Cole lays his hand on my head, gently stroking my hair.
“It’s alright, Mara,” he says. “It’s always better to tell the truth. Lie to the world, but not to yourself.”
8
Cole
I finally got Mara to crack and admit what I’d known all along.
After that, I back off for a while.
We don’t talk about what she said or what we’re going to do about it. I don’t want to risk her retreating back into familiarity, back into what feels safe to her.
What feels safe and what will actually keep you safe from harm are quite different from one another.
It’s not difficult to distract ourselves from the problem of Shaw.
Both Mara and I are continually pulled into our work so deeply that the rest of the world disappears around us.
Mara is painting a new series for the private show I’m throwing her in December.
I’m finalizing my design for Corona Heights Park.
I sketch it out first, and then I build a scale model that I’ll deliver to Marcus York.
I visit Mara in her studio to see how her latest painting is coming along.
She’s got her hair piled up on her head with several paintbrushes jammed into the bun to keep it fixed in place. Her face and arms are liberally streaked with color, her overalls so battered and stained that I can’t tell if they were originally black or dark denim. She’s got the legs rolled up mid-shin, bare feet beneath, paint on her toes as well.
She smells of linen and flaxseed oil, with a sharp edge of turpentine. For this series and the last one, Mara is using oil paints, not acrylic. The paint dries slowly over several days, so the pigment is malleable. She can stack transparent layers, one over the other, to create deep shadows or the impression of light glowing from within. She can blend shades for seamless transitions.
Her technique improves by the day.
Her previous series was mostly photorealistic. This new series blends high-detail figures with rooms and scenery that in places look solid and ultra-real, while other areas melt and fade away like the edges of a memory. It gives a soft, rotting effect, as if the whole painting is beset by decay soaking through the canvas.
This particular piece shows a young girl in a nightgown walking down a placid suburban street. The roses on the hedges are past their bloom, brown at the edges. A charred teddy bear trails from one hand. Behind her, a half dozen birds have fallen dead from the sky. Beneath her slippered feet, the grass withers away.
“What are you going to call this one?”
“I’m not sure,” Mara says, rubbing the back of her hand across her cheek. This leaves a fresh smear of pale pink along her jaw—the pink of the roses, which Mara is touching up in the lower right corner of the canvas.
“What about … The Burial?”
Mara nods slowly. “I like that.”
I’m looking at one of the fallen birds, pitifully laying on its back with wings splayed.
“What?” Mara says.
“I don’t like that orange on the robin’s breast. It’s too bright. Clashes with the roses.”
Mara squints at the robin, then at the roses, looking back and forth between them, comparing the shades.
“You might be right,” she grudgingly admits. “Here, tone it down. Make it a little more dusty.”
She holds out a paintbrush to me.
“You’re going to let me touch your robin? You almost bit my head off last time I came near your painting.”
“Well, you did pick my favorite design for Corona Heights.”
It was my favorite too. Mara inspired the design, in a sense. Hearing her enthusiasm spurred me on to build the model so I can bring it to York this afternoon, right before the deadline.
I had been debating whether I even wanted to enter. I still don’t like the idea of having to outsource the construction.
I add a little brown to the robin’s breast, dulling the orange until it almost matches the edges of the rose petals.
Mara examines my work.
“That’s better,” she agrees.
Our heads are close together, examining the canvas.
Unconsciously, Mara’s hand slips into mine. I turn my mouth into the side of her neck, kissing her at the junction of her shoulder. Her scent, laced with turpentine, makes my head spin.
“Do you want to come see the model?” I ask her.
“Of course!”
She drops her brushes in a pot of solvent to soak, wiping her hands off on a rag. My own hand is paint-smeared where she touched me. Instead of washing it, I let the streak of dusty pink dry on my skin.
Mara follows me down the hall to the studio I’ve been using on this same floor. I don’t like it as much as my private space, but sometimes it’s good to make a change. There’s something energizing about the constant bustle of people in this building—the whistle of Sonia’s kettle, Janice’s snorting laugh, and the thud of Mara’s music leaking out from under her door. The chatter of other artists meeting by the stairs.