Page 1 of Error Handling

Chapter 1

Sarah

I love the color brown.

I love it in the bark on the young oak just outside the window, in the chestnut color of my hair, in a chocolate lab’s short, rough coat. I like the rich brown of dark chocolate and the creamy brown of lattes from Joe and Go. I like brown eyes and brown skin and brown summer tans and brown leather sandals that I can easily kick off into the sand to run barefoot through the waves. Brown is not bad per se.

Unless it’s unintentional.

I glare at my palette. It’s dotted with globs of Winsor and Newton oil paints in various colors—Cadmium Red, Yellow Ochre, Phthalo Blue, Veridian, along with other hues I mixed myself. All afternoon, I’ve been applying them to my canvas in chunky, layered strokes that crash onto my canvas like the waves on Folly Beach. Unfortunately, my paintings rarely look as beautiful as a Charleston beach. Today is no exception.

I take a few steps back, cross my arms, and look at the mess I’ve made on my stretched canvas. My thoughts are as muddy as the colors, panic bleeding into desperation, oozing into disbelief.

How did I end up here, a twenty-eight-year-old college senior trying to earn a BFA in Painting at College of Charleston when I have no artistic talent, not even in my pinky finger? The only skill I’m adept at is mixing various shades of brown: diarrhea brown, baby poop brown, puke brown.

I let out a long, guttural groan.

Luna leans over and peeks at me from behind her oversized canvas. She regards me with one eyebrow raised. “Is something wrong?”

Luna Cochran is nothing like me. She’s blonde, tall, freckled, talented—a magician with oil paint, able to create hyperrealistic landscapes and faces. She runs a bustling portrait business on the side, painting the likenesses of men and women from all over the globe. Her business funds her college degree and pays the rent on her downtown apartment.

“Yes, something is wrong,” I say through pinched lips. “And every time I try to make it right, I end up inventing another shade of brown.”

I squint at the canvas—at the knobby outgrowth of bark that looks like a dirty corn on the bottom of my Grandma Wilkins’ foot (God rest her soul). Why do oil paints have to be so unforgiving?

I wanted to use acrylics for my senior exhibit, but Professor Smythe insisted I “stretch” myself. Well, this is what stretching looks like: a preschooler’s finger painting. I’d do just as well with my fingers.

I vacuum a lungful of air and dive for my painting, arms out-stretched, fingers splayed. The waves of paint are cool against my fingertips, and they mix readily as I swipe and swirl my hands up and down the lightly textured canvas.

Luna’s shocked cry echoes through the sprawling studio, which is empty except for the two of us. The 1890s warehouse stretches behind Luna, its walls, steel beams, and copper ceiling tiles painted a clear shade of white.

“What have you done?” Luna shrieks.

I step away from my painting, panting, back hunched, arms flaccid. My paint-covered hands contrast with the white-washed floorboards. “I fixed it.” A lock of bangs falls onto my forehead.

“You just wasted all that paint. You’re insane! You...” Luna’s voice trails off. A moment later, her metal stool scrapes against the floor. She hollers like a warrior and dives for her own painting.

I snap to attention and feel my face go warm. “Luna, no!” But it’s too late. Luna’s paws are already defiling what had no doubt been a masterpiece only moments before.

“No, no, no, no!” I chant as I run over to my friend. Her hands are hanging like wet rags, her shoulders shaking with laughter.

A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth, but I’m mostly upset. “Why did you do that? It might have been your lifetime achievement, passed down through generations, hung on the walls of the Louvre!”

“I’m not that good,” Luna says, still laughing. “I can only paint what I see. I can’t make up anything new.”

I huff. “Nowyou’reinsane.”

“I actually think you’re onto something.”

“An in-depth study of the various shades of poo?”

“A new form of performance art.”

She drops to the floor and leans back on her elbows. I join her and we look up at the ceiling.

“You shouldn’t have ruined your painting,” I say.

Luna looks at me. “Why not? You did.”