Intaglio: The Snake and the Coins (5 page)

The phone beside
them rang.

Cole ignored it,
but Ava leaned sideways to see the call display.  He was too busy with the
narrow column of her neck and the soft skin of her collarbone, and everything
below that.  He wanted to see her unclothed. 
Now
.  Some
part of his mind was wondering how far she was going to let him get tonight.

“Shit,” Ava
hissed, pulling away from him.  “It’s my Dad,” she muttered, reaching for
the handset.  “He’s calling from Sydney.”

Cole stood, body
quaking, while she picked up the phone.

“Hey Dad,” she
said, straightening her clothing as if he could see her through the
phone.  “Yeah – no… sorry, I just forgot you were calling tonight. 
No.  Sorry!”  She paused, squeezing her eyes closed, her hand coming
up to her forehead, face anxious.  “Sorry,” she repeated again.  “I didn’t
mean to worry you.”

Her voice was
concerned.  It was obvious her father had called more than once.  She
glanced up at Cole who was moving back toward the stairs.
‘Wait!’
she
mouthed angrily, hand pressed over the receiver.  He grinned.  Her
face was flushed and furious.  It made him want her all the more, but he
knew he wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off her if he stayed.

“Yeah. 
Just got in,” Ava muttered, her eyes still on him.  “Uh-huh, Chim was
there too… Just walked in the door…. Sorry, Dad… I just forgot…”

Cole started
back up the stairs, glancing at the pictures as he did.  There was one
where Ava was laughing, her arms crossed on her chest.  She had a knapsack
slung low on one shoulder, a graffitied wall behind her, her eyes on someone or
something else just beyond the camera’s range.  She was beautiful. 
He paused for a second looking at the image and then frowned, suddenly seeing
something he’d missed.  Something
not
there with the others
.

There were no
pictures of her mother.

“…Dad, can you
just give me a sec… Yeah, hold on…”

Cole turned as
she bounded toward the stairs where he stood.  Her hands rose to his
shoulders, eyebrows pulled together in worry.

“Just wait,
okay?  Stay a minute,” she said earnestly.  She glanced back over her
shoulder, as if checking the distance to the phone.  When she looked back,
her eyes were narrowed mischievously.  “I’m not finished with you,” she
growled.

He looked down
at her, his grey eyes serious and dark, bearing into her like he wanted to
touch her soul.  Reaching out, he cupped her cheek, feeling things
settling
atop both of them.  ‘
Things just feel right
,’ Cole thought. 
Another thought intruded: ‘…
this time.’
  He didn’t know quite what
to make of
that part.
  But Ava was waiting, so he leaned closer to
her.

“The two of us
are nowhere
near
finished,” he said, pitching his voice below the range
of the phone.  “This’ll happen again… but I want to take my time.” She
flushed at that statement.  “You need to take your call.”  He
smiled.  “Your dad’s worried.  Go, Ava.  I’ll catch up with you
later.”

“Later,” she
repeated, eyes widening.

“It’ll be worth
the wait,” he said, then kissed her hard, forcing all of his desire and
frustration into the kiss. His fingers dug into her skin, his hands tight
around her.  He groaned as he pulled back, panting the next words. “I
promise.”

She took a
ragged breath, fingers absently coming up to touch kiss-swollen lips.  She
nodded, and Cole jogged down the last few stairs, closing the apartment door
behind him.  He was grinning as he walked back down the empty
hallway. 

Something had
just clicked, and it felt
right.

Sunday, Ava
slept in late, missing her alarm.  After changing into her work clothes – paint-splattered
jeans she’d had since high school, a faded black band shirt and her grey,
shrunken hoodie – she glanced at the phone to see if there were any new
messages.  She wondered if Cole might’ve called while she was sleeping,
then felt embarrassed for having had the thought.  It had only been a
couple hours, after all. 

There weren’t
any blinking numbers on the phone display, so she grabbed a glass of orange
juice and a bagel and headed out the door.  The dream she’d been having –
the one she was trying to capture in this painting – had come back again last
night and she wanted to dedicate it to canvas before the feeling disappeared.

It was full of
motion and light with no sense of beginning or end.  Her vision in the
dream
expanded as she pulled up and back.  ‘
Away… away…
away...’ 
until, from above, she could see an expanse of ochre and
green.  There was an ‘s’ traced in cobalt along one side – (
‘a
snake...?’
her waking mind asked) – and then a scattering of yellow
splotches brightening the patch around it. (
‘Gold coins?
’ she
wondered.)   The whole dream surged with light and colours, her
vision dancing.  Ava didn’t know what or where it took place.  She
couldn’t understand what she was seeing, her eyes aching with so much beauty.

That’s where the
dream always ended.

When she woke,
the memory was sharper than ever, and Ava intended to record it before she
forgot.  Ava took her beat-up truck downtown, swearing at the irascible
heater that left her shivering as she drove.  By the time she arrived,
Suzanne and Marcus were already working, sharp turpentine and warm linseed oil
lacing through the air like incense.  Heavy metal music blasted the
windows, rattling the jars of brushes at Ava’s easel.

Chim was in his
studio masking out new shapes on top of a beautifully rendered portrait of
Malcolm X.  It saddened Ava, this process of his.  His portraits were
amazing, and to see him painting and obscuring the original image with a
collage of imagery always struck her as heartbreaking.  She had mentioned
it to him more than once, and today, as she watched him fiddle with the masking
tape, his answer came back to her.

“It just seems
wrong to me, Chim, to paint over your portraits.”

“Why?  I
want to layer over them.”

“Because no one
even knows they’re there.”

“Ah, but I KNOW
the faces are underneath, and THAT’S what matters.”

Ava thought of
Marcus’s under-paintings as past lives of the final work.  They affected
what he was doing on top… but it still hurt her to see them disappear. 

Lost.

In her own
studio, Ava pulled out tubes of paints, spreading smears of them onto a
makeshift palette formed from the top of a margarine container.  She
loaded a wide brush with colour, then stepped to the canvas, hand poised and
ready, remembering the images and emotions from her dream:
green and gold, a
splash of blue, the feeling of flight.

The world fell
away….

Hours later,
Marcus and Suzanne were ready to head out for a late supper. Ava blinked in
surprise, wondering where the time had gone.  Her stomach ached with
hunger and she glanced outside, amazed to see it was now dark.  Cursing,
she began cleaning her brushes in the faded sink, listening as the cast-iron
pipes rattled and groaned, bringing rusty water.  Twenty minutes later,
she was in her truck, heading back.   Her fingers tapped against the
wheel in frustration as the truck trundled its way down the streets like an
cantankerous old man.  She’d meant to be around this afternoon,
just in
case
… but she’d been too wrapped in painting and the time was
gone.  

‘Goddamnit!’
her mind
yelled.

Ava strode into
the dark apartment, dropping her leather jacket on the chair in the
foyer.  She flicked on a light and headed upstairs, walking to the couch
and glancing nervously at the blinking light on the phone display.

Three missed
calls, no messages.  Caller ID:  C. Thomas.  She smiled, hitting
the button to check the times.

12:07 p.m., 1:06
p.m. and then 2:08 p.m. 

Ava giggled at
the pattern – nearly on the hour.  The knowledge that he’d called left her
giddy, and she lifted the phone, hitting redial without a second thought. 
The phone rang without pause until a recording of Cole’s voice picked up. 
It was serious, almost brusque, but it still left her body buzzing with
anticipation.

“You’ve reached
Cole Thomas.  I can’t come to the phone right now, but if you leave a
message after the beep, I’ll return the call.”

No jokes. 
No lightness.  Just… intense. 
Very Cole.

The phone
beeped, interrupting her rambling thoughts, and Ava stumbled to speak, having
no idea what to say.

“Uh, hi,
Cole.  It’s Ava...” she stumbled.  “I, uh… I saw you called
today.  Sorry.  I was painting at my studio and just got home… and
um…” her words were growing quieter and more nervous as she went, her hands
sweating.  “So I guess I’ll just see you tomorrow in cl—”

“Hey!  Hi,
Ava!” Cole interrupted, his voice bouncing loudly in her ear, clear and
sharp.  “I just got in the door, sorry!”  He was panting like he’d
been running and Ava laughed, grinning at the sound of his voice.

“It’s okay,” she
said with a smile.  She could see him clearly in her mind now.  “I
was working earlier.  Got in flow and never stopped painting at all
today.  Sorry I missed your call.”

“I was at the
studio too,” Cole admitted.  “I still have a lot of work to do on my
mid-term project.  God, my arms are killing me.  I can hardly feel my
hands.”

She smiled, his
voice surrounding her like a bubble.

“I’d like to see
your work sometime,” she said.

Cole laughed.

“Oh, you’re
gonna pose for it.  So yeah, you will.”

“Haven’t
forgotten that, huh?” she said with a giggle.

“Not a
chance.”  His words were low and sexy, and Ava lowered herself to the edge
of the couch, grinning to herself.  She was glad he couldn’t see her; her
face was burning, the heat inching up to her blonde roots.

“Well, then,
you’d better hold up your end of the bargain, Thomas,” she drawled. 
“Don’t think I’m letting
you
get off easy.”

Cole chuckled.

“Wouldn’t think
it.  I’d love to see what your work is like sometime.  Had a class
with Marcus once.  He spoke really highly of your artwork...”

Ava closed her
eyes as he spoke, the darkness behind her closed lids reminding her of the
night sky above the ocean, years earlier, when she’d camped along the coast
with her dad.  The stars had been so bright, it almost seemed like you
could see forever.  The sound of the phone in her ear – echoing with
slight static – was like the sound of the surf and it left her homesick. 
It felt
right
, hearing him like this.  She could almost imagine
Cole standing on the deck of a boat… his eyes on the distant sky.

“…and so I swept
up and came back to the dorms and heard you leaving the message on the
machine.”

Ava’s eyes
fluttered open as his words ended.

“Have you eaten
yet?” she asked, suddenly inspired.

Cole
paused. 

“Ate around
supper time, but that was a few hours ago.”

 “Well, I
haven’t eaten since breakfast,” Ava answered, her growling stomach punctuating
the thought.

“Good lord,
Ava.  You must be starving!”  Cole gasped, sounding so perfectly
adult she wanted to hug him.   Part of her was interested in seeing
how he’d react to some of the more illegal activities she’d been involved
in.  She wondered if Cole Thomas
always
followed the rules, or just
those that he wanted to.

“So you want to
go grab a bite or what?” she asked.

 “Absolutely!”

“Then get your
coat and come to the front of the dorms.  I’ll come pick you up.”

: : : : : : : :
: :

Supper was at an
all-night truck stop near the airport since everything downtown was already
closed.  Ava drove, and Cole had a chance to watch her.  Her
movements were full of coiled energy, no matter what she was doing. She claimed
she was starving, but when her food arrived, she offered to share it with
him. 

He drank coffee
instead.

The two of them
argued and talked artwork.  Cole tried to describe what it was like when
everything came together, and his muse was on fire, and each chip off the stone
was a perfectly formed measure to get inward.  The shape emerging by
degrees.  His physique, he admitted bashfully, was a reflection of this
meticulous process.  She giggled, and Cole continued.  He told her
how he thought of the sculpture as hidden underneath the layers of stone, and
that his job was just to get rid of the excess around it.  Ava smiled,
wiping her lips with a paper napkin and winking at him.

“Like
Michelangelo
did,” she said. 

Cole was shocked
that she knew the Michelangelo quote, but then a lot about this woman surprised
him.  He liked the feeling.