Canvas for Love

by Charlotte Greene

  I nodded. “I agree. If Amelia and I can get past this misunderstanding, we’re going to have our work cut out for us. We clearly have a lot of problems to work through. And maybe it won’t work out—maybe there’s been too much damage already. If that’s the case, we can break up and I can move on. But I can’t let what happened with the money be the end of things.” I shook my head. “She has to know the truth.”

  Meghan’s face contorted with disappointment and sorrow, but she eventually sighed and looked resigned. “What do you want us to do?”

  “Nothing,” I replied. “Nothing at all. Just be willing to give her another chance. She’s not alone in this mess—I didn’t trust her, either. We’re both culpable, both at fault. Just…” I gestured feebly. “Just think about it, okay? Think about how much I loved…love her. Maybe that could help you love her, too.”

  “She’s worth it,” Emma added. Everyone looked at her, and she darkened a little, seeming embarrassed. “I know it doesn’t seem like that right now, and you might not believe me because she’s my sister, but it’s true. She’s worth it.”

  Aunt Kate and Meghan shared a look and nodded before turning to me again. “I wasn’t fair to her before,” Kate said. “If you two can work this out, I promise to give her another chance.”

  Meghan heaved a big sigh. “Me, too.”

  I gave them both a long hug. For now, it was enough that they were willing to try. I could make some peace with that possibility. It might, after all, be a moot point. If I couldn’t persuade Amelia to trust me again, they might never have another chance to mend the distance between them. Still, I wanted them to understand my love for her and love her for my sake, at least, if not for hers. I wanted us to be the family we should have been from the beginning.

  Now I just had to figure out how to start.

  Chapter Seventeen

  With April fast approaching, I devoted a lot of my time the following week to wedding planning and shopping with my aunt and Meghan. Aunt Kate meant to keep the wedding small, but the guest list, as expected, had ballooned to about eighty people—the bare minimum of friends and family she could invite without causing permanent hurt feelings. And of course, despite trying to keep it casual, we still had a lot of details to take care of in the final weeks. Kate wanted my opinion about the flowers, and on Saturday, we chose the food. After some debate, she’d decided that, rather than having her ceremony at the courthouse the day before the party, they would have the entire thing—ceremony and reception—at a small venue, the beautiful St. Ann Cottage in the French Quarter. What had initially been promised as a casual get-together had, indeed, turned into an actual wedding.

  Luckily, Meghan seemed to thrive on the stress, and despite being the second fiddle, she’d already taken a lot of the maid-of-honor responsibilities off my shoulders over the last weeks as I recovered from the breakup. When we showed up on Saturday at the venue for our appointment, she seemed to know every staff member by name, and they knew her. I couldn’t help but feel guilty that I’d fallen apart right when my aunt needed my help, but I was relieved to see that Meghan had taken care of just about everything. We spent the afternoon eating everything possible on the wedding menu and debating long into the evening on the choices of food, wine, and cocktails.

  Two weeks out, almost everything for the wedding had been set into motion. My dress was fitted, the food and flowers were chosen and ordered, the cake was well on the way toward being designed, and the RSVPs were almost completely in order. I’d also been assigned three tasks to complete before the wedding. I had a list of the remaining family members and friends to call and pester for their RSVPs, I had to create the seating arrangement, and, as I had the nicest handwriting, I had to write the table-assignment cards.

  In between wedding-planning events, I spent my days painting. It was therapeutic, and I realized that I’d been craving it without being aware of what I wanted and needed. The canvas absorbed all of my pain, reflected all of my hopes and dreams, gave voice to everything inside me clamoring to get out. I wasn’t aware of most of this as it was happening. At the end of a very long day working on my new piece, when I put down my brush and looked at the finished painting, only then did I see what had gone into it, what it represented. The painting was me, entirely, and it was the best thing I’d ever produced—even I could see that.

  I had to cover the painting up with an oilcloth to get away from it. It was captivating me. The emotions were too raw, too obvious to ignore, painted on my canvas for all to see. I went downstairs to get dinner but was drawn back to the canvas, almost as if by force. Seeing my problems there on display, seeing the heartache, the love, and the anxiety in blazing colors mesmerized me. I stayed up late into the night marveling at what I’d done. This wasn’t vanity—more like fascination. Nothing I’d ever painted was more real, more vital than this picture.

  Lying in bed late that night, unable to wrench my mind away from it, something occurred to me. Recently, I’d been making small moves toward finding some work to get me through until the fall semester. I’d called a few galleries, looked at a few ads, but my search was halfhearted at best. I knew I should take a more serious path to line up some temporary work, but I was reluctant to take that next step. It would make all of this real, once and for all.

  As I lay in bed the night after I finished my new painting, however, I finally realized exactly what I could do to get by for a while. The idea was so stupidly obvious, I couldn’t imagine why I hadn’t thought of it before. Somehow, despite my excitement, the idea lulled me to sleep, and when I woke the next morning, I was more rested than I’d been since the breakup. I was certain about what I needed to do and how to do it. I just had to start.

  I called Teddy first the next morning. She’d given me her cell number, and when she answered, she seemed surprised to hear from me.

  “I’d heard that you and Amelia…” She hesitated. “I mean that you were no longer working for the Winters Corporation.”

  “You heard correctly. At least for now. The thing is, I wanted to let you know that the artist you liked is selling her work. I’m representing her and wanted to give you the first pick.”

  “Really? That’s great news.” She paused. “But wait. Won’t it make things a little awkward? I mean, we really love that piece, and we’d like to put it up in our restaurant permanently, but we’re working with Amelia for the next year. Won’t she be, I don’t know, disappointed?”

  I decided to bluff. “I guarantee she won’t be disappointed. It won’t affect your working relationship with her at all.”

  “Give me a sec.” She called her wife Kit into the room, and I could hear Kit’s excited reply. She returned to me a moment later. “When can we see the piece?”

  “I can bring it over this afternoon, if you’re free. And a portfolio of the rest of her work, if you’re interested.”

  “Sounds great. We’re closed to the public for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Come over at two and we’ll meet you in the dining room.”

  We hung up, and I spent the next couple of hours getting the painting and a portfolio ready. Amelia had taken pictures of everything I’d ever painted, but I made a printout of only the work I’d done in the last five years, as most of my juvenilia was rather limited. I also took a picture of my newest piece and printed that as well before putting all of the work in a small leather binder.

  I took a long, hot shower and spent a good amount of time on my hair and makeup. The results were surprising. For the first time in weeks, I almost looked like a normal human being. I was still a little too pale, and my clothes hung on my body, but at worst I looked like I was getting over a protracted illness, not like I was still sick.

  A few minutes before two, I tied the wooden crate with my painting to a dolly and grabbed the portfolio, heading outside and down the block to Teddy’s. It was too close to drive, and the weather was beautiful. We’d had a colder winter than I could remember in New Orleans, so the sunshine and warmth felt
like returning home again. The birds seemed to be ready for spring, too, shrieking their happiness at me as I passed beneath them in the trees.

  The restaurant was closed when I got there, but Teddy saw me and opened the door, motioning me into a darkened interior. She closed and locked the door after me and then indicated a table in the center of the room. Kit joined us a moment later, coming from the back and wiping her hands on a clean white towel. They seemed excited. I gave them the portfolio and let them leaf through it, pleased that they seemed to enjoy just about every piece they saw. When they reached the last print, a photo of my newest painting, they both stopped exclaiming and simply stared at it in silence for a long time.

  Kit looked up first. “Well, I definitely want to buy the one we’ve already seen, but this is a masterpiece.”

  Teddy nodded. “It’s incredible. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anything so evocative, so raw.”

  “I want the piece you brought, the one we saw earlier, for the restaurant, but I want this one,” Kit touched the photo, “for our house.”

  Teddy grinned at her. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.” She looked at me. “So now, of course, you’re going to fleece us silly.”

  I laughed. “No, no. In fact, since I’m her only representative, you’ll be getting a significant discount over a gallery.” I took out a small piece of paper, wrote two figures on it, and slid it over to them. “Here’s the price for each piece.”

  They both looked at the slip of paper, and I was relieved to see that, rather than horror, they smiled widely and then shared an excited look.

  “What a relief.” Kit touched her chest over her heart. “I was convinced they would cost millions of dollars.”

  I couldn’t help but flush with pride and shook my head. “No. The artist wants to make sure she’s putting her work out there for regular people to buy.”

  “Can I ask you a little about her?” Teddy asked. “I mean, what’s her story? The last time we talked, you seemed to think she wouldn’t sell. What changed?”

  I hesitated because I had no easy answer. I’d always been extremely reluctant to show my work to anyone, in part because I had no confidence in it. As an undergraduate, I’d studied fine arts with a painting focus, but my insecurity had convinced me to move on to something more certain, something safer, and I’d switched to art history in graduate school. That didn’t stop me from painting, however. I just did it thereafter for myself. When Amelia had slipped that photograph of my work into the locals’ portfolio, I’d not only been angry but also terrified. Although it wasn’t easy to see the initials I used to sign my paintings in photographs of my work, I’d still been scared they would figure it out if they looked too closely or too long. My artwork had become personal, private over the years. Showing it to people was like showing them a part of myself.

  Last night, however, as I lay in bed thinking about my newest painting, I realized that was part of the point. By sharing my work, I was sharing myself, and if people wanted to see that, I was finally ready for it because the person I’d been, the person I was before Amelia, was gone.

  I took a deep breath and let it out, firm once again in my decision. They were both looking at me, confused by my silence, and I had to smile. “I’m sorry.” I shook my head. “I’ve been deceiving you a little. These are my paintings. I’m the artist.”

  They were both amusingly shocked and then incredibly pleased.

  “Wow!” Kit said. “Chloé! You’re so talented.” She paused, and her pale face colored. “I mean, I believe that you’re talented—”

  I laughed. “I know what you meant. Thanks.”

  “Your work is amazing, Chloé, especially these new pieces. I’ve never even considered buying a painting for myself before this, and now I want them all. Why didn’t you say before?”

  “I wanted you to buy them on merit. I didn’t want to persuade you through, I don’t know, loyalty or nepotism or something.”

  Kit grabbed my hand, squeezing it. “I would have wanted to buy them anyway, Chloé. They’re wonderful.”

  Teddy nodded. “I love them.” She indicated the wooden crate. “I want you to hang that one up right now, before you leave, if you don’t mind.”

  “When will the second one be ready?” Kit asked.

  I paused. “It’s still wet. I just finished it last night, actually. I would give it another two weeks before it’s safe for delivery.”

  “Okay,” Kit said, nodding. “That will give us some time to clear some wall space at our house. Are you ever going to have a show?”

  I grinned. “Funny you should ask. That’s what I’m planning to line up next. I’m talking with some galleries this afternoon.”

  Kit smiled broadly. “Really? You’ll have to tell us all about it. We’ll hang up a poster in here and hand out flyers, if you think it will help.”

  I laughed. “Of course, it will, Kit. You’re one of the most popular restaurants in town. If I could get even a fraction of your customers to my show, I’d sell out in a week.”

  We spent the next twenty minutes hanging my painting, which I’d finished last December. It was the first thing I painted after I got back to New Orleans, and I’d spent most of last autumn working on it. My early anxieties about Amelia, my happiness about getting together with her, and my jubilation at being back in the city were all in that painting.

  When it was hung, and we all stood back to look at it, I realized this was what I’d needed all along. I needed to let those feelings go. Even if Amelia and I got back together—which still seemed very unlikely—I wouldn’t need a reminder of those early days of our courtship. That was over and done with. Hanging it here, for the world to see, put that part of my past to rest.

  “It’s incredible, Chloé. It really is,” Kit said, her voice quiet and raw.

  Teddy agreed. “I think it’s the best painting in here.”

  “Thank you,” I told them. “I’m so proud to have my work here, and I’m so glad you like it.”

  I arranged to call them when their second painting was ready for transport, and I walked back to my apartment with a light heart and a huge check in my pocket. In one hour, I’d managed to make enough money to live in my apartment for the next six months without working. Beyond the money, however, I felt unburdened for the first time in ages. Painting helped me release my emotions, but by hoarding my work like I had, I’d been keeping permanent reminders of my past heartaches around.

  Selling my work felt like letting go.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Beyond wedding activities, I spent the rest of the next week working with a local gallery to plan my first exhibition. I’d managed to find a nice venue for my work, but the timing was tight. I had just over three weeks to get my work together for my show, but I also had to deal with all the rest of the wedding planning and the wedding itself in just over a week. I stupidly started a new painting that would be the centerpiece of the show, but once I got rolling on it, I was afraid I couldn’t finish it on time. Despite being nearly overwhelmed, I was enjoying both kinds of work—the planning and the painting—because they took my mind off my disastrous personal life. If I hadn’t had the projects to distract me, I might have sunk back into bleak depression.

  By the following Friday, I hadn’t talked to Amelia for just over a month. The pain was still there, still biting, still nagging at me, but it wasn’t crippling me like it had four weeks ago. Now, as long as I stayed busy, as long as I worked so hard and so long that I dropped into bed exhausted, I could sleep and get through the day without being overcome with dread and loneliness. It was slow progress, but it was progress. I was still in daily contact with my aunt and Meghan, in part because of Aunt Kate’s wedding, and in part because they still wanted to check in with me. I didn’t exactly mind, however, and both of them seemed to trust me a little more as each day passed. Neither of them mentioned Amelia, and I didn’t talk about her, but she was there in the background of every conversation, like a ghost.
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  The day after Emma had told me and the others about the stolen money, she’d finally convinced Amelia to go to the police. In the two weeks since Emma stayed at my place, I’d heard from her exactly twice—once to tell me that the police were involved and then a week later to let me know they had made no progress. It was difficult not to call her every day for updates. Both times we talked, she told me that things were still a mess, and Amelia was still convinced I’d stolen the money. That, more than anything, was the worst part. I hated that Amelia had lied to me, that she’d covered up such a major part of her past, but I couldn’t stop feeling a combination of indignation and sorrow over how easily she’d been misled. Our love meant nothing in the face of her money.

  Amelia’s wealth had always been a problem, and I’d sensed from the beginning that it would cause more problems down the line. We’d already disagreed about it in the past when she overspent on gifts or when she seemed like a spendthrift on things I could hardly comprehend.

  The phone pulled me out of my reverie, and I set my paintbrush down to answer it. Between the wedding and my upcoming show at the gallery, I had so many people to keep in contact with right now, I had to keep the ringer on even when I was painting. I didn’t recognize the number, but my phone told me it was from Key West. I’d been expecting this call.

  “Hello? Is this Jonathan?” I asked.

  “Yes, Chloé, it’s me,” he said. Jonathan is Jim’s son, and he was staying with me for the entire week leading up to the wedding. Jim’s other sons were arriving tomorrow, but they were staying at my aunt’s. All three were coming early for some father-son / bachelor time in New Orleans before the big event. Jonathan and I had been emailing back and forth for a few days, but this was the first time we’d actually talked. His voice was a surprisingly deep baritone.