by W. S. Greer
“Were you a military brat growing up, or did you decide you wanted to do this on your own?”
“I was a military brat, I must admit. My dad was in the Air Force, too, but the decision for me to join was all mine. I don’t do this for my parents, but they’re proud I’m following my dad’s footsteps. They’re sure to tell me how proud they are every time I talk to them on the phone. They love that I became a pilot like my father, although my dad likes to take shots at me for not flying a jet like he did. I make fun of him for never seeing combat. We have a little fun with it. How about you? You close to your parents?”
I feel a sharp sting in my stomach now. I don’t usually have conversations with anyone about my parents. I honestly try not to think about them at all, and I’ve never been close enough to anyone to actually open up to them about my life. There’s only one person who knows about them, and that’s Marlene.
“Umm . . . my parents,” I stammer. Where do I even begin? Do I tell the truth? “I don’t . . . uhh . . . my mother left me with my dad when I was three. We never heard from her again, so I don’t know what happened with her. And my father . . . I don’t talk to him.” I try not to sound upset, but I must not have done a good job, because Austin stops painting and turns to look at me. I can see he wants me to open up about it, but I’m not sure I’m ready for that. But, instead of dwelling on it, I don’t think about it. I just keep talking.
“My father wasn’t a very nice person,” I continue, but I make sure to whisper and keep my eyes focused on the terrible painting I’m doing in front of me. “He was a drunk, and he liked to hit me when he got stressed out . . . and when he was tired, and when he was happy, and any other time he felt like it, I guess. I ran away from home when I was seventeen because he tried to upgrade from hitting me to . . . touching me.”
I hear the words come out of my mouth, but I can barely believe I’m saying them, and I’m not sure what kind of reaction I’m expecting from Austin. But, when I finally build up the nerve to look at him, he’s just painting. I’m not even sure if he was listening, but I’m guessing he’s not sure what to say, so he’s just focused on what he’s doing. I’m probably freaking him out with this sudden burst of deep, dark honesty. This is why I don’t spill the gloom of my life out in the open for everyone to see. It’s too much for me, so of course it’s too much for other people.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Austin says, cutting off my train of thought. “Some people don’t know they have something special, even when they made it themselves and it’s staring them right in the face. Makes sense why you wouldn’t talk to him. You should be proud of yourself, though.”
“Proud? What’s there to be proud of?” Neither of us is looking at the other now, we’re just moving the brushes around, using the distraction of painting to keep from having to make eye contact—it makes it easier to be honest.
“A lot of people aren’t strong enough to remove themselves from an abusive environment like that. But, you did. You found the strength to save your own life and make something better out of it, despite your father holding you back. You’re stronger than everyone else out there—everyone who’s had it easy. Stronger than me.”
Another perfectly worded paragraph that I have no response to. I don’t know how he does is, but Austin somehow manages to say exactly what I need to hear, like he’s in my head and knows how to ease pain that’s invisible to him.
I never thought of it that way before. To me, it took me seventeen years to finally realize I’d had enough. It was either suicide or get the hell out of there, and I wasn’t going to let my father win by killing myself. So, I left. I felt like I did it more out of necessity than strength, but Austin is trying to help me see it a different way. A better way.
“Alright, my lively young class, let’s see how those first paintings have gone, shall we?” Danielle interrupts. She starts to make her way around the room, glancing at everyone’s paintings. I look at mine and see that I’m an absolutely horrible painter. This is nothing like drawing, and I was never all that great with that either. I wasn’t exactly talented in school when it came to arts and crafts, and this mess of squiggly lines shows why.
“That’s a beauty,” Austin says with a chuckle as he leans over. “Have you been painting your whole life?”
“What? Are you kidding?” I snip, but then I see the enormous smile on his face. He’s making fun of me. “Oh, you think that’s funny? What about yours? Let me see.”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to make you jealous with this masterpiece over here.” He tries to put his hands in front of the canvas so I can’t see, so I reach over and snatch them down. The second the painting is visible, both of us burst into laughter.
“Oh my god! And you were making fun of me?” I bellow as I laugh out loud. Between the two of us, the sheer volume of our laughter is definitely piercing the silence in the room, and I can see people starting to shift their eyes towards us in annoyance.
“Oh, don’t be a hater, now, Layla. It took years for me to be able to paint this well.”
“Oh yeah? I can’t even tell what any of it is! What’s this right here?” I ask, pointing to something that kind of resembles an upside down Q.
“That’s an apple! A beautiful apple, at that.”
I can’t hold in my laughter at all. The sensation of a genuine smile on my face feels surreal to me, and this blissful feeling inside my stomach is so foreign that I’d believe it if someone told me an alien had taken over my body and was making me act this way.
“And how about these? What are these little purple scribbles down here?” I ask as I point, trying to keep from laughing again.
“How can you not tell that those are delicious grapes? Those grapes look so real that when I painted them, I seriously tried to grab one from the canvas to eat it. I hurt my finger.”
Another uncontrollable laugh jumps from my body, this time grabbing the attention of Danielle. She makes her way over to the two of us and already has a smile on her face as she approaches Austin’s painting.
“Umm, well, I give you an A for effort,” she says with a smile of her own. She looks at my painting too, and says I did a decent job, and that I might do even better on the next object.
“At least she told me mine is decent, you just got an A for effort. That’s like a participation medal,” I jab at Austin, still grinning.
“Oh, whatever. She said you did a decent job. That’s what all teachers say to their worst students to make them feel like they’re actually keeping up with the rest of the class.”
“Oh, fuck you,” I reply, my stomach hurting from laughing so much. “Okay, we’ll see on this next one. Watch this.”
Danielle removes the plate of fruit from the table and brings over a detailed model of the Statue of Liberty. Everyone immediately gets to work.
“So, anyway, Mr. Artist,” I say as I try to focus on the outline of the statue. “I’ve spilled my business, now it’s your turn. I noticed earlier that you said you did like your job, then you changed it to you do like it. Kind of made it sound like something happened that made you change your mind about it. Am I right?”
The playful expression on Austin’s face slowly melts away like a popsicle sliding off its stick. He doesn’t look at me, and he takes a minute to gather himself as he slides his brush on the blank canvas in a way that couldn’t possibly create anything close to that statue. He blinks rapidly and looks down at the floor like a memory of something is attacking him and he’s struggling to stay calm about it. I hear him let out a loud breath of air, then he clears his throat.
“Alright, since you opened up to me, and I know that was probably very difficult for you,” he says, never taking his eyes off the canvas. “I told you I was a helicopter pilot, but there’s really more to it than that. I fly a HH-60 Pave Hawk—it’s a rescue helicopter. That’s what I do in the Air Force. I’m a rescue pilot, and on every deployment I’ve been on, my job has been to perform drop-offs and extractions for special operations
teams in the AOR, which stands for area of responsibility. I’ve worked with every branch of the military doing my job, and it’s always been very rewarding, and it gives me a rush like you wouldn’t believe.
“Well, things didn’t go so well on my last deployment. On my last extraction of the tour, my copilot was shot and killed. I watched him die right there in my helicopter. I’ve been going to therapy, trying to deal with the fact that his death was a tragedy, and accept the idea that it wasn’t my fault. But, no matter how hard I try, I can’t escape this feeling of guilt that sits in my stomach every time I think about it. I barely knew the guy, but his death weighs on my mind and heart like I’d known him my whole life. I have trouble sleeping sometimes, because I think about it and it replays in my mind over and over again like a CD skipping. Which is why I tend to be up late at night, driving around trying to get my mind off it. Military doctors tell me I have PTSD. I’m dealing with it, but it’s tough. So, I did like my job. I loved it before I saw a man die.”
Austin never looks at me, but I’m not even sure he realizes his brush isn’t even moving anymore. He’s staring off into nothingness, eyes frozen and unblinking, and I can see a pain in them I hadn’t noticed before. It wasn’t there until he started talking about his last deployment. He’s perfected hiding his pain, and I’ve never known anybody who could hide their pain better than I could hide mine.
“Wow. I’m so sorry to hear that, Austin,” I manage to say.
“Yeah. Me too.” He finally looks back up at the canvas and starts to move the brush around again. “Doctor tells me I need to talk about it more, but there’s some shit you don’t want to talk about. You know?”
“I definitely do. I think I understand that better than you might think. Well, if you ever need someone to talk to about it, I’m here for you, Austin. Okay?”
He finally takes his eyes off the work in front of him and glances at me. I watch his face and notice the pain slip back into its hiding place, now hidden from the rest of the world. His smile slowly pushes its way forward and he’s back to being himself again. Back to being happy—but how much of it is real?
“I really appreciate that, Layla. Really. But, you know what I’d appreciate even more, you coming over here and showing me how to paint this damn statue. I’m struggling over here.”
I feel my own smile return and I get up to stand behind him. When I see his painting, I can’t help but laugh again. His Stature of Liberty looks like a stick figure a two-year old would draw.
“Oh my goodness! It’s a stick-man,” I giggle. “I can’t save this painting, it’s passed the point of no return.”
Both of us start laughing once again. Maybe we’re forcing our laughter so we don’t crumble under the weight of our lives. Maybe it’s real and we’re laughing because it feels good. I don’t even know anymore, but I want to keep doing it. I could do this every day.
“Well, let me see yours then!” Austin jumps off the stool and stands in front of my canvas, pointing and laughing. “Yours is barely better than mine. This looks like a big ass Cabbage Patch Doll, holding a sunflower over its head.”
“What?”
“The Statue of Liberty does not have puffy cheeks, Layla!”
“Hater! Those cheeks are painted perfectly to scale. Ms. Danielle, isn’t my painting better than his?”
“You’re bringing the teacher into this?”
Danielle walks over to my painting. She gives it a once over, and then glances at Austin’s, barely able to stifle her laughter.
“Umm, you both . . . are doing fine,” she says, her voice shaky from trying to hold in her giggling. Then, she quickly walks back to the center of the room. “Alright class, we’re going to move on now. For this next painting, our last one, I want you to paint something that inspires you. It can be anything you want. Try to make it as detailed as possible. We only have about twenty minutes left, so try to make it quick, but beautiful.”
“She never said yours was better than mine,” Austin chirps.
“She didn’t say yours was better than mine, either.”
“Alright, this is the one right here. I guarantee my painting will be more beautiful than yours,” Austin says with a determined look on his face, then he gets up and turns his canvas so I can only see the back of it. “And don’t try to steal my ideas either.”
“Okay then. It’s on.”
I try to think of something inspirational. Thoughts and memories about things that have happened in my life flash in my head like a movie montage, but there’s nothing inspirational in there. My life has been twenty-one years of struggle and survival, and masking my sadness with counterfeit happiness. How do you paint that? Every now and then I see Austin lean over and look at me from behind his easel, but when I try to make eye contact with him, he quickly sits upright so I can’t see him, playing and teasing me like a cute little kid. Even with all the pain he’s hiding, he sure knows how to make me smile.
The next thing I know, Danielle is standing in the middle of the room again, telling us our time is up. As she starts to make her way around the room again, Austin gets up and looks at my blank canvas.
“Umm, did you fall asleep? Late nights of bartending starting to catch up with you?” he jokes, reminding me of the lie I’m still holding onto.
“No. What if I did this on purpose? Maybe I’m inspired by a blank canvas,” I reply. Then I realize that makes perfect sense. “In fact, I am inspired by a blank canvas. It’s a clean slate. It’s the opportunity to start all over again, and to draw something beautiful the next time. Or something like that.”
Austin chuckles. “Or something like that? I see.”
“Whatever. What’d you paint?” I ask, just as Danielle reaches Austin’s easel. I watch her facial expression as she looks at it, and it’s completely different from the other times she looked. This time, she smiles and nods her head in approval.
“Very good, Austin,” she says, looking up at him. “I knew you still had it.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Saxton,” he replies.
“What?” I say to myself as Danielle walks away and pats Austin on his burly shoulder. “What’d you paint?” I get up and look at Austin’s canvas, and my jaw hits the floor. There, on the paper, is an absolutely gorgeous painting . . . of me.
Layla
“Oh my god. How . . . how did you do this?”
Austin just smiles at me.
He obviously switched brushes and used different paint than he was using before, because these strokes are thin and carefully sculpted, and the colors are blended together to make other, better colors. It’s like he’s been doing this his whole life. I’m astonished at how quickly he painted up something so beautiful.
“It’s not an exact replica, but I think it’s pretty decent considering the tools and the time I had.”
“This is amazing, Austin. You’ve been faking this whole time? How do you know how to do this?”
“Danielle used to live in Seattle, right around where I grew up,” he answers. “She’s actually a friend of my mom’s, and has been for a long time. She used to teach me how to paint when I was little, but she moved here with her husband a long time ago when his company moved here. I come see her every now and then, just to reminisce . . . and paint a little.”
“Wow. You were playing me that whole time.”
“Maybe.”
“Well, I’m impressed. This is gorgeous.”
“Well, there’s only so much I can do with a brush, it’s the muse that makes it beautiful.”
“Austin,” I reply, but I can’t come up with anything after that. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything. I just like seeing that smile on your face. That says enough for me. I’m good.”
“That, I have to admit, is true. You’re definitely good,” I answer, as Austin and I stare at each other, neither of us wanting to be the one to break the connection.
“Umm,” I begin, as my heart starts to pick up sp
eed and I feel hot, but Austin cuts me off.
“I know you’ve got some trust issues, and from what I heard tonight, they’re totally and completely justified. But, I’ve got to be honest with you, Layla. I could’ve painted this portrait from memory. Since we met, I’ve thought about your face a lot, and that’s weird to me, but I kind of like it, too. I know we’re just getting to know each other and becoming BFFs, but I really look forward to getting to know you more. And, the more I sit here and look at you, the more I feel the need to apologize, because I kind of feel like I need to do this.”
“What? Apologize? For what?”
“For this.”
Austin takes three steps towards me and slowly puts his hand on my face. His palm is rugged and strong, yet he rubs my cheek so gently. I close my eyes and lean into his hand, enjoying his touch and embracing his affection. It feels out of place for me. This is something I don’t do, and up until tonight, I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it with Austin either. Everything in my life involving men has been a disaster, and I don’t want to leave myself open for any more pain. But, I feel like he wants me. Not in the way other men want me, though. Other men lust after me, but Austin wants me. There’s a huge difference between the two. The only problem is that I’m terrified of what will happen if I give myself to him.
“Austin, I don’t know if it’s a good idea,” I start, but he shuts me up by gently touching his lips to mine.
The world disappears. The room, the people, the teacher—they’re all gone. There’s nothing left but the softness of his lips and the masculine scent of his cologne—the touch of his skin and the rapid rhythm of my heartbeat. I close my eyes and let my body go into cruise control. I instinctively reach up and grab ahold of his shirt, pulling his body closer to mine. Our chests come together and I could swear our hearts start to beat in unison as we passionately kiss right in front of everyone. Neither of us could care less about the eyes on us, because right now we’re all that exists in the world. I’m flying as high as a kite, but my feet are still planted on the tile floor. Austin’s tongue glides over mine and makes me yearn for him, and I want nothing more than to get out of here.
