The Moment of Letting Go

by J. A. Redmerski

  “So is this another one of your part-time jobs?”

  “No, not really,” he says as we descend. “It’s just something I do on the side. Sometimes I even answer phones.”

  I get the feeling he’s being purposely vague; either that or he’s messing with me and I’m too enamored by him to tell the difference.

  “What do you do exactly?” I inquire suspiciously, playfully.

  Back on the ground floor, the first things I see are those striking black-and-white photographs of the old woman again, and I let my hand slip from his and I go right over to them. He follows. While I’m studying them up close and admiring the detail, I glance back at him and continue. “I don’t know why, but I just can’t see you doing office work.”

  He looks at me with a small, disbelieving smile. “Why not?” he asks. “Dressed like this I look like I’d fit right in an office.”

  I turn from the photograph to him. “Well, sure, you could easily look the part; I just don’t see you as the sit-down-all-day-at-a-desk type.”

  One side of his mouth and his eyebrow lifts curiously, as if to say he can’t argue with that.

  I look at the second photograph, focusing closely in on the beaded necklace draped over the woman’s gnarled knuckles, and the black fur of the front of her coat the way it appears to make her aged hands look softer pressed against it.

  “This is an amazing shot,” I say, unable to take my eyes off of it for a moment. “It was dressed up with a filter afterward to make the black and grays so rich, but even I use filters on a lot of my shots—I think a lot of photographers probably do.”

  Finally I look away from it, my gaze scanning a few other photographs on display and I start to feel dizzy with inspiration and envy. I pat my purse hanging from my shoulder just to feel the contours of my camera inside. I’d love to break it out right here and start snapping photographs of photographs, but I don’t feel right about it.

  It takes me a long moment to realize that I’ve been walking down this lengthy row, taking in the details of every single shot, and that Luke has hardly said a word.

  I stop and turn to him.

  He’s smiling; his golden-brown hair is tousled in the front, framing a striking face full of regard and mystery that I want more and more to solve.

  “I’m sorry, I—”

  “Don’t be,” he says. “I like seeing this side of you—you really are passionate about photography.”

  “It’s always been there for me,” I say as we continue on down the aisle. The photography begins to thin out and paintings begin to replace it. “Some hobbies come and go, but I think everybody has one that sticks with them all their life; you know, it’s a part of them, like an arm or a leg. Photography is mine. I really can’t imagine a life without it.” We stop in front of a large canvas painting displayed on an easel of a bird’s nest with four little blue speckled eggs amid the sculpted twigs. I want to reach out and feel the raised texture of the paint under my fingers, but I refrain.

  “You’ll have to show me some of your work sometime,” Luke says. “You should’ve brought your camera today.”

  My face lights up. “I did!” I say and pat my purse again. “And I have a website. Some of my favorite shots are on it. I’ll give you the address and you can check it out later.”

  Luke tilts his head to the side and says, “Or you can show me yourself later.” Then he points to my purse. “For now, why don’t you take your camera out and get a few shots of the place. You know you want to.” His delicious mouth lifts into a grin, his hazel eyes shimmering under the fluorescent lights.

  He has no idea how badly I want that.

  “You don’t think anyone will mind?”

  “Not at all,” he says.

  After hesitating, looking around at other people walking the aisles slowly and taking in the details of so many talented pieces of art, I slide the zipper open on my purse and pull out my camera.

  “That has to be heavy carrying around on your shoulder,” Luke says, glancing down at it.

  I shrug. “A little,” I say as I adjust a few settings. “But I don’t carry much else.”

  “So no makeup drawer in there?”

  “Nope.” I chuckle, then snap a shot of him.

  We make our way down several rows of art and I begin to notice that the farther we go, the larger the paintings become. There’s a canvas painting of Kilauea that is almost as tall as me, but small in width. A stunning landscape so wide I could stretch my arms out to my sides and still not touch the edges. Easels have long since disappeared, replaced by the actual walls of the building because the paintings here are too large for easels. But there is still a lot of empty space, where I’m sure more art will be added over the next couple months. And as beautiful as all of the paintings and photographs that are here are, I can’t help but notice how there’s no real method to how things are being laid out—being in the business that I’m in, these kinds of things are hard for me to ignore. But eventually I pass it off as it just being too early, and that it will all come together in due time.

  Finally, when we get to the last row, there is one giant wall with the most beautiful paintings I’ve ever seen, tall in height and enormous in scope; some of them could take up half a wall in my apartment back in San Diego.

  “Wow,” I say, craning my neck as I look up. “This is gorgeous. Just gorgeous.” But so is the one next to it, and the one after that, and after that. I begin to see a pattern in the styles, like all artists have, and realize that a few of these were painted by the same person.

  “Well, are you ready to go?” Luke says from behind. “There’s so many places I’d like to take you.”

  My head snaps around, and I’m confused by his sudden disinterest in the paintings. But now that I think about it, he started to seem disinterested a few rows down. I didn’t think anything of it before, but now with his sudden suggestion that we leave just when some of the larger paintings are actually taking my breath away—Oh … wait a minute … no way.

  I search his eyes and his face for the answer. He appears uncomfortable, though trying hard to suppress it.

  Just the thought of it being true takes my breath away a little. My eyes move from Luke and the painting next to me, and back at Luke and then the painting again. Finally I decide only to look at the painting, the rich, dark sky with rolling gray and purple and red clouds. The vast, endless field of high dry grasses, stroked with yellows and browns, their tops leaning in the same direction as if a strong wind is forcing them over. A woman stands tall amid the grass, her long, blond hair blowing in the breeze, her black dress clinging to her form and blowing briskly behind her in a graceful tail of silken fabric. It looks so real I feel like I can walk right into it and join her.

  The painting beside it is just as stunning and lifelike, even frightening. A great wall of rock climbs a thousand feet into the sky, blanketed by lush greenery that crawls the stone like millions of fingers, gripping and tearing their way to the top. Down below, at the base of the mountain, a tiny valley of rolling green hills covers the surface, and a pencil-thin pathway made by man snakes along in one direction as it spreads out into the center of what looks like the bottom of the world. At the top of the ancient stone wall, I spot four tiny figures sitting on rocks perched over the edge, and other tiny human figures standing at the bottom looking up through beams of sunlight and large swaths of shadow cast by the scaling rock above.

  I look again at Luke, but he’s no longer looking back at me; he seems lost in the painting, but also just … lost. His smile is gone. That bright, playful personality I’ve grown so easily captivated by, seems shadowed by some kind of darkness.

  “Luke?”

  He snaps out of it and the smile returns quickly as if nothing at all had just invaded his mind.

  “Are you ready?” he asks again.

  I shake my head slowly. “No,” I tell him and turn to the painting again. Glancing in the far right corner, I see initials, Luke’s initials,
I realize when I think back to his full name, which Paige had pulled out of him—Luke Michael Everett. LME stares back at me, so small I might never have seen it if I weren’t precisely looking for it.

  “You painted this, didn’t you?”

  FOURTEEN

  Sienna

  I can hardly believe this; I mean I can, but it’s so … No, this is unreal to me. I feel my lips spreading across my face, my eyes getting brighter. Absently, I reach out my hand and touch his wrist underneath my fingertips.

  “Tell me,” I urge him, feeling like I’m going to burst with impatience. “Are these your paintings?”

  He smiles gently and nods. “These two are”—he points to my left—“and that one is. A few smaller ones you already saw are mine.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” I’m just so absolutely floored by his talent, and the fact that he didn’t tell me right away, that I’m beside myself over it.

  “Well, I don’t really like people to know. I mean, it’s not a humble thing, per se.” He laughs. “It’s just that painting is very personal to me. I don’t do it much anymore. Not like I used to. But this here”—he waves a hand about the room, palm up—“being on display like this, it makes me uncomfortable.”

  “But why?” My fingers are still on his wrist. “These are … I can’t even … Seriously, Luke, you have a gift.”

  Suddenly his hand turns over and his fingers lock around mine tightly. I can’t breathe all of a sudden.

  “Why, thank you,” he says and raises his chin, grinning, trying to inject a little humor in the moment. “But really it’s just a hobby.”

  My chin draws back, and I shake my head at the absurdness of his comment. “Oh, this is more than a hobby, Luke. You don’t just wake up and paint something like this with this much detail and passion. No, this”—I point at the painting of the woman in the field and then at the one of the bottom of the world—“this is a part of you, like an arm or a leg, and you can’t convince me otherwise. How long have you been doing this?”

  “Since I was nine,” he says, and instantly I begin to make the connection, but I let him explain it anyway. “Shortly after my brother got lost on that camping trip, somehow I picked up painting and it became my escape when I was afraid of everything else.”

  I squeeze his hand this time, feeling awful for what he must’ve gone through even though it was so long ago. I have a personal relationship with fear and I can relate and understand what he went through. But hearing it come from someone else—especially from Luke—makes me wonder if sometimes I use photography to escape my own fears.

  “So then what are these paintings doing here if it makes you uncomfortable?” Something dawns on me as I ask that question and then I glance up at the price tag dangling from a little piece of string taped to the canvas. Subconsciously my mouth falls open when I see $1,500 scribbled in blue ink on the little white tag.

  “I sell them every now and then,” he says, and then nods in the direction of the platform floor where we stood earlier talking to Melinda. “Not usually this large, and just a few here and there. When I—well, we actually; Alicia’s helping too—agreed to organize the event, Alicia thought I should sell the larger ones, too.” He shrugs. “I thought, why not?”

  My eyes grow wider as I look up at his paintings again.

  “But why didn’t you want me to know?”

  His smile fades a little. “Well, it’s not really that I didn’t want to show you, but—” He stops abruptly and instantly I get the feeling he’s going over in his mind what kind of answer he wants to give, even if it’s not the truth.

  I step around in front of him and look at him with all the interest and curiosity and consideration that I can manage because it feels exactly like a moment in which it’s needed.

  “Well,” he says, burying both of his hands deep in the pockets of his khakis, “if you knew they were mine you probably wouldn’t tell me if you thought they sucked.”

  I throw my head back and laugh lightly.

  “You’re kidding, right?” My hand shoots out and I press it gently to the center of his chest and give him a playful shove. He teeters a little on the heels of his loafers and cracks a smile.

  “Pu-lease!” I roll my eyes for added effect. “You know as well as anybody that these paintings are far from ‘sucking.’ ” I laugh again, and my purse strap begins to fall off my shoulder, bringing my dress strap down with it. Luke reaches out and catches the strap of my dress with his finger and slowly slides it back into place. The touch, although light, sends shivers up my arm. I swallow anxiously and my eyes begin to wander. Toward the floor, to his feet, then to his shirt and his tanned, muscled arms pressed against the rolled-up blue sleeves, and then to his neck and ultimately back into his eyes again.

  With my camera still in hand, I step over to Luke’s side and say with a really bad English accent, “Mind if I photograph you with your masterpiece?”

  Immediately he begins to shake his head. “Oh no,” he says, waving a hand at me. “I really don’t think I—”

  “Come on, just a few quick shots,” I urge him.

  Still he doesn’t look convinced.

  “Pleeease?” I say with all the sweetness I can muster and top it off with a smile. It must be infectious because now he’s smiling back at me and I find a heat in it this time that I’ve never felt before.

  “All right.” He gives in, and I feel my face light up like a Christmas tree.

  Luke steps up to the painting of the Bottom of the World and stands in front of it with a shy awkwardness, his hands buried in his pockets again, his shoulders stiff with uncertainty. Dropping my purse on the floor beside my sandaled feet, I shake my head at him and wave my free hand.

  “No—crouch down in front of it”—I step up and point out the perfect spot with the tips of my toes—“right about here.”

  When I step out of the way, Luke does as I instruct and crouches, the top of his shoulder overlapping the base of the painting.

  “Just look natural,” I go on, “and don’t look at me, but off in the distance. And don’t smile.”

  Luke sits crouched on the pads of his feet, his heels raised from the floor, with his elbows resting on the tops of his thighs, his hands dangling stiffly between them. I move several feet away and stand at an angle so that I’m not directly in line with him and the painting and I start snapping shots. Six, twelve, eighteen, as many as I can and all in different angles.

  Finally I put the camera away and Luke pushes himself up on his toes.

  “So, um”—he waves a hand about the vast room—“you got any event planning pointers?” he says distractingly, changing the subject, and it’s so cute I can’t help but smile.

  I pucker my lips, cross one arm over my stomach, and raise my other hand to my chin, pretending to look professional and contemplative.

  “Hmm,” I say and look to my left, and then my right, taking my time. “Well, do you have a theme?”

  Luke reaches up and nervously scratches the back of his neck.

  “No, not really,” he says. “Unless Community Charity Art Event is considered a theme?”

  I smile warmly. “Well, I mean more along the lines of”—I purse my lips in thought and then point at him—“think about a prom; there’s always a theme: a masquerade, Mardi Gras, Alice in Wonderland—there are so many things to pick from.”

  Luke looks upward in thought, slowly nodding his head.

  “That’s a good idea,” he says, and his eyes meet mine. “But there’s not a big budget for the setup. Honestly, Melinda never actually gave me a dollar amount, but I know that whatever it is, it’s not going to be a whole lot.”

  I nod and think on it another moment, chewing on the inside of my mouth gently. I’m used to money being little to no issue when it comes to events, and now that I think about it, since this is a charity event, it’s counterproductive to spend a lot on a setup when that money could go toward the charity itself.

  “OK, how
about you find out Melinda’s budget,” I suggest, “and we’ll go from there. We’ll keep it simple. Depending on what we come up with, I might have to order some things online, but I know all the right places to look and can even talk to a few people I’ve worked with before to pull us a few strings.”

  Luke looks at me in a suspicious sidelong glance.

  “Us?” he asks with implication and a grin. “No working, remember?”

  I grin back at him broadly, and with a shrug of my shoulders, I say, “It’s not the same, trust me. I would really love to help. To be honest, I’m actually kind of excited about it—my mind is already buzzing with ideas.”

  Luke doesn’t appear convinced.

  “You sure it’s not just that work addiction of yours?” he asks. “I refuse to enable you.”

  I laugh lightly. “No, it’s nothing like that at all,” I say, stepping up closer and tilting my head a little. “I really want to help. I think it’ll be fun and it’s for a good cause; I can’t think of any reason not to.”

  “Are you sure, Sienna?” His strong hands fall softly on my upper arms, sending a trail of shivers up the back of my neck. “Definitely.” I smile.

  We gaze into each other’s eyes for a moment until finally he gives in, nods, and says, “OK. If that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll get.” The palms of his hands rub up and down my arms.

  I can’t help but think there’s another, more tender meaning behind that comment, accompanied by the warmth in his eyes. I wish I could explore it further, crawl inside that beautiful head of his and listen to his thoughts because I feel like right now every single one of them is about me—I’ve never felt so … special.

  “And no stressin’ out, yah hear me?” he says with narrowed eyes. “The second I sense it feels like work to you, I’m pulling you outta there; I’ll throw you over my shoulder, kickin’ and screamin’ if I have to.”

  “All right,” I say with laughter in my voice.

  “Of course, that’s not the only thing you’ll be doing while you’re here,” he points out. “I’d like to have you all to myself most of the time.”