The Art of Us

by KL Hughes

  Alexandra Woodson’s green eyes haunt from nearly every surface, in pictures and paintings, doodles and drawings, and in the largest depiction of her, which hangs just over a full-sized mattress shoved into the back corner of the studio. Dark gray sheets and two worn pillows decorate the bed where Charlee sleeps when she’s home alone, the bed she swears still holds Alex’s scent.

  Stepping into this room is like stepping back in time. It’s a way for her to disappear into the past every chance she gets, and she knows. She knows what it must look like to someone who can’t see inside her, to someone who doesn’t—who can’t understand—but Charlee hasn’t felt like herself in so terribly long. All these little pieces, all these memories—they’re reminders of when she was truly happy, when she knew who she was and where she was headed. When everything was as it was supposed to be. Surrounding herself with all these pieces, with the past, with Alex—makes her feel connected and inspired, creative and alive. Even when it hurts, it makes her feel like she’s home.

  “I never told you about her because I never talk about her.” Charlee crosses her arms and leans against the open doorway. “I never talk about her because it hurts to talk about her. It hurts because I still want her. I never stopped wanting her. We had a future planned. We had a life we were supposed to live together, but everything just got so messed up, and then…”

  Her breath stutters between her teeth, stings in her throat as she blinks away tears. “When things fell apart, it wasn’t like a breakup for me. It was a loss, like losing a part of myself, because she wasn’t just my first love. She was my soul mate. She is my soul mate, and it’s impossible to explain what it feels like to have that space inside you filled up so completely and then have it drained out again.”

  “This is why you never let anyone come in here.” Chris stares into the room. His lips are still parted, eyes wet, and the sight of it makes Charlee feel sick and guilty. “I thought you loved me.”

  “I do.” She wraps her arms tighter around herself, a brief comfort. “I do love you, Chris, but not—”

  “Not the way you love her.”

  She blows a cool breath up toward her burning eyes. “I wanted to,” she says. “I tried to, but I could never make myself give her up. I could never make myself give all of this up. The life we had together and the life we were supposed to have together.” She waves a hand, indicating the messy room. “A part of me never stopped hoping she would come home so we could just pick up where we left off. Part of me never stopped believing she would.”

  Glancing around the room, she lingers on little pieces. She bites the inside of her cheek until she tastes the faint hint of blood. “I’m so sorry,” she says in a whisper. “I never should’ve gotten involved with someone, but I wanted to try. I wanted to feel something again. God, I was desperate to feel something again.” Tears finally break, drip down and over her chin, disappearing in their descent to the floor. “And you were so sweet to me. You are, and I wanted to feel the way for you that I do for her, but I just can’t. I can’t, and I’m sorry.”

  They stand together in silence, Chris’s back to her and Charlee’s heart in her throat. When he finally does turn, he moves swiftly and surprises her by gently cupping her cheeks and leaning his forehead against hers.

  “I’m in love with you, Charlee,” he says, tilting up just enough to kiss the corner of her mouth. He holds her face in his hands as if he’s trying to memorize the softness of her skin, and Charlee closes her eyes. She lifts her hands to wrap her fingers around his arms, runs her thumbs over the insides of his wrists, and does her best to hold onto this moment. This goodbye.

  “No one else is ever going to be enough for you, are they?” Charlee feels the break in his voice as if it’s inside her, cracking open her heart in a way she knows will leave a scar. “I won’t ever be enough for you.”

  She releases Chris’s wrist to rest one hand on his chest, just over his kind heart. “I’m so sorry,” she says again, and she hopes he knows how much she means it, how long those words will echo inside her.

  Chapter 9

  “Stealing my favorite mug again, I see.”

  Alex sipped at her freshly brewed coffee and hummed. “It’s my favorite too.” She turned the mug in her hands to look at it. A cartoon lightbulb looked back at her, two squiggly arms stretching over its brilliant yellow head like they were holding up the phrase scrawled above them. Alex chuckled to herself as she read it, then looked up to find Drew smiling at her.

  “Can I get a watt watt?”

  They said the words in unison, and Drew’s smile widened. “Never gets old,” he said, ruffling Alex’s sleep-mussed hair before moving around her to grab a glass from the corner cabinet.

  Charlee walked into the kitchen, rubbing her tired eyes, and made her way toward the refrigerator. “You two are total nerds.” She took a glass from her dad as she passed and filled it with the freshly squeezed organic orange juice her mother insisted on buying every week from Whole Foods.

  “Don’t be jealous, Charlee,” Alex said.

  “Jealous of what?” Charlee smacked a brief kiss to Alex’s cheek and shuffled over to the island to sit down. “Ridiculous puns that would only make a ten-year-old laugh?”

  “Wow. I must be a genius to be in college at only ten years old. That’s impressive.”

  “You think that’s impressive?” Drew poured some orange juice for himself and took a sip. “Try having a wife and a kid and being a full-time engineer at only ten years old. That’s impressive.”

  “That must be incredibly challenging, sir,” Alex said.

  “Yes, miss, it truly is.” With a dramatic sigh, he held up his juice. “Orange you glad you don’t have to deal with that, Charlee?”

  Alex snorted into her coffee.

  Charlee rolled her eyes. “I hate both of you.”

  “When I die, I’m willing my coffee mug to Alex,” Drew said, grinning. “She can torture you with it ’til death do you part.”

  Alex laid a hand over her heart. “I’m touched.”

  “You should be.”

  “What are you leaving in your will for me?”

  Drew tilted his head as if pondering Charlee’s question. “I’ll will Alex to you.”

  “Oh, lucky you, Charlee,” Alex said with a rare toothy grin, and Charlee sighed.

  Keeping her eyes on her girlfriend, she said, “You can’t will Alex to me, Dad. She’s already mine.”

  Alex winked at her over the rim of her mug, the warm ceramic pressed to her chin as she held it just under her nose. She swore, in that moment, that coffee and home smelled exactly the same.

  Alex rests her forehead against the wooden door of an upper cabinet, her stomach touching the countertop, and stares down into her coffee. She traces along the worn image of the cartoon lightbulb, years of oily skin having eroded away bits of yellow and black. The ceramic is hot under her fingertips, almost burning, but she doesn’t pull away.

  That burn is a searing brand, keeping her firmly in the present even as every cell in her body yearns to be yanked back into the past.

  Her body feels heavy, like there are stones on her chest and chains tied to her ankles. For days, every movement has felt slow and sluggish, like she’s trying to wade through rapidly drying cement. Every thought feels as if it is being run through a sieve. The mushy pulp of the person she used to be presses through against her will, thoughts of Charlee always seeping in between the wires—dominating, surviving. Every inch of her is eaten up with used to be and almost and forbidden, and her skin is fucking crawling.

  “Hey.”

  Alex closes her eyes at the sound of Kari’s voice. She clutches onto her mug and lets out a long, quiet breath before summoning every ounce of energy she has left in her bones and standing up straight. Turning around, she forces the hard line of her lips into a partial smile, and says, “Morning.”
>
  In the open space of their small kitchen, they’ve been flung apart across entire galaxies. They float in their opposite orbits, staring at each other from afar, and Alex feels sick to her stomach. When had she untethered herself? How had she gotten this far?

  “You’re up early,” Kari says, rubbing at her right eye under the thick, orange-rimmed, square glasses she wears when she doesn’t have her contacts in. She’s dressed in a pair of Alex’s plaid boxer briefs, which hug her wide hips so tightly they strain, and a loose-fitting white cotton T-shirt. Despite this having always been Alex’s favorite way to see her, she can’t bring herself to soak in the sight today. Her gaze darts around as if she is desperate for something, anything else to absorb. “The sun’s not even up yet.”

  Alex nods curtly but says nothing, still clutching her mug like a lifeline. She holds it just over her chest, trying to warm a path through the icy walls she sculpted under her ribs sometime between the whisper of Charlee’s breath against her cheeks and now.

  “I guess you’ve got a lot to get done with the banquet coming up.” Kari shifts on her socked feet and uses her index finger to scratch at a place behind her ear. Visibly uncomfortable.

  Alex clears her throat, skin still crawling. The sensation only intensifies with every shift of Kari’s feet. Mutual discomfort and a tense strain have spawned between them over the last few months, like a cancer hidden just beneath her exterior.

  “Yes,” she says. “This is the first big event for the new branch, so it has to be flawless. That means extra hours for me, and the holidays certainly aren’t helping with lightening the load. Scheduling’s a bit of a nightmare right now.”

  Kari crosses to the coffee machine, skirting around Alex. “Are we still having dinner with your sister next week?” She grabs a mug from the cabinet and sets it up for a new brew.

  A quiet groan escapes Alex as she moves out of Kari’s way. “I completely forgot about that. I’ll have to call her later today to see if she’s finalized any plans. It might be better to cancel.”

  “I really don’t want to cancel.” Kari turns and leans her back against the counter. “It’s been months. She lives less than five miles from us, and I still haven’t met her.”

  Alex closes her eyes and lifts a hand to knead at one aching temple. “Fine. All right.”

  “Alex.”

  “No, you’re right. I’ll make it work.”

  “Thank you.”

  Alex hums in response and heads toward the living room. “I’ve got to go.”

  “I’m guessing you’ll be home late?”

  “Most likely.” Alex glances back to see that Kari has followed her into the living room, and the disappointment in her dark eyes is as clear as the morning light spilling through the windows as the sun begins to rise. Both are blinding.

  Alex places her mug down on an end table and grabs her coat from the rack on the back of the front door. She dons it along with gloves and a hat. Her gloved fingers tremble when she picks up her coffee again, and she turns her attention back to her girlfriend. Her stomach sinks down into her knees. “I’m sorry, Kari.”

  Every word feels sticky between her lips, sticky with the present and the past and the static cling of Charlee’s sweaty fingers at the small of her back. More than a week has passed, and Alex still feels like she is hiding under a quilt in Charlee’s childhood bedroom. Pretending.

  When Alex turns to face her again, Kari’s gaze is a mess of all the things that have gone unsaid, all the things Alex knows she wants to say, all the things Alex knows will break their fragile structure and teach them the catastrophe of collapse.

  Kari’s voice is nearly inaudible when she says, “I miss you.”

  Alex swallows thickly and forces a smile. “I know,” she says. “But things will go back to normal once the banquet is done.” Her grip on the doorknob is painful as she steps through the frame. “All of this will be over before you know it.”

  “Is there a reason you’re calling me at eight-fucking-a.m., or do you just want me to hate you?”

  “I’m calling to remind you about dinner next week.” As she swivels in her office chair, Alex stares down at the latest copy of the banquet guest list. The seating chart is tucked just under it, both having changed three damned times already. “Thursday night. Seven o’clock at the Oyster Bar.”

  “Alex, I literally can’t even function right now.”

  “Fine.” Alex huffs into the phone. “I’ll text you the information, then.”

  “Better.”

  “It’s your responsibility to mark it on your calendar, though, Vinaya.”

  “Yes, Mother. Thank you, Mother. Go away now, Mother.”

  “I’m serious,” Alex says. “This dinner is the last thing in the world I have time for right now—”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “—but Kari is determined, so making this happen for her is the least I can do.”

  “Damn.” Vinny’s voice is muffled as if her face is still half-buried in her pillow. “Someone in the doghouse?”

  Alex turns in her chair to put her back to her work, tired of looking at it. She stares at the back wall instead, empty but for a few photographs from various successful events she planned and hosted. She hasn’t had much time to focus on decorating, and she never much cared for it anyway. Work should feel like work, not home, and a cluttered office is an unproductive one. “I just haven’t had much time for her lately,” she says. “This banquet has been demanding.”

  “You sure that’s all there is to it?”

  “Yes.” She doesn’t manage to sound quite as convincing as she intends, and Alex hopes Vinny is too tired to press her on it.

  But she knows better.

  “Sure you’re not avoiding her?”

  Alex scoffs, despite the guilty pulse in her chest. “Of course I’m not avoiding her. Why would I be avoiding her?”

  “Maybe because you almost kissed your ex and then laid in bed with her for an hour in your underwear, crying about the past. I don’t know, Alex. Maybe that. You tell me.”

  Alex squeezes the phone in her hand until her fingers hurt. “Vinaya.”

  “Alexandra.”

  “Stop.”

  “You tell your girlfriend about that yet?”

  “I’m hanging up now.”

  “I’ll take that as a no.”

  “Seven o’clock on Thursday,” Alex says, and she doesn’t give her sister a chance to respond before she slams her thumb over the End Call button and thankfully hears the line go dead.

  “Nice ass.”

  Charlee jerks and nearly topples over from where she’s bent in front of one of her display cases, wiping down the glass. She’s been cleaning for hours. Vinny is there when she turns around, in a pair of leather chaps over jeans, a leather jacket over a red top, and her trademark black motorcycle boots. Her blue-streaked, dark-blonde hair rests in a knot at the nape of her neck, and her helmet is propped under her right arm. She leans against the wall just inside the main door of the gallery, one leg propped up and a smirk settled on her lips. Charlee rolls her eyes at the sight.

  “Really, Vin?”

  “Really, Char?” She kicks off the wall and makes her way across the room. Glances around the place, taking it in. “So, I’m finally seeing the inside of the great CPC.”

  “Charlee Parker Creations at your service,” Charlee says, motioning for Vinny to follow her to the small minibar at the back of the gallery’s showroom. “Something to drink?”

  “It’s one in the afternoon.”

  Charlee arches a brow. “Something to drink?”

  Vinny laughs and points to the small refrigerator just behind the bar. “Tell me you’ve got a beer in that mini fridge.”

  “Of course.” Charlee grabs a bottle, pops the top off with the bottle opener built into the bar, and p
asses the drink to her guest. “So, we’re back to friendly visits now that your sister is back?”

  “To be fair, you’re the one who told me to stop calling and coming around.” Vinny drops onto a barstool and sets her helmet to the side.

  Charlee reaches across the bar for Vinny’s beer. She smacks her lips after a quick sip. Avoids Vinny’s gaze. “I know. I’m sorry about that.”

  “Don’t be. You did what you had to do. It wasn’t easy for you, I know.”

  Charlee grabs a towel from a drawer and wipes her brow. A quick look down confirms that it creates a ridiculous bulge between her breasts when she stuffs it down into the front pocket of her denim overalls. “That’s an understatement.”

  “Okay, so it totally sucked for both of us,” Vinny says. “But still, I get it. I got it then, and I get it now.” When Charlee doesn’t look up at her, Vinny taps the bar with the palm of her hand. “Stop moping.”

  “There are just a lot of things I think I should have done differently. I think if I could go back—”

  “Don’t do that,” Vinny says. “Thinking like that will eat you up if you let it. Focus on what’s in front of you.”

  “You’re in front of me.”

  A wide grin stretches Vinny’s lips. “Exactly.”

  Charlee shakes her head and laughs. “What are you doing here?”

  “Fine. Truth time.” Vinny drums her hands against the bar. “I’m here because I’m wondering why the hell my sister called me this morning to remind me about dinner with her and Kari next week.”

  Charlee does her best to ignore the lurch in her stomach. “Well, using basic logic, I’m going to assume it was so you wouldn’t forget about dinner next week.”

  “Obviously. I meant why am I having dinner with Alex and Kari?”

  Hearing their names paired together claws at Charlee’s ears, itches at her flesh. She tries not to feel so affected by it, tries not to let it soak in and sting, but it does. It does. Her stomach rolls without her consent, and her chest aches with the same raw rebellion.