while the black stars burn (5 page)

Dr. Gates broke her from her reverie: “You need to be more sensitive to his needs. If he makes space for you at home, will you stay home to paint?”

“Well, of course.”

“And would it kill you to cook?” the therapist asked, his tone joking.
Ha-ha, only serious.

She had to struggle to keep her hand tucked under her elbow. “I. Already. Do.”

“But only a few times a week, right? Takeout and frozen dinners make him feel unloved.”

“It was his idea to get Chinese takeout once a week. And he could cook, too.”

“Now, Rhetta. This is about partnership. He has considerably more job responsibilities than you do, and it’s only fair that you take over more of the household duties.”

Rhetta thought about asking the therapist to do the math on how much work she did between her day job and the freelance, but she bit back that reply. Apparently her career was a choice, and his was a hero’s quest. “Fine. I’ll cook.”

“Then it’s settled.” Dr. Gates smiled at her, then at Scott. “Be sure to give your father my best.”

“I will,” her husband replied.

*

Scott gave up the walk-in closet in the hallway. It was just big enough for her chair, an easel, a stand for her laptop and Wacom tablet, plus a few bins of supplies. She replaced the sallow overhead light with a bulb that emitted a natural spectrum. A room with a window would have been better, but at least she finally had her own private space in the apartment. She lined the beige walls with her art and made do. It felt a little too much like a cell, and there wasn’t enough air circulation for her to use oils or acrylics without feeling woozy, but she was able to immerse herself in the pencil lines and digital paint strokes and got her commissioned pieces done on time.

But her new schedule got harder and harder to maintain. She had to be up by 6 to catch the bus to work, and after work she immediately got to work on their dinner and chores. Afterward, Scott would want her to keep him company while he watched his favorite sitcoms. Sometimes it was 9 or 10 before she got to work in her art closet. Most nights she was up until 1 or 2 in the morning.

The constant low-grade sleep deprivation started taking its toll. She missed her bus a few times and was late to her job, and on a couple of embarrassing situations she fell asleep in long meetings. One day her boss called her into his office and told her she was on probation for three months and would be fired if her job performance didn’t improve.

In her gut, she knew nothing good could come of telling Scott about what happened, but decided it would be fundamentally bad for their relationship if she started keeping secrets.

“You better not lose your job!” His tone was an unpleasant echo of his father’s Christmas lecturing. “I can’t have you unemployed and lounging around the house all day. We need the money for the house.”

“I wouldn’t be lounging; I made $1000 on commissions just last month—” she began, but he’d already turned on his heel and marched off to the living room.

*

The next day, he surprised her with a wrapped box when she got home.

“I realized I acted like a real jerk yesterday, and I’m sorry,” he said. “Your happiness is important to me, so I got you this.”

She opened the box, and inside she found a new set of red-shellacked brushes and shiny tin tubes of paint. The mink, hog, and badger hair brushes were handmade, and the paints bore hand-inked German labels. She didn’t recognize the maker’s mark. The whole set had the aura of an expensive boutique.

“Wow. Thank you, honey.” She blinked down at the set in pleased confusion. “They’re lovely. Where did you find them?”

“My father told me where to get them. A special order from Europe. He commissioned a portrait of my mother a few months after they married, and the artist he hired used the same kind of brushes and paints. They were going through a kind of a rough patch at first, and he said the painting really helped her perspective.”

Rhetta was pretty sure there hadn’t been any paintings in his parents’ house at all aside from a couple of art fair landscapes. “Have I seen that one?”

“Oh, no. My father keeps it in his study behind little curtains. Even I haven’t seen it; I think he had her pose nude.” He cleared his throat, clearly a bit uncomfortable at the thought of actually seeing the artwork. “But these paints have the best colors in the world.”

“If you haven’t seen your mom’s portrait, how do you know that?”

“He got an artist to do a picture of me—I saw it when I went up there a couple of weekends ago. My dad originally planned to have both of us painted for a wedding present, but they couldn’t find a good photo of you for the artist without asking me and ruining the surprise, so they decided to just do me. And then my parents decided they liked it so much they wanted to keep it. It’s in the foyer; you’ll see it next time we visit. It’s an amazing portrait; the artist did me as a big-shot CEO. It’s like I look at it and I can see my future.”

He paused, his eyes shining. “I know you can’t paint in the closet because of the fumes, so I thought you could set your easel up in the living room.”

She blinked at him. “Really?”

He smiled. “Just one condition.”

The panic crab shuddered in her stomach. “What?”

“I want you to make
me
a painting for a change. I want you to put aside all that stuff you’re doing for strangers and create a portrait of yourself that I’ll feel proud to hang in my office. I want to show the world what a beautiful, talented wife I have. Can you do that for me?”

She was touched at his interest, and she couldn’t think of a single reason to object. “Sure, honey, I can do that.”

*

He drove her down to Dick Blick’s and together they picked out an oil-primed stretched linen canvas.

“Oh, this will be just the right size to go between my bookshelves!” he exclaimed, holding the 30”x30” canvas up against an imaginary wall in the middle of the aisle.

His enthusiasm was contagious. She smiled. “I’ll try to get it done as soon as possible.”

“No.” He set down the canvas and took both her hands in his, gazing down at her intently. “I want you to take your time with this. I want your very best. I want to be the envy of the entire accounting firm.”

The crab stirred inside her, but she didn’t know why. She set her fear aside as unreasonable, maybe hormones or the weather. And she made herself smile. “Absolutely, honey. I’ll give you my very best.”

“That’s my girl.” He planted a kiss on her forehead.

*

When they got home, she emailed her clients to get a few weeks extension on her projects, and then she put down a small drop cloth and set the easel atop it in the living room beside the sofa. She started lightly sketching in details with a soft graphite pencil.

“What’s that in your hands?” Scott squinted at the sketch.

“Brushes and pastel pencils,” she replied.

“I don’t like those. Why don’t you put in some lavender?”

She paused. “I’m allergic to lavender.”

“So? You don’t actually have to hold it to paint it, do you? Lavender’s pretty. I like it.”

Portraying herself holding something she couldn’t even be in the same room with violated the fundamental truth of the art, but it also didn’t seem worth arguing about. She decided she’d treat her husband like any other client and give him what he wanted. This wouldn’t be a self-portrait; it would be a painting of an idealized woman who happened to look a lot like her.

“Okay, lavender it is.”

*

With Scott looking over her shoulder during the sketching, the planned color scheme ended up with a lot more pinks and purples than would have been her choice. She wanted to show herself in her favorite gray sweater; he wanted her in a pale pink suit jacket and cream-colored blouse. Rhetta was able to find some reference photos on the Ann Taylor website. She wanted to leave her lips natural; he asked for ruby red lipstick. Most everything ended up being a shade or two different than she would have chosen for herself.

The next evening, she peeled off the thin foils sealing the paint tubes. The paints had an odd organic smell unlike any other oil paints she’d used. It had a strongly spicy odor; she smelled cloves and lemongrass, and maybe catnip? A touch of licorice or absinthe? Beneath the spice, there was a slight stench of rot. Maybe the paint maker had used animal fats that had started to turn? But who would use an oil that could go rancid?

Rhetta squeezed paints into the wells on her palette and began to mix them. The thick colors flowed together wonderfully. There was no sign the paints had spoiled. She picked out a badger filbert brush and began work on her jacket.

The shaft of the wooden brush was surprisingly cold in her hand; she could almost imagine it was a chilled steel rod except it wasn’t nearly heavy enough. As she worked, the cold seemed to seep into the bones of her hand and up into her wrist.

“Everything all right, honey?” Scott asked.

“It’s…yes.” She rubbed her wrist. “Is it cold in here?”

“Maybe a little; I’ll go get you a wrap.”

The afghan he brought down did little to keep her warm, and when she was done with her work for the evening, she felt exhausted and shuddered with chills. She knew she couldn’t afford to call in sick now that she was on probation, so she took some echinacea and put herself right to bed. At least she’d made pretty good progress on the painting; all the shapes and colors were roughed in, and she could start work on the details the next night.

The next morning, she woke in a groggy panic, realizing she’d slept through her alarm. Scott was already gone. She washed up at the sink and dressed as quickly as she could, praying that the second bus would be early for a change and that traffic through downtown would be light. The drive was pure agony; every tick of the clock made her feel like an accused witch being pressed under an enormous stone by inquisitors.

The bus was slow. Traffic was harsh. She got to work fifteen minutes late. Nearly in tears, she hurried up the stairs, trying to think of anything she could say to her supervisor to save her job—

“Oh, good, you’re back.” Her supervisor smiled at her and handed her a thick stack of printouts. “I need these proofed by 3pm.”

“Yes, sir.” Her hands shook as she took the papers.

He noticed her trembling. “Everything okay?”

“Yes. I…I just got startled on the stairwell.”

“All right.” He looked her up and down, frowning slightly at her khakis and blue polo. “Were you wearing a different outfit earlier?”

She shook her head, her mouth dry. “No, sir.”

“Huh. Must have been a trick of the light. Talk to you later.”

Holding the papers to her chest, Rhetta stepped down the cubicle aisle to her gray-walled cell. The keyboard tray was pulled out and her computer was on, the screensaver locked. She set the papers down and unlocked her machine.

A Word document was open, and the cursor bar flashed at the end of a single line:

Finish the portrait.

The sudden smell of lavender crept up her nostrils, and Rhetta sneezed. Dabbing her runny nose with a Kleenex, she looked to the right of her computer. A single stalk of dried lavender lay on her desk. She quickly wrapped it in a plastic bag from her desk drawer and stuck the offending flowers in the trash.

The panic crab squeezed her lungs, and she couldn’t seem to get her breath for a moment. Who had broken into her computer and left the lavender? And how did he know about the painting? What was going on?

Rhetta turned to the documentation contractor across the aisle and waved nervously to get his attention.

He pulled his earbuds out. “What’s up?”

“Was tech support working on my computer this morning?” Rhetta asked.

“I didn’t see them. But you were here before me, so I’m maybe not the person to ask.”

It took Rhetta a moment to get more words out. “I…you got here
after
I did?”

“Oh, definitely.” He nodded.

“When?”

“Like, I dunno…I cut it pretty close this morning! Like maybe 7:55 or something.”

Rhetta thought she might faint. “Okay, thanks.”

She turned back to her computer and the cryptic sentence. It didn’t make sense. She
knew
she’d just gotten into the office, fifteen minutes late. Was her coworker in on some weird prank people were playing on her? What in the hell was going on?

The building anxiety turned her bowels to liquid, so she got up to go to the ladies’ room. When she pushed through the door, she came face-to-face with what she first thought was a newly-installed full-length wall mirror. And then she realized it was a flesh-and-blood woman staring back at her. A woman who looked almost exactly like her, except her double had ruby-red lipstick and wore a stylish pale purple blouse and matching slacks. Her perfume smelled like lavender.

The woman’s eerie face twisted into a scowl. “I told you to go finish the portrait!”

She slapped Rhetta across her cheek, hard, and when her palm connected it felt like she’d been hit with a taser. The electric shock made her vision go white, and she felt herself drop to the tiled floor.

*

Rhetta came awake in her chair in the living room, a chilly brush in her hand, the afghan draped across her shoulders. The portrait before her was nearly complete; all that was missing were some of the details on her face and in the lavender flowers.

“That is looking
so wonderful
, honey.” Scott leaned down and kissed the top of her head. “I’m so proud of you.”

“I…think I’m done for the evening.” Her voice shook.

“You can finish it tomorrow.”

He helped her clean her brushes, then took her upstairs and they went to bed. Once she was sure he was asleep, she crept out of bed, put on her favorite comfy warmup suit to combat the chill in her core, and went back down to the living room.

Rhetta stopped a yard from the painting and stared at it, afraid to touch it. Whatever was going on, the painting was at the center of it; she could feel it in her bones. She couldn’t finish it. She had to make it go away. Cut it up. Bury it. Burn it.