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“Really is a shame.”
I smile to myself, and even though I know it’s a mistake, I let myself enjoy this moment, feeling strangely safe and satisfied.
Chapter19
Hellie
After we straighten up the studio and I take a shower, it’s time to get to work.
Dread fills my stomach. I’m terrified that I won’t be able to pull this off, that I’m way overestimating my painting abilities, that I’m a total fraud and everyone will find out—and I’ll get murdered for it.
But I shove that aside and focus.
I start like I did with the first version, but this time, I know what I’m doing. I make fewer mistakes as I sketch out the base layer, getting the canvas prepped for the painting to come. I move with confidence, or at least pretending I feel confident until it starts to become somewhat the truth, selecting colors, brushes, laying it all out like a chef at his work station. Lunch appears at some point and I eat without thinking, my mind focused on the task ahead.
I feel myself start to sink into that work mode. It’s like I’ve flipped a switch and now there’s nothing else but what I have to do. I let myself drift, obsessive, intense, deeper and deeper, like a trance.
The mother first. The daughter next. The riot of light and dark, the smattering of color, the instruments, the father’s muted back and lank hair.
A miracle happens every time I drop into this state. It’s a rushing river, a never-ending motion. Ideas leave my hands like I’m shedding skin. I work late and go to bed for only a few hours, but I’m up early the next morning, working hard until coffee and breakfast appear. I don’t know who brings it. I’m not sure it matters. Everything in my world narrows down to my workstation, to the canvas, to the paintings, to my materials.
This job will either save or damn me.
Only one thought intrudes on my focus. Erick, his mouth, his hands, his body against mine. His groans of pleasure, his hand as it slaps my ass. Erick’s the only person who enters my brain that isn’t a part of this painting, and I wish I could keep him out, at least for five days. He’s a distraction, and worse than that, I don’t want to be distracted by him at all.
He’s the reason I’m in this mess.
But there’s no way it’ll happen.
Erick’s lodged deep into my skull, lurking there even when I try to excise him away.
I paint.
I paint and paint and paint for an entire day.
More food appears, I eat it, I use the bathroom, and I paint. I sleep for a little while, wake up, paint. The sun rises, I eat, drink coffee, allow myself a short shower, and I paint.
I don’t see anyone. I don’t speak to anyone. I assume there are other people in the house—Marina must be bringing up my meals—but nobody bothers me.
Erick disappears. Not from my mind, but from my sight, from my tiny existence.
Two days pass. I’m getting delirious but I’m only dimly aware of it happening. During the third day, I finish the mother, and start on the daughter. I’m making good progress—it’s a little bit slower because I’m making sure every brush stroke is accurate, constantly referencing a blown-up, hi-res version of the original.
Materials appear, brushes get cleaned, paints are refreshed.
It happens as if by magic. I don’t question anything, I just keep painting.
My hands ache. My head feels like it might explode.
I get through three days and head into the fourth, making good progress.
The materials are right. The brushes, the strokes, even the canvas material. I’m not used to these colors and it takes a little while to build a sense for the way they spread and lay on the canvas, but soon it makes sense, it feels natural. I work, unrelenting, obsessed, like I’m slaying a dragon. Fighting it one inch at a time.
When this is over, I’ll hate this painting more than anything in the world, but for now, I still love it.
I still yearn to be a part of it.
Coffee appears. Food appears. Someone tells me to take a shower, but I ignore them and keep on going. They make me wash off anyway, and I do it as if in a waking dream.
