OUR PLAYLIST | JENLISA

THIRTY-FOUR

Jennie

Playlist: Yes I’m Changing | Tame Impala
***

I woke up alone with Love in Lisa’s bed. My girlfriend’s side of the mattress was cold.

My house was empty and on the market. I’d quit my job and liquidated my life. And I was exhausted. We both were. Which was why it was weird she wasn’t sleeping when she had the chance.

We were living in Lisa’s trailer until we left on tour in two days. In the last week my entire life had been reduced to a single large suitcase and a carry-on. My car was gone. The insurance company declared it totaled because apparently four tires, some windows, and a coat of paint would cost more than the whole vehicle. Got fifteen hundred for it and I felt like a bandit.

I wandered out to the bathroom wrapped in a blanket. Lisa wasn’t in the trailer. I peeked out the blinds and saw her by the pool house talking to Ernie.

I slid down onto the sofa with Love to wait for her to come back in and turned on the TV. I was sitting there, flipping through channels, when an email came through to my phone with a ping.

Every time my phone chimed I jumped a little, even though I’d changed my number and deleted my social media accounts. The Lola onslaught had been horrible. I was so glad it seemed to be over.

I clicked on the little envelope icon. My heart leapt.

It had been over two years since I got a message to this account. It was the one I used back when I painted hyperrealistic art, the one on the business cards the art galleries handed out—or used to, back when I did that sort of thing.

It was so random, for a split second I worried it was more trolling, but I recognized the name. It was a gallery curator in Laguna Beach. A well-known one.

I pored over the email.

She had a client who’d seen Girl in Poppies and wanted a painting of his daughter. He wanted it by Christmas and he was willing to pay $4,000 for it.

A commission.

I let out a puff of air.

This was the kind of order I used to pray for. My paintings usually sold, but they hung in galleries for months before they did. Not only to have someone love my work enough to commission it, but to have the painting sold before it even existed? God, it was my dream!

And then the reality pummeled me.

I was leaving on tour. And there was no way I could paint where I was going.

The disappointment hit me right in the heart.

I was ready to get serious about my art again. But I’d been bogged down with Etsy and astronaut cats so I hadn’t been able to actually attempt it. And now that I’d shucked all those responsibilities and had this incredible opportunity dangling in front of me, I couldn’t take it.

I put my phone away and went back to watching TV, depressed. I guess I should be happy that I’d gotten to the point where I wanted to pursue things that I used to be passionate about. Even if I couldn’t do them.

Lisa clomped into the trailer twenty minutes later and looked surprised to see me up. She put her hand on the back of the sofa to lean down and kiss me. “Good morning. Coffee?” She smiled, but she looked weary.

“Yeah. Hey, did you see this?” I said, nodding at the TV. I was watching E! News.

“What is it?” She went to the kitchen and opened the cabinet and pulled out the bag of grounds.