be now?
Good question.
I’d been daughter, sister, wife, mother. More successful at some roles than others.
What next?
In the rearview mirror I spied a smirking Mayan tribal mask etched into the garden wall behind my car.
“What are you looking at?” I murmured.
I could almost hear it answer, He’s gay. Is that what you want for yourself? Are you really willing to settle for a man who doesn’t love you?
My first thought was, Yes, I just want my life back. The scorned woman in me sounded a hearty, Absolutely not.
Feeling shaky, angry and vulnerable all at once, I stuck the orchid behind my ear, killed the engine and hauled myself and the vase of flowers out of the cool sanctuary of the car into the oppressive heat.
It was only March, for God’s sake. It was never this hot in March.
In Florida, the relentless, lingering dog days of August were bad enough, but it was brutal punishment when the heat came early.
The weatherman said better days were on the way.
Yeah, promises, promises.
Until then, all the more reason to hole up in my studio with my big fat bag of comfort from Panera Bread—broccoli cheese soup, Caesar salad and a raspberry Danish—God knows I wasn’t hungry, but I would be later. This way I wouldn’t have to go out and get dinner.
I could stay there…indefinitely.
Or until I got hungry again.
Since I was still so full I’d probably never eat again. I was banking on a long stay.
I nudged the car door shut with my rump and adjusted my grip on the Panera sack, careful not to smash the Danish. The paper bag crinkled in my hands, and I had a brief second of panic when I realized pastry had been the sexiest thing going on in my life for a long time.
As quickly as the panic flashed, it dissipated. It was okay to turn to comfort food—
Comfort food and oil paints. The combination made an unlikely elixir, but what the hell?
The baked asphalt radiated heat like the basalt rocks they used in hot-stone massages. A brown lizard dashed across the pavement, heading for the grass, and I nearly tripped over myself to keep from stepping on it—or letting it scurry over my foot.
Logically, I knew they were harmless, but I had a lizard phobia. When I was a kid, one ran up my pant leg once at a picnic, and I did an embarrassing striptease trying to get it off me. I was traumatized. Ever since, they’ve made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and I always end up nearly hurting myself trying to steer clear of them.
Classic case of once bitten, twice shy.
When I was in college, I studied phobias in a psychology class and learned they’re usually traced back to an event that caused the fear, and when you’re faced with similar circumstances, the fear and panic return.
My professor likened phobias to monsters we manufactured in our minds. Since there are no limits to our imagination, the only way we can dismantle the monsters is by facing them, by reaching out and touching them.
Beads of sweat broke free and pooled in my cleavage, teased by the hint of a breeze blowing in from the lake on the other side of the grounds.
There was no way in hell I was going to reach out and touch a lizard. In fact, the hot weather and the creepy-crawlies made me wonder why I lived here when there were so many other places I could go to avoid them—and Blake.
Ben was at college in Montana. I was free to go, if I wanted to. Just as the orchids cut free from the plant traveled to my studio where I could paint them.
The thought floored me. Did being free equal being unwanted? Cut free to wither and die just like the orchids?
I swiped at the moisture welling in my eyes— “Damn humidity”—and stepped into the grassy courtyard that hosted my studio. I tried to unlock the door, but the key stuck in the lock. I had to set down the bag and flowers so I could jiggle the knob.
It was mad at me for staying away for so long.
Fair-weather friend returning only after exhausting all other options.
After a little coaxing, the door opened with a squeak and I stepped into the shoebox of a room.
The shutters were drawn over the wall of windows and despite the darkness, the space was hot and dank. When I flipped on the light, it bounced off the white stucco walls.
A wooden easel stood bare in the corner below a cluster of cobwebs; a stack of forgotten blank canvases lined the wall; an empty coffee can for brush cleaner and a paint-splattered palette lay on the table, right where I’d left them the last time I was here—a good three months ago.
The first thing I needed to do was get some natural light into the room. I sidestepped a dead palmetto bug and screamed when I inadvertently dislodged a lizard carcass as I threw open the shutters. I couldn’t even kick it into the corner.
The windows looked out into an adjacent courtyard. A large live oak shaded a blue mosaic fountain surrounded by an overgrowth of purple foxgloves, red, white and pink impatiens, hibiscus and azaleas.
It took me back to the day Blake brought me here the first time, when he leased the studio for me. Art was where we connected. When all else failed in our relationship—when we went months without touching—I’d return to his support of the creative me.
It was hard not to slip into doubt. Since he was not who he pretended to be, did that mean everything else he upheld was a lie, too?
How he said I was talented; that he loved me and wanted a family.
I mean, what was love? It wasn’t quantifiable. You couldn’t measure it by any means other than faith and feeling.
When we met he was a good man with a promising future as an architect. He treated me well, if not passionately.
There’s more to life than passion. Passion was the flame that burned so furiously it burnt out and left you wanting.
I always believed a good marriage was born of the slow, steady rhythm of a man and woman, developed after passion flared and faltered.
Now I don’t know what to believe.
We got married and four months later Ben was born.
I loved Blake. I wouldn’t have married him if I thought he hadn’t loved me.
I stood at my studio window staring at the courtyard, waiting for the pretty view to permeate me and work its magic the way it did that first day, but all I felt was empty. And hot.
Good God, it was sweltering in here.
I reached over and turned on the air-conditioning unit that stuck out of the top of the last set of windows like a boxy appendage. It chugged to life, shaking and rattling as if
