by Lea Santos
They paused at the slide, and she bent at the waist, sucking air. Gia did the same. “You cheated,” Gia told her, laughing.
She pointed to her open toes. “I evened the field.”
“And yet, I still won,” Gia said smugly, her eyes smiling.
Emie snorted. “Oh, please. I let you win. Didn’t want to damage your precious superhero ego.”
Leaning her head back, Gia guffawed over that one. Their breathing back to normal, they ran from apparatus to apparatus laughing freely. Gia swung from the monkey bars while Emie tackled the slide. She got dizzy when Gia spun her on the merry-go-round, so they took a break and sat side by side on the swings. Emie let her feet dangle and drew shapes in the gravel with the toe of her sandal. She wondered again about Gia’s upbringing and decided to broach the subject tactfully. “I bet you had a lot of fun as a kid.”
Moonlight caught the side of Gia’s face, illuminating the movement of her temple as she clenched her jaw. Finally, she looked at Emie. The chains of the swing were nestled in her crooked elbows, forearms crossed in front of her, each hand grasping the opposite chain. Slowly, she swiveled. “Emie…I should tell you something about myself.”
Everything in Emie tensed. Gia’s grave tone put her on guard. Was she an ex-con? Or married? Or straight? Yeah, that one was a little out there. She told herself to stop being ridiculous and let Gia talk. “O-okay. Go ahead.”
Gia blew out a breath and stared off at the lonely monkey bars for a moment. Without looking at Emie, Gia said, “When I was growing up, I wasn’t…a very nice person.”
The mildness of the statement after all she’d suspected nearly caused Emie to laugh, but she didn’t. The wary look on Gia’s face told her this difficult confession clearly meant a lot to her. “What do you mean?”
Gia struggled to get the explanation out. “We all have roles as children…just like Pep and Teddy have theirs now. They shape us.”
She inclined her head in agreement. “And your role was?”
Gia’s eyes met hers directly, and the shame she saw in them made her stomach drop. “I was the bully,” she choked out. “A pushy, cocky tough chick without a conscience or remorse. So filled with rage over whatever…I couldn’t see straight. I was…no better than the boys beating up Pep.”
The admission surprised Emie, and she didn’t quite know what to say. She’d never met a gentler woman than Gia Mendez. She swallowed, measured her words. “G, small children are notoriously cruel to other kids.” She bit her lip. “You know that, right?”
“It didn’t end in childhood.” Gia kicked up an arc of gravel. “I was cruel and bitter and mean until I turned eighteen. I was…a horrible person.”
“Don’t say that.” Emie reached out and touched her leg, sensing Gia needed the contact. “The you I know is kind and—”
“No. Please. Don’t give me credit where I don’t deserve it, querida.” Her body stiffened. “If it wasn’t for one man, my art teacher, I’d probably be the same way today.”
“But…but that’s absurd.”
Gia’s face jerked up.
“You’re giving this man way too much credit for the person you’ve become, Gia”—she held up a palm—“and I don’t mean to downplay how much he contributed to your personal growth. We all have mentors and guides along the path. But does he control you? Are you his puppet?”
“N-no, but—”
She leaned in and took Gia’s hand. “Honey, people change. They transform.” She paused to swallow thickly, realizing she’d just called Gia honey. True, she called her best friends honey all the time, but this felt different. She forged ahead before Gia could deny her words. “Anyone who knows you now can see what a good, gentle person you are.” A pause. “Then again, yeah, I guess you could say you’re still a bully.”
“W-what?”
Emie nodded. “It’s true. Except the only person you’re beating up now is yourself. And you don’t deserve it, G. Not one bit.”
The moment stilled so profoundly, even the tetherball chains fell silent. Gia stared at her, a myriad of emotions crossing the smooth curves and angles of her face—wonder, disbelief, gratitude, relief.
Emie had never felt so close to another person. She reached out and smoothed her palm down Gia’s cheek. “You can’t base your adult self-image on the child or teen you may have been. Angry or not.”
Gia’s throat tightened. “I could say the same to you.”
Emie sat back and blinked. “Meaning what?”
A long pause uncoiled. “Who convinced you, Em, that you weren’t worthy of love?”
Emie scoffed, raising her eyebrows and looking toward the moon. “Ah, you mean other than Vitoria Elizalde, Barry Stillman, and two hundred live audience viewers bearing signs?”
Gia shook her head once, not backing down. “That’s surface stuff, nothing you deserved. You had to have already believed it for it to have hurt you so badly.”
Emie’s eyes traced Gia’s face for a moment before she sighed and leaned her cheek against the chain of her swing. “No one told me that exactly, but I overheard something, and yeah, I guess it did guide my life choices. I’ve never pursued a relationship, focusing instead on my career.”
“What did you hear? Who said it?”
“My Tía Luz.” To her abject horror, tears rose to her eyes and one rolled down her cheek. Just like that, Gia Mendez had cracked her protective shell.
“What happened? Tell me.”
She regaled the awful story, unmindful of the fact that the first tear’s faithful followers began to plink-plunk on her lap. When she finished, Gia reached out and cupped her chin. Emie sniffed, but didn’t meet her gaze.
“Look at me, Emie. Please.”
She did. Grudgingly.
“Baby, if you could see yourself through my eyes, you’d know how beautiful you are. How amazing.” Gia’s voice whispered, caressed. “When will you listen to your best friends who think so highly of you? Ah, Em, you more than grew into the superficiality of your looks. You grew into the total package.”
Emie sniffled again, feeling somehow secure with Gia. It didn’t scare her to say what she felt. “I don’t know about that, but y-you make me feel good about myself.”
“Yeah?” A sad smile lifted one corner of Gia’s mouth. She wicked a tear off Emie’s cheek. “Then my life is complete.”
Emie’s heart expanded, and she pressed her face into Gia’s warm palm. “Now you tell me, Gia Mendez,” she asked in a tremulous voice, “was that the statement of a bully?”
A silence ensued, after which Gia grabbed the chains of Emie’s swing and pulled her closer. She trapped Emie with her legs and wrapped strong arms around her, holding her in an odd suspended embrace. The bolts above them creaked as the breeze swayed them, and the rest of the world faded into nonexistence. “Don’t speak, querida,” Gia told Emie when her lips parted. “I’m locking away this moment in my heart.”
Chapter Seven
Gia stepped back from the easel, assessing the wet canvas with a critical eye. The mood was perfect now, the changes she’d made exactly what the piece had been lacking. Pleasure surged through her. A glance at her watch told her it was almost time to meet Emie. She stuffed rags into the prized, paint-spattered coffee can she’d inherited from Mr. Fuentes and capped it. The familiar odors of linseed oil and viscous paints tickled her senses.
Red sable brushes and palette knives lay scattered like pick-up sticks across her work table. With a frown, she began to gather them. She wasn’t usually this haphazard, but she’d been so excited over finally figuring out what was lacking in the painting, she’d wanted to get the brainstorm from her imagination to the canvas as quickly as possible. She’d gotten the major work done, and the finishing touches could wait until after their trip to the mall.
Careful not to drip too much paint, Gia traversed the drop cloth–shrouded hardwood floor, then dunked the tools in Mason jars of turps she’d lined up on the small kitchen counter. The pungent,
almost spicy chemical scent permeated the room.
She’d known where she wanted to go with this painting from her first charcoal sketch, but something had been off. Try as she might, she hadn’t been able to breathe life into it. Until now.
Wiping her hands on the tattered apron she wore, Gia turned back to the portrait of Emie and smiled.
Yes.
The eyes had been wrong before, she just hadn’t pinpointed it until last night while sitting on the swings. They’d shared so much of themselves beneath the harvest moon, Gia felt like she’d really seen Emie for the first time. Had seen into her. And when Emie had looked at her that certain way…breathtaking.
She’d added a luminescence to the portrait’s eyes, a deepness to the expression, until looking at it felt like…coming home. It was sure to draw the attention of the gallery owners. Even if they weren’t turned on by the portrait, Gia hoped Emie would love it. More than anything, Gia wanted Emie to see herself with a fresh perspective—Gia’s. Maybe then Emie would recognize the power of her own feminine power. Maybe then the psychic wounds of Tía Luz’s unthinking words, of Vitoria Elizalde’s careless arrogance, of The Barry Stillman Show’s cruelty, would heal.
Gia cleaned her marble palette, then quickly tossed the crinkled paint tubes she’d used into a large Tupperware container, noticing she was low on Titanium White and Viridian Green. As she stowed the plastic tub in the refrigerator, she made a mental note to ask Emie if she minded stopping by an art supply store while they were out. She’d pick up a few fresh linen canvases, extra stretcher bars, more gesso, and a spare drop cloth while she was at it. She’d need the stock, as a multitude of new ideas had begun to whirl through her brain. She couldn’t believe how inspired she’d been since she moved here. Everything about Emie stoked her creative fire.
Clock check. Time was running out. Yanking the apron, then the T-shirt over her head, Gia stood at the sink and scrubbed paint from her hands and arms with Lava soap, then headed for the shower. She needed to call and confirm her appointment with the gallery owner, but it would have to wait. If last night with Emie was any indication, they were headed in a very intriguing direction. Gia didn’t want to miss one single moment she could spend with the lovely professor.
*
“Meow?” Emie gaped in disbelief at the tiny letters printed on the bottom of the twenty-five-dollar lipstick tube. For one, she couldn’t believe they charged twenty-five smackers for something so small and frivolous in the whole scheme of life, but more importantly, “What the hell kind of color is ‘Meow’?”
Gia moved around the glass counter and took the lipstick. She uncapped it and checked, then replaced the cap and handed it back. Her eyes sparkled with mirth. “It’s, uh, red.”
Emie scoffed, planting one fist on her hip. “So why not call it red? What pretentious idiot came up with ‘Meow’ as a color name?” A distant part of her brain registered admiration that Gia—a woman who didn’t seem to use any of these products—had no ego issues shopping for cosmetics. Even so, Emie couldn’t get past the fact that some retro Cro-Magnon jerk had named a women’s product something so base-level offensive. Meow, of all things. “My feminist core feels like it should be outraged by the implication.”
Gia chuckled, giving her a patronizing little pat on the shoulder. “Well, we’re staying away from true reds for you anyway, so pull in your claws, Miss Kitty.”
A monosyllable of disbelief escaped from her throat as she stared at Gia. One corner of her mouth, then the other quivered into a smile against her will. “Gia Mendez, please tell me you did not just say what I thought you said.”
“Okay, I didn’t.” She lifted her hands to resemble claws and made a cat-fighting noise that sounded something like, “Reeowr!”
“Oh-ho-ho, you are treading on dangerous ground, woman.” Emie set the gleaming black tube on the counter with lighthearted disgust and smacked Gia in her solid abs with the back of one hand. The shopping excursion had been enjoyable so far, their friendship having reached a higher plane. Gia seemed more comfortable with her, and Emie felt the same. Just being around Gia boosted her mood. “Miss Kitty,” she sputtered. “Jerk. I ought to—”
“I’m only teasing you.” Gia hooked an arm around her neck and pulled her playfully closer as they ambled down the department store aisle toward the next cosmetic counter. “Start looking for a nice, nonthreatening shade in the burgundy or wine family, querida. With your new hair tint, I’d like to stay with that color palette. Think your feminist core can handle that?” Gia asked, breath against Emie’s temple before releasing her.
Emie’s stomach fluttered when Gia pulled away, but in a wholeheartedly good way. In fact, she was in better spirits than she’d been in…forever. If nothing more, after the previous evening, she knew she and Gia shared a special friendship no one could ever breach. They’d confided their deepest pains in each other, and she’d gotten the impression Gia had never opened up to anyone else in such a way. But she’d trusted Emie enough to share it with her, which meant they truly were friends in the best sense of the word. She’d take that if she couldn’t have all of her. Body, mind, soul.
Despite her warm, fuzzy feelings, Emie scowled at Gia for good measure. “Don’t change the subject. I’ll get you for the Miss Kitty comment. Setting us back to the 1950s, I swear. When you least expect it, watch out.”
“I’m shaking in my boots.” Gia rolled her eyes.
A beautiful plum-colored silk and satin cocktail dress in the adjacent department caught Emie’s eye, and she approached it, reaching out to run the sensuous fabric through her fingers. The bias cut made the dress drape the mannequin in a subtly sexy way, and the brief hemline lifted it out of the ordinary category. It was exquisite. Powerfully feminine. Exactly the kind of dress Emie always wished she were daring enough to wear.
“Hey, we’re shopping for cosmetics. Remember?” Gia came up beside her and shot a brief glance at the dress.
“Sorry. I was just…” She lifted the hem once again then let the fabric drop and turned. “I’m sorry, where do you need me?”
Gia gestured to a chrome and white vinyl stool next to a pristine cosmetic display. The backlit sign boasted the line’s gentleness to sensitive skin. “Have a seat here. Enough jacking around. I’m going to ask the rep if she’ll let me test some of the products on you.”
Emie wiggled into the stool, hooking her low heels over the rung near the bottom of the chrome legs. An absurd muzak version of Will Smith’s “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It” piped through the air. All around her, shoppers eagerly handed over their hard-earned cash for the privilege of taking home promises of beauty and better sex disguised as overpriced tubes of lipstick and concealer.
Glancing around at the various cosmetic reps, Emie came to the disturbing conclusion that she wouldn’t want a makeup job like any one of these purported experts. She understood they were in the business, but many of them looked like they’d applied colors with a putty knife beneath bad lighting. A clear case of oversell. Emie watched with amusement as shoppers walked in a wide arc around an overzealous perfume demonstrator, then set her wallet on the counter with a clunk.
Her eyes sought and found Gia crossing toward an adjacent cosmetic display. Gia raised a hand and caught the attention of a white-jacketed aesthetician with come-hither eyes and a propensity for leading with her pelvis as she walked. Or perhaps it was only because she undulated toward Gia that her pelvis ran point man for the rest of her body, Emie couldn’t be sure.
When the woman’s swishing hips reached Gia, she stopped, her smile lending a whole new layer to the concept of customer service. While Gia explained and gestured, the woman batted her lashes and nodded. She leaned closer than necessary when Gia extracted some document from her wallet for the woman to inspect. After studying the item, the woman thrust out a hipbone and glanced toward Emie, her cool assessment and blatant envy zinging like an electrical bolt.
In an uncharacteristic move, Emie squared her shoulders a
nd bestowed a bet-you-wish-YOU-were-with-her smile on the makeup schlepper. Her misplaced bravado both cheered and jolted her. Yikes, when had she gotten so catty? Could Gia’s Miss Kitty comment have a basis in fact? Reeowr! The thought made her laugh.
With Ms. Pelvis gyrating alongside, Gia approached. “What’s so funny, Em?” Gia asked.
“Ah, nothing. Just sitting here amusing myself.” Emie smiled at the woman, this time genuinely. She reached up and patted her own face. “So, any hope for this?”
Ms. Pelvis, whose real name according to the rectangular silver tag on her jacket was Inga, beamed back. “Of course.” She snaked a hand tipped with Meow-colored claws around Gia’s biceps and squeezed ever so slightly. “I’m going to set up our makeover tray and give Gia, here, free rein. Since she’s a licensed professional and all.” Bat, bat.
“Fabulous,” Emie replied, surprisingly entertained by it all. She was completely out of her element but didn’t feel the slightest bit intimidated by it. She glanced at Gia and gave a few strategic bat-bats herself. Gia’s brows furrowed in confusion, but she managed a private little smile.
Inga rounded to the business side of the counter, gushing and fawning while she laid out the accouterments of beauty making. Gia made polite conversation but didn’t succumb to Inga’s coquettish banter, a fact that raised Gia immeasurably in Emie’s esteem. After lingering longer than necessary, Inga swished reluctantly away and Gia got to work.
Emie dismissed the urge to quip about Inga’s flagrant flirting. Instead, she closed her eyes and lost herself in the feeling of Gia smoothing moisturizer on her skin with those soft, warm fingers. She imagined them smoothing over other parts of her body, teasing her nipples.
Entering her.
Emie groaned.
“What’s wrong?”
Oops. “Uh, nothing. Sorry.” Her mind wandered back to the playground and a smile lifted her lips.