Paint Me True

by E. M. Tippetts

  He glanced at his watch.

  I hauled my mind back from the tangents it’d raced down. “Think I can get some pictures of the porter’s lodge?”

  “Let’s go see.”

  We hiked back and I snapped a bunch of pictures with my camera phone before we ducked out the little cutaway door in the front gate and stepped onto the pavement outside.

  “I need to get to work in a few,” said Colin.

  “Oh, okay, well thanks for helping me get pictures.”

  “Yeah, this was nice. I can do better though. We should go punting some afternoon. You like punting?”

  “I’ve never been.”

  “You know what it is, right?”

  I had to shrug and shake my head.

  “On the river. Wooden boats that you move by... well, punting is when you use a pole and push off the bottom of the river. Like what the gondoliers do in Venice, I think. I’ve never been there. You fancy going sometime? Punting... not to Venice.”

  “That sounds like fun.”

  “All right, I’ll call you.”

  “Okay, great.” That was the best I could do for a last line. The date wasn’t Nora and Paul kind of fabulous, but it was fabulous enough to make me glow all the way home.

  Later that night, as I checked my email, I saw Hattie log into her account. Nora’s computer was in a little windowed office off the kitchen, though right then the windows were black as it was nighttime.

  I opened a chat window and began to type.

  Edunmar: Sooo, I had a date tonight.

  HattieZ: With????

  Edunmar: Just some guy. Real nice. Very good looking.

  HattieZ: I would hope so. Did you follow Rule One?

  Edunmar: Did you? With Mike?

  HattieZ: Yes!

  Edunmar: What?

  HattieZ: I told him that if he wanted to go out with me, he had to try harder. I wasn’t going to just get up and go whenever he wanted, and the next time he asked me to go to the movies with him, I said no.

  Edunmar: Then what happened?

  HattieZ: He called again an hour later and asked if we could go to dinner, and I said no, so then he upped it to dinner at a fancy restaurant. I finally said yes, but only if he promises to turn off his cellphone. No texting allowed.

  Edunmar: Wow. Congratulations.

  HattieZ: You were so right! So tell me about this guy.

  Edunmar: Not much to tell, yet. Like I said, way good looking. Not sure how I feel about him.

  HattieZ: Still, that’s awesome! You want me to torment Len? I should totally tell him next time I see him.

  Edunmar: Leave him alone. He’s not worth it.

  HattieZ: True. Well, wish me luck on my second first date with Mike!!!

  Edunmar: Good luck

  She logged off and I went back to my email. No new messages, so I shut down the computer and went upstairs to resume sketching. My aunt had already gone to bed, so the house was quiet as I settled into my usual spot under the lamp.

  I hadn’t told my friends about my first date with Len. I’d dressed casually for it in jeans and a plain cotton shirt and then spent the better part of an hour on my face. I didn’t want to look like I had makeup on, but I wanted the benefits of makeup. I wanted to make my eyes look grayer and my lips fuller and my skin nice and smooth. Cosmetics is a difficult medium.

  I tried to suppress the dread that welled up inside when his car pulled into my driveway. He was nonchalant when he came to the door, and his cargo pants and shirt looked relatively new. There were no dangling threads, no thin spots about to turn into holes, just a lot of wrinkles. One thing about working an office job and being a Saint, he wore his formal clothes a lot more than his informal clothes.

  “Hi,” was all he said.

  “Hi.”

  And those were the only words we uttered to each other for the first two and a half hours of the date. We drove to the theater - which is an almost thirty minute drive from my house - in silence and once we were there and at the cash register to buy our tickets, I opened my purse to get my wallet and he dismissed the gesture with a wave. Even when the cashier asked if we wanted popcorn, Len told her he’d like some, then looked at me to see if I wanted some too. I nodded, reached for my wallet again, and he held out a hand to stop me. I was relieved when he got two tubs, rather than having us share one.

  I barely remember the movie. I just remember munching popcorn while Len kept stealing glances at me. For whole long sequences, when the screen was bright enough to illuminate our faces, he’d stare at my profile, as if wondering why I was there. I wondered if the screen was bright enough for anyone else to see I was there with him.

  On the ride home, I was the one to fold. “So, if you meant for this to be a one word date, sorry to break the streak here.”

  He flicked his gaze over at me and chuckled. His car was an old Ford Focus, well kept but showing its age. There were some water spots on the upholstery on my side and the top of the dashboard was faded. “Sorry,” he said. “Just keep waiting for you to figure out that you really did go on a date with me.”

  “And do what about it?”

  “Let me guess. You didn’t tell Jenna and Hattie about this.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Sorry. Be honest, though. That... was your house I just passed.” He turned left in order to go around the block.

  “I’m not that awful,” I said.

  “I didn’t use the word awful.”

  “Yeah, but everything you say about me-”

  “You know, I do not think that you not wanting to date me makes you awful. I’m not that arrogant... and I just passed your house again... Sorry.” Again he turned left.

  “You think I’d never be interested in you?”

  “I think you aren’t interested in me. Quiet here for a min. I don’t want to miss your house again.”

  I sat quietly while he made the last left turn, flipped on his turn signal, and stopped in front of my driveway.

  “Okay,” he said, as he turned in. “So, made it. Hope it wasn’t too unbearable for you-”

  “That doesn’t really make a girl’s heart melt, to be told that the date was ‘unbearable’.”

  “For you. I don’t mean me.” He looked at me for a moment, then turned and let his forehead hit the steering wheel with a thud. “You want to go back to just being silent?” When I didn’t reply, he hit his head against the steering wheel again.

  “Could you please stop? I feel kinda bad whenever I drive a guy to self harm on a date.”

  He lifted his head and gave me a sheepish smile. “Sorry.” He seemed to collect himself then. “Thanks for going out with me. It was fun.”

  Guys always said that on dates with me, but recently, it had begun to sound forced. Just a matter of politeness. I rarely got asked on a second date, and never a third. No one even tried to hold my hand anymore. It had been years since I’d sat through a movie with a guy who had his arm on the armrest, waiting for an opportune moment. The days when I’d kept my hands folded neatly in my lap, rejoicing at how frustrated a guy looked as a result, were an old and hazy memory.

  Len pulled his parking brake, shut off the engine, and gave me a quizzical look.

  I hadn’t gotten out of his car. I just sat there. Worse, I didn’t want to get out of his car just then. When I did, my last date in a long time would be over, and I’d have to face up to the fact that I’d had it with Len Hodge. Instead, I looked down at my hands.

  Len shifted in his seat and touched my cheek with his thumb. “You okay?”

  His touch startled me, and I felt my eyes grow hot with tears I didn’t dare shed. I wasn’t okay. I wanted to be ten years in the past, when I was one of the cutest girls in the ward and had just begun my career as a professional artist. People had been jealous of me. I had a cool job and trendy clothes and no shortage of guys lining up for dates. When anyone asked me out, I’d actually had to consult my calendar before I gave an answer.

  How h
ad I blown it this bad? Why hadn’t I married one of those guys who’d fallen all over himself to get me on a date? I’d been proposed to five times – five times, and each time held out for better. None of them were quite perfect enough, and now all of them were settled with kids, while I lived off my stepmother’s charity.

  “Eliza?” His hand was on my shoulder now.

  I looked up at him. He wanted to kiss me, I could tell, and I hadn’t been kissed in years. Literally years.

  Our gazes locked for a long moment, then I let mine drop to his mouth.

  He didn’t budge.

  I shifted my weight, drawing a fraction of an inch closer to him.

  Nothing. His hand stayed on my shoulder and his expression was all caring concern.

  I chewed my lip, leaned in a little closer, employed every pathetic trick I knew, and he stayed put. But I could tell he wanted to kiss me. He was just being stoic about it.

  So I grasped his shirt and pulled him in. For a moment, I felt despair as his hand on my shoulder pushed me away. Here I was, throwing myself at Len Hodge, and being rejected. Talk about desperation.

  He let go of my shoulder, put his arm around my waist, and kissed me. His other hand took mine and he held it, palm to palm. I’d had a boyfriend who’d done that, once. A sweet guy whom I’d dated when I was nineteen. He’d left on his mission and I’d moved on within months.

  The familiar gesture made me feel safe. Len’s mouth was gentle and warm and his kisses were all closed mouthed and proper. One led to another, and each was a layer of balm on my lonely heart. He was the one to pull back, but even then he didn’t push me away, but instead let go of my hand and held me. “You okay?” he whispered.

  “No. Not really...” A tear slid down my cheek.

  He wiped it away with his thumb.

  More tears came. I hadn’t been this stupid on a first date since I was sixteen and Rob Bilkins had pledged he’d marry me – in five years, after he got back from his mission. I’d bawled my eyes out in front of everyone. It was a group date, of course, three other couples. My dad didn’t allow me to go on solo dates before I was eighteen, and given he was also my Bishop and I was proud of being righteous, I didn’t push the boundaries there.

  Len pulled a tissue out of an old faded box set in the console and handed it to me.

  “Thanks.”

  “You want me to walk you to your door?”

  “Sure.”

  We got out of his car. The night air was frigid. I pulled my coat tight around myself and he walked me with his arm around my shoulders. Before I went in, he kissed my forehead and said, “Have a good night, okay?”

  “Okay. Night.”

  As soon as I stepped in the door, I wanted to flee to my room, curl up in fetal position, and never emerge again. I’d led him on, even though I hadn’t wanted a date with him, let alone a relationship. At the time, though, it felt like he was the only person who cared about me. I hadn’t just ignored Rule One, as Hattie called it. I’d done the opposite. I’d flung myself at a guy who was just being polite.

  A tear dropping from my cheek brought me back to myself in Nora’s house. I looked at the assortment of sketches I’d done, and quite a few of them looked good. I chose one that was just a portrait of Paul staring out at the viewer. It was simple, but it had the most impact. I’d paint that one.

  That Sunday I went to church in the Oxford ward, which had its own building on Abingdon Road. It was all gray brick, with tall, two story windows that looked out onto the street like solemn, unblinking eyes.

  A soft breeze pressed the hem of my dress to the backs of my calves and lifted my flounced short sleeves. I recognized some of the people filing in, but none were more than acquaintances. Several waved. When I got inside, I saw the chapel was about half full. A teenager with a shock of blond hair who moved with a dragging saunter came on over and gave me a program. “You new?” he asked.

  “I’m visiting.”

  “Want a ward directory?” He tugged one loose from the bottom of the stack of programs.

  “Yes, that’d be great.”

  He passed it over and sauntered on towards the door.

  I resumed looking around. The Bishop was new. I didn’t see the tall, imposing man who’d presided over the meeting last time. The man who sat on the stand now was shorter with gray hair and a hooked nose that was at odds with his kindly smile.

  “Right,” said a voice at my elbow. “Eliza is it?”

  I looked and saw a whippet thin woman that I vaguely remembered from the last time I’d been to the ward. She was in a one piece red dress and had a pair of gloves folded in one hand, draped over a red clutch purse. “Oh, hi,” I said to her. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember your-”

  “How long you here for this time?”

  “We’ll see. I’m looking after my aunt.”

  “What did the doctors say about her?”

  “I’m... sorry?” One thing I never got about the English, they could look so prim and proper and yet be rude, nosy, and impolite, and they did it with such abandon, it was as if they didn’t see the irony.

  The woman clucked her tongue. “Never mind. She doesn’t want me and my meddling. I know her answer. Never mind that we have an ambulance shrieking its way through the neighborhood at eleven o’clock at night. No one’s business but her own, in her mind.”

  “Have we met?”

  “Name’s Louisa. I’m her sister-in-law.”

  “Oh.” I looked at her again. She didn’t have a dark trench coat, this time. Her hair was medium brown, straight as a pin, and a little bit stringy, probably because she kept stroking it back from her face. Her makeup was austere, but her eyes bright with curiosity. She glared at me as if I’d been the one to come up and ask the demanding questions. Her gaze slid over me, the judgment clear in the furrows of her brow.

  “You’ve heard of me, I take it?” she said.

  “Not really. Just that you were Paul’s sister.”

  “Still am, right? Death doesn’t dissolve a family bond.”

  “I didn’t know you were Mormon.”

  She narrowed her eyes as if I’d said something rude and she was debating whether or not to call me on it, though I didn’t understand how my comment could cause offense.

  “Paul wasn’t Mormon, was he?”

  At that she barked a laugh. “No, no. Nothing of the sort.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  “You haven’t told me how long you’ll be here.”

  “Um, not sure, really. It’ll depend.”

  “On?”

  “How long Nora wants me to stay.”

  “And we’re not to know anything about why she needs to fly you out from the States?”

  “You know, it’s not really any of your business, but she broke her arm.”

  “Don’t you tell me what isn’t my business. She’s my sister-in-law. She’s family. She owns the family house. Not that she thinks of it as such. Oh no, it’s all hers.”

  “Sorry, um, even if you are a relative, I barely know you.”

  The woman rolled her eyes. “Typical. Can’t say I expected any different. You’re welcome ‘round our place for supper anytime.” She made it sound more like a challenge than an invitation. The words were barely out of her mouth before she’d turned on one spiky heel and stalked off. I saw her join a giant, bear of a man at the front of the chapel. There were thready blood vessels visible on his rather large nose, which met his forehead in a fold of skin that made him seem almost Neanderthal. His hands boasted fat fingers that had so much meat on them they appeared to curl, rather than have joints. The already diminutive Louisa looked like a child beside him.

  I chose a seat towards the back. The more distance I could keep from these two, the better.

  Aunt Nora was just getting up when I arrived at home. I found her in the kitchen in some jeans and a shirt that hung off her emaciated frame. At the sight of me coming in, she managed a thin smile. “Thought you’d be at church.” There
was the scent of toast browning in the air, and the electric kettle heated water with a whooshing crescendo.

  “I was. It’s over.”

  “Ah.”

  “You didn’t tell me Louisa was Mormon.”

  My aunt grimaced at that. “Is she? Why am I not surprised?”

  “How would she even find out about the Church?”

  “By being a snoop. When I married into the family, she had to know everything about me. She didn’t approve of the marriage. That’s why I had the locks changed the moment Paul and I were man and wife.”

  “Still, it’s kind of weird.”

  “No, it’s not. She probably looked up ‘Mormon’ in the encyclopedia, contacted the Church, got some missionaries out to visit her, and then decided this was another way she could be superior to me, given I was inactive.”

  “It’s worse, though. When she came up to me at church she...” My voice trailed off because all of the color had drained from Aunt Nora’s face. “Are you okay?” Before I finished the sentence I had to dash into the kitchen and steady her.

  She trembled, and gave a small cry of pain when I put my hand on her arm.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Just help me sit down.” Her movements were jerky, like a marionette.

  I slipped an arm around her, and noticed again how frail she was. Her shoulder blades bit deep into my bicep as I maneuvered her. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” The words came as a whisper and she squeezed her eyes shut in a prolonged wince. We made it halfway to the sitting room before she doubled over. I nearly dropped her, but managed to help her lower herself down to the floor. She curled up, shoulders pressed to her knees. The fingers of one hand clenched her clothes in a white knuckled grip. The other hand, with its arm still in the splint, was balled into a fist.

  “Aunt Nora?”