I watched her eyes widen, and then they seemed to glisten a little in the light from the bedside table lamp. Her throat bobbed as she swallowed, and I realized I was actually holding my breath. The silence in the room was starting to hurt my ears until she finally whispered the only word I wanted to hear.
“Yes.”
My face started to hurt from my grin. Air finally filled my lungs again, and I reached out to take the ring from the box and slip it over her finger.
“Fuck, that looks good!” I murmured, and Nicole laughed. She wiggled her fingers around, and the light caught the diamonds.
“Feel like you’ve claimed me, don’t you?”
“Fuck yes.”
Using the bed for support, I pulled myself back up to stand and grabbed her face in my hands.
“My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.”
“I love you,” Nicole whispered.
“I love you more,” I told her and placed my lips against hers before she had the chance to argue the point.
Dinner was awesome. Greg turned six different colors when Nicole and I told him the news but finally relented and said he knew it would be coming sooner rather than later. Then he made Nicole call her mom and tell her the news. Like Nicole, Greg thought Yvette Skye would throw an absolutely fit, but they were both surprised when she didn’t.
We spent the next hour arguing about who was going to pay for the wedding. That conversation ended when Nicole said if we didn’t shut up about it, we’d be going to Vegas for the weekend.
Gardner just grinned and congratulated us.
That night, I drew a picture of Nicole’s hand with the ring on her finger. It made her cry though she said they were happy tears. I held her, and we agreed to wait until we had graduated before we actually did the deed.
Words from Shakespeare I had never considered before found their way into my head: “When this ring parts from this finger, then parts life from hence.” Somehow, just knowing it was there made all the difference to me.
Now I would be willing to wait.
“Are you okay?”
“No,” I said. I laughed, but the sound was a lot of nervous and not much joyful. “Do I really have to be here?”
“It’s rather customary,” Gardner said with a nod. “They aren’t just coming to see all this.”
His hand swept around the gallery—the gallery belonging to his girlfriend, Kathrine. It was filled with my sketches, drawings, and even a couple of paintings. Painting was still a little new to me—I preferred black and white. The whole show was titled “Spiral,” and it included images I painted from the memories of being trapped in my father’s house.
The whole thing was kind of freaking me out.
I would graduate at the end of the summer, and this was supposed to help me get my foot in the door when it came to the art community. My first showing in May, graduation in August, and wedding in September. It was a wonder I hadn’t pulled all my hair out.
Nicole just shrugged it all off, saying it would happen, perfectly or not, but it was all going to happen. Eventually it would be behind us, and we’ll wonder why the heck we ever worried about it. Of course, that came from the woman who already had her diploma in hand as well as an offer from the Portland Aquarium.
I still had to graduate, and I had no job offers.
Nicole’s “come what may” attitude sounded a lot like Justin. I didn’t see him regularly anymore, but we still talked on the phone sometimes. He and Danielle were both supposed to come to the opening tonight.
“Relax,” Gardner whispered. “We open in five.”
“How can you say relax, follow up with five minutes, and expect me to actually calm down?”
He chuckled.
I glanced out the window at the line of people outside and started freaking out again.
“I can’t do this!”
“Yes, you can,” Gardner said sternly, “unless you don’t want anyone to take your art seriously. If that’s the case, and you want to go back into ‘hobby mode,’ you’re going to have to change your major.”
“I graduate in three months!”
“Well then, you’d better get yourself together!”
Warm arms wrapped around my middle, and as soon as her scent hit my nostrils, I could feel the rest of my body calm down. I felt Nicole’s hands spread out along my stomach as she pulled me back into her and rested her cheek against my back.
“Have you come to kidnap me and save me from this?”
“Nope,” Nicole said. “What happened to the guy who loved to be the center of attention?”
“Not the same,” I said with a shake of my head.
It wasn’t either. When I played soccer, people looked at my body and what my body could do. They focused on my hands as my fingers plucked balls out of the air or my feet as they pelted the muddy ground to fight for possession. When people looking at my drawings though—it just felt so…so raw. It was personal. Soccer was strictly external, and when people watched me play, they were just staring at my outsides, not seeing who I was.
Now they were all going to peek at what was inside of me.
“Are you sure I shouldn’t take those two down?” I looked to Nicole in earnest, which meant I had to turn most of the way around and crane my neck to one side. She had talked me into putting them up, and though Greg had nearly choked out his beer, Gardner said they absolutely had to be included in the show even if they did feature Nicole’s tits.
It didn’t show her face or anything. No one would know who it was. Nicole even told Greg there were nude models at the university all the time, and it could be any of them. I think he decided to believe her lies even though it was pretty damn obvious exactly who it was.
Well, I thought so, anyway.
“Of course not,” Nicole said. I turned my head back to glare at Gardner for talking me into all of this, and Nicole held me a little tighter, placing her chin on my shoulder. “Everyone is going to love all of your work. Those are two of your best.”
“I’m not selling them,” I said for the hundredth time.
“You can put them up in the piano room at home after the show is over.”
“Okay.”
Her presence relaxed me a little, and when Kathrine opened up the gallery doors, I managed not to run and hide in the bathroom.
Well, not exactly.
A back door led to the alley behind the building, and I did go and hide out there for a little while when the people and the questions became too much. By then, I had already gone through three rounds of media interviews, asking more about the accident and my father’s suicide rather than art, but Kathrine said whatever got my name out there would help.
Greg was already outside. When I opened the door, he coughed and hid his hand behind his back.
“Oh…um…Thomas! How’s it going in there?”
“Don’t bullshit me,” I snapped. “Give me one of those.”
He narrowed his eyes, and I glared right back at him until he pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and handed it to me.
“She’s gonna smell it on you.”
“And I’m going to blame you!”
“Fine! Fine!” He held his hands up in the air, palms out. “All of this getting to you?”
“Yeah, it is,” I said as I took a deep drag. It was the third cigarette I had had since Nicole caught me and Greg smoking behind her house so long ago. I had one after the first month of rehab and another one when they told me about the nerve damage to my leg, that no amount of PT would ever heal it completely.
Nicole knew about the other smokes, and I’d eventually tell her about this one, too—just not today.
“It feels like they’re all looking at my guts,” I told him, “or like I’m lying on a table in there with all my skin peeled off or something.”
“That’s kind of gross,” Greg said. He put his cigarette back up to his lips and took a long draw.
I followed suit. “It would only be worse if your daughter’s boobs were on display for a bunch of strangers.”
“Oh…um…I thought Nicole told you…”
“Yeah, and I didn’t believe a word of it. Why do you think I’m smoking?”
“Heh…yeah, I guess that explains it.”
We went back in together, and I was accosted by Jeremy, Rachel, Maria, and Ben. Maria was holding baby Jonathan, and Nicole was going gaga over him. It probably would have made me nervous if it weren’t for all the people trying to sidle up to me. I surrounded myself with people I knew and tried to avoid everyone else.
I sold eight of the drawings that night, two of which went for over a thousand dollars each. Kathrine wrote me a check for everything that was sold, which totaled almost five grand. I couldn’t believe it. Nicole jumped up and down when she saw how much they went for, and Gardner gave me a hug.
“My first show netted a whopping seventy-five dollars,” he said with a laugh. “You just might make a living at this after all.”
“It’s amazing what a little publicity surrounding a local can do,” Kathrine said with a nod. “The ones that fetched the most were bought by some big-name collectors—they’re hoping you’ll become very popular, and they think they got a deal. One of them offered me five thousand for the woman’s torso.”
“No.” I glared at her.
“I know,” Kathrine said with a roll of her eyes, “but those are the ones that would have fetched the most. Just saying…”
“They’re hot,” Jeremy said, and his eyebrows danced up and down a little. Rachel smacked him before I got the chance.
“I have to agree,” Ben said. “You should have put those up for sale.”
“No way in hell,” Greg said, coming to my defense. “It was bad enough having them on display!”
I nodded in agreement.
“Time to celebrate,” Gardner said as he took Kathrine’s hand. He was a master of diversion. We all headed out to eat, and everyone toasted my success. Both Gardner and Kathrine seemed pretty sure that’s exactly what it had been, and I had to admit—making my own money felt pretty cool.
As I tipped the glass of champagne to my lips, I was reminded that being an artist wasn’t going to be an easy living. Tough work didn’t bother me, but I was determined to be able to hold my own and provide for Nicole as best I could. I knew money would never really be an issue for us, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to provide for my Rumple anyway. Was that sexist? I didn’t know and didn’t care. I knew one thing for sure: I loved drawing and was even starting to enjoy painting as well. If this was something I could really do—and support Nicole as well—I was going to be satisfied.
But it wasn’t going to be easy.
In The Scottish Play, Shakespeare wrote, “I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself, and falls on th'other.” Somehow, I was going to have to gather both my ambition and my strength if art was going to be my calling.
Now to turn it into something more than just a dream.
EPILOGUE
ONSIDE
“Come on! Come on! Come on!”
I half jogged down the edge of the field, yelling at the seven first-graders who ran up and down the pitch in a little clustered formation—like they were all worker bees and the ball was the queen. It didn’t matter what position they were supposed to be in, they all ended up within three feet of each other.
“Spread out!”
“Stay on your side!”
“Jonathan! You’re on defense! Get back!”
Jonathan Walsh continued to trail after the ball until he saw his mother on the sidelines, holding his little sister and a pouch of Capri Sun. He stopped right in front of her.
“Can I have a juice?”
“Here you go, sweetie,” Maria said as she held out a bag of sugar water for the kid. He stood there, staring blankly at the ball and sucking through the straw as the other team went right past him and made a goal.
I covered my face with my hands as I groaned.
Fuckity fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!
At what age would I get to swear at them?
The final whistle finally blew, and I tried to give the peppiest pep talk I could before sending the kids back to their parents. I don’t think any of them actually heard me—they were far more interested in what snack had been provided by the Oliver family. Sighing, I gathered up the extra balls, abandoned water bottles, and various other crap and hauled it all off the field.
“Why did I agree to do this again?” I asked my Rumple as I tossed all the shit into the back of the van. I rubbed at my right thigh as I walked off the field—some days it still bugged me after running around.
“Because Ben asked you to,” she responded, “and because you love it.”
I grunted, put all the gear into its bag in the back of the van, and turned back to my wife.
“Maybe I’m too old for this,” I said with a shrug.
“You’re twenty-six!” She giggled like one of the six-year-old players.
“I feel ancient,” I replied. “Too much crammed into those years.”
“Well, you still look like a Greek god,” Nicole told me, “while I look like a beached whale.”
“You’re beautiful,” I said as I kissed her forehead. I pulled my right leg back a bit so I could bend over and place my lips on the soccer-ball-shaped protrusion that was Nicole’s stomach. “Especially this part.”
I glanced back up to Nicole’s face.
“You sure you didn’t just swallow a ball? Looks like a size five to me.”
I swear you couldn’t even tell she was eight months pregnant from the back. She only grew in her stomach and her tits, which I fucking loved.
“Shut up!” Nicole laughed and swatted my arm. “You did this to me, and you know it!”
“How’s your back?”
“Sick of carrying your son around,” she complained. “Just remember, I carry him for the first nine months. You get the next nine.”
“Like Gardner and Kathrine are going to let either one of us hold him,” I snorted. My father and stepmom had gone totally grandbaby crazy. Kathrine never had any of her own children, and…well…Gardner didn’t know me as a baby, so it was like they were both planning on making up for it with their first grandchild. From the way they went on about it, you would think they were having their first child instead of us. “I think Kathrine’s planning on kidnapping him from the hospital and raising him herself. She’s got more baby shit over at their house than we do in the nursery.”
I opened the passenger door and helped Nicole in before I circled around and got in myself. I pulled out of the parking lot just as the rain started up again. At least the fields were dry long enough for the game.
“Did you see Gardner going through a catalog of swing sets? He wants to put one of those great big climbing ones in their back yard.”
“The baby won’t be able to use it for years!” I exclaimed.
“I know.”
“And their back yard is almost non-existent! One of those things would take up all of it!”
“I know,” she repeated.
“They’re crazy!”
“Yep.”
“What do you have going on tonight?” I asked.
“I’m heading out with Sophie to pick up the crib and changing table,” Nicole said. “You’re at the gallery all evening, right?”
“Yeah, Kathrine’s putting up the pieces I finished last week,” I said as I ran my hand through my hair. “I really need to get those other paintings done this week before the buyers all bail on me.”
“That only happened once,” she reminded me.
“I know, but I ended up losing about five grand on the sale.” I shook my head as I backed up and turned around. The gravel drive crunched under the van’s tires.
“You still made a decent sale.”
“Yeah, just not as much,” I said. “I don’t want t
o live off of the insurance money forever. I’d rather save it all for the kid’s college and what-not. I want to provide for you and the little guy myself, so you don’t have to go back to work until you’re ready.”
Frankly, we had a shitload of money; I just didn’t want to use it. It was his money—Lou Malone’s money. I really didn’t want it and gave a good portion of it away the first year we were married. I set Sophie’s son up with a college fund because the kid’s dad never did shit for him and made sure I paid Greg back for renovating the house for me.
I might have built a soccer stadium at the high school, too. It always pissed me off that we had to run around in the football stadium.
When Nicole had to have knee surgery and couldn’t play soccer any more, either, I paid for the renovations needed at the rehab center, and they hired the best PT for knee injuries on all of the West Coast.
“You do just fine,” Nicole said.
I shrugged, not really feeling it. Nicole’s making more money than I did wasn’t a problem for me; it was just that what I made was so random. One month I brought in twenty grand, then the next—nothing. I had made a bit of a name for myself as an artist, but even so, it was hard to really make a living just drawing and painting.
No wonder Gardner became a professor.
I shook my head and merged onto the highway. As much as I liked living in the hometown on the weekends, I was anxious to get back to Portland. I had four commissioned paintings to finish up and an interview with a journalism student at the university on Monday. Apparently, I was going to be featured in their newsletter next month. With any luck, it would bring me more business.
When I thought back to how I got to where I was, I always ended up feeling a little strange. I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel. People always asked me if I resented my accident since I still had a limp sometimes when I was tired, and I had to take stairs pretty slowly. My answer was always no because shit happens for a reason, and everything that had happened to me—my mom’s death, my dad’s abuse, the accident that damaged my body, but saved my soul—all of that brought me Nicole.