The Art of My Life (4 page)

The doorbell rang, and Aly’s chin
jerked up from the pint of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey she’d just
opened. Mom had taken her out for her birthday yesterday, and she
wasn’t expecting anyone. She jammed the spoon into the ice cream,
stuck it into the freezer, and jogged to the door. Maybe it was
elderly Mrs. Knox from the condo next door.

She whisked open the door. The smile
died on her lips.

Cal stood on the step, damp hair
pulled into a ponytail, his jaw freshly shaved.

Shallow breaths moved in and out of
her nose, registering the scent of soap. Pin pricks dotted her skin
as though her whole body had fallen asleep.

One corner of his mouth turned up. His
eyes looked uncertain. “Happy birthday.” It almost sounded like a
question.

“
Thanks.”

“
I’m sorry I didn’t have
the guts to say it the last two years.” He tapped the framed
pictures propped against his thigh. “I brought you
something.”

She should invite him in. Handing her
art on the doorstep was ridiculous. But if he came in, he’d see the
ink drawings he’d cast off years ago—the ones she’d expensively
framed as the focal point of her living room. He’d think she was
still in love with him after two years of almost no
contact.

Cal shifted his weight from one foot
to the other. “If you have company, I can come back another
time.

She cleared her throat. “I don’t have
company.”

The silence crept past
awkward.

“
If you’d rather I didn’t
come in—”

“
No, it’s okay.” She
inched away from the door.

Cal lined three framed charcoal
drawings against the couch, his back to her private Cal Koomer
gallery. His gaze riveted to hers. “Thanks for the loan. The
Escape
will be in dry dock for a month. I’m doing all the
work I can myself. You gave me a shot at a future.”

Did Cal remember her vow to own her
own business by twenty-five? Did he realize she’d handed him her
dream?
Enjoy it for me, Cal. Succeed.
“It was a sound
business decision.” Not personal.

Hurt slashed through his eyes and
disappeared in a blink. “I’m still grateful, Al.”

She folded her arms across her waist
and sunk to the edge of the coffee table. She pulled her gaze away
from his and found the gifts he’d brought.

Cal’s genius lay in his ability to
knead a viewer’s emotions into a visceral response. His art
expressed things deeper than he was able to communicate in words.
She had learned to read his work almost from the start of their
friendship. Gratitude for the rusty skill wafted through
her.

Two faces looking away from each other
filled the first drawing. Though no one else might, she recognized
herself. Hurt etched the planes of her face and seared from her
eyes. She glanced at the bottom right corner for the date Cal
always included with his signature. The drawing had been done on
her twenty-first birthday, less than a month after she’d offered
herself to Cal and been turned down. After she’d confessed her
love. After she’d witnessed his hand planted on the polka dots of
Evie’s bikini from where she stood on the side of the beach
road.

Her eyes slid to the dark-jawed male
face—the tilt of the thick brows, the kinks in the hair, and halted
at the eyes swimming with bone-scraping regret.

So, Cal got how her heart crumpled
beyond repair in the sawgrass that day. The charcoal begged her
absolution.

She glanced over her
shoulder.

Cal stood with his back to her,
staring at the wall she didn’t want him to see. Below the drawings
and to the right, like a signature, she’d framed her favorite photo
of Cal. Head thrown back, mouth open, he laughed. She could hear
the sound in her head every time she looked at the
photo.

How did Cal feel seeing himself
enshrined on her wall? Did he pity her? Feel responsible for her?
Did he want to erase her love?

Until this moment she’d believed she’d
jettisoned her feelings for Cal a little at a time until none were
left. She’d made progress. Surely she had.

She turned to the second picture,
dated on her twenty-second birthday. She and Cal stood angled away
from each other with the sharp needles of a Christmas tree jabbing
between them. Her eyes were downcast, and Cal peered over his
shoulder at her longingly. He missed her friendship. But she
couldn’t go back there again.

The last charcoal, dated today—her
twenty-third birthday—depicted figures facing each other across her
desk at the bank. She recognized Jackson’s forearm and hand, the
crown of Starr’s head. This time she and Cal looked each other in
the eye. Uncertainty clouded her expression; embarrassment, Cal’s.
But he still-framed the moment when their fingers brushed against
each other.

How had Cal captured the bond between
them in charcoal? A bond she wouldn’t resurrect. Couldn’t. She
stood and stepped behind the coffee table to absorb the picture as
a whole.

Her arm clunked into Cal’s chest,
firing off an all-systems-alert to her body—like the touch Cal
depicted on paper. Her gaze flew to his, then darted away from the
raw plea in his eyes. “Sorry.”

She stepped away from him and rubbed
the bare skin of her arm as if she could erase the softness of
Cal’s T-shirt, the warm, solid feel of his chest. She centered
herself in front of the last drawing.

The picture communicated permanence in
their connection, the subjects’ surprise that the welding still
held. Well, Cal had gotten that wrong.

She stared at the other two drawings,
willing her pulse to calm. How long had she been lost in the art?
Two minutes? Half-an-hour?

She filled her lungs with oxygen and
faced Cal. “What do you want from me?”

His eyes pleaded with her, but she
needed words.

“
I brought the drawings…
to say I’m sorry for… for what I did to you.”

“
I forgave you a long time
ago.” How could she not? It wasn’t his fault she fell in love with
him and ruined their friendship. She’d never make that mistake
again.

“
Do we still have…?” His
hands waved between them, his eyes desperate to say what he
couldn’t articulate.

How could she tell him they had
nothing left? He’d just stared at what looked like a memorial to
their relationship for who knew how long. She could tell him he was
a brilliant artist, and she happened to be lucky enough to have
some originals to hang on her wall. But he’d be hurt. He wasn’t
looking for an art critique. He’d exposed his heart and begged to
jump-start their friendship.

While the sentiment was gratifying,
she’d be a masochist to agree. No, the relationship needed to stay
dead.

If Daddy’s deleting her out of his
life when she was seven wasn’t enough to teach her to protect
herself, all she had to do was look at her mother. Thank God Mom
had a nursing degree when Daddy walked. But Daddy had left Mom’s
heart out in all weather, something that could only have been
prevented by trusting her heart to a safer person.

Bachelor of Science in business.
Check. Owning her own company. Someday. She just wished she was one
of those women who didn’t need a man. But sex, if only momentarily,
filled her craving to be cherished, to be essential to another
person’s existence. When she married, it would be to a stable guy
who wouldn’t leave her for someone better. Or jail.

But she couldn’t throw Cal’s good
intentions back in his face. Not today with his art filling her
living room.

She motioned with her head toward the
breakfast bar. “Come on. I was just celebrating. Sit
down.”

She plopped the Ben and Jerry’s
between them.

Cal reached for the spoon and stopped.
He smiled into her eyes, and she knew he was remembering the last
time they celebrated with Chunky Monkey—the day he’d taken her to
get a pregnancy test that turned out negative. He took a bite and
stuck the spoon back into the ice cream.

Aly smiled. It was a happy memory even
though she was ashamed of the almost-pregnancy. She slipped the
spoon into her mouth, thinking how weird it was that they’d shared
food and silverware for eight years when they’d never dated, much
less kissed. Her eyes strayed to his lips, and she shook herself
back to reality.

She’d prepare a gentle
this-isn’t-going-to-work speech, make it as painless as possible,
and deliver it the next time she saw him. Her life depended on
it.