Cole knows exactly how much leverage he has over me, and he isn’t shy about leaning on the lever.
And yet, despite the fact that he’s clearly callous and manipulative, and he left me to fucking die in the woods, I still find myself walking with strange lightness down the hilly streets to my sparkling new studio.
Maybe because he wasn’t trying to make me feel better. In fact, it’s the first time I’ve ever mentioned this topic without hearing the words, “But it’s your mom . . .”
Cole offered no sympathy. He also offered no excuses. No fucking platitudes. No lies.
I spend the afternoon working on my new painting. I’ve never felt such confidence in a piece of my own work. It seems to come alive under my hands, like it has a mind of its own. Michelangelo used to say that—that the sculpture was always there inside the marble. He just had to release it.
That’s how I feel today. The painting is already there, inside the canvas and inside my brain. My brush is exposing what already exists. Perfect and whole—all it needs is to be unveiled.
15
Cole
This obsession with Mara consumes me.
It’s all I think about. It directs every action I take.
I’ve never felt so out of control—which upsets me.
My fantasies have always been a stage spread below me, on which I arrange the actors like a director. I indulge them at will.
Now I find myself fantasizing about Mara, with no intent or control. Without even realizing I’m about to slip into another daydream more real than the world around me.
I see every element of her face, her body . . .
When I first laid eyes on her, I barely found her tolerable. In fact, her bitten nails and air of obvious neglect disgusted me.
But now, some bizarre alchemy is working itself upon me. Every element of her person becomes increasingly attractive to me. The slimness of her figure and the dreamy way it moves when she’s lost in thought. Those elegant hands that seem to enact the most clever impulses of her brain with no barrier in between. The mix of innocence and wildness in her face—and that expression of rebellion that creases her eyebrows, that raises her upper lip, baring her teeth.
She’s determined to defy me at every turn, even though it’s obvious I’m infinitely more powerful than her. She’s stubborn. Self-destructive, even. And yet she’s not some pathetic, broken victim. Her will to live, to thrive, to never, ever, ever give up in her relentless pursuit of her goals . . .
I’ve never seen myself in another person before.
Much as Shaw desperately wants to believe that we are one and the same, I’ve never felt a kinship with him. Very much the opposite.
There is only one god in my world. I was alone in the universe.
And now I see . . . a spark.
A spark that interests me.
I want to hold it in my hands. Manipulate it. Examine it.
Mara has a kind of power separate from my own. I want to know if I can harness it. Or consume it.
I visit her studio regularly. I don’t knock—she knows I’m watching her through the camera mounted above her door. There is no appearance of privacy.
I walk into the studio I own, that I supply to her, and I see the rebellious ways she’s altered the space—how she’s somehow managed to throw open the high upper windows, how she’s scattered her clothes and books around, and used an injudicious amount of her grant money to fill the space with plants—leafy tropicals, vine-like hanging baskets, and potted trees to supplement the ornamental lemons already in place. She’s taken my carefully curated English garden and turned it into a jungle.
Mara’s appearance ranges from homeless to deranged—torn overalls, bare feet, paint-streaked face and hands, brushes thrust into her hair for safekeeping.
And yet her painting glows like the pietà. Illuminated from the inside.
I examine every millimeter of it.
“The hands need work,” I say.
“I know,” Mara says. “The nails . . .”
“This edge could be sharpened.” I point the handle of a paintbrush toward the figure’s left shoulder. “Here.”
I take the palette from its resting place and dip the brush, intending to darken the edge myself.
“NO!” Mara snaps, as I raise the brush toward the canvas. “I’ll do it.”
I set the palette down, narrowing my eyes at her. “You should be so fucking lucky as to have it known I touched my brush to your work.”
“Yes,” she says. “I’m aware of your many talents. You can paint rings around me. I don’t give a shit—nobody touches this canvas but me.”