Words & Dreams (Book 1 of Smithers Family Saga)

Chapter 37

Yvette unclothed another canvas:

A folding tryptch. The first fold, a statue of a nun, in the second, the face of a crucified nun, naked except for her habit, looking up at the viewer, spiders crawling all over her body going toward her eyes and open wounds, as she cried and bled shapes that looked like flies. On the third and last fold, a completely black canvas, but with a small circle of white at the center.

"Wow," Eugene said, and Violet nodded. However annoying her husband found Yvette, he had no doubts about her talents.

"So the light- that white dot," Erica said, referring to the third fold. "is that rebirth into a new body, or opening her eyes in the afterlife?"

"I never thought about it," Yvette said. "It just seemed- suddenly I was painting my canvas black, and then I'm grabbing a new brush, and dipping it into white paint, expecting to paint layers, and then I look down- why did I have a new brush- not cleaning off the other one? Then I dotted the middle, shaped it into a circle. It felt right. Do you think it works? I'm worried it's some laziness that guided me-"

"No," Violet said, who, though uneducated and 'riffraff' in comparison with people like those around her, had instincts for art that were not taught. Or if they were, self-taught.

"I think it's one of your best works," Erica said.

"Do you really?" Yvette said.

"It's a masterpiece," Eugene said, then as if to tame the brunt of his praise, said, "at least, I think so."

Dollie was officially drunk, and very happy, no longer dancing, at the bar, sipping a Vermouth of Verisimilitude, a cocktail she'd created, and her sister had named. The bartender, who was no doubt usually annoyed by the request for a personal cocktail, was enraptured to service a beautiful woman. He sipped at the excess poured into a third glass, and said:

"Holy shit, it's actually good!" the bartender said.

Danny, who had gotten the second glass, sipped last, and nodded and smiled. Spoke to the bartender.

"I wish she'd made it directly for me," he said. "Do you understand?" he said, and turned to Dollie and then back to the bartender, and he had his arm around Dollie and she leaned against his shoulder and they were giggling and the bartender- probably envious of Danny- still smiled, nodded, and went off to serve other customers.

"I do," Dollie said, smiling, with her chin propped up by a loose and feminine fist, her elbow on the bar. She'd taken off her blazer and draped it over her shoulder. She couldn't remember the last time she was so happy- not even the time in the hotel. There was some transcendence, in accompanying Danny, and he her, through a sacred interlude of life. Unnecessary companionship made fierce by a flippant atmosphere. A love that was not mandatory, scripted. They could relax together, settle in, even before the alcohol could take effect. She'd heard her sister say that the one- though Erica had never met her one- would not be the passionate love, lust, but the person that seemed an extension of what is, and what should be. Zen-like. A knowing that that one is the one.