pondered those words, I am never enough. It was exactly how I felt. Growing up with a mother who semi-hated me and a father who motorcycled off into the sunset, followed by a string of boyfriends and husbands who either ignored or criticized me, or followed me to bed whenever my mother wasn’t home, had not done much for my self-esteem.

  Robert had only reinforced my feelings of not being “enough,” repeatedly telling me I was lucky he was interested in me, lucky he had even noticed me. “I’ll train you, Turtle. Don’t worry. We’ll knock that white trash right out of you. You just have to listen to me and do what I say. Got it, Turtle? Got it? You’re a nothing now, but as my wife you’re gonna be a somebody.”

  I dragged my mind away from Robert. Thinking of Robert always brought on the Dread Disease symptoms. And thinking of how I had changed myself for him, had strived so hard to please him, how I had stayed even when he’d “accidentally” burned me with an iron on my butt made me feel ill. “Whoops,” he’d said. “Sorry about that, Cannonball Butt. Didn’t know you were that near, but don’t worry, you’ve got plenty of butt to spare.” He’d laughed when I’d cried. “Hell, don’t be such a baby. I said I was sorry.” I still had a slight scar on my butt.

  Lara sank onto the floor, holding her head in her hands.

  “Lara, do you love Jerry?” I asked.

  She dissolved into another round of tears. “Yes. I love Jerry, but I don’t think I love him enough to be a minister’s wife the rest of my life. I can’t live like this. But I love Jerry. I already said that, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, you did. What do you love about Jerry?” I moved and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of her.

  “What do I love about him?” She looked shocked, as if I’d just asked her if she could take her intestines out so I could measure them. “I love everything about him. He’s kind, he’s funny, he’s ambitious. Jerry knows what he wants to do, and he works until he has what he wants. In this case, he wants this church to grow so that everyone who wants to can know Christ. He tells me all the time that I am God’s greatest gift to him, that he couldn’t live without me, and he treats me that way.”

  “Have you ever told him how you feel?”

  “Oh, God, no,” she said. “God, no.” She drove her hands through her hair again and again. With her hair pulled tight back from her face, she looked almost skeletal. “When we married, we had an agreement. He was going into the ministry, and I was going to help. I told him I was happy to do it, that I wanted a life in the ministry. Together, we were going to build this church. But I’ve come to hate my own life. I’m so tired, Julia. Tired and burned-out and utterly hopeless.”

  “But hasn’t Jerry noticed that you’re unhappy?” It had been patently obvious to me since the second I met her that Lara was miserable. Of course, she had broken the cross off her neck within hours of my meeting her, but still. Jerry was awake, wasn’t he? He actually looked at his wife once in a while, didn’t he?

  “He asks me now and then what’s wrong, but I tell him that there’s nothing wrong, or that I’m a little tired, or that I’m worried about one person or another in the church, which I often am.”

  “When you tell Jerry that you’re tired or worried, what does he do?”

  She put a fist to her mouth to stifle another sob. “He makes me go to bed and read, or he gives me a backrub, or he goes and gets a movie, or he makes dinner.”

  Good God, I thought. One time I had told Robert I was tired, and he had whacked me on the butt really hard. “It’s ’cause you’re so fat, Possum. Get rid of that weight and you won’t look so washed-out all the time.”

  “So does he suspect that you’re not telling the truth?”

  Another sob. “I think so,” she said quietly. “I see him watching me really carefully. If he sees me doing housework, he comes to help. He hugs me when we’re going to sleep at night, and when I wake up he’s still hugging me. He tells me to go upstairs and paint, and when he has to work, he brings his stuff up to the attic and works while I paint. He says he wants us to be together.” She wrapped her arms around her waist and hunched over. “I spend so much time convincing myself that everything is going to be fine, that eventually this life will grow on me, that I’m doing what’s right, that to do anything else would be selfish, that I have to go and have a drink or two until all my lies seem kind of fuzzy and it feels like I can manage my own hypocrisy.”

  Yes, I had seen that drink or two. Or five. “What does Jerry think of a drink or two?”

  “He doesn’t know. I get home so late after Psychic Nights, he’s asleep. I go to sleep on the couch, then get up early and shower. I have a couple of drinks before he gets home or after he’s gone to bed. It’s no big deal. My drinking is no big deal.”

  But it was. I knew it. She knew it.

  I didn’t envy her her problem. Me, I would have cleaned streets with my tongue if I could come home every night to a man like Jerry, but Lara was different. Lara’s passion was art. She could no more live without it than I could live without my heart.

  We both heard the knocks on the front door. Lara wiped her eyes. I took a deep breath. I needed some chocolate.

  “Please keep this between us.”

  “I will,” I said, but then I grabbed her arm. “Have you ever had Psychic Night up here?”

  Her eyes widened. “Oh no.”

  “You should.”

  “Oh no.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes.”

  Lara was practically shaking in her shoes as we all trooped up the stairs to her attic after dinner. Aunt Lydia had made lasagna with garlic to kill off any excess hormones, Caroline had brought two delectable-looking salads, Katie had come a little later, after dropping the kids off at a sitter’s. She brought cheese sticks as appetizers.

  “I’ve never been to your attic before,” Caroline said, her voice gentle and calm, her eye only twitching a bit tonight. “I’m looking forward to seeing your paintings.”

  “Me neither,” said Katie. “I didn’t even know you had an attic.”

  I looked closely at Katie. She didn’t appear pale and exhausted tonight. In fact, she looked much better, her smile didn’t have that tense, I-am-hanging-on-to-dear-life-with-my-finger-nails look.

  Lara looked rather ill, and I felt bad for convincing her we should have Psychic Night in her attic, but her art was incredible, and my gut told me that this was what she needed: outside approval of her art.

  Lara pushed opened the door, then stepped inside. I followed he
r, keeping a close eye on Aunt Lydia’s, Caroline’s, and Katie’s expressions.

  I wasn’t disappointed.

  Their mouths dropped. Their eyes widened. They made I-can’t-believe-this sounds in their throats. The bag that Caroline had brought upstairs for the psychic part of Your Hormones And You: Taking Over, Taking Cover, Taking Charge fell from her hands. No one noticed.

  The silence was so loud, if a mouse had burped, we would have heard it.

  “Oh my,” Katie said, shaking her head as she walked with great caution to one of Lara’s paintings, a portrait of a woman spread-eagled in the middle of a field, wearing only an apron, storm clouds churning above her. Tiny fabric squares had been glued to the canvas to form the apron.

  “Good God!” Aunt Lydia declared, staring at a painting with two women facing each other, their profiles identical except a snake wrapped around the neck of one, a flower chain around the other. Lara had used dried flowers for the chain and costume jewelry for the women’s earrings.

  “Incredible,” Caroline whispered, as she stared at a painting of a woman holding a bird’s nest. The woman’s halter was made of newspaper clippings of horrible natural disasters that had occurred. Inside the twigs of the nest Lara had painted tiny ladybugs and worms and butterflies and birds.

  Caroline toured the room, then flipped through stacked canvasses. When she got to the one of the naked man wrapped around a sunflower, she smiled, nodded.

  Lara became noticeably less tense minute by minute as we exclaimed over her paintings and studied the murals with awe. An hour later I went and got the Double Chocolate Snowball, and we sat down to dessert, right in the middle of the attic.

  “Damn, but you’re good, Lara,” Aunt Lydia said, shaking her head in wonderment. “Damn, but you’re good.”

  Katie nodded. “Damn good.”

  Caroline smiled. Winked.

  We poured ourselves more wine and offered a toast to Lara.

  She cried.