Portrait of Us

by A. Destiny

  Charlie’s face could fry an egg, it was so red from his blush. “Nothing,” he muttered and pulled out of the pool. He stomped off, dripping puddles of water under his feet as he beat a hasty retreat.

  Maxine’s brow furrowed, and the smile slid from her face. “What did I do?”

  I reached over and squeezed her shoulder. “It’s not you, promise. My brother is a doofus. He’s just . . . trying to sort stuff out.” I knew exactly what was wrong with him. He’d sorted Maxine into one category—friends—and was jarred at the possibility of her being something else—a potential girlfriend. So he was being stubborn and refusing to give her a chance. Because he was scared.

  Maxine gave a weak nod and a shaky smile. “I don’t want him mad at me. I’m gonna go talk to him.” Before I could reply, she tugged herself out of the pool and traipsed along after him.

  Kids. I shook my head and lolled in the water. Though there was a small flare-up of something in my stomach as I considered Maxine and Charlie. I recognized some of myself in Charlie, that stubborn refusal to change my opinion of a person, despite the situation.

  But our situations were completely different. Those two had been friends for years. They already had a foundation. All I had was an unwanted attraction to Matthew, and a lot of fear.

  I shook off those thoughts and floated along the water, determined to enjoy my afternoon as best as I could. Twenty minutes later both Maxine and Charlie came back to the pool. Her eyes were red and streaked, and Charlie’s face was unreadable.

  “I’m ready to go home,” he declared.

  I glanced at both of them. Their bodies were wound so tightly I was sure they were going to explode. But neither offered an explanation of what had happened. “Okay, let me towel off and slip on my clothes,” I said.

  My heart squeezed for their obvious angst as I dried off and put my shorts and T-shirt back on. We walked in awkward silence the whole way home, with me in the middle. When we reached our house, Maxine gave me a quick thank-you and kept going to hers, not even looking back at Charlie.

  “What happened?” I whispered to him once we made it inside. The cool air was a welcome pleasure, and I shivered as goose bumps formed on my bare skin.

  He huffed. “She tried to kiss me. Can you believe it?”

  I would have laughed had I not seen the sheer confusion and wariness in his face. It was hard for him to open up and tell me these things, and if he thought I was laughing at him, it would just shut him down. “She really likes you,” I said quietly. “If you don’t like her like that, you need to tell her before it ruins your friendship.”

  Charlie sighed and looked down at the carpet. “We can’t just go back to how things were before, can we?”

  “There is no going back, Charlie. I’m sorry.”

  He gave a miserable nod, his face pinched. Then he went into his room and closed the door behind him.

  I grabbed a soda and plopped into the kitchen chair. Poor Maxine. Poor Charlie. I hoped they could work it all out. I pressed the cool can against my still-warm cheeks and sighed at the bite of coldness on my skin.

  My mind kept taunting me with the vision of bold blue eyes.

  A soft brush of fingers across the back of my left arm stopped me before I entered the art studio on Friday. “Hey, Corinne.” It was Matthew right behind me, looking at me with cautious eyes. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. Just wanted to catch you before you went in.”

  My heart stopped for a painful moment, then restarted at an irregular pace. I had to admit, Matthew was looking good today. He had on faded jeans and a slim-fit black tank top that accentuated all those basketball muscles in his arms and shoulders. “Um, sure,” I managed to say, wishing I sounded more suave. “What’s up?”

  He sighed and raked a hand through his hair. Another studio student walked by, eyeing the two of us with evident curiosity. He dropped my arm. “I know this isn’t your ideal situation. It’s not quite ideal for me either, but I think you and I can put that aside and work together. Without all of this silence and awkward tension between us. Otherwise, it’s never going to happen.”

  I bit my lower lip. His eyes darted down to my mouth and then away to stare over my shoulder. For some reason, that one small look made my skin flush.

  I shoved aside that reaction and forced myself to focus on what he was saying. He was right—I knew it, and a big part of the problem here was my own stubbornness. We were both forced into a situation we hadn’t envisioned. But if we were going to win, we needed to put aside our feelings, roll with the punches, and make an art project that was champion worthy.

  Surely I could put up with him, with this . . . whatever between us, long enough to win, right?

  I tilted my head. “So what do you want to win for? What do you hope comes out of this?” I knew what I wanted—fame, glory, all that jazz. But what was his purpose here? He seemed determined for us to work together, which meant he must want this for some big reason.

  Matthew cleared his throat, his face showing an emotion I couldn’t quite pin. “I have a few different reasons,” he hedged, then glanced down at his watch. “Hmm, class is getting ready to start in a minute.”

  His nonresponse intrigued me. For someone who seemed pretty open and easygoing, Matthew totally just blew off my question. Why?

  I suddenly wanted to find out.

  I raised an eyebrow and gave him a small smile, thrusting out my hand. “I’m in.” No looking back now. I had no idea how we were going to make this work, but in this moment, that didn’t matter. We wanted to win, and I was determined we’d make that happen.

  He took my smaller hand into the warmth of his larger one. Our handshake looked professional, but all of my skin cells were suddenly hyperaware of him. The firmness of his thumb and fingertips, the lean line of his fingers.

  It took everything I had not to yank my hand from his, which would totally defeat the purpose of our truce. But I’d never had a reaction to someone else like this before. Had never touched a guy’s hand and wanted to lean closer to him, take a good, close look at all those little flecks in his riveting blue eyes.

  What was going on with me?

  I gave an embarrassed laugh and extracted my hand, fighting the urge to cram it into my shorts pocket. “Um, okay. I’m going to head inside now. For class. Our art thing.” Wow, could I sound any dumber?

  Luckily for me, he didn’t seem to notice. “Sure. I figured that over the weekend, we can make a list of the subject matter that interests us most. Then on Monday we can work on narrowing down our options, plus what media we want to use.”

  He sounded so cool and collected, not frazzled like me. For some stupid reason, my chest tightened. Obviously I was the only one in turmoil here over this handshake, the only one feeling this weird buzz whenever we were close. So embarrassing.

  “Sounds good,” I said, lifting my chin and nodding. I straightened my back and walked inside. And for the entire class session, I kept my attention studiously on my project and not on Matthew.

  And I would have been proud of that accomplishment too, had I actually been able to keep his crooked smile off my mind for more than five minutes at a time.

  Chapter Seven

  I’d like a half pound of salami . . . a pound of bacon—thickly sliced, please—and a pound of turkey. Make those slices thicker, because last time I came here, they were falling apart in these tiny shreds.” Mr. Stein shoved his thick gray-framed glasses up his nose with a gnarled, wrinkled hand as he peered across the glass case at me.

  It was Saturday afternoon, and I was working the deli counter at the bakery. Mr. Stein was one of our regulars, and he was very particular about what he wanted. For some reason, though, he liked me and always wanted me to take his order.

  I gave him a serious nod. “Sure thing, Mr. Stein.” Then I went to work, slicing and weighing and bagging the items. I popped the price stickers on them and handed the packs over. “Anything else I can get for you?”

  He thinned
his lips as he perused the deli case again, running a hand over his bald head. “Maybe a half pound of that tortellini. Margie really loves it. She can have some with dinner.”

  Margie was his granddaughter, a sweet little girl with the biggest, fluffiest curls I’d ever seen. Every time she came in with Mr. Stein, I wanted to pick her up and squeeze her tight. She was so. Stinking. Cute.

  I scooped out a half pound, stickered it, and handed it to him. “Have a great day,” I said with a big smile.

  A group of several chattering women walked through the door, and they kept me busy for another good fifteen minutes, running around and slicing, scooping, bagging, stickering deli goods. My feet were starting to ache in my flats. How did Grandpa do this every day?

  I waved good-bye to the last customer and collapsed in a chair behind the deli counter, stretching my aching arches out in front of me and rotating my ankles. Then I grabbed my notebook and pen and stared at my nearly empty list.

  The one I was supposed to have filled out by Monday to share with Matthew after class.

  I only had two items so far of possible art subjects for us to do: an outdoor scene at a park, and a portrait of someone. I mean, what else could we possibly find that we would both want to work on, that we had in common? I knew I was supposed to list all the things I wanted to do, but I couldn’t stop wondering what we could actually succeed at. So I was trying to focus my list on those subjects.

  And it was paralyzing me.

  Chewing on my pen cap, I tried to clear my mind and think about what could possibly work for contemporary and classical art styles. I rolled around different Cleveland locations in my head—maybe we could do something local. That could be intriguing. That old cemetery downtown? Lake Erie?

  “Whatcha doin’?” Grandpa asked from beside me, and his voice startled me into opening my eyes. He had on a thin sweater—despite the temperatures outside, he kept it cool in the store.

  I gave him a smile. “Artistic meditating.” Or a desperate attempt to do so. If only I could clear my hectic mind and find that zone that allowed me to tap into ideas.

  He grabbed another folding chair and plopped down beside me, dropping his large hands on his knees. “So how’s your art classes going? Still having fun with it?”

  I nodded and put my pen in the coil of my notebook. “It’s been challenging so far. Trying different media, different techniques. Our instructor isn’t going easy on us, but that’s what I wanted. That’s how I’ll grow and achieve my goals.”

  Until Matthew totally came along and interfered with all of my plans. Accidentally, of course—it wasn’t like he was trying to thwart me or anything—but I’d had everything mapped out about how the summer was going to go down. Now my brain was a pile of mush and I couldn’t stop thinking about his smile or the way he’d touched my hand. Ugh.

  Ava had teased me all last night when she came over for dinner and a movie at my house. Apparently I wasn’t doing a good job hiding my turbulent emotions.

  “Whatcha writin’ there?” he asked, nodding at my notebook. “Homework?”

  “Kinda.” I filled him in on the details about the competition, fingers absently playing with the pen as I talked. “So now I have no idea what we can do. Our styles are so different—we’re so different. I promised to put aside my concerns and do my best so we have a real chance at winning this competition, but I don’t know how.” A new sense of bleakness filled me.

  I’d never been this pessimistic about stuff before. Why was this chewing at me so hard, making me so nervous? I was normally the one who gave it everything, despite the odds. I had a winner’s mentality. I set goals and I accomplished them.

  But this felt different. Much more emotional, in a strange way. Like there was more on the line than just the end prizes.

  Grandpa rubbed his chin. “You know, your grandma and I were like that. Very different people. I was into art and baking and making beautiful things. She was a business woman. Also an activist, attending rallies about women’s rights and equal pay.” He smiled, closing his eyes for a brief moment. “I loved watching her in action. Getting fired up about those things that were important to her. She had so much passion.”

  He stood and moved over to the deli counter, straightening up the metal buckets holding the pasta. I put my notebook in the chair and got up too—if he was cleaning, that was my cue to do the same. I grabbed a paper towel and started wiping down the countertop.

  “How did you guys meet?” I asked. I didn’t know a lot about their relationship, since he was pretty closemouthed on details, preferring to keep them to himself. The fact that he was talking now was surprising, and I didn’t want to let the moment go.

  He sighed and wiped up a small mess around the chicken salad. “We were young. Too young,” he said, throwing me a warning look.

  I laughed. “I’m not dating anyone yet, Grandpa.”

  “Glad to hear. He has to be the right person. Someone good enough for my granddaughter.”

  The door dinged, and I pasted on my polite work smile. Grandpa went over to the bakery counter across from me and got a couple of dozen doughnuts for the harried-looking woman. She thrust forward a bunch of cash and ran out the door, boxes in hand.

  “Some kind of doughnut emergency, I guess,” he said with a chuckle as he came back to me. “Anyway. I had returned to Ohio after studying at the patisserie in Paris. What a wonderful experience that was. I was excited to start my own bakery. Your grandmother was doing some kind of political polling and had come in here because she was parched and wanted a soda—we’d only been open a few weeks at that point, actually. And the rest is history.”

  “But . . . you said you guys were different. How did you make it work out?”

  Grandpa stopped cleaning and looked at me. “If you want something bad enough, you make it work. Don’t get me wrong—I was plenty scared. She and I didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of stuff. Those first years were all about compromising. We fought quite a bit as we learned how to deal with each other. But love made us keep trying.”

  I’d never seen Grandpa’s face so open before. It was obvious he still loved and missed her, though the bittersweet smile he gave me showed he had no regrets. That at least he’d had time with her—a long time, at that.

  I pursed my lips, considering his words. Grandma had always been vocal, pushing me to do everything I wanted to, even as a young kid. I remembered the way she smelled, like soft linen and sunshine. How she’d braid my hair and tell me I was smart and was going to be somebody. She’d inspired me; I’d wanted to make her proud.

  Somehow, the two of them had compromised—and not just on an art project or something temporary. On life. In love.

  Love. The word brought a hot flush to my face. I didn’t have time for infatuations, much less love. But that didn’t mean a small part of my heart didn’t leap whenever Matthew jumped into the front of my mind. Which was all the time now. Or when I happened to glance at him as he worked on his projects in class—the careful focus and diligence in his art was magnetic. It was ridiculous, I knew, but I couldn’t help my reaction.

  He drew me to him, despite how hard I fought it. How hard I tried to keep this just about one project. There was something in his eyes that made me want to get to know him more. Did he feel the same way about me, too?

  Grandpa went to the back to bring out fresh supplies from our fridge. His eyebrow shot up as he peered over at me. “You have that look on your face,” he said.

  I fought the urge to press my hands to my heated cheeks. That would declare me as guilty. “I don’t have any look. I’m just wondering how I can make it work out with Matthew on our project. Do you have any ideas for what our subject can be?”

  His eyebrow rose higher but he didn’t comment on my blatant lie. “I’m sure it’ll come to you, honey. Just try to relax and invite inspiration in.”

  I nodded. The door rang again, and a steady stream of customers filtered in, keeping me busy for another solid hour. No
t busy enough to stop my brain from whirring while I worked, however.

  Okay. This was getting ridiculous. Matthew was cute—I’d already admitted that to myself. But he and I weren’t going to fall for each other or anything. It was just one project. A summer thing. When school started again, I’d go my way and he’d go his. And hopefully we’d come out of it all with an art show win. My goals . . . I just needed to keep my focus. Eyes on the prize.

  Grandpa appeared from the back, holding my cell phone; apparently he’d fetched it from the back room. “It just dinged,” he said right after I finished serving the last customer in the crowd crush. “Figured it might be important.”

  Who was trying to reach me? Everyone knew I was working Saturdays here. I peeked down at it. A text message from a number I didn’t recognize.

  Hey, it’s Matthew. We should figure out a regular time outside of class to meet for our project. When?

  My heart did a thud-skip, and I could feel my cheeks burning. I’d given him my cell number after class yesterday, but I hadn’t expected to hear from him so soon. My fingers were shaking as I typed out, Tuesdays and Thursdays r good for me. U?

  “Is that him?” Grandpa asked with a knowing smile. “The boy you’re working with in the class?”

  I caught myself before I rolled my eyes at his smarmy look. “Yes, it is. He wants us to meet to work on our project. That’s all.”

  My phone buzzed.

  Those days work for me too. See u Monday. :-D

  I handed Grandpa back my phone, trying to breathe normally. Like this was just your average run-of-the-mill conversation, not something I was nervous about. “It’s not a big deal,” I continued. “We’re just art partners. That’s all.”

  “You keep telling yourself that, Corinne,” he said with a sly wink as he went into the back room.

  “Look, Maxine—it’s working!” Charlie pointed in excitement as the sun hit their sleek wooden car’s solar panel, and the car went whizzing down the sidewalk.