Surviving Valencia

“What are you doing up?” I asked him.

He held up his hands. They were covered up to his elbows with paint. “This creative rush came over me, at four o’clock this morning, and I have been working ever since.”

“Oh,” I took another swallow of wine. “I thought you were at the gym or something.”

“Do you want to see what I’ve been doing?”

I stood up, not letting go of my glass of wine. “Sure.”

We went to his studio and he paused at the door, gesturing grandly inside. There on the wall was a huge stretched canvas with a sketch of a nude woman reclining. Not reclining so much as actually sleeping. It was nothing like his usual work. I took a closer look.

“Adrian, is that me?”

“Yeah. What do you think?”

I set down my glass of wine on one of the tables. “Are you going to paint it?”

“Yeah. I’ve just started. It’s got a long way to go.”

“Don’t you usually work from pictures?” I asked him.

“Uh huh. I took several. You were out cold.”

At his desk were printouts everywhere of me, naked and asleep. “Are these from last night?” I asked, feeling a chill run down my spine.

“Yep. This is the one that really captured your essence,” he said, holding up one with my hair half over my face.

“That one doesn’t even look like me.”

“Sure it does.”

“Is this just the way it is, living with an artist?” I asked him. “Like, I need to just accept that this is normal? ‘Cause it’s not normal. It’s weird.” I picked up my glass of wine, wanting to throw it against the canvas. That would have been the perfect thing to do. It would have added buckets of panache to this artistic moment. But I didn’t have the nerve or the energy to clean it up.

“What’s the matter, Baby?” he asked. “I thought you would be flattered.” Adrian’s shoulder slumped defeatedly. He sighed the sigh of a man who was misunderstood, and becoming used to disappointment.

I sat down on the old couch in his studio, resenting him for turning this around so I was the one who now felt guilty. He looked miserable.

“Adrian, it’s not that big of a deal,” I said. “Just forget it.”

He came over to my side and kissed my ear. “Do you know how many women would want something like this to happen to them,” he whispered.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“This is the kind of thing that would have happened to your sister, right?” An icy unpleasantness ran down my spine.

“I don’t think she ever experienced anything quite like this.”

“But is it really so bad?” he asked. I felt that he was trying to be flirtatious. I drew in a breath and took another drink of wine. Maybe I needed to lighten up. “I guess not. You just caught me off guard.”

“So everything’s fine? You’re even a little flattered?”

“Sure. Whatever. I mean, yes, I’m flattered.”

“Good.” He kissed the top of my head. “Mind if I get back to work then?”

“I guess not.” I said, sitting there a moment longer. I finished the rest of my wine and then stood up. “I’m going to go for a walk,” I told him. But he had turned back to his canvas and was too focused to even notice I was leaving.

Chapter 38