by Anne Fall
The colors in all the paintings were similar, blues in all shades mingled with the hues of the sunset and sunrise. The night sky created depth in the different paintings. Walking through the room, Sylvia separated from her aunt and uncle. She found herself looking at each painting in great detail, studying the brushstrokes as if from a great distance. There was the exact shade of blue that had been splattered on his neck that night in the front room. She wanted to touch it.
Still, the paintings were not exciting to her. She remembered the wild abandon of the art in Provincetown. This felt too restrained to her, too standard and traditional.
Women meandered around her, their chins tilted slightly upwards to look at the paintings. Most of the men looked lost, unsure of how they had arrived there, and what they were to do now. Sylvia was certain she was the youngest one there. She kept looking for the paintings of her. Whatever they were, she had to see them.
As Sylvia approached the left side of the studio, there was a circle of people around a display. She could not see the paintings they were looking at but a deep sense of fear came over her. Drawn to them, she moved slowly, her dress breathing around her in the same colors as the sea in his other paintings. Her heart throbbed, and it was the only sound she could hear. The people around the paintings turned to look at her as she pushed her way through them to see what they were looking at. They looked at her in silence. Her face, no longer scarlet, had turned deathly pale. What mirror would she face? She must see the paintings before Adam and Vivian. The crowd finally parted and closed behind her until she stood in the crescent moon opening in front of them.
There were indeed two paintings. In the first, still a child, Sylvia stood on the shore of a beach, considering the horizon with poignant sadness. Only her silhouette was visible but from the lines of her body, it was obvious that a child was being painted. She looked lost, washed up on the shore from some other place.
The waves of shock that moved through her at seeing the second painting caused her to swallow repeatedly, her mouth filling with saliva. It was a formal portrait of her face done from her collarbone up. She was slightly sunburned, and her expression conveyed longing and fear. It was more exposing than any actual state of undress. Her lips were slightly opened and rounded in their odd bruised way, and her eyes looked wet. The gold of her hair was heightened by tangible threads of gold paint. Her expression was conflicted—begging and denying all at once. The brush strokes made the overall effect more geometric than in his other paintings. It was worse than a camera, Sylvia thought to herself. Much worse.
Turning, Sylvia faced the crowd who stared silently at her and compared her to the two portraits. Although there were no cameras, when Sylvia took in their gaze, it felt like a million flash bulbs went off at once, and she was blinded. Trying to find her way through them, she felt a hand take hers and lead her away. She could not see who it was or where she was led; all she could see was the painting in front of her eyes, torn by something taboo.
"Don't you see now, I had to get the expression on your face? It's your expression, Sylvia. The look you have." The voice speaking sounded far away to her, and Sylvia struggled to focus her eyes. "Please, forgive me. I can't ask for more than that. I was wrong to ask it of you. I know that."
"Eric?" Her vision began to clear, and she could see his fine dark face leaning over her. They were outside, and the night air brought her back to herself.
"Yes, I'm here. I wanted to show them to you before the show, but you wouldn't speak to me."
"They're sending me home, Eric." She put her fingertips to her temples and began to rub; it helped her vision somehow.
"I know." He looked out into the night, shifting on his feet, uncomfortable.
"How did this all happen to me?" Her dress was rumpled around her. The luster had left it, and it became dull in the darkness of twilight, without shimmer or gleam.
"I don’t know, and I'm sorry for my part in it. I tried to get Catherine to leave, but she would not go, and I couldn't leave her here." He paused, running his fingers through his hair in a frustrated movement. "What can I do to help you?" The traffic on the one-way street caught her eye, and Sylvia noticed the canary yellow of a cab with a breath of liberation.
"You can get me a cab." Her voice was decisive, firm.
"Where are you going?" Trying to distract her and establish what she was doing, Eric appeared to know he would fail.
"Back to the Cape." Her eyes turned westward, toward the last light in the sky.
"I can't let you do that, Sylvia."
"You owe it to me, Eric." She looked him steadily in the eyes, unmoved by the position she put him in.
"All right." He stood and walked to the corner in a slow defeated posture. He hailed the cab easily after a moment, and she walked to him.
"I want to say goodbye, now, before they can see us tomorrow." Sylvia looked at him calmly, feeling herself in control. "I am not angry, and you did not hurt me. Maybe you made it easier for me, but what is the harm in that? This summer happened. It cannot be helped." Taking his hand in hers, Sylvia squeezed it gently. "Goodbye, Eric."
"Goodbye, Sylvia." Sitting finally in the cab, Sylvia watched his figure standing there become smaller and smaller until the car turned, and she could no longer see him. It was odd, in a way. She felt like she had allowed him to hurt himself more than he could have ever hurt her. Women were always somehow answerable for men and their actions and feelings in one way or another.
The cab ride took as long as it did to bring her there. It was almost ten o'clock when she arrived at the house. She stepped out of the cab exhausted. The dress was wrinkled beyond recognition, and Sylvia could not understand how beautiful things could be destroyed by wear so easily. Heading toward the house, Sylvia thought she might be able to reach David by phone, if he was waiting to hear from her. As she reached the wide sweeping circle of the porch light, she heard a voice calling out behind her. Turning around, she saw him walking like there was no rush toward her. Her heart leapt in pleasure.
"David!" Running into each other's arms, they met together in an embrace that had not yet become clichéd for them. It was wonderful, and Sylvia rejoiced in it under the moonlight and sea air. "I didn't see your motorcycle. Where did you come from?" Wonderment danced around her, touched her skin with a rose flush.
"I parked out of the way, down the road. I didn't know who'd be coming back tonight. When I saw it was you in the porch light, and the cab drive away…" Sylvia hugged him tighter, squeezing him with all the strength in her body.
"Will you stay with me tonight?"
"Of course, that's why I'm here, that's why I waited." He kissed her, and they walked to the beach in the moonlight, two blackened silhouettes of youth.
The night passed with them hidden among the sand dunes. Her aunt and uncle had not returned, and Sylvia assumed that Eric had come up with some deception to ease them. It did not matter, any more. Tomorrow, it would all be over. David and Sylvia stayed up all night, until the sunrise crested the horizon above the sea. Their conversation was terse at times, with Sylvia struggling not to accuse him or attack him in her fear of their separation.
"I have something for you." He looked shy, and it brought Sylvia's attention to a focused concentration.
"What is it?" He reached into his jacket pocket and handed her a square wrapped package. Opening it, Sylvia saw paper and envelopes decorated with beach roses and honeysuckle.
"Stationery?" Sylvia lifted her eyes to him, confused for a moment.
"Yes, so you can write to me. I wrote my address on the envelopes. You'll go back to school, and forget about me. You'll move on. So, use the paper sparingly. Send me a note from time to time, to tell me how your life is, where you are, and what you're doing."
"David…" The stationery felt like a lie in her hands, a deception that would make their parting easier. She could not tell him that and kept her face down, examining the paper with her fingertips.
"Don't, I have to
go." He stood up swiftly in one movement.
"Do you? It's still early." Her composure threatened to leave her.
"Yes, now. You know I do. Say goodbye to me, Sylvia." She placed herself in his arms for the last time and kissed him repeatedly until he pulled away. He would not look at her.
And just like that, it was over. He was gone. It was a rarity, that the two of them had been able to keep it beautiful and bittersweet. How they had managed it was not clear to Sylvia, but it seemed that the stage of Cape Cod had made it possible. The strange transitory nature of the temperate season there allowed changes to happen fluidly. Just like they knew winter would come and devastate the summer paradise, David and Sylvia had at least expected their end.
Something strange came over her then, that she could not later explain. She walked to the shore below her and took the stationery and threw it as hard as she could toward the horizon. It fell in the water a short distance away from her, almost carried back to her by the forward thrusting ocean wind. It was an impotent movement, as she was sure the waves would bring it right back to the sand. Still, Sylvia turned her back on it and walked back into the house with the sunrise at her back. It was done.
When her aunt and uncle arrived home, Catherine and Eric were not with them. Vivian explained that they had work to do in the city to finish up their business there. They carried two oil paintings wrapped in brown paper with them. Vivian, who was regarding Sylvia strangely, remarked only once on the paintings Eric had done of her.
"It was so strange, the difference in the two. I didn't see how much you'd changed this summer until then, Sylvia. I wonder what caused it." Turning her face toward the sunlight, Vivian shook the thoughts away from her mind, blameless as ever.
That afternoon, the cab driver who had dropped her off there in June came to take her to the airport, back to Boston. Vivian, Adam, and Hanna came onto the porch to wave goodbye to her. Eric and Catherine were missing from the picture, but Sylvia accepted their absence with relief. Kisses and embraces were shared. In a way, she was grateful to them, as one can be grateful to an inconvenient truth that reveals everything.
Once inside the cab, Sylvia turned round and looked towards the three of them on the porch, waving their hands goodbye. It broke her heart, in a way, to leave them like that. They looked so helpless and vulnerable. Eyeing her in the rearview, the cab driver spoke in his strangely northern cadence.
"What happened to you, kid? You're not the same girl I drove here."
"No, I'm really not." A smile blossomed on her lips. "I'm quite changed."