by Hazel Kelly
"As long as it isn't my position."
"So?" he asked, using his straw to scoop one of his cherries up from the bottom of his glass.
"So things have been better."
He furrowed his brow. "Why's that? Demons from your greedy margarita night still catching up with you?"
I shook my head. "More like I'm having the kind of problem you had with Carrie a year ago."
He craned his neck forward. "You in love or something?"
"That would be admitting the problem."
He smacked me on the arm. "Holy shit, man. Who's the lucky girl?"
"Promise you won't judge me or fire me or tell Christophe?"
He cocked his head. "Why? Is it that girl who dances at the Pussy Cat Lounge?"
I furrowed my brow. "No, Jesus. That was a one time thing."
"Gotcha."
"And I only went there cause she had that crazy tongue piercing-"
"Ribbed for your pleasure, if my memory serves."
I wrapped my hand around my forehead.
"So who is it?" he asked.
"You know how I've been entertaining a visitor this week?"
"Your sister?"
"She's my stepsister, Christ. She's as much my fucking sister as Ella is your mom."
He leaned back. "Whoa, okay. So not your sister all."
"No."
"Zero blood relation."
I gripped my glass. "Zilch."
"How long have you guys-"
I sighed. "What?"
"Not been related?"
I rolled my eyes. "I was sixteen when our parents got married. And I got shipped off to boarding school the next year."
"For being an asshole?"
"Yeah." I nodded. "But I liked her before that."
"Wow."
"I just couldn't do anything about it before."
"And now you can? Because…?"
I pointed at him. "Exactly. That fucking ‘because dot dot dot’ is what's doing my head in."
"I guess I can see how your parents wouldn't be thrilled, but it seems to me there's only two things to consider."
I raised my eyebrows.
"Is this just about your dick wanting what it shouldn't?"
"Right."
He smiled. "You deviant you."
"Fuck off."
"Cause if that's what's plaguing you, man, you should probably kick her the fuck out and not go there."
"I know."
"Nobody wants a messy night of sex following them around for the rest of their life. I mean, can you imagine planning your wedding and turning to your fiancée, like, 'I won't invite anyone I've fucked raw, baby, except for my stepsister. She's cool.’"
I swiveled my stool away from him and faced forwards.
"You get what I'm saying?"
"Yeah. Don't worry. You're not that subtle."
"But there's always that second possibility," he said.
"Which is?"
"Which is that the reason the itch in your pants for this girl hasn't gone away after all this time is because she really means something to you."
I clenched my jaw.
"In which case, I'd say this sounds like one of those times it's probably better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission."
I furrowed my brow. "I'm listening."
"That's all. I just wouldn't even waste my breath asking for my dad's blessing or my mom's or whatever the situation is-"
"Her mom and my dad."
"Right. I just wouldn't mention it until I felt like I could go to them and say, ‘I fucking love this girl and it doesn't concern you.’"
“Mmm.”
"As opposed to, 'I know she's my stepsister, but I just want to dip my dick in for a second to see if it fit-"
"Ben! Fuck!"
He laughed. "Sorry. I just started to picture it in my head, and it was so funny I couldn't help but-"
"Enough.”
He drank some of his drink and licked his lips. "You really want to know what I think?"
"I don't know. Do I? It's been pretty scary so far."
"I think this is the first time I've ever seen you like this."
I glared at him. "Seen me like what?"
"Sprung? Confused? Sick in love?"
"I do feel fucking dreadful."
"Not a good sign you're coming out of this single, buddy."
I swiveled back towards him. "Did you feel sick when you first got with Carrie?"
He nodded. "I thought I was dying."
"Jesus. That's awful."
"Yeah, it was."
I raised my eyebrows. "How long did it last?"
"Until she was mine."
"What do you mean until she was yours?"
"I mean as soon as I knew she wanted me just as bad as I wanted her and that we weren't going to have to play any more games or waste any more time guessing what the other person was thinking, I started to feel better."
"Started?!"
"And once we moved in together, things got even better."
"That helped?"
"Are you kidding?" he asked. "As far as I'm concerned that's like the ultimate show of loyalty."
I squinted at him.
"It's like… not only am I thinking about you all the fucking time, but I’m so crazy about you that I don’t even want personal space anymore."
"That's the cheesiest thing I've ever heard. What about all the toilet seat stuff and the hairs in the bathtub crap most couples bitch about?"
He shrugged. "I can't speak for other couples. I just know how I feel, and that's a whole lot better when my woman is around."
I scrunched my face. "Do you have to call her your woman? Like you're fucking James Brown?"
"Would now be a bad time to sing sex machine?"
"Yes," I said, putting my head in my hands.
He slapped me across the back. "I think this is good, Ethan. I think you'll get through this."
I swiveled around and leaned my back against the bar. "How do you figure?"
"Cause if you didn't care about this girl, you wouldn't be doing this to yourself."
"Perhaps."
"And if she didn't care about you, you wouldn't be doing this to yourself."
"No?"
He shook his head. "You're too vain and comfortable being single. If you didn't think she had the potential to ruin all that for you, you wouldn't give it a second thought."
"And you're saying this sick feeling in my guts- this black knot of anxiety- that I feel growing inside me is a good thing?"
He smiled. "I'm saying that if you give it a chance to grow, it might just be the best thing that ever happened to you."
Chapter 41: Jenny
I was bursting to tell Ethan the good news.
Hopefully, his obvious weirdness had passed.
Not that he didn't have a right to freak out. I mean, our behavior was questionable, and I did lie by omission. Still, now was the worst time for him to push me away.
I unlocked his apartment door and was about to call his name when I noticed that the mystery door was ajar.
My heart pounded in my chest as I approached it, bracing myself for what I might find.
When I peeked inside, my mouth fell open.
Ethan was hunched over a wide table with headphones on. A worn blue t-shirt moved loosely over the muscles in his back as he used a hand tool to carve chunks out of a piece of grey material laid out in front of him.
After going over it a few times, he swept his hand across the table, causing a pile of curled grey shavings to fall to the floor.
It wasn't until I took my eyes off him, though, that I realized he was making prints. Tons of them by the looks of it. They covered every wall in the small, paint scented room.
I stepped inside to take them all in. There were cityscapes, abstract portraits of famous musicians, and multicolored animals that looked almost aboriginal with their bright colors and focused expressions. Others were obvious tributes to Van Gogh, Picasso, and Mati
sse.
It was such a wondrous surprise, and knowing the space was a secret made it even more overwhelming to behold.
After a while, I realized he must’ve been in some kind of trance or he would’ve noticed me in the doorway. "Ahem," I coughed, not wanting to startle him. "Ahem."
His head turned in my direction and he righted himself, yanking his earphones out at the same time.
I lifted my palms. "So this is what you've been hiding behind mystery door number one."
He looked as mortified as he did surprised, saying nothing as the blasting EDM poured from his headphones.
"Your dad mentioned once that you used to draw, but-"
He furrowed his brow. "He did?"
"Yeah." I walked over to him, unclipped the iPod from his sleeve, and turned it off. "But he said you stopped making art after your mom died."
He laid his iPod and headphones on the paint splattered wooden workbench behind him. "That's one version of events."
"What's the other?" I asked, mesmerized by the strange expression on his face.
"I'd say it's more accurate that my dad asked me to stop drawing after my mom died. So I started hiding it."
"And you're still hiding it?"
He swept some more linoleum shavings onto the floor. "No. I just don't advertise it."
"Well you should." I spun around, letting the medley of colors stream through my field of vision. "These are fabulous."
"Thanks."
"Why do you lock this room?" I asked, walking over to one of the walls.
He shrugged. "Cause this is my private thing, and I don't want other people ruining it with their criticism and-"
I looked over my shoulder. "I suppose I should've knocked."
"It's always a mess in here, too, and locking the door is a lot easier than trying to keep it clean."
I laughed. "Like that closet my mom has with all the laundry baskets that are filled with whatever crap was on the kitchen table before the last dozen times she was expecting company."
"Andy Warhol used to do that," he said.
"Yeah, well, the contents of Andy's kitchen table were probably a lot more interesting than the shit my mom accumulates." I started looking through a rack of zebra prints. Each one was different colors and had a little number in the bottom corner. "Is this okay?" I asked. "I realize I'm being nosy but-"
"You might as well have a look around. You'll never shut up about it otherwise."
"True," I said, coming to a stack of prints that reflected the image of a little boy holding a toy boat. "And I don't mean to be bossy-"
He laughed.
"But I wouldn't shut up about it if I were you either." I glanced over my shoulder.
He was leaning against the table, watching me snoop.
"You have real talent."
"You think?"
"Absolutely," I said. But something struck me as odd. None of the prints were once offs. I mean, I knew that was the whole point of making prints- that the artist could make countless editions of one design. But why make multiples if you never wanted to show them to anybody. "I think people would pay for these."
"I don't know about that."
"You're underselling yourself, Ethan. This stuff is great." I moved to the next wooden rack and started flicking through the prints. First I came to a few that looked like Sophia Loren, followed by Bridget Bardot on the beach in Planet of the Apes.
And then I froze.
The next image looked so familiar.
It seemed naive to think it was me, but it reminded me of a picture I saw of myself a long time ago, a picture where I was wishing on a dandelion. I kept turning page after page and- just like all the others- there were tens of them in all different colors.
"Is this me?" I turned to look at him.
He clenched his jaw.
I slid one of the numbered pictures out and watched his face as I lifted it. "Well?"
"Yeah," he said. "It is."
My stomach dropped. The photo must've been taken ten years ago. I remember because it was from the same roll of film that had Brandi's fourteenth birthday party in it. "Where did you find this picture?"
He folded his arms. "I took it from a shoe box in the linen closet-"
I turned an ear towards him. "When?"
"The day before I left for boarding school."
I looked back at the image he'd made. He'd carved out my cheekbones and every corner of my face. Even my eyelashes were defined, along with the little white seeds on the flower.
"But you hated me then." I laid the print across the top of the stack I'd been looking through and let my arms fall to my sides. "You couldn't stand me."
He pursed his lips.
I shook my head. "You thought I was-"
"Beautiful," he said. "I thought you were beautiful."
I swallowed. "But you ignored me." I crossed my arms and hugged myself. "You barely even said two words to me the year before you left."
He shrugged. "What was there to say?"
"I don't know- something nice- anything to let me know you didn't hate me."
"I couldn’t do that, Jenny."
My voice was shaky. "But all this time I thought- and you-"
"Come here."
Chapter 42: Ethan
She looked so small in my studio, especially compared to how big my feelings for her were.
"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked, stepping up to me.
I cocked my head. "Tell you what? That I loved you? I couldn't."
Her open eyes swept across my face. "Why not?"
"Cause I didn't know that was what it was."
She pursed her lips.
"I thought I was sick. I thought that the ways I wanted you were wrong, that the best thing I could do was leave you alone."
She raised her eyebrows. "Just like you tried to leave art alone? Cause it seems to me you're not as good at running from your problems as you pretend to be."
Half my mouth curled up into a smile. "No shit."
Her eyes formed little crescents.
"Neither of you will leave me alone."
She raised a hand to my cheek. "I won't anyway."
I grabbed her hand and moved it against my chest.
"And I think the only way you're ever going to make peace with your art is to show it to someone," she said. "Cause this is too big a talent for anyone to hide away."
"I'd like to," I said, stepping back to sit down on one side of the workbench.
She sat on the other.
"But it’s not to everyone’s taste." My dad's anger at my doodling was still so fresh in my mind. How the hell would he feel if he knew I'd graduated to paints, that I had the audacity to number my prints? "And it’s all so personal. I can’t bear the thought of it being rejected."
She shook her head. "You don't get it. That's how you know you're making something worthwhile. Cause not everyone gets it. That's the whole point of art- to force people to have an opinion, to force them to think, to feel."
I found her conviction refreshing.
"I had a drama teacher once who said you haven't made it until you have critics."
I nodded. "I suppose that makes sense."
"But getting critics isn't the point. It's all about that One Fan. That one person who finds your work soothing or entertaining or amusing or meaningful-"
I narrowed my eyes at her.
"And that's who you do it for. That's why you take the risk of letting people see it. Because one person might like it, and that’s how you know you did the right thing not keeping it to yourself."
"I appreciate your optimism," I said. "But what if that one person never comes along."
She smiled. "You don't have to worry about that."
I raised my eyebrows.
"She already has."
I felt my breath catch in my throat.
"I mean it, Ethan. This stuff is incredible. I feel so grateful that I've seen it, and I know others would feel the same."
I
ran a hand over my head.
"Besides-" She laid a hand on my knee. "Isn’t it what your mom would've wanted?"
I took a deep breath and looked around. Was she right? Was it pointless to keep my creations to myself if someone else would benefit? After all, isn't that what I always wanted? For someone to say, “Hey- your stuff isn’t crap.”
It certainly felt good to hear Jenny say it now, especially since she was the person whose validation meant the most.
"It's only a suggestion,” she said. “You don’t have to decide today."
"That's a relief," I said. "Cause, to be honest, I have enough to worry about right now."
She squinted at me. "Like what?"
"Like the fact that I want you so bad I feel sick. Just like I did when I was seventeen."
She stood up, reached for my linoleum cutter, and handed it to me. Then she picked up the sheet I’d been working on and slid it onto my drying rack. "May I?" she asked, pointing to a stack of untouched lino in the corner.
I nodded.
She laid a fresh sheet down and walked to the end of my workbench. Then she pulled her shirt off over her head.
I gripped the smooth handle of the cutter in my hand as she unhooked her bra.
She dropped it on the floor with her shirt.
I felt my pulse bounce in my throat.
Next, she unzipped her jeans and pulled them down, taking her underwear with them.
I wanted to ask what the hell she was doing, but I didn't dare interrupt.
She sat down on the edge of my workbench with her back towards me.
My eyes traveled along the curve of her hip to her waist and up her spine. Her skin was so smooth, so perfect. If it weren't for a cluster of freckles on one shoulder, I might’ve thought she was made of marble.
"Okay," she said, looking over her shoulder. "Let's see how you do when you have permission to use me as a muse."
I scooted towards her on the bench and took a deep breath.
She ran her hand through her hair and shook it out behind her.
I laid a hand on her hip and slid it towards her waist, studying the angle of the perfect slope.
"Art first," she said. “Nookie later.”
"I'm just trying to get a grip on your dimensions," I whispered, sneaking a hand around to cup one of her breasts.
She slapped it away. "They're not going to be in the picture."
