“Uh-huh.” I push the cart. She is still my sister, wearing a Star Wars T-shirt and trying to grab the other end of the cart to take a ride. I swerve from one side of the canned veggies aisle to another, not letting her on.
“I bet she could help you, too.”
“I doubt it.” But I slow down to let Angela on the cart.
“No, seriously. She told me she has a studio space to finish some artwork. What’s it called when someone pays you to make something specific?”
“A commission.”
“Right. Well, she’s got some sort of commission project she’s working on. You should talk to her about it.”
“Hm.” I stare into the cart. “Hey, have you asked her anything about, you know, how she came to be renting Rex’s place?”
“I tried,” Angela says. “But she told me she didn’t have a past.”
The keeper of the cigarettes, the lady at the customer service counter, looks pretty friendly today. I doubt she remembers me trying to buy from her before, but I also doubt she’d hand over a pack. It’s been a ridiculous couple of days and I’ve already smoked through what Tall Jon gave me.
Angela says, “Let’s speed up this cart! I need to get home and practice.”
My sister is amazing.
She can do all her scales now. She can play chords. She can play “Chopsticks.” She can play the first half of “Für Elise.” It’s only been a week since the piano arrived, but it’s a part of our lives now. It’s an uninvited houseguest that fits with our family (well, the currently fractured version of the Moreno family). And if Angela’s not worried about where it came from, then neither am I.
We’re home and she bounds out of the car, unlocks the front door, and raps on Rex’s door to announce her arrival. I follow with the grocery bags. Angela sits at attention, her hands waiting on the keys. The living room keeps changing: the piano and the repurposed dining room chair have become fixtures. And now, I drop the flowers into a vase and set them on a table beside the piano.
When Lilia arrives, she says hey to Angela and perches on the edge of the recliner. I duck into the kitchen. “Remember what you did yesterday,” Lilia tells my sister. “You can do it again. Keep going.” Angela nods and begins playing, starting “Für Elise” with the right amount of quiet and then letting it build until it fills my head. She doesn’t play notes anymore—she plays songs.
How did she do it?
I open the back door and step out on the porch to escape the music. Food Poisoning #2 is still hanging out, waiting for me to return with ideas. “You’re gonna be waiting a while, buddy,” I say, patting the top of the canvas. Aside from those streaks I made the other day, it’s looked the same for so long.
On the other side of the porch, though, there’s something different. Four canvases. Half-finished ones, drying. It’s Lilia’s artwork.
She must also be attempting a series, because all four pictures are of the same building. The building in front of a light blue sky, then a dark blue sky, and then an orange sky. The last one doesn’t have a sky yet. But the building is recognizable: about ten stories tall, with iron balconies on each level, and light radiating from each window. It is—it’s got to be—my favorite condo building from down on the beach.
A couple of months ago in Mrs. Pagonis’s class, we talked about Monet’s Haystacks series. Literally, a series of paintings of the same haystacks. “I know a lot of you might not think you understand the series,” Mrs. Pagonis had said, “or maybe you do think you understand. That’s fine. But it’s also fine to look at the paintings and live in them for a minute and not worry too much about why you’re doing that.”
That wasn’t me, though. I squinted hard at the projection of the paintings on the screen in the classroom, my whole body tensing. I understand it. I do, I told myself.
I didn’t really understand it. But I get this: Lilia’s series, and her attempts to capture the building and its light. Because to see something amazing like that is to get obsessed with it, to wonder how it works and where it comes from, but not to wonder so hard that the magic drips away.
I lean against the screen. Her paintings aren’t done, or even that good, but they’re there. They exist.
Back inside, Angela plays “Für Elise” again. The melody crawls up and down my spine as I approach the living room, as I consider what I’m going to say to Lilia. I saw your paintings, I could say. Or, like Mrs. Pagonis sometimes says about giving feedback, start with a question: Why did you paint that building? That’s what I most want to know.
I stop at the recliner. Lilia concentrates on Angela, who gets to the twinkly high part of the song, raises her hands from the keys, and starts it over again.
“Will you ever stop playing?” is what comes out of my mouth, over the music.
They both turn and glare at me.
Okay, fine. Maybe I don’t get Lilia at all.
In my own bedroom, I switch on Firing Squad to play through the tiny speakers on my laptop. It’s Tuesday, and Victoria’s dance class doesn’t start until six thirty, so I can message her and not get silence.
Me: Angela’s making me crazy. She’s too good.
Vic: Jealous????
Me: It’s not jealousy. I’d rather listen to music than play it. It’s just total confusion about how A can play now.
Vic: She always had it in her, I guess
Me: Maybe.
Vic: I think it’s so cool that
Vic: someone’s discarded piano showed her what she’s good at
Vic: It’s like when I think about what if the world’s greatest violinist has never picked up a violin?????
Me: Well then they’re not the greatest violinist, huh?
Vic: You know what I mean
Me: I just want to know what it’s like to have an idea in your head for something you want to create . . .
Me: and then to create exactly that.
We could go back and forth like this forever. I shut the door and call her.
“Remember how I told you that Lilia was some sort of painter?” I check my doorway, because it seems like she should be standing there, nodding and holding a symbolic paintbrush with badger bristles. “Angela told me she even does commissioned work.”
“Oh yeah? Are you going to ask her to look at some of your paintings?” Vic is probably in her bedroom, satisfied with being alone in that only-child sort of way. “You should make sure Rex is home if you do. I think her stare will hypnotize you.”
“I don’t know. She’d probably take one look at my stuff and either laugh or scream.”
“Hey, that’s no worse than your mom’s reaction to your food poisoning picture, and look, you’re still painting.”