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“What do you want?” He looks up at me. “Oh, you can sit.”
He pulls out the chair next to him and pats it. I sit. “What do I want you to draw, you mean? Hell, I don’t know. What are my options?”
Grinning, he taps his fingers absentmindedly on the blank sheet of paper. “Whatever you want.”
Well, shit. Now I’m even more fascinated. Squinting down at the tabletop, I try to come up with something. I feel the phrase “wracking my brain” acutely in this moment. Still, I come up empty.
“I have no idea,” I tell him, and he laughs.
“Alright, then I get to choose.” He nudges me with one elbow, playfully. Then, he bends over and gets to work.
He starts with broad, sweeping strokes across the paper. His hand moves confidently, and he doesn’t once stop to erase or correct anything, as far as I can tell. I also can’t tell what it’s supposed to be yet. I lean over, trying to get a better view. Fuck it—grasping the bottom of my chair, I scoot the whole thing in toward him. He doesn’t take his eyes off what he’s doing, but the corner of his mouth pulls up in a smile.
Picking up a different pencil, he stops to scratch his cheek and survey the drawing before continuing. I’m not sure what’s more interesting: watching his hand fly across the paper, or watching his facial expressions. I desperately wish I could see both at the same time. He bends closer to the table, working on what I can now recognize as a person. I lean closer as well.
“A hockey rink!” I say, suddenly, as I identify the shape and the abstract lines. He left the background slightly out of focus, but anyone who loves the sport could recognize it for what it is. His smile widens, but still he doesn’t look up and his handdoesn’t stop moving. He’s working from the feet up on the figure. The ice skates are so detailed, I feel like I could reach out and touch leather.
“Alright, no more watching,” Anthony says, stopping and nudging me again with his elbow.
“What? Why?”
“Because I said so.” He spins his finger in the air, indicating that I should turn to face the other way in my chair. I scowl, and his answering smile only broadens. He waits until my back is to him before the scratch of the pencil resumes.
I don’t peek over my shoulder, despite wanting to. Instead, I close my eyes and rest for a moment, content to bask in the relative silence and Anthony’s presence. It’s a matter of minutes before the pace of the scratching slows and eventually stops. I wait, turning around only when I feel a warm hand on my shoulder. Sitting forward once more, I look down at the sheet that he slides in front of me.
It is a hockey rink, like I thought.Myhockey rink, at SCU. And the figure on the ice is unmistakably me. It’s a ridiculously accurate rendering, and I have the uncomfortable sensation of looking in a mirror. A flattering mirror. He’s drawn my face in a way that makes it obvious it’s me, but also makes me look better than I do. The scars are there—one long one bisecting an eyebrow and traveling across the corner of my eye, with a few smaller ones on my forehead. Somehow, he’s made the scars the least interesting part of my face. It’s how I wish I actually looked.
“Thatishow you look,” Anthony says, and I jolt. I hadn’t realized I’d said that last out loud.
“This is incredible. I can’t believe you can do this.” I really can’t. I justwatchedhim do it, and I can hardly believe it. Who the fuck can sit down and create something like this? Unbelievable.
“Here.” He holds out a hand, and I reluctantly pass it over. I have a very strong desire to snatch it back; I want to keep it. “I need to spray it with fixative so that it doesn’t smudge.”
Indeed, the pads of his fingers are black where he used them to blur the drawing. He leaves the room, but is gone for only a moment before coming back and handing me the page.
“I can keep it?” I ask, trying to keep the need out of my voice.
“Sure. Throw it away, keep it, whatever you want to do.”
Throw it away? Good lord, what kind of mad suggestion is that? Carefully, I lay it down on the table and look at it. I wish he had drawn himself, and not just me. “Did you sign it? Or put your initials, or whatever artists do?”
He laughs. “No.”
“Can you?” I nudge it over to him. He gives me a queer look before bending and adding his initials and jersey number to the bottom right corner. “Thanks. Is this what you do the most? Portraits?”
“Yeah, I mostly draw portraits, but sometimes landscapes as well. I can’t do anything like that.” He points to a painting on the wall. I look at it; it’s good, certainly, but not nearly as impressive as what I just watched him do. “Actually, what I do the most these days is coloring pages for my nephew.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, and this time he does pull a portfolio binder from a nearby bookshelf. I flick through the pages. They look exactly like blank pages from a coloring book, just as he said.
“Caleb likes art, like me, and he sometimes comes and stays with me during the offseason. So, I like to have a lot of those ready for him.”
“So, you’re the cool uncle.” I hand the binder back to him.
Anthony beams. “Sure am.”
“Well, I’m impressed. Do you know how much money you could earn, if you auctioned something like this off?” I run a gentle finger over the outside edge of the paper. “You could draw the team, or something, and raffle it for charity.”
He looks embarrassed again. “I don’t know.”
