We managed to keep things fairly chaste the rest of the night—holding hands, kissing briefly and infrequently. However, that moment we’d nearly lost control seemed to haunt us. I would catch her looking at me, eyes dark and hungry, and I’m sure she caught me doing the same.
She left the wedding fairly early, her injuries wearing on her, and as we stood outside on the sidewalk waiting for her driver to show up, we kept a wary distance, only kissing the briefest of good-byes before she climbed in and disappeared.
I didn’t know if the kissing meant we were a couple again. It seemed to, of course, since friends don’t kiss like that, but we would need to talk about it and make it official. If we decided we were together, I still didn’t know when we’d be ready to make love again. But one thing was now very certain: when we were ready, we would tear each other apart.
Chapter Twenty-three
Happily, Amelia was overjoyed when I told her about my art show. I’d been afraid she would feel betrayed, since I was using a gallery unassociated with her company, but it wasn’t an issue. In fact, she seemed to think it was a good idea to keep my art separate from her business, to avoid any taint of favoritism. She did, however, use some of her influence for promotions, and the gallery owner told me in the days leading up to the show that he’d received more inquiries about it than for anything he’d ever held there. Teddy and Kit had called and let me know that they’d been pushing the show too, telling nearly everyone that came to the restaurant how great I was and showing off the painting they’d already bought. All of this served to make me both more excited and more nervous about the show than I already was. I wanted it to be a success, of course, but it was terrifying to think that a lot of people might be there, too, all of whom would be looking at my work and talking about me.
On the morning of the opening, Amelia showed up at my place early, and I realized as I opened the door for her that it was the first time since I’d known her that she’d taken a day off except for a vacation or holiday. In the week and a half since the wedding, things had progressed quickly with the liquidation of the Winters Corporation. Most of the inventory had been shifted to other dealers, and with that almost entirely taken care of, Amelia was spending a good deal of her time talking to gallery owners and museums around New Orleans, the state of Louisiana, and other parts of the South, trying to secure new positions for her employees. Luckily for them, experience working for Amelia Winters was like a gold star on their resumes. Most of the art-restoration specialists had already found positions, and several people from her sales team had also been placed. It was Amelia’s hope to have everything wrapped up by mid-to-late May, a full month ahead of the schedule she’d originally set for herself. Despite the long hours she was still pulling, I had never seen her so carefree and lighthearted. It was clear from her buoyancy that she was making the right decision.
The opening night of my show was scheduled to begin at eight that evening, but Amelia was over early that morning for moral support. She knew how jittery I’d been. She handed me a large bouquet of white roses and gave me a quick kiss. I ushered her inside, still nervous to have her in my place. She’d been over briefly once or twice since the accident, but this would be the first time she would stay more than a few minutes. Also, my apartment was a snake pit of chaos, with promotional flyers everywhere and serious evidence of my lack of homemaking skills. Plates and coffee cups littered nearly every surface in the living room, and a distinct odor was emanating from my kitchen that I hadn’t had time to address. Amelia took one look around and started laughing.
Seeing my face, she tried to stifle her glee, but she had to struggle to stop. “I’m sorry, honey. It’s just that no one looking at you would think you were such a slob.”
“I can’t help it! I just haven’t had time to clean up. Between the wedding, setting up at the gallery, and finishing my new painting, I’ve been swamped.”
She tried to make her expression serious and failed, grinning at me. “So how is the new painting going?”
I sighed. I knew now that I shouldn’t have promised to create a new piece in three weeks. While my previous painting had come together quickly, I hadn’t had the extended, uninterrupted time I did last time to work on my new one. The new piece was, however, going to be the centerpiece of the show, so I had to complete it by tonight.
Seeing my hesitation, she gave me a hug. “Listen—why don’t you go work on it, and I’ll clean up a little around here. Does anything else need to be done today? I’m all yours.”
I handed her my cell phone. “If you could field my calls, you’ll do more than enough. Every time I start working on something, someone interrupts me. If I could have two hours to myself, I might be able to figure out what I need to do.”
She took my phone from me, saluted, and then winked. “I’ll expect payment in full tonight.”
I couldn’t help but blush. Having attended many, many art-show openings, I knew mine would likely last until well past midnight. Two days ago, without thinking about the implications, I’d invited Amelia to spend the night after the show. My invitation had come from a concern for her well-being—I didn’t want her to have to drive home that late. She was recovering but still weak and easily tired. Her company uses a luxury-car service she could have called instead, but I hadn’t thought of it at the time. The second the invitation was out of my mouth, however, I realized what it might mean to her. She’d agreed instantly, and the sexual tension between us had ratcheted up considerably since.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to sleep with her—just the opposite. Lately I could hardly bear it when we separated every night. My desire and frustration was a growling, hungry animal in the pit of my stomach. Since the wedding, we’d kissed again once or twice a day, but we were both still very shy and hesitant with each other. Moreover, we hadn’t yet had the talk about what we were now. We seemed more like a couple than we had before the wedding, but we certainly weren’t back to where we’d been before the breakup. So yes, I wanted her, desperately, but I wasn’t sure we were ready to start sleeping together again.
I was about to say something along these lines when the doorbell rang. Sighing, I turned to the door, surprised to find my Aunt Kate on the other side. She was holding a basket full of muffins and a small bouquet of wildflowers. Her smile faded slightly when she spotted Amelia, but only for a moment. She handed the flowers to me and came inside.
“I just thought I’d stop in to see if you needed anything, Chloé.” She glanced around the room. “And it looks like you could use some help.”
I closed the door, my frustration getting the better of me. “What difference does it make what my place looks like? I’ll clean tomorrow.”
They stared at me with the same confused and hurt expression, and I felt instantly terrible. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’m just nervous. Aunt Kate, Amelia came over to help, too. She’s going to be answering my phone and cleaning. Maybe you two can work together.”
They looked at each other, clearly a little anxious at the prospect of extended time alone, but I decided to force the issue. I was sick of pussyfooting around the two of them—they’d have to figure it out on their own.
“Okay then,” I said. “I’m heading upstairs to paint.”
I closed the door to my studio and almost sagged with relief. I could only just manage the strain. When I’d decided to throw a show, I’d thought it would be an exercise in forcing myself to be more open about my work, but I’d grown to regret it. Now that the show was finally here, and people would be looking at and judging my work—and by extension, me—I was sick with nerves. This was another reason I was struggling with my new painting. Usually I painted in complete seclusion. Although I usually showed my work to close friends and family members, before this it had never faced the scrutiny of strangers. Now I was painting with a much larger audience in mind, and my creativity was suffering.
I took a deep breath and approached my easel. I’d thrown a drop
cloth over it two days ago, sick of the sight of it, and hadn’t looked at it since. Carefully, almost as if I were afraid of it, I drew back the cloth and looked at it fully for the first time in a long time. What I saw was a pleasant surprise.
I usually paint landscapes and street scenes, rarely people, and when I do have human figures, they’re minimized and unrecognizable. The Impressionists are my direct influences, but my color palette has always been more vibrant and louder than their muted tones. I’m interested in the physical spaces around me at the time of my painting. While I was in Paris, all of my work consisted of French scenes and landscapes, and now that I was back in New Orleans, the same was true.
My current piece depicted a dilapidated house I’d always loved in the Marigny. It was about four blocks from my current apartment, and I used to walk by it all the time. The house had been abandoned during Katrina, and now it sat silently sagging and rotting amidst the colorful Victorians and Painted Ladies on either side of it. It wasn’t a large house. Unlike some of the neighbors, it had one story with a full front porch. Judging from the outside, it had perhaps two or three bedrooms, but even when it was in good shape, I’d never actually been inside.
I remembered the house from when I was younger, before Katrina, as a showpiece for the whole neighborhood. As a kid and young adult, I passed it nearly every day on the bus to school or college and always wondered what it would be like to live there. When I saw it for the first time after Katrina, my heart actually hurt for it. A large tree had fallen on the roof, and for whatever reason, the owners simply abandoned it and never came back. Looking at it after the storm was like seeing the wreck of an old friend. Almost ten years later it was even worse than it’d been. I often walked by wondering why it hadn’t been torn down.
In my new painting, one half of the house was falling apart, reflecting its current condition. That half of the piece was dark, with lots of blues, grays, and dark greens, like the house was today. The other half of the painting showed the house as it once was, with sunny skies and bright, stunning yellows and reds. Two days ago when I was working on it, the whole thing had begun to seem contrived and derivative, but now, looking at it closely, I was proud of the way it had turned out. I realized in an instant what it needed to be complete and started immediately.
Several hours later, I was initialing the corner of the painting when I heard a tentative knock at my studio door. I set my brush down, satisfied, and called out. “Yes? Come on in.”
Aunt Kate opened the door slowly and poked her head in. Having lived with me growing up and, more recently, for a couple of months last autumn, she knew that I often became upset when someone interrupted me in my studio. I smiled at her to reassure her, and she came into the room with more confidence, holding a cup of coffee. I took it from her gratefully. A moment later, I saw her eyes fix on the painting behind me. Like with so much of my work before it, she would be the first person to see the painting.
She stared at it for a long time as if mesmerized, unblinking and unmoving. I sipped at my coffee nervously, waiting for her verdict, but she stared at it in silence for what felt like an eon. Finally, she turned to me with tears in her eyes.
“I used to walk by that house all the time,” she said. “It was always my favorite before the storm.”
My shoulders relaxed with relief, and I nodded. “Me, too. I can’t help but love it still.”
She nodded and looked back at it, still teary. “It’s wonderful, Chloé. It’s like looking at time itself—destruction and rebirth in an endless cycle. Anyone that lives around here will recognize it immediately, and those that don’t will love it anyway.”
I heard another tentative knock on the door, which was still partway closed, and Amelia appeared in the doorway a moment later. “I heard you talking in here, so I thought it was probably safe.”
Like my aunt, her eyes were drawn to the painting, and she froze. Her eyebrows went up to her hairline, and she walked over to the painting, bending down to peer at it closely. A moment later, she looked back at me with an expression of startled surprise.
“You know this house?” she asked, pointing at it.
“Well, yes,” I said. “It’s always been one of my favorites.”
Amelia burst out laughing, and Aunt Kate and I shared a confused glance. Seeing our expressions, Amelia laughed even harder, and it took her a few moments to calm down. She was wiping at her eyes, clearly still amused.
“Why are you laughing?” I couldn’t prevent my petulant tone. I hadn’t expected her to love my painting, but I didn’t like her laughing at it.
She realized her error and shook her head quickly. “I’m not laughing at you or your painting, Chloé. In fact, I love it.” She came closer and pulled me into her arms, giving me a solid kiss on my cheek before letting me go. “I’m simply laughing at the coincidence.”
“What coincidence?”
She looked at me levelly for a moment and then shrugged. “It was going to be a surprise, but I think I just gave it away.”
“Gave what away?”
“When was the last time you looked at the house in your painting?”
I couldn’t remember. While I’d grown up passing it nearly every day, and had looked at it several times since I got back to New Orleans last fall, it wasn’t on my regular route to anything now. I had painted from memory.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. A couple of months? Maybe more?”
Amelia looked at Kate. “You know this house, too, I take it?”
Kate nodded.
“But you haven’t seen it in a while either, right?”
Kate hesitated and then shook her head. “No. I guess not. It’s not on my way here, so I don’t know when I saw it last.”
I could see Amelia’s glee, but I wasn’t sure what it meant. “Why are you asking, Amelia? Do you know something about it?”
She nodded. “It might be better to show you. Come with me.”
Aunt Kate and I shared a confused look but wordlessly agreed to go along with her. I took off my smock, and the two of us followed Amelia outside, down the street, and around the corner. We walked for about three blocks in silence, Amelia ahead of us.
About a block from the house I’d painted, she paused and turned back to us. “As you might know, it’s very difficult to buy a house in the Marigny. The neighborhood has only a few open rentals most of the time and even fewer places for sale. Anything available to buy tends to be small—half of a shotgun—or really big.”
I’d had a little experience with this reality when I was looking for a rental a few months ago, so I nodded.
“As you also know, my dad’s in real estate, and he’s had his eye out for a smaller, single-family home in this area for years now. The market here is so lucrative, he actually hasn’t had any luck. Every house he’s tried to buy has been poached from under him. Then, a couple of months ago, he finally saw something for sale, but when he showed up for the open house, I’m sure by now you understand what he saw.”
My heart was in my throat now. I knew exactly what he’d seen—I’d been painting it all day. “He found a rotting pile of boards overgrown with vines.”
She grinned. “He decided to go ahead and buy it, thinking that, at the very least, he could build a new house on the same lot.”
She turned and started walking again, and I was suddenly scared to see what had happened. While I knew the best thing for the neighborhood, and for the house really, was for the rotting hulk to be torn down, it also made me very sad. It was like losing an old friend. Swallowing my hurt, I followed her, wishing I could close my eyes.
As we drew nearer, however, I was surprised to see that the house was still standing. A large scaffolding stretched around the entire thing, and piles and piles of rotten wood and roofing lay all around it, but the frame of the house was, overall, still intact. I stood rooted to the sidewalk, staring with disbelief. Finally, I looked over at Amelia to find her smiling at me.
“I can
’t believe it,” I told her. “I thought it would have to be bulldozed.”
“I didn’t believe it either. When my dad told me he bought this house, I knew exactly which one he was talking about. You and I walked by it a few times last fall, and I remember thinking it would have to be demolished. After the sale, my dad had it inspected, and much to everyone’s surprise, many of its major structural elements could be salvaged. He threw a neighborhood meeting about it. It would take longer to fix it than to tear it down and rebuild, but everyone who attended the meeting, like him, voted to restore instead of rebuild. He decided to return the house to its pre-Katrina condition.”
I had tears in my eyes, and when I looked at Kate, she too seemed a little choked up. Despite the decade that had passed, Katrina was an open wound in most New Orleanians’ hearts. All of us had lost something in the storm, and many people had never recovered from it. While the city had bounced back to vibrancy in many ways since, that resurgence had come at the cost of some of its history and culture. Restoring this house was like bringing back a little piece of the past.
I took Amelia’s hand. “It’s wonderful, Amelia. It really is. I’m so glad he decided to buy it and even happier that it could be salvaged. It’s always been one of my favorite houses.”
She smiled widely. “Well, that’s good, because I just bought it from him a couple of days ago.”
I stared at her, my mouth open, gaping and gasping for words. “What?” I finally managed.
She laughed. “You heard me. I was going to show it to you later this summer, when the renovations are finished, but I guess it’s better this way. You might have seen it before then and grown curious.”
I looked back at the house, tears spilling down my cheeks. “But that means—”
“I bought it for you, Chloé. For us.”
I jumped into her arms then, squeezing her tight, her cast be damned. She hugged me back, just as fiercely, and hot tears continued to spill down my cheeks. She kissed the side of my head, and I pulled back a little to kiss her mouth. When we stepped apart, my aunt was smiling and crying, her hand over her mouth. Kate grabbed Amelia by her free arm and yanked her into a hug, and I laughed in delight.
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