by Amy Harmon
“Why do you like me, Moses?” I huffed, hands on my hips. I was tired of being pushed and pulled, never knowing what he really wanted.
“Who says I do?” he answered softly. But he turned his eyes on me. And his eyes kept me hopeful when his words would have crushed me. His eyes said he did.
“Is that one of your laws? Thou shall not like Georgia?
“Nah. It’s thou shall not get strung up.”
His words made me sick. “Strung up? Like lynched? That’s just sick Moses. We may sound like hicks. I may say seen when I should say saw. I may say was when I should say were. We may be small town people with small town ways. But you being black, or whatever color you are, doesn’t matter to anyone here. This isn’t the sixties, and it sure as hell ain’t the Deep South.”
“But it’s Georgia,” he answered softly, playing games with my name the way I had done. “And you’re a sweet Georgia peach with fuzzy pink skin, and I’m not biting.”
I shrugged. But he was biting . . . and that was the problem. His words made me want to lean over and sink my teeth into his well-muscled left shoulder, and bite him too. I wanted to bite him hard enough to express my frustration, yet sweetly enough that he’d let me do it again.
“So what else? What are your other laws?”
“Thou shall paint.”
“All right. Looks like you’re obeying that one. What else?”
“Thou shall stay away from blondes.”
He was always trying to sting me. Always trying to get under my skin. “Not just Georgia, but all blondes? Why?”
“I don’t like blondes. My mother was a blonde.”
“And your dad was black?”
“That’s the assumption. Most blondes can’t throw black babies all by themselves.”I rolled my eyes. “And you think we’re prejudiced.”
“Oh, I’m definitely prejudiced. But I have my reasons. I never met a blonde I liked.”
“Well, then. I’ll go red.”
Moses’s mouth split into a grin so wide I thought his face would split in two. It surprised me and it sure as hell surprised him, because he leaned over and braced his hands against his knees, laughing like he’d never laughed before. I grabbed the brush he’d taken from me and made a long red streak down the length of my braid. He wheezed, laughing even harder, but he shook his head no. Reaching out his hand, he demanded the brush.
“Don’t do that, Georgia,” he sputtered, laughing so hard he had tears in the corners of his eyes.
But I kept painting, and he lunged for me, trying to take the brush, but I spun, turning my body so that my back was pushing against him, creating a barrier between him and the brush in my hand. I held the brush as far out in front of me as I could, but Moses was taller, longer, and his arms easily wrapped me up and yanked the brush from my fingers. Now there was paint on my palms, and I turned and wiped them down his face, making him look like an Apache warrior. He yelped and immediately used the brush in his hand to repeat the motion down the side of my face. I leaned over and found the paint can, dipping my fingers in the silky red liquid. And I turned on him with a smirk.
“I’m just trying to obey the law, Moses. What was it? Thou shall paint?” I smiled an evil smile and Moses caught my wrist. I flicked my fingers and sent little droplets flying, covering his shirt in tiny red dots.
“Georgia, you better run.” Moses was still smiling, but there was a gleam in his eye that made me weak in the knees. I smiled sweetly up into his face.
“Why would I do that, Moses? When I want you to catch me?”His grin cooled, but his eyes grew warmer. And then, still holding my wrist in one hand, he grabbed my braid, slick with paint, with the other and pulled me toward him.
And this time, he let me lead.
His lips were gentle, waiting for me to set the pace. I sucked at his mouth and pulled at his T-shirt, and generally wished there were no laws. No rules. That I could do what I wanted. That I could lay down in the shadowy interior of the barn and pull him down with me. That I could do the things my body wanted to do. That I could paint his body in red and he could use his body to paint mine in return, until there was no difference, no black or white, no now and then, no crime, no punishment. Just vivid red, like my vivid red longing.
But there are laws. There are rules. Laws of nature and laws of life. Laws of love and laws of death. And when you break them, there are consequences. And Moses and I, like a stream of fateful lovers who had gone before us and who would come after us, were subject to those laws, whether we kept them or not.
Moses
EVEN THE SMELL WAS HEADY. It made me dizzy and exacerbated the pounding in my head and the weight in my chest. Slashing red and yellow, swirls of silver, streaks of black. My arms flew, spraying and moving, climbing and blending. It was too dark to see whether I actually created what I saw in my head. But it didn’t matter. Not to me. But it would matter to the girl. The girl needed someone to see her. So I would paint her picture, I would show the world her face. And then maybe she would go away.
I’d been seeing her off and on since mid-summer, since the night of the rodeo when I’d found Georgia tied up and taken her home. Ever since then, I’d started seeing Molly. She wrote her name in fat cursive letters and looped her Y in a long swirl. I saw that name on a math test. She showed me a math test, of all things. There was a crisp A at the top, and I suspected she was proud of it. Or she had been proud. Once. Before.
Molly looked a little like Georgia—blonde hair and laughing eyes. But she showed me things and places that meant nothing to me, like the math test. Sunflowers lining the sides of roads I’d never driven down, a turbulent sky, and rain drops against a window fringed by curtains with yellow stripes, a woman’s hands, and an apple pie with an expertly woven pie crust, perfectly browned.
And then my painting was lit from behind, twin spotlights illuminating the underpass. I threw the can in my hand and slid down the slanted concrete wall, the spray-paint cans in my makeshift work belt slapping against my legs and clanking together like chains as I ran.
But the lights followed, trapping me between the beams, and I tripped, sprawling painfully, the cans digging into my abdomen and hips, the skin of my palms embedded with gravel. The car swerved and braked, and I was released temporarily from the glare as the lights shot over my head. I was on my feet again immediately, but there was something wrong with my right leg and I fell back down, crying out as the pain cut through my adrenaline.
“Moses?”
It wasn’t the police. And it wasn’t the girl’s killer. I was pretty certain she had been killed. There was a certain solemnity and freshness to her colors that I only saw when the death was violent and unexpected. When the death was new.
“Moses?” There it was again. I turned, drawing my arm up to block out the light from the flashlight being leveled at me and find the voice on the other side.
“Georgia?” What the hell was she doing out at one a.m. on a school night? My mental monologue sounded like a parent and I stopped myself immediately. It was none of my business what she was doing, just like it wasn’t any of her business what I was doing. It was like I’d spoken out loud, because she immediately asked:
“What are you doing?” Georgia sounded like a parent too, and I didn’t answer her, as usual.
I struggled to my feet, wincing even as I realized there was something sticking out of my leg. Glass. There was a long shard of glass embedded in my knee where it had connected with the concrete.
“Why do you do that?” Her voice was sad. Not accusing. Not freaked out or wary. Just sad, like she didn’t understand me and wanted to. “Why do you paint all over everyone’s property?”
“It’s public property. Nobody cares.” It was a stupid thing to say, but I couldn’t explain it to her. Just like I couldn’t explain it to anyone. So I wouldn’t.
“Charlotte Butters cared. Ms. Murray sure as hell cared.”
“So you’re just out tonight, keeping the community safe from paint?�
�� I asked. The overpass was surrounded by nothing but fields of long golden wheat . . . or whatever it was they grew in Utah. A little cluster of businesses huddled around the exit ramp nearby, but they were a tiny island in the sea of gold.
“Nah. I saw you leave. I watched you head toward Nephi.”
I stared at her blankly
“Your headlights hit my window when you left. I was still up.”
That didn’t make much sense. I’d been painting for at least an hour.
“I drove around until I found you; I saw your Jeep pulled off the side of the road,” she finished quietly. Her honesty amazed me. She had no artifice. And when she tried to disguise her feelings I saw right through her. She was like glass—pure and clear and plain as day. And like glass, her honesty cut me.
I yanked at the shard in my knee, cursing as I did, and the diversionary tactic worked, because Georgia’s eyes dropped to my wound. She moved her flashlight to get a better look and cursed right along with me when she saw the blood that was turning my pants black in the moonlight.
“It’s not that big a deal.” I shrugged. But it did hurt.
“Come on. I’ve got a first aid kit under the seat.” She beckoned me with the flashlight, making a looping circle of light as she turned, expecting me to follow. Which I did.
She wrenched open the door, pulled out an orange plastic case from under the passenger seat and patted the seat expectantly.
“Can you climb up?”
I grunted. “It’s just a scrape—you’re not going to have to amputate or anything.”
“Well, it’s bleeding like crazy.”
I eased my pant leg up and Georgia made herself busy playing doctor as I stared at the top of her pale blonde head and wondered for the millionth time why in the world she kept hanging around me. What was the appeal? The girl loved a challenge, that was easy to see. I’d watched her ride that black horse over fences and fields, flying like she belonged in the sky. I’d watched her coax and wheedle the stallion until he was so bewitched he now ran to her when she called him. But I wasn’t an animal and I didn’t want to be her next conquest, and I was pretty sure that’s what I was.
The thought made me angry and as soon as she was done I pulled down my pant leg and stepped out of the cab, heading for my Jeep without a word. She trotted behind me.
“Go home Georgia. You’re breaking another one of my laws. Thou shall not follow me.”
“Those are your laws, Moses. I didn’t agree to any of them.”
I heard her trip behind me, and I paused in spite of myself. There was broken glass and and beer cans were everywhere. This underpass was a hangout on the weekends. More high school kids got drunk here than any other place in town, if the empty cans and bottles were any indication. I didn’t want her to hurt herself. I walked back to her and took her hand, escorting her back to her truck.
“Go home, Georgia,” I repeated, but this time I tried to say it a little more kindly. I opened the driver’s side door to the rust bucket she had named Myrtle because it rhymed with turtle and that’s about how fast it drove.
“Why did you paint that girl? On the overpass. Why did you do that? What does it mean?” Her voice was sad, almost like she felt betrayed. Betrayed by what, I couldn’t guess.
“I saw her picture. So I painted her,” I replied easily. It was mostly the truth. I really didn’t see her picture, not the way I made it sound. Not on a flyer—though there was one on the post office bulletin board. I actually saw her in my head.
“You liked the way she looked?”
I shrugged dismissively. “She’s pretty. It’s sad. I like to draw.” Truth. She was pretty. It was sad. I did like to draw.
“Did you know her?”
“No. I know she’s dead.”
Georgia looked horrified. Even in the moonlit darkness I could see how much I had upset her. I think I wanted to upset her. I wanted her to be afraid.
“How?”
“Because kids on flyers usually are. She’s from around here, right?”
“Not really. She’s from Sanpete. But it’s a small town like this one. And it’s weird that she just disappeared. She’s the second girl to disappear like that in the last year. It’s just . . . weird. Scary, you know?”
I nodded. The girl’s name was Molly. And she was definitely dead. She kept showing me things. Not about her death. About her life. I hoped now she would leave me alone. This had been going on long enough. I had no idea why she’d come to me at all. Usually there had to be some connection. I’d never met Molly. But she would go now, I hoped. Paint them and they leave. It was the way I acknowledged them. And usually that was enough.
“So you being out here in the middle of the night, painting her . . . That’s weird too,” Georgia said bravely, her eyes holding mine.
I nodded again. “Are you afraid, Georgia?”
She just looked at me like she was trying to get in my head. My little horse whisperer, trying to whisper to me. I shook my head, trying to clear it. She wasn’t my horse whisperer. She wasn’t my anything.
“Yeah. I’m afraid. I’m afraid for you, Moses. Because everyone is going to see this. The police are going to see this. And people are going to think you did something to that girl.”
“That’s what they think everywhere I go, Georgia. I’m used to it.”
“Do you always paint dead people?”
Her voice rang out like a whip, and I felt the truth slash across my face with all the crack and sting that secrets wield.
I stepped back, stunned that she had so easily unraveled this piece of me. I walked toward my Jeep, wanting nothing more than to run, run, run and keep running. Why couldn’t I just keep running? I had seven months until the school year was up, but I was working on my GED and saving up all my money. Seven months. And then, as much as I loved Gi, as much as the thought of never seeing Georgia again hurt me, I was leaving this funny little town with all its nosy people with their suspicious minds, interfering hands, and busy mouths. And I would keep moving, painting as I went. I didn’t know how I would survive, but I would, and I would be free. As free as I’d ever be.
Georgia trotted behind me, “You painted a picture of my grandpa on the side of our barn. He’s been dead for twelve years. I was five when he died. You painted the lightning on Charlotte Butter’s barn too. Her husband was killed in a lightning storm in that barn. You painted a man named Ray on Ms. Murray’s whiteboard and I found out that Ms. Murray’s fiancé was named Ray. He was killed in a freak accident two weeks before their wedding. You’ve been painting the walls inside the old mill. I saw those too. I don’t recognize the faces you painted, but they’re all dead too, aren’t they?”
There was no way I could answer her without telling her everything. I wanted to tell her everything. But I knew better. So I just kept walking.
“Moses! Wait! Please, please, please don’t keep walking away from me!” she cried in frustration, so close to tears I could almost hear them gathering behind her eyes. My heart ached and my will shattered. I did the only thing I knew would make her forget her questions, make her forget her doubt in me. Make us both forget.
I let her catch me.
And when she did, I turned to meet her and wrapped my arms around her so tightly that our hearts pressed together and found a similar rhythm. Mine pounded into her breasts and hers pushed right back against my chest, challenging me like she always did. I kissed her lips over and over, letting the color of her mouth drench my troubled mind, drowning out the pictures in my head, until there was only Georgia, only rose-colored kisses and moonlight, only heat. I touched her body and warmed my hands against her skin until her questions just floated away on the wind. And the girl I had painted on the concrete underpass kept her face lifted to the sky and left us alone.
Georgia
I DITCHED SCHOOL BEFORE the day ended and took Myrtle on a drive-by of the overpass so I could get a look at Moses’s painting it in the daylight before they made him cover it up.<
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It was so beautiful. The girl laughed at an unknown admirer, her face tipped up as if toward the sun, and her hair flew around her shoulders. It almost made me jealous, and I was ashamed of my small feelings. But Moses had seen her like this. How that was possible, I didn’t know. But he was the artist, and she was his muse, however briefly. And I didn’t like that. I wanted to be his one and only. It was my face I wanted in his head.
I sat staring at the laughing girl, brought to life on a lonely underpass with spray paint and the genius of a modern-day Michelangelo. Or maybe Van Gogh. Hadn’t Van Gogh been the crazy one? The girl Moses had painted was so full of life I was certain she couldn’t be dead. But Moses thought she was. The thought made my stomach clench and my legs feel like cold jelly. Not because she was dead—that was horrible—but because Moses seemed to know. No one looking at it could possibly think Moses was mocking someone’s grief or that his art was violent. But it was weird. And nobody knew what to do with him. He never denied any of it. But he didn’t defend himself either.
And last night. Last night, I was scared and angry and confused. He had seemed so unattainable. So frustratingly distant! So when he turned on me suddenly and kissed me, holding me so tight that there was no distance at all . . . something inside me gave way. And when he tossed down his coat and we fell to the ground, hands and mouths and cumbersome clothing pushed and pulled aside to uncover the something beneath that kept us apart, I didn’t protest and he didn’t stop.