“Are you going to go back to being grumpy with me?” sheasks, and steps away from the door and back into the light, a small smile making her dimples pop.
“Are you going to keep breaking the rules?”
She breathes in and moves to the edge of the steps. “Mark, I’m sorry I said what I said that first day. That it’s just a job. I understand you took that to heart because Infinio is everything to you.”
She takes a step down.
“I’m starting to see what you mean. I really love that role. It’s made me paint again, which is what makes me feel whole. So I guess if that’s how you feel about your work, I understand it.”
“Thanks for saying that, Rey,” I say, wishing I could reach out and pull her to me.
“Mark, I need to ask…”
Anything!
“What’s that?” I ask instead, trying not to sound desperate.
“Umm…” she fiddles with the skirt of her dress.
What does she want? I want her to want me, but I know I’m being ridiculous.
“Do you think there’s a chance you’d look at what Horace has put together for you?”
“Oh.” The disappointment is sharp in my gut, but it’s my own fault for getting carried away.
“Please? In the spirit of ‘infinite imagination, infinite possibilities’.”
She just quoted my company vision back at me.
“Fine,” I growl and do my best not to stare at her the way I want to as she does a little jubilant dance. “But tell me something.”
“Anything,” she says breathlessly, and I ignore what it reminds me of, biting the inside of my cheek.
“Why is it so important to you? You just started at the company. Why do you care?”
She takes another step closer. My hand moves forward as if by instinct, but I stuff it in my trouser pocket instead.
“I’ve never told anyone the whole story. Not even my friends, many of whom I’ve lost touch with because of it.”
“Go on.” I hold my breath. She’s sharing something personal with me?
“When I started university—I went to UAL, by the way—I loved creating. Every waking moment I’d paint or draw. There was an entire world inside me that had to be documented somehow. It was a bit obsessive, but I just loved it.
“Going to UAL, learning illustration and techniques, I had to do it all in certain ways. It was great to start with, of course, learning how to make things pop, how to layer an environment with different types of paint. How to use colour and shading and light. And my illustrations were popular with the teachers.”
She pauses and brushes a strand of hair from her cheek.
“For the first time since I was a child, Mum was proud of me.”
“Why wouldn’t she be?” I interrupt, too curious to wait.
“My father and brother are both in finance, and she’s got a bit of a chip on her shoulder, I guess. I didn’t live up to her dreams when I chose my creative path. However, after I graduated, she wanted me to try harder to get famous. Become part of the artistic elite or something. But my quirky drawings of this world that I’d created didn’t fit into her grand plan, and trying to paint and draw portraits or abstracts on demand killed the artist in me.”
I get it now.
She’s found a place for this world she’s created, and she can’t let it go.
Just like Damian when we were teenagers. He’d draw everywhere; all his ideas had to come out.
