My eyes burn and the guilt I have over the tears I haven’t shed for my mother has me rushing to the closet off the bathroom to change. I need to paint. I need to get lost with a brush in my hand. I turn away from the bed and enter the bathroom, done in the same shades as the bedroom, including the checked tiles, with an egg-shaped sunken tub, and continue to my walk-in closet. Once there I change into jeans and a t-shirt, as well as sneakers.
A few minutes later, I’m on the second level of the house, which I had converted to my studio, with a smock over my clothes, a blank canvas in front of me. A brush in my hand for the first time in months, and my phone on the table beside me. And impossibly, somehow, Nick Rogers is still on my mind. I don’t like arrogance. I don’t like men with long hair. I don’t like men like Nick Rogers. And yet, that man is haunting me. I go to work, determined to paint him off my mind, long strokes, heavy strokes. Soon my creation begins to come to life, a work that is like no other I have ever created, and I am driven, obsessed even, to finish it.
Time passes, an hour I think, maybe more, when my phone rings. I set down the brush, wipe my hands on the smock before picking it up. “Hi Josh,” I say, after noting my agent’s number on caller ID.
“I’m finally here,” he breathes out, sounding decidedly grumpy.
“Finally? What time is it?”
“Five,” he says. “And why the hell do you not know that, Faith? This is a big night for you. Chris Merit won’t be there, but he donated a never-before-seen painting for the charity auction. The event’s been sold out for months. And this is your event, too.”
“It’s his event. I’m showing my work.”
“It’s your event, too, and I will spank your pretty little ass if you say otherwise, again.”
“You do not need to say things like that to me.”
“Because I scandalize you? We both know that’s no more true than Cinderella. Besides A) You’d bust my balls if I ever tried anything with you, which I would not because B) I like submissive types. You are so far from that it’s laughable. If you were, I’d already have you past this nonsense that you can’t paint and run your family business.”
I grimace. “Where are you going with this exactly?”
“You should be at a spa getting a facial or whatever you women do before fancy black tie affairs that would never cross our male minds.”
“Actually,” I say, blowing out a breath. “I was—” I stop myself, not wanting to give him the wrong idea about where this is going, “—about to take a shower.”
“Please tell me that sentence was supposed to finish with the word ‘painting’ because that’s the only answer acceptable in my mind.”
I inspect the project I’ve been working on for hours, my inspiration coming from an unexpected place.
“Faith?” he presses.
“Yes. I’ve been painting.”
“Thank you Lord,” he says, his voice exaggerated relief. “I have to see whatever it is before I leave Sunday.”
“No,” I say quickly. “This is nothing like the black and white landscapes I’m known for. This is just for me.”
“Now I’m really intrigued. And after tonight, you’ll be a hot mama in the art circuit. Maybe this new project is the one where we make big money together.”
“You know that doesn’t matter to me,” I say. “I just needed to pay my outrageous L.A. rent and selling my work helped.”
“You mean you downplayed your dream of quitting the art museum and painting full-time every chance you got. I’ve told you before many times. There is nothing wrong with dreaming big and getting paid big for your work. I need new work to keep that dream alive. You’ve given me nothing in a year.”
“I don’t have anything to give you,” I say despite the dozen covered easels around the room that say otherwise.
“Liar,” he accuses. “We both know you can’t live without that brush in your hand. I want to see what you did before I leave.”
“No,” I say. “No, this one is for me.”
He’s silent a beat. “Do you know how long I’ve waited to hear you say you were painting for you again?”
I inhale and release a shaky breath. “Josh—”
“Don’t tell me the reasons why you can’t paint, because I know it’s in your blood. It’s like breathing to you and I also know that you’ve been secretly painting. But tonight isn’t about me pressuring you to paint. It’s about celebrating the success of the work that you’ve already given me, and the art lovers of the world. This night is my birthday gift to you. So. Happy birthday, Faith.”
“Thank you,” I say, always amazed at how he remembers this day when others who should have often forgot. “How are you so bad with women and so good with your clients?”
“Being single is not about failure. It’s about choice. I want what I want, and I won’t settle, something we both know you understand.”
The man knows far more about me than most of the people who I called friends back in LA, but then, he lives the art world, as I once did. “I walked right into that one,” I say,
“Yes, you did. Meet me at my hotel at six-thirty. I’ll see you soon, sweetheart.” He hangs up and my lashes lower, a hotspot in my chest and belly where emotions I don’t want to feel have formed. Emotions I swore I wanted to feel when I moved into my mother’s bedroom. I was wrong. Emotions weaken me. They make me feel instead of think. They change my judgment calls. Yes. I was definitely wrong about welcoming them back into my world. Just like I was wrong two years ago when I bought this place, thinking I could paint and help at the winery, and give up nothing. I can’t do both, and when I dip a toe back into the art world, that’s what I want to do full-time. I wish tonight wasn’t happening. I wish I had said no. And yet, I need to go change and dress.