and handed it to me, then started straightening the stacks of paper on her desk to avoid looking at me.
Coward.
Before I turned to leave, I stood there for a moment, towering over her, waiting to see how long it would take her to look at me. But she spun her chair around so that her back was to me and started typing on the computer perched on the credenza behind her desk.
She was a coward.
It dawned on me that the hardest parts of this crisis—telling Ben and going back to work—were over.
“You can leave now,” she said without turning around.
Yes. Yes, I could. Perhaps it was time.
I smelled the scent of gardenias before I saw the movement in my peripheral vision. My gaze snapped from my easel to the doorway and there stood Rita in the threshold of my studio. I nearly jumped out of my skin.
Yanking off my MP3 earphones, I said, “For God’s sake, you scared me to death.”
She smiled and waved a stack of transparency sleeves at me. “Sorry about that. I knocked, but you didn’t answer. Your car’s out front so I figured you were here—wait till you see what I have.” She sang the words as she shut the door and dangled a plastic sheet between two fingers. “I think you’ll forgive me when you see these.”
“The slides of my work?”
She nodded. “They look fabulous.”
I set down my brush, tossed the MP3 player on the table and met her halfway. She pulled a small slide viewer from her bag and popped in the first image. “Here, take a look.”
The boxy magnifier lay cool and light in my palm. As I pressed the button and the light engaged, the oddest sensation enveloped me that my future sat in my hand.
It was crazy—merely wishful thinking that I could make a living doing what I love, especially now that life was so messed up with Blake and I was ensconced in the new marketing campaign at work. All the ideas I came up with after Jackie vetoed “Home is where the heart is…” seemed trite and hackneyed.
I breathed in the heady scent of oil paint—I was experimenting with a new medium. It comingled with the gardenia essence that had marked my sister’s entrance. I peered into the light box and saw the lavender foxgloves I’d painted last week. The delicate purple blossoms dangled from the stems like glorious pieces of amethyst standing out bold against the rich emerald background.
My breath hitched. I loved foxgloves and these looked good, if I did say so myself. There was a whole planter full of them across the courtyard from my studio. The slide reminded me of how soothing it was to lose myself in the painting process.
If nothing else, at least I had my art. Something to call my own, something constant in this world of madness.
Rita handed me another slide, and then another until we established a silent rhythm of viewing and changing. My discard pile grew. Her handoff pile waned. We sank into the comfortable silence that sisters weren’t compelled to fill.
When I’d viewed the last slide, Rita said, “They look good, huh?”
“Yeah, they do. Thanks for photographing them, Ri.”
She nodded, chewing her bottom lip as if she had something else to say.
“What?” I asked, putting the slides back into their sleeves.
“Don’t kill me, okay?”
“Why would I do that? You’re not going to tell me you’ve slept with Blake, too, are you?”
She scrunched up her nose. “Ew. No.”
“Oh, I forgot, you’re not his type. You don’t have a penis.”
My sister didn’t laugh.
I held up the transparency of the foxgloves to the light and looked at it again, and when I looked over at her she shot me a weird sort-of smirk.
“You know it would be really good for you to get away from here. Go somewhere fresh where the word penis doesn’t automatically evoke nightmares.”
“What are you talking about?”
I nudged the last slide into place, skimmed the sleeve to the center of the table and turned my attention to Rita.
“You know I shot two sets of slides, right?”
“No, I didn’t know that. Is it a problem?”
“Only if you hate me for sending them to Paris…with the artist-in-residency application.”
I crossed my arms in front of me. “You did what?”
“I sent your work—”
“I heard you the first time. I just— Rita, I can’t go to Paris. I told you that. That’s why I didn’t send them myself.”
She pulled out a stool and perched on the edge of it. “I know you did. Your mind is kind of on automatic pilot.”
I threw up my hands. “Well, I’m kind of preoccupied trying to figure out how I’ll take care of myself after I’m divorced. As of right now, that plan does not include moving to Paris for three months.”
She looked disappointed and lowered her voice the way our mother used to when she tried to win us over to her way of thinking. “Why can’t you see that would be the very best way for you to take care of yourself? A change of scenery, a change of career.”
I hated this logical side of my sister. I walked over to my easel and picked up my brush. “Okay. Okay. Fine. I’m not going to fight with you over this. Thank you for thinking enough of my work…for thinking enough of me—”
The words burned the back of my throat, and made my eyes water. I swallowed hard.
“Thank you for doing that for me. But you know, you have to stop—”
I shook my head and stabbed my brush in the gob of cadmium yellow on my palette so hard the bristles flared.
“What were you going to say?”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rita stand.
“That I have to stop interfering with your cocoon-building? Well, I’m not going to, Anna.”
I swiped a slash of yellow across the canvas. “This is not worth fighting over. Tell me where I can find a telephone number and I’ll call and withdraw.”
“Withdraw?” She laughed and stood behind me, but I didn’t turn around. “If you feel the need to withdraw, then you think you might win a spot.”
I shrugged, and dipped my brush into the black paint. “I don’t. I don’t know what I think. Just stop.”
“Why would you not go for this?”
A funnel of fear rose and whirled around
