Canvas for Love

by Charlotte Greene

  Amelia was flushed pink, her lips parted. Her pupils were dilated, and she was breathing heavily. Her robe had come open a little, and I could see one of her breasts, the nipple puckered with excitement. I leaned forward and kissed her, and her hands were on me instantly, exploring my breasts with her nimble fingers. We continued to kiss as she fondled me, her mouth hot on mine.

  Finally, almost as if we were afraid of taking things too far, we both pulled away from each other, panting. I was trembling all over, a dull, aching pain between my legs. I knew it was too soon to ask her to touch me again—it would be painful for a while yet—but that didn’t stop me from wanting her with a deep, yearning hunger. We stared at each other, and her eyes seemed to mirror my longing.

  “Jesus, Chloé,” she finally said. “That was the most erotic thing I’ve ever seen.”

  I smiled. “I’m glad you liked it.”

  “‘Liked it’ doesn’t begin to describe how much I enjoyed watching you. It was everything I could do not to jump in and take over. I had to sit on my hands there at the end to stop myself.”

  “Well, maybe next time I’ll let you play, too. If you’re good.”

  By mutual, unspoken agreement, we got up off the couch simply to gain a little distance from each other. I was still quaking with desire and knew I wouldn’t be able to stop myself if we sat close for much longer, pain or no pain. Amelia seemed to be having a similar experience, as she went directly to the balcony a moment later.

  I decided to take a quick, cold shower, and when I came back out into the room, Amelia was still on the balcony, leaning on her elbows and looking out at the sea. She must have heard me enter the bedroom, but she didn’t turn around. I decided to let her alone for a while until she was ready to come in on her own or call me to her. She stayed out there a long time, quietly meditating, and didn’t join me until I was already dozing in bed. She seemed at peace with herself, from what I could tell, but we didn’t talk about what had happened.

  In the end, we decided to stay in for dinner instead of go out again, ordering fried food and cheesecake delivered to our room. It was the best Valentine’s Day I’d ever had.

  Chapter Seven

  The rest of the trip was relaxing and less emotional. We slept in every day, ate a lot of great food, had a lot of sex. We spent most of the trip in our hotel room, but we made an effort to leave a couple of times a day to eat or sit on the beach. By Monday, Amelia was starting to look like herself again. Her complexion became a natural pale pink again instead of the greenish gray it’d been for the last month. She was absolutely rigid in her use of sunscreen and insisted I wear a heavy SPF as well, but we both managed to get a little color anyway. My usual summertime freckles appeared, but Amelia thought they were darling and insisted on kissing every one of them she could find.

  On Wednesday, I finally let her do a little reconnaissance work at the local galleries for her business, but only with the promise that she would spend a single morning working. She followed the letter of the law, if not the spirit, by getting up before dawn and heading out before I’d even woken. She was back at exactly noon, and I gathered from her enthusiasm that she’d basically bought everything in town. She was already planning an art show with the work she’d gathered and thinking about how to bring some of the artists to New Orleans for it.

  I interrupted her after listening to her gush for half an hour. “Hey, hon—I realize you’re excited, but this counts as work, you know, and I gave you only the morning. We’ll be back soon enough.”

  She sighed. “Tomorrow.”

  I sighed, too. “Tomorrow.”

  It wasn’t that I was dreading going home, precisely—I enjoyed my job with Amelia for the most part. Also, Amelia had already given me the rest of the week off. We flew back tomorrow, Thursday, and then I had three days to recover after the trip before returning on Monday. So it wasn’t work that I dreaded; rather, it was difficult to share Amelia with her job. It consumed her so wholly. It seemed like I’d spent more time with her in the last few days than we’d spent as a couple during the last three months. And it wasn’t as if I could ask her to go in fewer hours. Her passion for her job devoured her life. I knew, however, that I should begin to exert some small amount of pressure to get her to stop working herself into literal illness, as she had before this trip. It wasn’t good for her or us. I promised myself that if I saw her get that way again, I’d try to get her to put the brakes on and take it a little easier.

  The cold snap was still in effect in New Orleans when we landed. The skies were heavy with rain, and the fog was dense and chilly. Amelia dropped me off at my apartment, and we spent a significant amount of time saying good-bye to each other on my front porch. She had a lot of paperwork to go over before heading in to the office tomorrow, and she wanted the evening to get started. She’d given me an extra day off, but she herself couldn’t afford to let things slide through the weekend.

  “You should stay here with me,” I told her, kissing the end of her nose. “Screw work. Screw everything and stay here with me forever. Better yet—let’s go back to Puerto Vallarta.”

  She laughed, but I could already see the tension creeping back into her face. She’d been quiet on the plane, likely planning all the things she needed to do once we were home, and now it was clear her thoughts were already at the office.

  I sighed and relented. “Okay, Amelia, you can leave me. But promise you’ll call me tomorrow. I’ll even stay at your place if it means actually seeing you.”

  “You’ll make that sacrifice? For me?” She batted her eyelashes.

  I laughed and pushed her arm. “Well, go on then. You clearly want to leave.”

  “It’s not that I want to, Chloé. I have to.”

  “It’s okay.”

  She didn’t seem to hear the defeat in my voice as she kissed me one more time and dashed away, trotting back to her car. I unlocked my door and picked up my little suitcase, dropping it just inside the door. My face was chilled from the exposure to the bitter cold, and my apartment didn’t feel much warmer. I turned up the heat and then went in search of my phone. I’d given the number of the hotel to my Aunt Kate in case of emergencies, but I’d left my cell phone at home and made Amelia do the same thing. When I turned it on, I found several messages.

  The first was from my friend Meghan. “Hey, chica, it’s me. Just got back from my tour. Give me a call.”

  The next was also from her. “Hey, lady, it’s me again. I just bumped into your aunt and she told me you were on a trip. Give me a call when you get back. I want to hear all about your wacky sex-capades.”

  The third message was from my Aunt Kate. “Hey, honey, it’s Aunt Kate.” I grinned at this. She always spoke on the phone as if I could mistake her voice for anyone else’s. “I just wanted to see if we could have dinner this weekend—Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, whatever works for you. Me and Jim are wide open. It’s been ages since I saw you, and I want to hear all about your trip. We could invite Meghan and her Zach, too, if you like.” Finally, she added, “And Amelia, of course.”

  While things were better between my aunt and Amelia, they weren’t altogether easy, either. Amelia had managed to mend some fences when she’d gotten my aunt involved with a big surprise for me—my new apartment—but one would still hardly call the rapport between them friendly. Aunt Kate was still a little leery of her for some reason. I’d tried broaching the topic a few times to see if I could figure out what bothered her, but I’d gotten nowhere. I could only hope that her usual warmth and friendliness would win out in the end.

  “Anyway,” she said, “call me when you can.”

  The next message was from my friend Lana in New York. Lana and I did our doctorates together in France, and while we’d been friendly when we lived there, we’d recently become much closer. She’d become something like my go-to guide for all things lesbian, as she was engaged to a woman herself.

  “Oh my God, pick up the phone! I have something amazing to tell you.�
��

  I could see that her next message was only a couple of hours after the first. “Seriously, Chloé, call me back immediately. You are not going to believe who I just met, and what I just did for you.”

  And a few hours later: “Where are you, lady? Do I need to contact the Louisiana National Guard? Was there a hurricane down there I didn’t hear about? Are you dead in a ditch? Call me. Now.”

  I couldn’t suppress a stab of guilt. Somehow I’d neglected to tell Lana I’d be out of town. All of her messages were from at least two days ago.

  The next sounded even more frantic. “I seriously just talked with the morgue down there, Chloé. Where the hell are you?”

  And the next: “Do I need to fly down there and start looking in the river for bodies? What is going on? Does Amelia have you locked up in some kind of sex dungeon?” She paused. “Maybe you’d like that, you saucy minx.”

  She was calmer in the next message. “Thinking about Amelia got me thinking about her business down there, and so I dialed the main office. Apparently you two are on some kind of romantic sex getaway until Thursday. I’m glad to know you’re alive and having orgasms somewhere hot and tropical, Chloé, but for the love of God, please phone me the second you hear this message. You’ll never believe the news I have for you.”

  Lana’s messages were the most insistent, so I called her first. She picked up on the first ring. “Oh my God, you’re finally home.”

  I laughed. “I literally just walked in the door. I called you first, since you sounded like you’re ready to piss yourself.”

  “I am ready to piss myself, and you will be too once you hear this news. Are you sitting down?”

  “Would you just tell me, for Christ’s sake?”

  “Okay, okay. Are you ready?”

  “Jesus, yes! Just tell me!”

  “Okay. How would you like to be the new assistant professor of art history at New Orleans State University?”

  “What?” I shouted. “What are you telling me right now?”

  She laughed. “Listen up. I’ve been running these workshops here at MOMA for educators. I told you about them.”

  “Yes.”

  “Anyway, last week I met this guy from down there, and we started talking. It turns out that he’s the new dean of arts and sciences at New Orleans State. His name is Christophe Montmartre. He used to be the chair of art history, and now that he’s moved up the administrative chain, there’s an opening in his old department. He wants to meet you. Immediately.”

  I was sitting now, my legs having turned to jelly. “Holy shit, Lana. I can’t believe you did this for me.”

  “I know! I’m the best.”

  I couldn’t even laugh at that, as it was true. Working for a university was my absolute dream job, and she knew it. I’d been educated and trained to be a professor. I’d moved back to New Orleans knowing I would have to sacrifice that dream for a long time, perhaps permanently, and now it seemed like it might happen after all. The idea that I could stay in New Orleans and still achieve my ambition was hard to believe.

  “Hey,” Lana said, “are you still there?”

  “Yes,” I said quietly. “Lana, do you know what this means? Do you know what you’ve done for me?”

  “I do, Chloé. I do. And I’m glad I could help, even in this small way. You can’t keep working as Amelia’s lackey forever.”

  The thought of Amelia immediately dampened some of my excitement. She would, no doubt, be excited for me—she knew how much I wanted to become a professor. She’d even promised to help make it happen at one of the private colleges in town. But we both thought it would be years from now, if ever. Even with her family’s influence, we needed to wait until a position opened, and that meant waiting for someone to retire or die. Still, Amelia liked working with me and would likely be disappointed.

  “Anyway,” Lana went on, “it’s not quite a sure thing. You still have to be interviewed, but I think you can get your hopes up more than a little. He seemed very interested to meet you and was excited to hear that you’re from town. You need to contact him and set up an interview, and then he said something about a teaching demonstration. He’ll give you the details when you call.”

  I took down his information on a notepad with a shaky hand, so flabbergasted I had to have her repeat the number several times. She didn’t give me a hard time about it, seeming to understand how important this chance was for me.

  Once off the phone, I contemplated calling Amelia immediately but decided that it wouldn’t hurt to wait a little while longer. After all, it wasn’t as if I’d been offered the job. I had a momentary pang of guilt hiding it from her, but on the other hand, I didn’t want to tell her about a job offer if it came to nothing—that seemed cruel, somehow. Hands still shaking, I took a deep breath and dialed Christophe Montmartre. It took a while to get through the various levels of administrative assistants, but he was apparently expecting me, as they passed it along until he answered the phone. His words were heavily accented, and we switched to French immediately after greeting each other in English.

  “Your French is beautiful, Dr. Deveraux,” he told me.

  “Thank you, sir.” I shivered a little with suppressed joy and excitement. It’s always a good move to impress the person who’s going to interview you.

  “I am so glad you called. When I met your friend in New York, I could hardly believe all of the lovely things she told me about you. I hope you don’t mind, but I already did a little digging just to make sure she wasn’t overstating your case, and I’m pleased to tell you that she wasn’t. In fact, judging from the information I found, she was, if anything, underselling your qualifications. But that’s a good thing. I like to be surprised. I read your article on Nouveau Réalisme this morning and enjoyed it immensely.”

  I was floored. Already, this phone call suggested that he was serious about my candidacy, as it would take a bit of work to find my article, let alone all the information about my education and background.

  “When can you come see our little department in person?” he asked. “Is tomorrow too soon? Or we could do Monday. I understand from your friend Lana that you’re just back from a trip, so perhaps you still need some time to recover.”

  “Tomorrow is perfect,” I said, almost interrupting him in my haste and excitement.

  “Excellent. Most of the department is still off for Mardi Gras, but all of us in administration are here today and tomorrow. I’ll call in some of the other professors to meet you as well. No rest for the wicked.”

  My heart sped up with anxiety. “What can I expect?”

  “Tomorrow? Just a couple of quick meetings—two, three hours tops—with me and some of the art-history professors, and possibly the provost. If we decide to move on from there, we’ll set up a teaching demonstration next week when the students are back from break.”

  We agreed on a time the next day and hung up. My whole body was still thrumming with excitement and joy, but once again, I decided to put off telling Amelia. It seemed premature, somehow. I could share my news after the interview.

  I called Meghan next.

  “Hey, bitch,” she said. “What’s up?”

  “Not much, cunt.” Meghan and I always talked to each other like this on the phone—a habit from high school that drove my aunt crazy when she was around to hear us. “Actually, that’s not true. I have some big news.”

  Meghan was silent, waiting for me to say something. This was confusing, as she would normally ask me a million questions about anything. “Aren’t you curious to hear my news?” I asked.

  “Just tell me, girly.”

  Her voice sounded strangely cold, and my confusion deepened. “I have an interview at New Orleans State tomorrow.”

  “You what?” Meghan cried. “Oh my God, Chloé! I’m so happy for you. I can’t believe it!”

  “I know, right?” I paused, remembering her earlier silence. “What did you think I was going to tell you?”

  She laughed. �
�I thought you’d gotten engaged. You know—tropical vacation, lots of sex, pretty sunsets, Valentine’s Day. It seemed likely that she’d popped the question.”

  I’d actually expected it myself. Amelia had made sure we spent most of our time alone, once or twice insisting on a table in a restaurant far away from other tourists. A couple of times, I’d been certain she wanted to tell me or ask me something, but nothing came of it. In some ways, I was relieved. We’d been dating for only a little over three months, after all, and an engagement would be a little premature at this stage. Still, I’d expected her to ask, and some small part of me had hoped she would. Meghan’s somewhat cavalier and definitively cold expectation about the imaginary engagement, however, was a little hurtful. Like my aunt, she wasn’t entirely sold on Amelia yet. If it wasn’t for the fact that she couldn’t get away with it, I was pretty sure Meghan would avoid her altogether. It didn’t help to call attention to this hunch, however, as Meghan was always defensive about Amelia when I brought her up. Like with my aunt, I just had to hope things got better with time.

  “I attended there briefly, you know,” Meghan said. “New Orleans State, I mean. Before I goofed off too much and got kicked out.”

  “That’s right—I forgot.”

  “It’s a great school. It’s not as fancy as the private colleges Uptown, but that’s the beauty of it. People like us go there. You’ll love it.”

  I laughed. “I don’t have the job yet, Meghan.”