AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She points her finger in my face. “You don’t know a thing about us. Or about me. Not anymore. Go home James.”
I step closer, and she’s matching my steps back, but this room is small. Her back hits the wall and suddenly I’m almost flush against her, so close I can smell the shampoo in her hair, see the flecks of orange in her green eyes, the goosebumps rushing over her skin.
“You look good Katie,” I say quietly.
She swallows. “James—”
“He’s not good enough for you.”
We’re closer now. My lips a breath from hers, the heat of her body pressing against mine. I could kiss her. I could do more. The sudden strain in my pants is telling me to do more. To slide my fingers up that pretty black dress of hers and feel how fucking wet she already is for me. And I know she is. By the fire in her eyes, by the way her hips pull closer to mine.
“And who's good enough?” she whispers. “You?”
“You and I both know there's not a piece of me that's even close to being good enough for you. But that's never been enough to stop me. So yeah. You should be with me. Not him. Not anyone else.”
She laughs, and it’s cold and bitter. “You? Why the hell would I throw away a good man for you?”
“Because you know we work. That we’re good together.”
She leans into me, her breasts pressing against my chest. “Yeah? Then tell me you love me. Say it. Out loud.”
I open my mouth, but no sound comes out.I love you, Kate.Those words don’t make it past my lips, and that closeness, that feeling of her pressing against me is suddenly gone, like we’re miles apart.
“That’s what I thought,” she says tightly. “Go home James,” is all she says before shouldering past me and pushing through the door.
I don’t know how long I stand in that room, but when I finally leave, she’s nowhere to be found.
It’s 8 pm and I’m surrounded by white walls and strangers.
8
It’s9pmandI’m watching her.
Teach. I’m watching her teach. Two nights a week she does this, according to an old high school friend I’d cornered at the gallery last night.Painting Conservation Practice I, a part of the Master of Art Conservation program at Hemlaw School of Art.
Our eyes met briefly when I’d trailed in, and she hasn’t looked at me since. Ignoring me. Though, it’s not lost on me how much of an effort that’s been for her. The room is big, filled with a couple dozen students each with a large canvas in front of them. They’ve been working for almost two hours, each with a different painting, each slowly but surely uncovering a layer of something from each piece. It’s laborious work, all done with a cotton swab not bigger than the nail of my pinky finger.
I sit at the back, leaning against a wooden work table. To avoid me, she’s had to avert her gaze completely from this side of the room. But I can hear her frustrated little huffs, see the scowl she wears on her face and her fists tighten every time she accidentally lets her eyes float in my direction.
“Dirt and grime, dust, cigarette smoke, old, heavy varnish.” Kate walks between her students, projecting her voice out across the room. “The goal is to remove as much as you can—all the black and brown and orange, whatever time has left behind we want gone so that only the painting is left. We want it clean,” she says, her eyes finally locking with mine. “Everything that makes it less, we want wiped away. All the stains gone.”
I fold my arms across my chest. “Aren’t you wiping away the history?” I ask with smile. A few of her students glance at me before shifting their eyes back to a very angry Kate. “The story of the work is art in itself, is it not? Isn’t that what you always say? The stains are what tell you where it’s been.”
Her jaw ticks as she takes a short, calming breath. “We’rerestoringhistory, not erasing it. The history will always be there. It leaves its mark. No matter how much we try to scrape it away, there will always be something left behind.” The last part comes out bitter, and I know she’s talking about me. I know she’s wishing she could scrapemeaway.
She twirls on her heel and heads towards a small desk at the other side of the room. “That’s everything for tonight, guys,” she says. “We’ll pick this back up on Thursday.”
It takes another half hour for the class to clear. Students chatting, a few sitting at her desk asking questions about an upcoming exam, others still running their cotton swabs over their canvases. Eventually though, it’s just me and her. Me and Kate.
“You’re angry,” I say, loud enough so that she can hear me through the distance between us. Though the quiet filling the space is heavy, and I’m sure I could whisper and she’d still hear me even from across the room.
Kate keeps her head down, her eyes glued to a stack of paper in front of her. “I’m not angry.”
“Your face says otherwise.” More silence, and so I tread over to her desk, but she still doesn’t look up, her stack of papers seemingly much more interesting than anything I have to say. “Kate—”
“Why are you here, James?”
“I told you. I’m v—”
