Paul came in and she turned off the water, quicklywiped her hands on a paper towel.
He looked surprised, buttoning his shirt, peeringaround at the kitchen humming.
“Cancel Minton,” he said, lamely attemptinghumor, losing a bit of his haggard look at seeing his sports duffle with hishealthy eats laid out next to it, everything lined up as usual on the counter.
The hand was stinging but Liddy gave himher bravest smile. He seemed to be having the reaction she’d hoped he’d have: she’sfunctioning, already better by the light of day. He’d been pathetic lastnight during their argument - had actually…cried? Liddy saw again how beatenand defeated he’d seemed; remembered too the awful thought that had come toher: just who here is crazy?
Anybody, that’s who. Horrendous pressure canundo anyone. Liddy was too tired to think; didn’t know what to think; craved withall her being just one blessed day of normalcy, please.
She stepped closer to Paul, reached to pusha lock of hair off his brow. “Everything’s going to be okay,” she said, tryingto mean it. A day with him not falling apart would also help. Just oneblessed day of normalcy, please?
He sat on the edge of a barstool, looking worriedwith his lips pressed thin. “You really think so?”
“Yes,” she lied, feeling her chest tighten,dreading the day.
“Going to paint?”
“Yup, it’s better therapy than Alex Minton.”She started putting Paul’s things into his duffel. “No choice anyway. I’m behindon a project, another watercolor.” Then she stopped what she was doing, and lookedback to him. “Painting saves me. It really does, a million times better thanlistening to Minton drone. It’s like…I go off into colorful worlds and losemyself in them, and in the process I find myself. Does that make sense?”
He nodded wearily; gave a crooked smile.“Sounds like an artist.”
At the front door he gave her a long hug. “Let’shave a re-do on going out,” he said. “Find some little French restaurant andhide, just us.”
“What? No socializing?”
“God forbid.”
She smiled a real smile this time. “I’dlove that.”
Another hug, and Paul left with hurriedreminders to lock up. “The slide bolt and the keypad.”
Liddy closed the door, then stared for along moment at the knob. When Paul’s steps receded down the stairwell, sheopened the door again. Stepped out into the empty hall and bent, peering intothe keyhole. “I did lock you last night,” she said, very softly. “Youknow I did.”
The keyhole stayed…just a keyhole, mute, revealingnothing.
She breathed in; straightened. Since lastnight - their tension, the unlocked door, the three a.m. brain gnashing - she’dwanted to have another look at that lock. For what? She didn’t know.
Back inside she closed the door, flippedthe bolt, punched in the security code, then turned back to the apartment.
The sun had moved, and with it the shadows.Light angling in from higher up now cast a shorter, squatter darkness behindthe white column, and it moved. Clouds outside sailed in gusts beforethe sun, sending every shadow in the room into weird little dances.
Spray the plants?
Not yet. The days were cooling. No rushthere.
Liddy raced, as fast as her bad leg could carryher, through the moving shadows to her studio.
37
Four mason jars halffull of water: one for each of the three primary colors – red, yellow, blue –and one for rinsing her brushes, her cherished, expensive sable brushes which werea whole different set from the ones she used for oil painting. As in thekitchen, Liddy force-marched herself, struggling to push down her gallopingfears. Denial? Who me? Her hands still shook but she started to getexcited, her preparations bringing her closer to her cherished other world thatprovided escape. Onto her palette she squeezed out gorgeous blobs from herWinsor & Newton watercolor tubes; then to the up-tilted surface of herdraftsman’s table she tacked her Strathmore watercolor paper – big sheets,eighteen by twenty-four inches. A foot away, on the table’s flat arm to theside, she put a bowl of water and a sponge, and then, neatly, she stacked moresheets of Strathmore in case of mistakes. In art you can cover mistakes,isn’t that great? Just start afresh or lay on more pigment.
She stopped, for seconds, taking deepbreaths, looking out and around.
Watercolor meant no turpentine fumes, whichmeant that the window top could stay closed, thus giving Liddy a sense of beingextra hermetically safe in her cocoon. She needed that today, needed it bad. Exhalingwith something close to relief, she sat at her draftsman’s table and spread herhands apart, gripping its corners as if to embrace it. Today she could sitinstead of stand, just slouch way down with her nose close to the paper, herhand moving the brushes, dipping, spreading colors, watching the shapes andcolors and her whole new world appear.
Let nothing intrude, please. Let nothingelse enter my poor, aching head…
She started her first, preliminary sketch. Holdingher mechanical pencil, her hand started to sweep and move, like a conductor’sbaton. The project called for a scary fantasy: delicate fairies trapped on arocky crag fleeing a down-swooping, heavy-clawed griffin - a nasty beast withthe body, tail and back legs of a lion, the fierce head, wings and talons of aneagle. Liddy’s hand worked faster. She was in that world now, her swirling thinpencil lines starting to take forms that cowered, ran, struggled…
A buzz startled her. It took a second torealize what it was.
Her cell phone, sitting a foot from herhand.
“I’m quite swamped but can fit you in atfive,” Alex Minton droned in his flat tone. “Would you describe your situationas serious?”
She wanted to bray laughter. Oh har, wellI’m still alive if that’s what you mean, she wanted to say, but quelled it insteadwith, “That may be for you to determine.” She squeezed her eyes tight, fightingbeing yanked out of her cloud.
“Describe briefly, please? To help assess yourissue.”
She squeezed her eyes tighter as her heart tookoff again. “I saw a ghost last night.” It astounded her to hear herself
