“That’s true,” Lilia says. “What you’re seeing here is part of it.”
But what am I looking at? There’s a canvas leaning against the wall, drying, but it’s not much more than the fuzzy blue and green beginning of some sort of landscape painting. Maybe the real art is the room itself—it’s an old living room, showing leftovers of the usual Florida pastels, but transformed into its own beast. It’s as if she’s taken Florida apart, squeezed out most of the pink and white and muted orange, and pieced this place together with the remains. The light pink carpet has been zigzagged with black lines, and the walls are murals, with the loose human forms on one wall giving way to abstract color and shape on another. Lilia is turned away from me now, so I dare to glance at the ceiling. Yes, it’s been transformed, too: soft primary colors resting underneath a layer of household items. Empty plastic soap bottles, a couple of toothbrushes, a hair dye box.
“That’s not finished yet,” she says.
I’ve been staring. I keep staring.
“Don’t worry, they’re glued on well,” Lilia says. “And they’re clean. You won’t get dripped on.”
Maybe she’s involved in some sort of condo building restoration project, like maybe the mayor of Sarasota realized they weren’t having much success filling the beachfront buildings with rich seniors anymore, so they decided to try to fill this place with . . . rich people who like conceptual art? Who knows.
Lilia, figuring correctly that I plan to sit here and look around for a while, goes over to a laundry basket full of junk for the ceiling artwork and starts rifling through it.
“What kind of adhesive did you use?” Oh my God, of all the questions I have about this place, the one that pops out is about glue.
“Rubber cement at first, but I switched to superglue after a couple of the soda bottles fell.” She holds up a Stove Top stuffing canister and a Goya black beans can. “Which do you think should go between the boxes of laundry detergent?”
“The Goya, I guess?”
She faces the can as if she expects it to smile back at her. “Okay. Why do you think so?”
“Umm, personal nostalgia, for one thing,” I say, “but also I guess because there’d be some contrast between the height of the laundry soap boxes and the Goya can.” Goya, though. Like the Spanish artist who started out painting royals and moved on to disturbing stuff like Yard with Lunatics. Maybe Lilia is pulling a trick on me. There are a couple of places in this room where a Goya-style lunatic could pop out. “But also, I don’t know, the sizes of the stuffing can and the boxes work well together.”
“Mercedes.” My name said the Spanish way, with just the right shape of the vowels and the r. Hardly anyone says it that way. “So much of art is making choices, don’t you think?”
“Sure.”
“So which do you think?”
“The Goya can.”
“Great. That’ll give me a theme for the next section of ceiling.” She tosses the Stove Top container back in the laundry basket.
I meet Lilia’s eyes, interrupting her from surveying her work again. “So, when you asked me if I was ready to get started, is this what you meant?”
“Um. No.” A small smile crosses Lilia’s face. “You’re at the beginning of something amazing, amiga. When you’re here, you’ll be able to create what you most want to create.”
“I’ve tried that before, though.”
“You haven’t. Not like this.” Her voice is firm. She turns back around to her recyclables and art tools. “Anyway, the last time I saw you, you were kind of doing the opposite of painting, you know?”
“I know, I know.”
There isn’t a single person in my life who would understand why I’m here right now, and I wouldn’t even try to explain it, because, well, that’s my choice. A conversation at the Dead Guy with Victoria about this place would lead to many horrified expressions and questions upon questions. Victoria would ask why I don’t just take another painting class at Ringling. But I didn’t tell her much about that painting class I took while she was off dancing in Alabama. I didn’t tell her how my chest filled with rocks as I walked into class, and how I spent too much of my time in that classroom trying to get the air through the few tiny spaces. I didn’t tell her how the older woman sitting to my right asked to “borrow” a paintbrush, and still has it on permanent loan. I probably should feel the chest rocks right now, but I don’t. Lilia’s studio is cool and quiet, and if it expects anything of me, I think I might be able to live up to whatever that is. If I really focus on sound and sort out the air, the conversation of the waves comes to me, their sentences long and overlapping.
“And you know what, Mercedes?” Lilia concentrates on applying glue to the Goya can. “No one outside this building ever has to see what you create here. No one even has to know you’ve been here.”
I want to ask her, Oh, and how does that work? But everything about Lilia is so sincere in this moment. The truth of her words sinks into my skin. No one has to see or know. Maybe I could run down the halls hollering about my love for Victoria. Maybe I could stage a piece of performance art about the destruction of the Food Poisoning pieces.
These possibilities leak in and out. What I really want is what Lilia’s doing, her carefree sense of creation.
I take in a breath. “So where do I paint?”
She looks over her shoulder at me. “Go down the hallway here. Try the second bedroom on the left. Oh, and there’s plenty of paint and brushes and stuff in the kitchen.”
I’m still sitting in the brown chair.
“Look, I felt scared, too, the first time I came here. But I promise you’re going to discover something amazing. All you have to do is start. Think about what you’ve always wanted to paint, and you’ll be able to do it.”
“I’ll try it.” I stand up. “But I can’t stay for too long.”
In the kitchen, I grab a couple of colors of paint: red, blue, black, white. It’s thick latex wall paint, but you’ve gotta use what you have. There are two new brushes and a cup of water and a palette. Sitting by the sink is a brand-new roller, which I tuck under my arm, because why not? Lilia nods at me from the living room, and I walk down the hallway.
The door to the back bedroom sticks at first, but then flings itself open. I flip the light switch and three dim bulbs hanging in a bent ceiling fan come on. How did so much brightness outside give way to so much dullness in here?
I guess I could do my part to make it brighter.
Think about what you’ve always wanted to paint.
Well, there’s one thing to scratch off that list: symbols related to food poisoning. I flop down onto the carpet—thin and pink and rough. I hate trying to paint people’s faces, and their feet. I have never wanted to paint dogs or horses, whether realistic or abstract.
My left hand twitches, and I grab my wrist out of instinct.