Together Apart: Change is Never Easy

by Maxxwell, Lexi

  “Anyway, I felt better once I realized nobody would judge my art — even anonymously, where I’d only ever be ‘found out’ if I won — I relaxed, and didn’t mess with the drawing. I put it into this big portfolio I had and forgot about it.”

  Zach drew a breath and smiled at Sam.

  “They held that same competition the next year and the next year, and eventually, at 12, I got the balls to enter. I drew a portrait of my dad. It won the 10-15 category. I entered again the next year, and between the two competitions entered another three that I found. Each one was easier than the one before.”

  Sam made a noncommittal frown. “Not apples to apples. Maybe Relegated is my Transformers drawing, and I’ll eventually publish something else. Your story just tells me you weren’t happy with something, so you chickened out. Then you eventually got over it and put something better out into the world.”

  Zach was already smiling and shaking his head, a step ahead of her. Damn him. He’d probably left the loophole in the story on purpose, pausing so she could use it to hang herself.

  “Four years after that first entry, at 16, I was cleaning my room at Mom’s insistence when I found that old portfolio. I remembered what had happened, and was shocked by how good it was, given that I’d been half my age at the time when I’d drawn it. On a whim, I decided to submit it to that same competition, which was right around the corner. But there was one problem. I couldn’t submit it into 6-8 or even 8-10 even though I’d drawn it when I was 7.”

  “So you submitted it into the 16 to whatever,” said Sam.

  “Nope. I submitted it with adults.” Zach chuckled at the memory. “I didn’t win, of course. It was a big competition, thanks to the artsy asswipe. But I did place third.”

  Sam laughed.

  “People made a big deal out of it — some 16-year-old kid beating out tons of adults. But I’d drawn it when I was 7, and didn’t change a damn line.” He tipped his beer neck at Sam. “So you see, you can’t judge its true awesomeness because fear is in the way. And I’m telling you, Sam, your book is awesome. All you need to do is to get a cover … ” He set a hand on his chest in offering. “ … and hit ‘publish.’”

  “No way.”

  “Really. Because you’re a chicken shit?”

  “Because you have to say it’s good so I’ll have sex with you.”

  “And also because I love you.”

  “Well, sure, but I think we both know where your true motivations lie.”

  Zach shook his head, then raised three fingers like a Boy Scout. “Artist’s honor, Sam. It’s good. Very good. But in the end, how good it is doesn’t even matter. All that matters is that you get it out there. You have to ship.”

  “Ship?”

  He nodded. “It’s a Seth Godin thing.”

  “Does he work with Mitch Hedberg?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  She met his eyes. “You really mean this?”

  “Totally. In fact, the deal with me taking a so-called ‘real job’ is contingent upon it. If you don’t publish, you’ll end up with a husband who is totally unwilling to live any sort of responsible life. I’ll probably go well past being a flitty artist. I may start playing video games all day while eating nachos.”

  Sam stared at him. He was serious.

  “Look,” he said. “You’re an amazing storyteller. That book?” He thumped his chest twice with his fist. “Hits you right in the heart. You’ve a real talent for it.”

  After a long second, Sam cracked a smile. Zach’s brown eyes might have been more sincere than she had ever seen them before. He truly was an amazing artist, and younger artists came to him all the time asking for advice. His thoughts on selling and distributing work was shit, but his advice on creating it sounded like something from a Buddhist manual. It was beautiful in its articulation, so perfect that it sounded to Sam like something that belonged in a book to be cherished, maybe worshipped.

  Zach’s words were true — and what’s more, according to his belief, they were also in her own best interest. Sam had no illusions about publishing her book and seeing it hit the bestseller lists, but that wasn’t his point. Zach believed that art was like a child, and that once born, it no longer belonged wholly to the creator. It became its own being, and the job — the responsibility — of the artist was to shepherd that art and give it its best possible chance to thrive. And he was right; Sam had felt it coming alive inside her as she’d built the world and filled it. The story was part her, and part something else. She could no more leave it in her computer’s hard drive than she could leave a child in a crib forever. Sam was a kind person with a kind soul, Zach often told her. That soul required expression, and it couldn’t be expressed further until she shipped her first creative project. Anything less was a crime against herself, and anything else she might later bring into the world.

  “You swear?”

  “I swear,” he said.

  It was scary, but Sam considered it anyway.

  The book was intensely personal. There were parts of herself in every character, and she’d stocked their backstories with stories from her personal narrative. Readers wouldn’t know that, of course; they’d read it as a tale to be spun. But she’d know. And what if they criticized it? What if they said her creation was awful? Sam didn’t know if she could handle that. But she’d told Zach all about the writing she’d done as a kid and as a teenager, before he’d met her. He’d been fascinated, eager to learn that despite her need to put things in order, she’d spent so much time being disorderly inside. Every artist was slightly damaged, with loose ends inside that never quite healed. He had enjoyed seeing that vulnerability, so like the vulnerability inside himself. Once upon a time, she had wanted to be a writer. Sam had even sent short stories to literary magazines and started collecting rejection letters like scars. Then she’d grown up, and by the ripe age of 18, had stopped creative writing altogether. Looking back, it seemed like a naive, childlike pursuit she had engaged in before knowing better, before she had learned to start crossing T’s and dotting I’s. To this day, that childlike naiveté was the place Zach returned to often, and taught others to rediscover after they’d lost it.

  Sam nodded, smiling in a way that probably looked more confident than she felt. She didn’t feel confident, but confidence and courage weren’t one and the same. Sam could take a leap of faith. She could do it for Zach, because to him, it mattered so very much.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Okay?”

  “Yeah.” Bigger smile. Now it almost hurt her cheeks. She felt elated, the kind of feeling she got when doing something delirious enough to feel almost dangerous. Swinging too high on a swing set. Bouncing on a trampoline, losing sight of the ground. And Zach? He looked even happier, because he was never ashamed of being giddy. He had been harassing her about publishing Relegated since first reading it. No one else had cared so much, about Sam or her creations.

  “Awesome! I’m so happy!”

  “And you’ll look for a job,” she said.

  “And there it went. But it’s okay. I had my happy moment before you squashed it. Yes, I’ll look for a job.”

  “Not a freelance job. One with a salary.”

  “Salary, ball, and chain, the works.”

  “As a life-support system,” she clarified. “I don’t want you to think I’m like, tying you down.”

  “I would be okay with that, actually,” he said, raising his eyebrows.

  “A job will allow you to focus more on your art, rather than feeling like you had to rush it and make compromises.” Sam pushed on, ignoring his lechery.

  “Yes. I will be totally focused while in my cubicle for all eight hours.”

  Sam looked up. She had just agreed to free her soul and now, by contrast, it felt like she’d talked him into boxing his in. It was an unfair and cruel thought. Sam didn’t want it.

  “But you do understand, right?”

  He nodded. “Yes. I understand.”

>   “And you think it’s a good idea.”

  Still nodding. “Yes. I really do. It’s easy to fly high, but we live in the real world.”

  “Do you hate me for suggesting it?” she asked, her eyes almost pleading.

  He smirked. “Do you hate me for suggesting that you publish your book?”

  Sam smiled back. “Okay. Then we’re even.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Three Years Ago

  Zach’s arms circled her waist, breath at the back of her neck. He kept giving Sam small kisses. It was sweet, but making her research more difficult.

  They were standing in the apartment’s second bedroom, which had become Sam’s at-home office, both with their backs to the door. The floor’s carpet was soft, so Zach’s approach was silent. Her head had been down, hands shuffling through yet another of her desk piles. Sam hated piles because they made things more stressful, which she didn’t need on top of an already stressful few weeks. Sam’s work wasn’t any greater because her paperwork was out in the open, but she was definitely more aware of her undone to-do’s. Zach’s workspace was neat by comparison. He never brought work home, so his entire job fit into the picture-book-sized space required by his laptop. And closet-sized studio they had the audacity to call a third bedroom — Zach hadn’t been using it much, so even the one room with tacit permission to be as disorderly as it wanted was almost spic and span. They had traded places. Sam was now the eccentric pile-maker, and Zach the pro who always dropped his work shirts into the hamper and never left paint smeared on the couch.

  “So, how are things with you?” he asked, whispering in her ear.

  “Nuts,” Sam said. “My boss promoted me. You know how that works at newspapers, right?”

  “More work but no more pay?”

  “You got it.” She picked up one of the piles, then riffled its edges like a flip book. The Xerox she was looking for didn’t manifest, and no bunnies animated in small drawings at the corner — terrible, so far as flipping experiences went.

  “Well, congratulations anyway,” Zach said, hugging her tighter. “What’s your new title?”

  “Promotions also don’t come with a new title.”

  “So how is it a promotion?”

  Sam pulled free from Zach’s arms and turned around. He stood behind her in a blue button-up with the collar open and a bright-white tee beneath. He wore khaki slacks and brown shoes. Only his hair still had the wild, unashamed look she’d always known.

  “Like this,” she said, shoving the stack toward him. “‘I promote this load of crap onto your plate.’” He took the papers when they struck his chest. Then, with her empty hands, she took hold of his upper arms, leaned forward, and pecked him on the lips, one high-heeled foot kicking up behind her like something from a ‘50s caricature.

  “I’m home,” he said.

  “I see that. Did you have fun?”

  “Not particularly. Want me to start dinner?”

  She smiled, looking back up from her annoyed search, renewed the second after she had asked her perfunctory question. He was so cute. If they were doing a Ward and June Cleaver, Zach would have stepped right into the June role rather than being a chauvinist asshole. It was the sort of small thing she tried to appreciate, though she probably took too much about Zach for granted.

  “No. Order a pizza.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “I do.” She let some of her building stress die and feather to her feet like a discarded garment. She kissed him again. “You had a hard day, too. Order a pizza. Use the time to paint or something.”

  Zach pulled her closer, scooting a pile of paperwork to the side. “I’d rather spend the time with you.”

  She made a small but pained expression. “I need to get some work done.”

  “How could you need to get work done?” He made a show of looking around the room. “Dammit, did I accidentally walk into the newspaper offices again?”

  “It’s just a bit of research. Not much.”

  “You shouldn’t work at home,” he said. “It’s not good for you.” He waved his hand in the air. “Home,” he declared. He patted the air in front of him, between them, inches from her chest. “Safe place,” he concluded.

  “I just need to catch up. I’ll stop when the pizza comes, honest. And no more after that.”

  He patted the air again. “Special space.”

  “Zach … ”

  He stopped patting the air and took Sam by her upper arms, earnest eyes grabbing hers and staying. “I don’t want to pull rank,” he said. “But you’re really not leaving me any choice. I’ve brought weapons.”

  His face was so serious. She kept hers the same and said, “Weapons?”

  “Weapons known to be effective against such as you.”

  “Overworked journalists?”

  “Women.”

  She cocked her head. A light-brown clump of hair escaped her pinned-back coif and dangled at her vision’s periphery. “I see,” she said. “What kind of weapons?”

  He held up a finger, then left the room. A moment later he returned with both hands behind his back. “Now I want you to understand,” he said, “you’re forcing me to do this.”

  She felt the corner of her mouth rise, amused by Zach’s constant ability, even when still dressed for his loathed job, to surprise and delight her. “You had no choice,” she said, unsure just what in the hell they were talking about.

  He pulled a hand from behind his back. In it was a bouquet of antiqued hydrangea and Leonidas roses, the same as she’d learned to love growing up with Fleurs de Lys.

  “Bam!”

  “You are so sweet,” Sam said, taking the bouquet and inhaling deeply. “A total cliché, but sweet nonetheless.” Again, she leaned in and kissed him. This time, the kiss lasted one beat longer.

  “You’ve been calling me a cliché since the beginning, Samantha Jean Hollister,” he said. “The correct response is ‘Thank you.’”

  “When did I call you a cliché?”

  “Constantly! I gave you a rose the day we first … ”

  “ … met?”

  “Had sex,” Zach corrected. “Did you really forget? With the rose?”

  “Of course not. I just wanted you to admit that you’re trying to get laid.” Sam said it as part of their usual banter, but in three years with Zach, she’d learned not to make allusions she didn’t plan to follow through with. She really did need to knock out a half hour of research. But her husband had brought her flowers, and she was quite in love with him right now.

  “You didn’t say thank you.”

  Sam cupped her hand over his crotch. “Thank you.”

  “Wow. I could have stopped at the flowers?” And now, he was pretending to banter, but she could feel him stir and stiffen under her hand.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I haven’t even fired both barrels, here.”

  She rubbed him more firmly. “Hell, I hope not.”

  Sam realized that although he’d walked in with both hands behind his back, he’d only pulled one out. He moved his second hand to reveal a small gold box.

  “You didn’t.”

  “I totally did. The Godiva isn’t close anymore, either. By the way, did you know these are considered an old lady’s chocolate?”

  Sam was already pulling at the gold, elastic bow, and shedding its gold-papered lid. Inside sat a row of cherry cordials, their smell rich and evocative somewhere deep in the animal part of her brain.

  “This old lady is going to bang your brains out,” she said, picking one up, biting it in half, and inhaling the scent of its brandy-soaked center. She’d pierced the cherry with her teeth, effectively halving the candy, and chewed her half as endorphins flooded her senses. She looked up and held the other half toward Zach. He opened his mouth, and she slid it in.

  “Now who’s the cliché?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I know. I’m disgusted with myself. I’m a respected career woman with an important job and
a ton on my plate, yet some spear-bearer just got me wet with chocolates and flowers.” As she said it, Sam realized how true it was. They hadn’t had sex in two weeks. There simply wasn’t the time — and when there had been, one or both hadn’t the energy. She couldn’t believed it was possible for Zach to not have energy for sex and was bothered that she believed it was possible for herself, but that’s how it had been. Both of their jobs seemed to have ramped up at the same time in the past month, leaving them sometimes passing like ships in the night.

  Sex hadn’t occurred to Sam for a while … now that it had, she felt the pressure cooker between her legs.

  “I was supposed to order a pizza.”

  She put her arms around him. “I am hungry.”

  “Luigi’s has that 30-minutes-or-less thing for deliveries. I’ll call. You can finish publishing your book, and I’ll paint. Small windows for creative endeavor.”

  “I don’t want to mess around with computers right now.”

  “Publishing, like you promised, the only option. You aren’t allowed to use the time for work if you expect this spear-bearer to bend you over the couch.”

  “I didn’t say I wanted to work.” She touched his chest and started to rub it.

  “So, you want to wait on the pizza?”