B is for Broken, page 14
“Do you always paint naked people?”
She laughs. “No, not always. But mostly, yes.”
“Why?”
“She twirls her hand in the air, searching for some answer. “It’s not about people being naked, Clyde. It’s about people. Sometimes, it’s about form. The human body. All that makes us special. Beautiful.”
“And you think people want to paint…this?” I indicated my own body.
“Well,” she says. “You’re human, aren’t you?”
Am I? I want to say, but don’t.
“Tell me something,” she says. “What did you want to be, when you grew up?”
I think a moment. “It doesn’t matter what I wanted to be,” I say. “What matters is what I am now, don’t you think?”
A wide smile spreads across her face. “And what’s that?”
My go to answer has always been, a monster, but rather than say that I begin answering her first question. I tell her about Dad, how he cared for me, how he was always there for me. I tell her about my mother, about what she did the night she said she was taking me for ice cream. I tell her how she treated me.
Celeste listens intently, nodding, and at one point even crying.
When I’ve finished my long story, I realize I haven’t touched my second burger. I eat it cold in our new silence. And having said all that to her, finally told it all to another living soul, the woman across from me at this booth seems now very far and away from my mother. Doesn’t remind me of her at all.
I feel comfortable in Celeste’s presence, and I think it’s because she listened. I think she’s been asking to listen for a very long time.
“I have a spare room in my house,” she says, after paying the bill. “You can stay as long as you need to. Rest up a few days. Next week I can introduce you to the class.”
I don’t know when I started crying, but I have. “I’m afraid, Celeste.”
“That’s okay,” she says. “It’s okay to be afraid, Clyde. Let’s get you a good night sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.
Bathing again is spectacular.
Eating fresh cooked meals is even better.
But the best thing so far? Celeste’s friendship. She’s actually nice to me, and encouraging. She says I’m going to be the talk of the art world.
I tell her that’s horse shit, but she laughs it off.
When I’ve rested a few days, she brings me to her classroom on the third floor of an old mill in Primrose to have a look at the space and to meet the students. They’re college aged or older, and extremely talented. Each work in progress is more impressive than the last. Turns out they are all very eager to meet me. They’ve all heard of me from Celeste, and I feel like a minor celebrity.
“In a way,” she whispers to me when I tell her this, “you are.”
There is a model posing for everyone and I recognize her immediately as the same girl in the painting that Celeste was hanging in Raphael’s office. I can’t help but grow slightly embarrassed, then I remember it’s going to be me up there very soon.
Thing is, the idea of posing nude for strangers isn’t so hard for me to swallow, it’s allowing myself to leak. Openly. For people.
“What if I can’t do it,” I ask Celeste before leaving her to her class.
She pats my shoulder. “It doesn’t matter what does or doesn’t happen, Clyde. We want to paint you. All that matters is that it’s you.”
“But I’m a mon—”
“Stop saying that. You are not a monster.” She looks beyond me, elsewhere. “Every person who has ever made you feel that way, they are the real monsters. Do you realize that?”
I tell her after a while that I do. But I don’t know if I believe it.
Two days later, and the din of quieting conversation welcomes me when I walk into the studio. It’s a bright, white December day. Sunlight shines through the large studio windows, illuminating the entire space. Celeste tells me that sunlight is ideal for painting from life. I can see why. Everything is so crisp, vivid and alive.
Then again, I’m also tremendously nervous.
She gave me a robe to wear from the changing room to the studio. I still have it on when I ascend the model stand. I step from side to side up there for a moment, take a few deep breaths, and then let it drop.
Twenty sets of eyes take me in, solving the structural problems of transferring me to canvas, and I can’t believe it, even though I’m still whole, every organ still on the inside, I had expected them to gawk. To ridicule. To be, I guess, afraid of me. But no, they are studying.
Their acceptance of my nakedness makes me feel surprisingly light. This is actually sort of fun. I kick the robe from the stand to the floor and sit on the chair that’s been provided.
Celeste addresses the class, tells them that because I’m new there will be extra breaks every fifteen minutes. I’m glad for that, as I’m already feeling light headed.
Am I supposed to feel light headed just sitting here? I try to shake it off and meet eyes with my mother.
She’s sitting at a chair within the rows of pupils, paint pallet in her hand. She’s scowling. She’s disgusted.
The top half of her head is a red, gleaming crater.
A voice whispers in my ear—Celeste’s: “Be brave.”
And my mother is gone. Only another girl, mixing colors on her palette.
Celeste is walking back to her stool, to begin her own painting, but I call to her. “I never answered your question.”
“Which was that?”
“What I wanted to be when I grew up.” I look out at the room full of painters. “I wanted to be an artist.”
“You are, Clyde,” she says, smiling, then walks to her own canvas to prepare.
It’s then I feel the stirring in my chest, like an electric shock, and my heart bursts free, splattering the floor with blood. I catch it expertly in midair.
A collective gasp settles across the room. It’s followed by thick anticipating silence. They knew what I was, they still they are stunned to see it for real.
Expectant faces stare at me, wondering what might happen next, or if what they see is even real.
Blood trickles between my fingers. The heart beats calmly in my grasp. From the corner of my eye I see Celeste nod her head in approval. I prop my elbow so that the heart is even with my face, the arteries twisting like vines back into my chest, and I settle into the pose.
But my hands shake. My vision clouds.
It’s Okay, Clyde. I’ve got you.
I must admit that I’m terrified, but I know, with people like these in my corner again, I think that someday I might not be.
L is for Leak
Cindy James
I freeze, the knife in my hand hovering above a half-diced onion on the cutting board, my eyes stinging, as it occurs to me the peculiar smell I noticed upstairs last week could be coming from the PVR, and my son’s lingering cough may not be from the cold he had a few weeks ago but may be because of the time he spends in that room, playing video games, hours and hours of inhaling what I should have realized were noxious fumes.
The icy spout of fear twists my gut, and cold surges down my limbs all the way to my fingertips. I can hardly breathe, and the knife clatters to the floor. I brace myself against the countertop, willing the panic to stop. It doesn’t, and prickly sweat breaks out on my scalp. Darkness fringes the edges of my vision, and I fumble my way around to a kitchen chair. I put my head between my knees and try not to pass out.
“Jules? What was that noise?” Dave hollers down from the upstairs room.
“Nothing!” I call back. My throat is tight and so is the word, but he doesn’t seem to notice the strain in my voice.
I breathe slow and deep and concentrate on thinking rational thoughts.
The kids are healthy.
They’re not in immediate danger.
I can call the cable company tomorrow and have the PVR replaced.
The staccato pounding of my heart steadies, and I lean back in the chair and reach a shaky hand for someone’s tepid glass of water left on the table. I’m not getting better at controlling these, and, unlike last week’s episode, this one was much more sudden.
The floor overhead creaks with Dave’s footsteps on the stairs. I am cutting the onion again when he comes into the kitchen.
“Everything okay?” he asks.
“It’s fine,” I say. “I dropped the knife.” I scrape the onion into the frying pan and turn to put the knife in the sink. He slips his hands around my waist.
“Careful,” I say, “there could be a kitchen accident.” I brandish the knife at him, and he laughs. It’s an old joke.
“Must be a good onion,” he says when he notices my red eyes.
I shrug away and turn on the kitchen faucet. “We should unplug the PVR.” I splash water on my face. “I think it’s overheating. That might be what’s causing that weird smell upstairs.”
“Hmm,” he says. “I’ll go check it.”
He returns a minute later. “That was definitely it. What made you think of it?”
“I noticed it was a little warm when I dusted yesterday.” I turn down the burner on the stove. “Do you think it’s dangerous? The smell?”
He shrugs. “It’s probably fine. Are you worried?”
“No,” I lie.
“I’ll go open the window for a bit,” he says.
“Just a crack. It’s really cold out there.”
Later, in bed, I lie awake listening to Dave’s snore and the creak and groan of the house as the earth freezes around it, shifting and squeezing the foundation as if we are nothing more than an annoying cyst on its crust, and I think about the sinkhole in Quebec that swallowed an entire family in their basement. The scene horrifies me: two teenage girls, a mom and a dad hanging out, watching the Habs on Hockey Night in Canada, when the floor drops out from beneath them and mud pours in through broken windows. Buried alive.
I’m relieved our bedrooms are on the top floor of the house, but then an airplane flies low overhead on its way in for a late-night landing. Random death. Like the guy in Florida, almost a cosmic joke—hey, hey, now you’re dead, a jet engine fell on your head; oh, no, it’s not fair, killed you in your easy chair.
I stare at the dim outline of the ceiling fan as the rhyme repeats itself, and I see faces again. I’m accustomed to these disembodied, anonymous heads that flash through the dark with taunting, gnarled expressions, but they still make my heart race. I roll onto my side and promise myself I will talk to Dr. Woo when I have my checkup on Monday.
The next morning when I get to work, I call the cable company and arrange a service call and then sit at my desk Googling overheated electronics and stare at words like “toxic” and “tumour” and “toluene” until Shelley texts me to meet her for lunch. I escape the office tower and find her downstairs on the sidewalk, huddled against the December bite in her long black coat with a smoke in her leather-gloved hand. I grimace at her, and she makes a face back.
“Don’t even think about saying anything.” Shelley narrows her eyes at me.
“I thought you quit.” I stand upwind of her and breathe shallow as she drags back her smoke in rapid-fire puffs.
“Yeah, so I’m weak. Gary walked out last night.”
“Oh,” I say. This isn’t really news, it’s happened so many times. “What happened?” I ask. I don’t mind talking about her problems. Shelley’s shitty life makes me feel better about my own.
“I have no idea.” She stubs the cigarette into a crooked forest of lipstick-stained butts poking out of a sand-filled garbage can. “We were having dinner. I told him I invited his mother for Christmas, and he looked at me as if I had announced I was pregnant. Then he got up and left. I haven’t heard from him since.”
“You never know what will set someone off,” I say.
“I never did understand him,” she replies, and we head to our usual spot for lunch, a little pub around the corner. Shelley orders a beer, and I’m tempted. I asked her once why she drank so much. She said it helped.
I stick with a coffee.
I contribute little to the conversation. Shelley can be relied on to do most of the talking, and I get away with grunts and nods. We are done eating by the time she gets around to asking about me.
“So,” she says, “how are you guys? What are the kids up to these days?”
“We’re good.” I say. “Hockey, you know.”
“Oh, God.” She pushes her plate to the side. “I hope I never set foot in another rink again. I’m so glad ours are done with that stupid game. Now they’re hardly ever home. Just wait. Fucking teenagers are horrid. I haven’t slept since they got their driver’s licenses.”
“I don’t want to think about it.” I clench my hands under the table. “I hope they have some sort of tracking device by the time mine are going out.”
“Ingrates,” Shelley says. “They don’t care a rat’s ass if we lay awake all night wondering if they’re dead or alive. Is Dave still doing construction?”
I nod. “Yeah. He’s home for a couple more days, and then he’s back up to Fort Mac.”
“And what about you?” Shelley asks.
“I think I’m going crazy,” I say.
Shelley picks at a crust from her BLT. “Aren’t we all,” she says.
The bill comes, and it’s my turn to pay. Shelley leaves the tip.
By the time I get home from work, I’m exhausted, and when I walk into the house, I smell it. I kick off my boots and stomp up the stairs. The kids are watching a movie.
“Turn it off,” I say, my voice sharp. The volume is so loud they don’t even register I’m there. “Hey!” I shout, and I take three steps over to the wall and yank the plug for the PVR out of the socket. The screen turns to snow. “I said TURN. IT. OFF!”
Amy cowers and covers her ears with her hands, and Jordan looks up at me from the couch, tears filling his eyes. “Why? What’d I do?”
I hear Dave behind me. “What are you doing?”
I drop the plug on the floor and turn around. “I told you,” I say through clenched teeth, “that the PVR was making a smell. Remember?”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot.”
“Can’t you smell it?” I snap, and I crank the window open. The cold air rushes in and pools around my feet.
“Maybe a little,” Dave says.
“A little?” I ask. “It hit me the minute I walked in. Are you trying to poison the kids? What if it burned the house down?”
“I’m sure it’s fine.”
“How can you say that?” I ask and my voice rises to that pitch I know he hates. I hate it too. “How can you be so oblivious?”
Amy bolts past me into her bedroom and slams the door, and a second later Jordan slinks by while Dave and I glare at one another.
“You need to calm down,” he says quietly.
“You need to pay attention to what’s going on.” I kick the plug to the side and go downstairs to take off my coat.
Once the kids are in bed, I go into Amy’s room to tuck her in and notice her nightlight is on the floor.
“Don’t plug it in,” she says when I go to stick it back into the wall. She’s peeking out from under covers pulled up to her nose. “I don’t want the house to burn down.”
The innocent comment takes my knees out, and I sink onto her bed holding the nightlight in my hands. “Honey, it’s safe, see?” I hold the ladybug up as if we could tell by looking at it that it’s not a fire hazard, but the reality is I don’t really like the thing.
“Leave it out,” she insists, so I set it on her dresser and tug her blanket down from her face so I can kiss her cheek and fold her safe into my arms.
“Why are you hiding?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “I’m scared.”
“Of what?” I brush her bangs off her forehead.
“You looked like a monster today.”
My throat tightens, and I have to swallow hard before I answer. “I felt like a monster today. I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
“Don’t make that face again, okay? I don’t like it.”
She’s so little, eight years old. What am I doing to her? I can’t seem to get it right. What will I do if something ever happens to her? When something happens to her.
I hug her tight and make promises I know I can’t keep. “Want me to snuggle with you for a little while?”
She nods, and I lay down beside her as she wriggles close. The world harbors so many dangers. The thought of her suffering devastates me. I’m careful to keep my breathing even so she won’t know there are tears slipping down my cheek and onto her pillow. She falls asleep, and then I check on Jordan, who is sprawled over his bed, feet hanging almost to the floor. My first-born. I stand over him, and my love for him swells like a balloon until I am afraid my head will pop. They’re so beautiful when they are asleep.
On Monday morning Dr. Woo does the usual checkup plus a pap, and while he writes in my chart, he asks if I’m having any problems.
“I think I’m depressed,” I say from the examining table. I’m impressed at how steady my voice is.
He glances up. “Why?”
“I dunno. It’s like I’m worried all the time.” I lift my head to look at him, and he raises his eyebrows in expectation.
“Mostly about the kids,” I say, “but other things, too. You know, like a pandemic. Cancer. Sinkholes. Nuclear war. North Korea. I worry how I can protect my kids.”
“You don’t have cancer, and North Korea is on the other side of the world,” he says. “Why would you worry about that?”
“It’s the news,” I say. “It scares me.”
“So don’t watch the news,” he says. “Are you getting enough sleep?”
I shrug. “Off and on.”
“Try a bit more exercise. A lot of people get a little down in the winter. Take some vitamin D.” He stands up. “Come back if things don’t improve. I’ll call if anything turns up on the pap.” He disappears out the door.
I lay on the examining table clutching the paper sheet to my chest for so long a nurse knocks on the door to see if anyone is in the room. I tell her I’ll be right out and swing my feet to the worn carpet. Don’t watch the news? Get some exercise? Take fucking vitamin D?
