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“Drink?”
“Uh… No. I don’t think so.”
“No? Come on. A final final.”
Romeo might have been walking with them in body, but in spirit he was a million miles away. He took a couple more steps in silence then stopped.
“Hey. I’m gonna head home.”
“What? Why?”
“Tired.”
“You mean lame.”
“Yeah. That too.”
“Come on?…”
“Nah. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.” And with that, Romeo left Benny and Marco standing in the street and headed home.
He wasn’t tired. Of course not. But, isn’t that what everyone says when they want to bail on something they know they’re going to get static for. Yeah… I’m tired… Long day… Etc… Etc…
As Romeo walked home it started to rain. Not hard, just a little drizzle. That kind of nice, warm, soft shower that you sometimes get in the summer. He could feel it on his face, misting his eyes and falling gently on his cheeks. He could see it as a gauzy curtain, illuminated from behind, as it fell in front of the passing street lamps. And he could see it as it floated to the ground, coated the street, and reflected the colored lights all around him .
He could see the red of the stop light in the rain’s reflection on the corner of Willow and Third. He could see the bright blues and yellows coming from the neon St Pauli Girl in the window of Teddy’s Tavern and the obnoxiously repetitive flashing of the Come In We’re Open sign in the window of Bombay Gardens.
As he turned the corner onto South Main, he could see the bright green of a nearby Starbucks reflected on the slick blacktop. Which made him think of the bright green fleck he’d noticed in Ant’s dark brown eyes.
He could see it all. The painter in him saw all the colors of the rainbow reflected on the mist covered, sultry city streets as he headed home, alone, lost in thought. Lost in thought about her.
When Romeo got home he saw the light on in the main house so he went up the stoop and in through th
e front door. Inside, he found the TV on and Father Frank passed out in his usual spot in the living room, on the recliner next to the window. The paraphernalia of self medication all around him.
Romeo turned off the TV and put the cap back on the bottle of bourbon. Then he gathered up the few empty beer cans and the overflowing ashtrays that were cluttering up the folding table next to the recliner where Frank slept, and took them to the kitchen. Before heading downstairs he went back, covered Frank with his favorite fleece, tattered and torn from a decade of heavy use, and turned out the light.
Back in his own apartment, Romeo plopped down on the old leather sofa. It creaked comfortingly as he settled in. He didn’t know why, but his place felt just a little bit smaller now. He put his feet up on the coffee table, trying to push the mess out of the way just enough so it wouldn’t cascade off the other end. It didn’t work. An empty pizza box pushed into the spine of a magazine which knocked an almost empty beer off the edge of the table and onto the floor. The contents gurgled out onto the area rug beneath .
“Really?”
Then he noticed the rejection letter he got a couple of days ago. It was on top of a small pile of mail that had been buried beneath the pizza box. It’s torn end now peeked out from under.
He’d already read it half a dozen times but grabbed it again anyway. Why not torture himself a little more. Right? It was nothing compared to finding out that she was part of them.
It was from an art gallery in the city - the Frutteto Gallery. He’d sent them a letter of introduction and some pictures of his paintings in hopes of getting a show. But this one, like the others, simply said thanks but no thanks.
He crossed the room and stood in front of his most recent work. It was a cityscape he did from the edge of town. He liked to go there where it was a little industrial and a little desolate and look back in on where he lived. He felt it gave him a unique perspective. One that he could translate using color and canvas.
He liked being out there alone, on his own, for the day or just a couple of hours. It was his private getaway. And despite what those letters said, he still thought they were pretty good. And making them made him feel good, made him feel whole, like he had a purpose. And that was the whole point, wasn’t it?
He looked back over where the latest letter lay and then back to the painting. “What’s missing?” he asked himself.
He picked up a tube of Crimson Red and squirted a bit onto his palette. He reached for a brush, dipped it in the paint and brought it to the canvas, but then stopped short of doing anything. Instead he ditched the brush, returned to the couch and grabbed his phone.
He googled Antoinette Capogiana. A surprising amount of info came up, but not about her. It seemed there was a woman with the same name in Los Angeles, a famous interior decorator. Decorator to the stars they called her.
He clicked on the images tab and scrolled through the photos at his fingertips. He knew the odds of finding a picture of her were akin to finding a needle in a haystack, but the thought of seeing her again tonight, even in a picture, was too good to pass up. Of course, he didn’t find any.
