“Fuck, Ellie. You’re really mad?” He hurried and got to my side. “Please, just look at my painting. It’s of you. I’ve been working on it nonstop. That’s why I didn’t get a chance to speak to you these past weeks.”
I sighed. “But you did get a chance to talk to Stacey Jenkins, who bragged about how you took her to the movies and to some really nice restaurant up by Parkin’s Way.”
“Okay. That’s only because I’d already promised to take her, way before anything happened between us—”
“Then what about Vicky?” I pushed through the double doors and headed toward the parking lot where all the buses lined up.
“Vicky?”
“Vicky. The one with the dad who owns the gas station that you’re always talking about has the best watermelon candy, even though it’s the same candy sticks that are shipped to every store.”
“Oh shit, Victoria.”
“Bye, Michael.” I walked on the other side of a tree in order to avoid the appearance of us strolling together like a couple. I had enough people gossiping about my mom and dad. I didn’t need the rumor mill producing stories about Michael and me.
“Can we talk, please?”
“No.” A line had already formed as my bus pulled up to the corner.
“My teacher says this portrait is the best thing he’s ever seen.”
“Congratulations.”
“Look at it.”
I stopped and faced him. “No. I will not look at it. I’m trying to get to my bus. Life doesn’t stop for you. It keeps on going. You didn’t feel the need to talk to me after you shared the most important moment of my life, so you don’t get to come up and grab my attention whenever you want to. Go fuck yourself, Michael!”
I mentally patted myself on the back. I’d practiced that speech over and over in my head, imagining what I would say if he ever spoke to me again.
I did it. I told him and didn’t vomit.
“How are you doing with saving up for a car?” He raced up and jumped in front of me. I moved to the side. He blocked me. I stepped to the other. He grabbed my waist. “How much do you have now?”
“None of your business.”
“How much?”
“Not enough.”
“I can make it that you had more than enough by graduation.”
Back then a car meant I could load up and drive out of town. Where I was going, I never really knew. How I was getting there, with no money for gas, never crossed my mind. For me a car meant freedom, so I’d saved for two years, working the night shift at Park and Eat Diner.
“I can make sure you have enough to get the blue Mustang you’re always looking at in the dealership near your house. I could get you the money by graduation.” He held his hand up to his chest. “I swear on everything.”
“Graduation is in six months. How can you do that?”
“This guy who owns the art gallery that I take classes at is offering me a huge commission if I paint more angels. I need you.”
“Why?” I raised my eyebrows. “Why wouldn’t you just paint other girls?”
He shrugged. I sucked my teeth. “You did. Didn’t you? You painted other girls, right?”
“No. I would never paint anybody else.”
I walked off. Thankfully, people were still getting on the bus. Michael caught my wrist again and stopped me. “Okay. Okay. I painted other girls. The guy didn’t like them. He only liked the one I did of you, so I painted another angel from your sophomore class picture in the yearbook. He loved it. He said there was something about you that made me move the brush just right with a need to capture the shadows and curves in such a way that it became euphoric. He said you’re my muse, that you inspire me.”
I checked to see only a few people left to get on the bus. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Just leave me alone.”
“He’s going to give me twenty thousand dollars to paint more paintings of you. I’ll split it with you halfway.”
“Why split the money? What are you getting out of it?”
“Fame. He has a lot of pull in the art world. I make him happy and I’ll start my career.”
At seventeen, I saw ten thousand dollars as a way to take care of me for a year. “Fine. I’ll model for you, but nothing else. Don’t even think of us ever having sex again, Michael.”
“Fine. I won’t even try.” The muscle in his jaw twitched.
And that was how it all began. For whatever reason, the art dealer was right. When Michael painted me, he trapped all that was beautiful in the world and placed it on the canvas. His art wasn’t amazing because of my face, body, or even my hair that he loved to form into wings. His art ensnared every emotion in the viewer’s heart and twisted it over and over inside of them, until all the viewer could do was laugh or cry, celebrate his life or yearn for more.