The Girl in the Painting

Instantly, my mom tries to put out the flames. “How about we…uh…change the subject?” I’m impressed by her diplomatic nature’s ability to overpower her love for Tom Hanks.

My sister and aunt engage in some sort of stare-off.

And my dad, well, he just keeps eating. Dinner is Mac’s favorite meal of the day. It’d take something like a meteor crashing into Earth to distract him from his food.

“Lily.” Mom continues to fight for peace. “What kind of article should your dad and I look forward to next?”

The stare-off continues for another moment or two, but eventually, my sister pulls her eyes away from our aunt.

“I’m working on a piece about Ansel Bray.”

“Ansel Bray?” my mom asks. “His name sounds familiar. Why do I know him?”

My stomach dives into my shoes at the sound of his name.

Shit…maybe we should go back to bad eggs and menopause.

“Ansel Bray, you say?” my dad finally decides to join the conversation, cheese beard and all. “Isn’t that the artist who’s blind?”

“Oh yeah!” my mom chimes in, equal parts cheery and relieved that she’s managed to remember how she knows him and change the subject all at once. “He’s not blind anymore. He had transplant surgery a few years back.”

“That’s him.” Lily nods. “The other night, I went to his art exhibition with Indy and Matt.”

“Matt?” Aunt Bethany scrunches up her nose. “Who’s Matt?”

“Indy’s boyfriend, Bethie,” my mother repeats on a sigh. In addition to being a shit-stirrer, Aunt Bethie has a memory that’s only slightly better than Dory from Finding Nemo.

“Oh, right. The one we never see.”

Dear God, it’s me, Indy. Please send help.

“You know,” Lily continues, and I’m not so sure I like the smile that’s sliding its way across her lips. “One of Ansel Bray’s paintings looks like Indy.”

My dad’s eyes perk up. “Is that right?”

“Yep.” Lily turns her stupid smile to me, and I kind of want to stab her with my fork. “The girl in his painting looks almost identical to her.”

“N-no.” I nearly choke on my own tongue and lie through my teeth at the same time. “Don’t be ridiculous, Lil.”

“Oh, come on,” she retorts. “You know it looks like you. Hell, even Matt thought it looked like you.”

“Maybe a little,” I continue the lie, because what else am I going to do?

Tell the outrageous truth?

The girl in the painting looks so much like me that the sheer shock of it made me vomit. And, oh, by the way, I went ahead and tracked down Ansel Bray. We talked. He’s beautiful and nice, and he’s been on my mind ever since…

No thank you. I’ll keep that crazy shit to myself.

“I’m hoping to get an interview with him,” Lily adds, and my jaw goes slack.

“What?” I question. “Why?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” she answers like I’m crazy. “He’s the hottest topic in the arts right now. Although, I have to admit, he’s not the easiest man to get in touch with. His assistant is pretty much the worst.”

Dear God, it’s me again. Can you do me a teensy tiny favor and make sure this interview never happens?

If there’s anything I’ve learned in the past two minutes of this dinner, it’s that I never should’ve invited my sister to that opening.

Also, my family is crazy, and my dad’s beard can hold a surprising amount of mozzarella cheese.

When my mom starts asking Lily more questions about Ansel Bray, I excuse myself from the table and take my barely eaten plate of food into the kitchen.

It’s all too weird, and I already feel guilty about not telling my sister, my best friend in the whole wide world, about my little day-trip to see Ansel yesterday.

But how can I explain something to her that I don’t even understand myself?

Once my plate is scraped clean and in the dishwasher, I quietly sneak into my dad’s “office.” He calls it that, but it’s really just a television room with a lot of books and a desktop computer he hardly uses.

I run my finger along the edges of his books and savor the one room in the house that’s devoid of conversations that stress me out.

But it doesn’t take long before I’m not alone.

“So, tell me, Indigo, how is teaching going?” my dad asks and sits down in his favorite leather chair. “Still happy at that private school?”

“I can’t complain.” I shrug. “I love the kids.”

“You still giving private music lessons, too?”

“Uh huh.”

“You have a lot of students taking them?”

I nod. “More than I have time for, if I’m being honest.”

“That’s good,” he says and taps his fingers along the armrests. “It’s nice to hear not all the kids in this country are killing their brains with video games and YouTube videos.”

I grin at that.

“The world always needs more music, Indy. It’s what keeps us going. It’s what inspires us. It’s what connects us all.”