Page 59 of All That We Are Together
Leah
No surprise, I couldn’t sleep, so I tried to calm myself down after turning over in bed and staring up at the ceiling. I thought of all that would happen in just a few hours and felt my stomach turn. My paintings would be hanging on the walls of a gallery in front of a bunch of people who would see different things in them, translating the brushstrokes in their way, taking what they wanted from here and from there, and that frightened me. Not being able to communicate what I wanted. When I left them there, I would renounce them in the sense that they wouldn’t just be mine and couldn’t have just a single meaning, they would mean many things and would belong to whoever wanted to see them.
I breathed deep and closed my eyes. And then I heard it.
A softtickfollowed by many others.Tick, tick.I threw aside the sheets and got up.Tick, tick, tick.I walked to the window and jerked up to open it. I had to rub my eyes to be sure what I was seeing was real. Axel dropped the pebbles he still had in his hand and shrugged when he saw my disconcerted expression. I grinned.
“You’re thirty-three years old. That’s too old to be doing this kind of thing.”
“I guess I feel young when I’m around you.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“I knew you’d be awake.”
“It’s midnight, Axel.”
“Come down. It’s Friday; there are places open.”
I thought about it for a moment, but who am I trying to fool? I’d been tossing and turning in bed for hours and wasn’t going to say no. I sighed and told him I’d be ready in five minutes. I put on a pale blue summer dress with white spots and a pair of flats and walked outside.
Axel was leaning on the fence.
“Couldn’t you have just called me?”
“I thought that was too conventional,” he joked.
“And the pebbles striking the window wasn’t?”
“Seemed more fun.”
He smiled in that way that seemed to stop time. I hated it! His magnetism. How easy everything was for him. I shook my head and walked up beside him, and the two of us went downhill.
“Where are we headed?” I asked.
“To grab a drink. Perhaps.”
“I’m so nervous! I’ve got this feeling like everything’s going to fall apart, or I’ll draw a blank when someone talks to me, or I’ll open my eyes and find myself standing there naked in the middle of the gallery.”
“I wish that would happen! I’d be in the front row.”
“Idiot!” I pushed him and he laughed.
“It’s going to go great. But that’s why I came to find you, because I know you and I knew you’d be getting all dramatic. Anyway, I’ve got a surprise for you. I think you’ll like it.” He looked a little uncertain, and I couldn’t read his expression.
I felt that tingle all over that I used to feel whenever I was going to get a present or someone was trying to surprise me. I remember how I used to rip off the wrapping paper, anxious and elated, unable to think of anything else. Those evocative streets dusted off parts of the girl I had left behind years ago.
But I kept myself in check and asked no questions.
We reached the boardwalk and continued along to a place where there were bars and gatherings of people. We decided to stop at one next to the shore that was little more than a shack. When we got inside, I kicked off my sandals and felt the wood floor and the sand on my toes.
“You still like mojitos?”
“Yeah,” I replied, and he ordered two.
“I trained you well…”
I felt breathless as I remembered the night when I told Axel I wanted to get drunk, and he gave in and we danced together to “Let It Be” with our eyes closed. He had made a pitcher of mojitos, and later he’d kissed me for the first time under the stars.