Love's Rendition
Part 9
by Tragedy88
E-Mail: Tragedy88@goplay.com
Disclaimers: See Part 1.
"Just
put that over there." I pointed to the area in front of the trellis,
instructing the young man where to put the canvas and paints. Upon arriving at Allison's she had insisted
on getting the supplies, said it was tradition, then left to check the office,
and said she'd be back in about an hour.
"Miss Grace?" I turned to find Vella standing in the
doorway.
"Just call me Grace," I
said automatically.
"Mr. Thurbs is here."
"Already?" I asked.
She nodded.
"Show him in then."
"Yes, ma'- Grace." She grinned slightly and hurried back into
the cavernous house.
I was already exhausted so I let
Mark set up the easel where I asked for it and brought a stool. I was just sitting down when a gruff voice
said, "Grace, my dear, how are you? No, no, don't get up.
Boy-"
"His name is Mark," I
said.
"Mark," he drawled. "Get me a chair."
"Yes sir." The boy scurried away. A moment later he returned and put the chair
where Mr. Thurbs gestured.
"Anything else, Grace?"
the boy asked.
"No, Mark. Thanks, you did a great job." His smile took up the entire lower half of
his face, and I forced myself not to chuckle.
"You let him call you
Grace?" Thom asked.
I turned to face him, the pain in my
back already making me grouchy.
"Let him?" I rose one
eyebrow, in a pale imitation of Allison's signature gesture. "I asked
him to call me Grace."
Thom humphed. "He's hired help. He should have more respect-"
"He may be the help, but he's
still a human being." I turned my
back on Thom and furiously studied the trellis that I'd be painting in less
then an hour.
"Do you dislike all rich people
or is it just me?"
My shoulders slumped. Today was not a good day for a battle of
wills, witty repartee or much else for that matter. "Yes."
He chuckled. "Fine by me. I don't much like myself, or rich people either."
"Oh really?" I turned to him curiously, and found that
same sparkle in his brown eyes.
"Do you dislike all poor people or just me?" I threw back.
"Yes."
We both chuckled for a minute, then
I got down to fine tuning my work space and answering a few standard questions
from Thom, like, 'what are you doing?', 'why are you doing that?', 'what's that
for'...etc. Before I knew it Allison
was back.
"Shall we get started?"
she asked.
"Are you going to wear
that?" I asked offhand. She was wearing the casual, charcoal gray
business suit that she'd changed into after we'd arrived here. It looked great, but certainly wasn't what
I'd had in mind.
"Sure, why not?" She
glanced down the length of her body then back at me. "Something wrong with the way I look?"
"No, no, not at all," I
sputtered. "I just thought
something more.... I don't know?"
I shrugged helplessly.
"Perhaps Grace is trying to say
that you should wear something that's more in keeping with your personality and
the traits you wish to portray in a painting."
"Uh, yeah, that's what I
meant."
"I'm a business woman. This will be fine. Now, where do you want me to sit?" Allison asked briskly.
I glanced at Thom, who shrugged and
finally I told her to sit on the wicker bench.
I began with a light outline.
The placement of the trellis, the chair, her body.... I became lost in what I was doing, letting
my fingers convey what my mind's eye saw.
It was coming together well, but it just didn't feel right. Today was not a day to paint. I sighed and looked up to find Allison
intently watching me.
She blinked and we both looked away.
"Is there a problem?" Thom
asked.
"I...I don't know. It just doesn't feel right." I tapped the pencil absently against the
sketchpad, looking at the drawing from all angles.
"Feel right?" he asked.
I turned to look at him. "It has to feel right, look right
before I can put the paint down. If it
doesn't, it'll never flow together.
It'll just be paint on canvas," I replied, trying unsuccessfully to
work out the numerous kinks and knots forming along my back.
"Break time then," Vella said.
I was startled to find a number of
people were standing behind me, studying the outline. Vella had milk and cookies.
"Break time!" I
grinned. "Thanks Vella." Hastily I looked at Allison. "Is that all right?"
"A break sounds good to
me. I need to call the office
anyway."
I watched her slip away, 'stay' on
the tip of my tongue. But she was
gone. When the cookies and milk were
finished Allison returned to her seat.
I picked up the sketch pad I'd brought with me. "I'm going to try something else." For another hour I worked on a pencil
drawing of the trellis, the chair and her body. Something still wasn't right, but the light was nearly gone.
"Bout time to call it a
day?" Allison asked softly.
I looked up, startled to find her
standing in front of me, peering over the edge of the notebook. Her hair cascaded over her shoulder and
whispered across the paper. Her face
cast in half shadows I found what I needed.
Eagerly I turned to a clean sheet of paper as I urged her 'not to move a
muscle.'
I worked till my hand cramped.
"Can I move now?" Allison groaned.
"Oh, shit. I'm sorry." I started to close the notebook, but she touched the edge of it,
halting me in my tracks.
"May I?" she asked
quietly.
No, was my first thought, but
instead I silently handed over the paper and watched her face as she studied
it.
"Not what I really had in
mind...." Her voice trailed off
for a moment. "What do you
think?" She held the paper up to
Thom, then showed it to her staff. They
were either too dumbfounded that she'd asked their opinion or were too polite
to say it sucked.
Finally Vella said, "I
like. Very mysterious. Good shadows and light."
Relieved, I grinned at Vella, then
turned anxiously back to Allison.
"It's okay?"
"Very okay."
Thom nodded his head in
agreement. "I just might have to
commission a portrait myself."
He's joking. No way.
"Seriously," he added, as
an afterthought, almost as if he'd read my mind.
"Uh sure," I found myself
saying.
"You paint uh landscape. Trees and things, Grace?" Vella asked.
"Sometimes." I nodded, and thus began numerous small
conversations on great painters, spectacular landscapes and everything under
the sun. Through it all I wondered
where Allison had slipped off to now.
My back was so knotted that it was
making me nauseous, and after a short while I excused myself from the
conversations to go throw up in the bathroom.
There were Tylenol in the medicine cabinet and I popped four of them
with some faucet water.
When I returned, the garden was dark
and Vella informed me that Mr. Thurbs had wished us all a good evening, before
he'd left. He hadn't wanted to disturb
me from 'powdering my nose.'
It turned out Allison was in her
study. It also turned out that's where
my sketchbook had ended up. It was
laying across her desk and she was staring out the window. Quietly I cleared my throat, but when it
didn't appear she'd heard me I gave a slight cough. Her chair turned with barely a squeak.
"Hey," she said.
"Hey yourself." I smiled nervously. "What's up?"
"Are you ready to go? I can get the chauffeur."
I shrugged. "Whenever." Apparently she didn't desire any more of my
company. "I'll see myself
out." I was halfway to the door
when she called out my name. The way my
name rolled off her tongue sent a shiver down my spine. I turned back around. "Hmmm?
What?"
"Can I ask you
something?" She was fiddling with
the glass in her hands, not looking at me.
"Sure," I drawled. "Doesn't mean I'll answer."
She looked up with a slight
smile. After a moment she seemed to
remember she'd wanted to say something and tapped the sketchbook.
"This-"
"What about it?" I asked
defensively. "Is there something
wrong with it?"
"No, no," she hastened to
assure me. "I just
wondered.... I mean.... Is this what you see when you look at
me?"
My eyes widened and my mouth went
useless for a moment. It was not at all
what I'd expected to hear.
"Um...what do you mean?"
"I mean, is this sketch what
you see when you look at me?" She held it up and I took a moment to study
it.
"Yes," I answered. "Why?"
She frowned. "Here I'm wearing a dress, when I
wasn't. I'm not in front of the trellis
or in the chair as we agreed upon earlier." She raised an eyebrow and I
wondered briefly if when it fell it would be like the judge’s hammer and all
verdicts final.
"It wasn't working," I
said honestly. "Something about
the light, or perhaps the way you were sitting...."
Allison nodded slowly and put the
sketchbook back down on top of the desk.
"Okay, that's all. I was
just wondering."
That was the end of our
conversation. As I walked to the front
and the waiting limo I wondered if I'd pushed her too far this morning. I shrugged to myself. Whether she saw things from my point of view
or not, it didn't really matter. Did
it?
I'd had an itch to bring the
sketchbook home with me, so when I'd left I'd tucked it under my arm. For several hours I worked on the drawing
before I fell into an exhausted sleep.
•••
(c) 2000, Tragedy88