Romance in Color

by Synithia Williams

  “Whoop! First float’s pullin’ off,” group leader Gus Alberton called back, straddling his own bike and strapping on his spiked helmet. “Keep it clean for the kiddies, folks! You ladies riding double, keep the groping to a minimum and save some candy for the end.” Courtney ran after him and climbed into his sidecar, waving back in Nora’s direction. “We’ll see you at the end. Maybe we can go have drinks.”

  “Hey, that’d be fun,” Matt said, putting his own visored helmet on and giving Nora a playful nudge. Nora narrowed her eyes at him. “Okay, maybe not.” Nora saw one of his green eyes wink behind his visor before he threw one leg over the seat of the bike and held out an arm for Nora to lean on as she put one of her own short legs over.

  “Any specific candy-tossing instructions?” Nora mumbled into her helmet.

  “That’s up to you. Normally Karen rides with me and she has some complicated system about how much to throw and to whom, but no need to get fancy.” Matt started to walk the bike up a bit as the line moved, and when it stopped again, he put one booted foot against the road to prop them up.

  “Is Karen upset I usurped her this year? If I had known it was her gig, I would have said no. Might be her last chance.”

  “Nah. Karen hates it. Folks don’t know who she is under the helmet and they assume we’re a couple.”

  The irony of that wasn’t lost on Nora. Didn’t she assume they were a couple that first time she knocked on their door?

  Once the parade got moving and the cluster made their slow vigil down Broad Street through the downtown business area, Nora actually started to have fun. The little boys on the sidewalks loved seeing the bikes, and the folks riding in sidecars occasionally jumped out with red velvet sacks and distributed die-cast motorcycle toys to all the kids who were old enough. Nora tossed candy indiscriminately, even dropping some directly into the palms of the many children who were bold enough to go right up alongside the bikes. The fact that their parents didn’t try to stop them from weaving between the motorcycles suggested to Nora that it was expected.

  As Nora hadn’t heeded Gus’s warning to save some candy for the end, near the terminus all she could do was wave and make exaggerated shrugging motions to the kids who ran up to her. In the rear parking lot of the medical center where the parade ended, the bikers congregated to debrief and decide on their next meeting date, so Nora took the opportunity to peel off her helmet and wipe the sweat from her brow. She’d never been so happy to be wearing a headscarf because without it her hair would have surely started to mat from the moisture.

  Some of the bikers loaded their vintage choppers and cruisers into the backs of their trucks, not wanting to ride on the open road with the forecast predicting sleet. The wind was picking up, so without too much dawdling Matt returned to the bike and said, “I wanted to buy you lunch, but I don’t think the weather’s going to hold. Wouldn’t want your first time on the bike to come with a memory of freezing rain.”

  Nora mashed her helmet back on and climbed up behind him. “I’ve got a deep freezer full of soup to tap into.”

  “Offer me a couple of crab cakes, too, and I may invite myself.”

  With her knees spread wide and pressed into Matt’s sides behind him on the bike and her arms wrapped around his chest, Nora thought about other things she wanted to offer, too.

  • • •

  “I’m pretty sure these people are out to get me,” Nora said as she stomped through her living room with her cordless phone, occasionally pausing in front of the open storm door to gaze at the inch of unseasonably early snow coating the fields around them.

  “I think you’re overreacting this time,” Bennie said from her end with the sound of her computer mouse’s button clicking in the background occasionally. Nora could imagine her friend’s expression as she scrolled the website of the Edenton Post. “I hardly even notice you in the picture with the leather-clad giant beside you. And holy hotness! Why didn’t you tell me you had a fox for a neighbor?”

  Nora sighed. Matt hadn’t seen the paper yet. The Post came out weekly, and the only reason Nora thought to pick up a copy was because she was getting gas in town and saw through the window of the vending box a huge picture of her with her helmet off after the parade covering the front page. The caption: “Local Harley enthusiast Matthew Vogel idles after holiday parade with his girlfriend, painter Nora Fredrickson.” Nora tossed the paper onto the ottoman and groaned with frustration. “Bennie, I don’t even know where to start picking this apart. For starters, I’m not his girlfriend. Isn’t there some sort of journalistic standard that prevents the use of the phrase ‘girlfriend’ in a newspaper article?”

  “It’s a small-town paper. They’re probably a bit loose on AP standards.”

  “Also, my divorce just got finalized. How’s this going to look?”

  “Hey! You didn’t tell me about that.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t want anyone to pity me so I didn’t say anything. The divorce was granted that day I drove up the painting.”

  “You’re a horrible friend.”

  “And a horrible wife.”

  Now it was Bennie’s turn to groan. “Ohhh, honey. You know that’s not true. You and Elvin were just too different. He was always itching to do something and go somewhere and you were just swallowed up by your work.”

  “If it was a problem for him, it’s going to be a problem for anyone I see seriously.”

  “That may be so, but what’s to stop you from having a little fun while you prove it?”

  Nora thought of Matt’s smoldering gazes and how the roughness of his hands brushing slowly against her skin aroused her more than Elvin’s intricate, thorough, but utterly routine, foreplay ever had. Then she quickly wiped away the thought. “It’s impossible for me to just have sex without getting involved. Yet every time he’s around me I want to put my hands into his pants. This is nuts.”

  “So you’re going to be a divorcee for the rest of your life? That is pathetically sad. You’re twenty-eight. It’s not like you’re rolling into your grave anytime soon. Speaking of sad, have you seen Chad? He’s ignoring my texts.”

  “Let’s not even go there.”

  “Huh?”

  “Listen, the new painting is cured and I’m going to ship it UPS overnight tomorrow directly to the gallery. Can you follow up on it to make sure it gets there unharmed?”

  “Why don’t you let me come get it? We’ve got some time.”

  “I don’t really want to be interrupted right now.” To anyone else the statement would have been cold and jarring, but Bennie had known Nora too long and too well.

  “Got another painting in mind?”

  “Yeah. Mapped it out this morning. I need to get going on it or I’ll start getting anxious.”

  “You got it. Hey, before you go — why don’t you let me find an assistant for you? Someone to come over and clean up and ship your packages when you get busy? Given the unemployment rate in that area, it should be a breeze.”

  “I don’t want anyone here.”

  “Suit yourself. I’ll go examine the painting on Friday. Sure you don’t want to send me a preview before it gets here?”

  “Nope.”

  “Jeez, you need to get laid. All right, bye, you snot.”

  Chapter Eight

  “Matt, you’ve been with the company since you were a teenager. You’ve been a loyal, valuable employee of the fishery and I think it’s high time you were rewarded for it.”

  Matt perked up in his seat and rubbed his palms together anxiously. Could it be the raise he so badly wanted? He wanted to be able to finance a bowrider he’d been eyeing for a while but didn’t want to take the risk with his current salary. His canoe and small aluminum fishing boat were nice in a pinch, but he really wanted something family-sized. Maybe Nora would tolerate something with actual seats. U
nfortunately, his old pick-up truck needed to be replaced soon, and having two loans at once wasn’t an appealing idea.

  “Thanks for noticing,” Matt said, sitting up a bit straighter, but tapping the toe of his rubber boot against the floor compulsively.

  “You seem like a smart guy, Matt, and I’m sorry I didn’t notice it before. There’s a special place for you here in the offices, and if you want the job it’s yours.”

  Matt blinked several times, not understanding. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “A management job, boy. I’m offering you Ted’s old position. Place ain’t been run right since he left.”

  Matt swallowed hard, trying to make sense of the offer. He’d have different hours and different tasks. He’d be working indoors for the most part, but would still go home smelling like fish in the evenings. The job also required him to spend a good chunk of the day on his ass, which bothered Matt a great deal. In addition to managing the staff that sold and cleaned the day’s catch for the public, he’d take on some of the accounting duties, which perturbed him even more. Trivia he liked — numbers? Not so much.

  “Can I have some time to think about it?” Matt asked finally, standing and adjusting the suspenders of his pants.

  “Of course, of course. Take a couple days, talk to your girlfriend about it. See if it’s something you want to do. I think the pay bump will make you real happy.”

  “My girlfriend?” Matt raised one brow and paused in the open office door.

  “Don’t play coy with me. You know who I mean. That real fine-lookin’ woman you was with in the paper with this morning.”

  Matt didn’t know what Albert meant, but just nodded slowly and said “Yeah, I’ll do that. I’ll, uh, talk to my girlfriend about it.”

  “You let me know and I’ll order a real special extra-large desk chair for you.”

  As soon as Albert dismissed him, Matt chucked his protective overclothes and drove the short distance to the nearest service station to buy a newspaper. He ignored the cashier pinching her nose at his smell. He just tossed two quarters across the counter at her, picked up a paper to glance at the front page, and then gave her another five bucks to take what was left of the pile.

  Matt drove straight home, breaking numerous traffic laws in the process, showered quickly and literally ran to Nora’s with his stack of newspapers under his arm. He didn’t see her car in the yard, but that wasn’t unusual since she’d started parking in the barn. What was unusual was that she hadn’t been outside to fetch her mail that day. Normally the rural route mail carrier rang the bell with parcels as he didn’t like leaving boxes outdoors, even if the labels said to do so. The fact that there was one tall, wide, flat box leaning against her storm door meant that she must have been seriously out of the loop. He decided to cross the street to fetch her mail from the box for her while he was out there.

  The rusty metal box was half-filled with the usual circulars and bills, but also numerous brightly colored greeting card envelopes with yellow forwarding labels from her old Maryland address affixed.

  As he walked down the long driveway, shuffling the mail into a neat stack, he noticed some irregularities that slowed his pace. About half the mail was addressed to “Nora Fredrickson.” Some had labels for “Nora Gutierrez.” Yet other items were sent to “Nora Fredrickson-Gutierrez” or some permutation thereof. As realization dawned on Matt, he froze in his tracks. Nora being married would explain her aloofness toward his advances. What it didn’t explain was why she was living in that house alone, and why when she did allow her considerable self-restraint to slip her expression went soft and filled with some untouchable need.

  “Now what?” he wondered as he stood in the gravel drive. Take it all back and pretend he saw nothing? Finish the walk to the door and leave it all there to let her guess who’d brought it down? Knock? He looked down at the newspapers clasped under his arm and thought if nothing else she owed him an outright rejection. His feet were moving before he could program them to do so and before he realized it, he was back on her porch, prying up the package from “Elvin Gutierrez” from against the door and propping it against his leg as he knocked. No answer, and no footsteps from within. He tried again once and then twice more. Then he picked up the package, jammed it under his other arm and walked around to the back of the house to the sunroom. Nora usually kept it unlocked when she was at home.

  As he rounded the corner, her slim form was evident in the room, but she was still and unmoving. He stalked to the door and pulled it open quietly, stepping into the room and depositing the parcel, newspapers and mail items onto the wicker sofa. Nora’s ears were covered with high-end headphones and she was staring at a canvas that had a base color of holly berry red laid down in the center. She held her brush poised over the canvas, but wasn’t painting at the moment.

  Matt sighed at the sight of her slumped over on her stool with her bare feet gripping the rungs and her hair hidden by a scarf printed with quirky sketches of Vixen the reindeer. An untouched cup of tea sat on the table nearby and it appeared Nora hadn’t touched her ham sandwich lunch as it sat on its plate, sliced, and going a bit crusty around the edges. He cleared himself a space on the sofa and put his feet up on the table to wait for her attention.

  It actually took a while for Nora to snap out of her reverie and start moving her brush. Matt watched with keen interest for a while as she translated brain waves into pictures, but then decided to occupy himself with the art history book she’d left open on the coffee table. He was curious about who her influences were. Her work reminded him somewhat of Norman Rockwell with a dark twist. An hour into Nora’s frenzied dappling she muttered “shit,” causing Matt to look up to find her pulling her phone out of the pocket of her smock. She unplugged the headphones from it, draped them into the easel tray, and turned sideways on the stool to hop down.

  Nora seemed simultaneously surprised and not surprised to find Matt there. She did startle at seeing him, but didn’t seem to be upset by the intrusion. She just walked over to the coffee table and plugged her phone into the charger jack whose cord was draped across the top, then eyed the stack of mail next to the man on her chair.

  “I take it you want to talk,” she said flatly and produced a utility knife from her pocket to slice the tape on the box open.

  Matt closed the book carefully and set it back where he found it. “Yes, I’d hope you’d want to talk to me as well.”

  Nora’s jaw tightened, but she said nothing. She reached into the box, which was tall enough to reach her navel and pulled out what appeared to be a painting. It was wrapped in brown paper that she made no effort to remove. She set it on its bottom on the floor and turned her gaze back to Matt.

  “Let’s start with the basics, shall we?” he took control of the conversation.

  Nora gave a tiny, unenthusiastic nod.

  Matt picked up one of the newspapers and then realized Nora already had one of her own. It was draped over the top of the cart she used to store paint tubes. All the same, he brandished the front page at her. “Does this bother you? This picture?”

  She held her tongue for a moment and stared at the page “Probably not in the way you’d expect,” she said after turning her gaze away from him.

  “You know, my motives weren’t so pure when I put you on that bike,” Matt said, folding the paper carefully and tossing it onto the pile of others. “I knew most people would assume we were together and I liked it. I figured it’d make folks leave you alone and give me some time to court you right.”

  Nora squinted at him. “Am I supposed to be flattered?”

  “I don’t care if you are, to be honest. I feel like I’m being somewhat led on, and I’ve been nothing but forthright about my intentions. Well, once we got that hunting shit out of the way.”

  Nora looked up at the ceiling and said nothing.

  “Nora, who�
�s Elvin?” He stood and walked around the coffee table to get in her way, so she had no choice but to see him. She sighed and looked down at the covered painting propped against the front of her body for a moment before sliding the knife into the paper and ripping it off. The tearing revealed a tarnished gilt frame that had to be quite valuable.

  “Elvin is my ex-husband as of a few weeks ago.” She turned the painting around to show him a stylized wedding portrait embedded in the frame that had been slashed down the middle by the person who’d sent it. Matt could tell that Nora was pained over the situation, but he couldn’t help his own feeling of absolute relief.

  “We’ve been apart for three years,” she said. “It was an absolute failure of a marriage.”

  Matt pried the canvas and frame out of her vise-like grip and set it aside.

  “What happened?” He didn’t care if he sounded nosey. He wanted to know whether infidelity had been involved. He’d always thought cheating was one of those character flaws people never recovered from. That is to say, if they did it once, they’d do it again. If Nora were the one who cheated, he’d never be able to commit, no matter how much she seemed to be that missing puzzle piece in his life. He was in it for keeps. He was looking for his one, great love. If she were the one who was cheated on, well, he’d have to tread carefully. He’d been there. He knew what it did to a person’s spirit.

  Nora skirted around Matt and approached the sofa, sorting through the mail methodically and tossing items into two separate piles: keep and trash. Matt noticed that the greeting card envelopes all went into the same pile as the hardware store flyer and credit card solicitations.