~~23~~
After three weeks with his new paints and new canvases, Edward’s had transformed his house into a mini art studio. He had several finished canvases leaning against one wall and dozens of smaller ones stacked in the corner of the room. After finishing a few paintings the bathroom sink had looked like a crater on some alien planet, streaked with layers of red, black, green and blue. Mary had handed him a can of Ajax and demanded that he clean it or else she would never stay the night at his place. He had scrubbed it new.
He’d sold a few more pieces on the main pier in Road Town when the police weren’t clearing away the hawkers. The cruise ship tourists seemed to appreciate the authentic themes of plants and fish, simple form paintings. Mary had helped him with the framing, at first buying a garish bamboo frame from the arts and craft store. He had quickly educated her on a better presentation for the acrylic works. They found a craftsman who made wood chairs and tables, and Edward showed him images of the frame he wanted: broad, stained or painted with a modern maroon or blue, single inset. The woodwork cost more than everything else, but he got twice as much for the small framed piece that the cruisers could easily fit into their suitcases.
Edward waited, twirling the paintbrush in one hand for ten minutes, for Mary to come out of the bathroom. When the door finally opened, she rushed out, covering her breasts with one hand and the dark tuft of hair between her bare thighs with the other.
“I can’t believe—” She stepped over to the bed, grabbing a pillow, pulling it into her lap as she sat in one movement. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.” She looked up at Edward and his prepared easel, canvas, palette and cleaning cup.
“I am a professional,” Edward said as he picked up his palette. “And unless you want to look like the Elephant Man, you have to move the pillow away.”
Using his forearm, he wiped back his hair. It was longer than it had ever been. He was sure his parents wouldn’t recognize him if he knocked on their front door. Though he didn’t like to admit it, he thought about them sometimes in the evening when a memory would come to him, while Mary was in the kitchen, and he was outside barbecuing. It was more of a feeling that things were repeating themselves. Those Friday night barbecues with his father standing before their smoking grill, fork in one hand, a bottle of beer in the other. There was the same sizzle as the grease hit the coals. The same smells wafting around the back patio as the smoke rose up into the palm canvas above.
Jazz was playing on the radio. Before she had entered the bathroom to disrobe, Mary had turned it on. The volume was down so low that he could only hear the twiddling high notes of a trumpet and the heavier drumbeats. Edward enjoyed the evenings the most. Sunset. When the dusk wind came through and the sky blossomed with colors. That’s when he usually started making dinner on his back patio.
Two finished paintings leaned against the TV, covering its screen. He hadn’t turned it on in about two weeks. He listened to the radio, but rarely watched TV. Its jumpy sounds had become chafing to him. Even though most of the shows were from the US, they felt foreign to him now. He couldn’t understand what the commercials told him he needed. They were for people who needed new watches, new cars, new smart phones, pills to improve sex, cheap airfare for a weekend getaway, antacid for heartburn, low-carb beer, glamorous blue jeans, life insurance, and whitening toothpaste. The sitcoms were no better. He didn’t know exactly when, but they had grown mundane and formulaic, their characters cartoonish, one-dimensional. Every show seemed to be about the same group of cheery friends hanging out in trendy bars or a model apartment. Each character was content, yet forever searching for that elusive significant other. If you’re happy, why do you need to change?
Mary finally surrendered the pillow, slowly laying it back at the head of the bed. Her eyes darted around, avoiding his examination of her.
“Beautiful. Why don’t you lay on your side? Like that. Good. Please move your hand away from your privates. Relax. Lean your head back. Like that. Good. Move your hand a little. Good.”
Mary covered her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut as she laughed.
“It feels funny. I’m so fat—”
“Baby, you’re perfect.”
She struggled to find a comfortable position, putting her head on the pillow before lifting it up and resettling it onto her forearm, her muscles rigid with her anxiety.
“Did you write your parents yet?”
Edward knew this question was a counter attack for her discomfort. He hated talking about his parents and she knew it. Mary nagged him every week to call or write them.
“Yes. I did.”
“Really?” She seemed disappointed.
“Really. I sent a postcard last week.”
Edward finished sketching out his background and outline of Mary’s body, making a light tracing of her curves, her hips, shoulders and hair falling back behind her head. He then put in more details, adding her eyebrows, lips, bellybutton and nipples. After twenty minutes, his cleaning cup had grown muddy and saturated, and he knew he’d get in trouble if he dirtied either of the sinks.
“Do not move. I’ll be right back.”
Mary didn’t answer. She’d come from the library where she had been since the morning. As he sketched her on his canvas, it was clear she was becoming comfortable with her nakedness; her eyelids grew heavy, and now were half shut. She acknowledged him with a slow blink of her eyes.
Edward ran out the door, across the beach, to the waterline, tossed out the grey contents of the cup. He shoveled up water and sand, and gyrated the cup, scouring it clean. He looked up in time to see the red speedboat leaving, foreshortened as it headed away from the little island, out into open ocean. It appeared motionless and shrinking for a few moments. He could just make out the heads of the three men inside. Filtered by distance and the late afternoon breeze, its engines came through the breeze with the buzz of a mosquito against his ear.
He stayed there, letting the surf wash over his feet and ankles, wondering how long the men had been on the inlet island. He watched the boat slowly turn, its white foam trail bending toward Beef Island at the southern tip of Tortola. When the boat had disappeared behind the island, Edward threw out the water from his cup and ran back to his house.
Mary was dozing, sleeping on her side. Seeing her on the bed swept away the thoughts about the red boat and the hidden shack. Her pose had changed. Mary’s head was now resting on her extended arm, perfectly straight up to the delicate curl of her fingers. Her other arm rested on her hip, her knees slightly bent. There was a wonderful contrast with her breasts exposed, unguarded and her top leg bent slightly out over the bottom. Her relaxed, unconscious form was a hundred times better than what it had been when she was awake and fidgeting. There was innocence. There was honesty. Edward remembered all his models in college. They had all been exhibitionists or cocky narcissists, and that quality had bled through into everyone’s work – except those who left the face blank. It was as though he had travelled back in time, far removed from the layers of prudish culture, fear of beauty and its allure. With Mary’s eyes closed and the forced eroticism removed, she had become natural, sanctified, a symbol of pure appreciation. The excitement rushed through him. With Mary asleep, Edward was stealing a glimpse of the models of ancient Greece when nudity was natural, when Lysippos was sculpting a disrobed Alexander the Great.