Pretty, Dark and Dirty

He pushed his own empty plate away. “How is Gretchen doing?”

It was strange, hearing my mother’s name fall from his lips after all this time.

“She’s good.”

“Still seeing the podiatrist?”

I shook my head. “He’s been gone for a while. The guy she’s dating now is a complete corporate stooge.”

“You don’t like him?”

I shrugged. “He’s nice, in a back-to-you-Tom sort of way.”

“Does he wear themed ti

es?”

“Yeah, but he saves the really dorky ones for special occasions.” It occurred to me that I couldn’t recall ever seeing Mason in a tie. His style had always consisted of jeans and paint-stained tees with the occasional sweater. Today was no exception. "He’s good to her, if that’s what you’re getting at."

"I'm more concerned with whether he’s good to you."

“We tolerate each other.” I tore off a hunk of garlic bread and swiped it through the sauce on my plate, cutting a clean line through the red. “So much curiosity about Mom’s love life. You must miss her.”

Mason didn’t respond right away. “I’ll always care about your mother.”

I sensed his hesitation. “But?”

He shrugged. “But I’m sure I don’t have to tell you she’s guarded. It’s hard being close to someone who hides so much of themselves from you.”

Almost as hard as staying close to someone who disappears from your life altogether, I thought.

Still, I nodded in understanding. For as long as I could remember, my mother kept secrets, sometimes for no apparent reason. I knew next to nothing about her background, only that she’d had me when she was very young. Once, she let it slip that she’d grown up in a big, old house in Virginia with half a dozen bathrooms and twice as many fireplaces. When I asked if we could go see it someday, she immediately changed the subject.

“I’m the complete opposite,” I said, freeing an elastic from my wrist. “Can’t hold back to save my life, for better or worse.”

“I’d say for the better.”

His gaze tracked my fingers as I plaited my dark locks into a manageable braid.

“You’re even more beautiful than I remember,” he said.

Something like gratification trilled through me before I could tamp it down.

“Um, thanks.”

The force of his stare and the intensity behind it made my pulse stutter. For a brief moment, I imagined holding his fingers to my throat so he could feel the rampant beat.

“I hope that doesn’t make you uncomfortable,” he said. “You’re stunning, and you’ve always been stunning. I have sketches I made of you as a child hanging in my studio. People ask me all the time, who’s that gorgeous girl with the wide eyes? I tell them, that’s my daughter. That’s my little girl.”

But I’m not his little girl, I thought, even as my arm hairs stood on end.

I’d always wondered what happened to those drawings, proof of all the times I had sat like a stone until my father’s hand grew tired, no matter how bad my back ached or how numb my legs felt. I’d welcomed the suffering because I wanted him to look at me. For as long as he sketched me, I was the center of his universe. It was exhilarating, being on the receiving end of his concentration, like drunkenness, or falling in love.

Not that I had much experience with either.

“You look so much like Gretchen did at your age,” he said, “only not as defensive. She’s always been a granite wall, whereas you’re translucent, like glass. You know how to let people in. There’s beauty in that kind of openness. There’s strength.”

Though I knew Mason wasn’t my father, I had to admit, it was easy to slip back into the role of the painter’s daughter. Hearing him talk about my mother and our shared past, calling me his little girl, made me want to crawl onto his lap again. At the same time, it felt like trying to squeeze my feet into a cute pair of slippers that no longer fit.