She turns to me. I think she’s Latina, too. She has long black hair and brown eyes and her brows are distinct and therefore very non-Kahlo. Her bright pink, gauzy floral dress looks like something she bought at one of the beachwear stores haunted mainly by tourists.
Also, this Lilia Solis is just a year or two older than I am. And she’s an artist? Like, a legit, professional one? I want to know, but I don’t want to hit her with questions, especially since she doesn’t seem to be much of a talker.
“It’s great to meet you,” I prompt her. “Welcome to the McBride-slash-Moreno Palacio.”
She looks dazed, like she really was expecting a palace, but got this duplex with beige walls and no ceiling lights (that was Mom’s chief complaint when we moved in: “I just got divorced, and now I have to buy lamps?”).
But her eyes lock on mine, and her face brightens. “Thanks. It’s nice to meet you, too.”
Angela pops in with peanut butter all over her hands and introduces herself.
And Rex says he has plenty of casserole for tonight’s dinner.
There is something about being inside Rex’s place that makes me feel like I’m on vacation. Like, on one of the vacations I dream about taking every summer, where I hop in my grumpy old Pontiac and point it north until I get out of Florida, and then take another highway and see where it leads. How do people end up on those trips where they meet all sorts of interesting strangers along the way—people who always have a spare room furnished with telling details about their past? People who have the right amount of good stories: enough to have mastered telling them, but not to have worn them out.
I’m not sure if Rex is all those things, but his half of the house feels that way. All along the wall in the living room are framed photos and letters from his extended family of burly redheaded folk. And the intended dining room is so packed full of boxes of stuff that there’s no space in there for a table. So that’s why we’re all sitting on the floor around the living room coffee table. It’s easy to enjoy a visit to Rex’s place, but I can’t imagine why someone would pay good money to live in a tiny bedroom on the McBride side of the duplex. And yet, Lilia Solis seems quietly excited to be here, looking around at everything on the walls while finishing her helping of casserole. I should have something artsy in mind to say if she catches me watching her. Or I should make some sort of benign conversation about my day at school, but with the words “art class” emphasized and nudged toward Lilia.
“I love this casserole,” says Angela, who has scrubbed most of the peanut butter off her hands.
Rex smiles. “I call it Sunday Slop. And I’m well aware that it’s Friday. It’s how I use my leftovers from the week.”
It’s almost seven—Victoria will be here soon. I should find a way to join in the discussion, such as it is, but I keep looking out the front window for Mrs. Caballini’s car. Angela is right to love the casserole, but I can barely eat. My chest tightens with every breath. Why am I like this tonight? Why does it seem like something out of the ordinary is going to happen, even though I have planted my flag firmly in the “not telling Victoria” camp? What’s going to happen beyond the usual Victoria-hangs-out activities of saying we’re going to watch a movie but then spending an hour looking at cat videos on her phone, and me sneaking glances at her while she reads and I sketch, and also talking about things that are not how much I want to give her a kiss (messy at first, but turning soft)? And for all the ways that this doesn’t sound like a pleasant evening, it is. It really, really is.
“So, Rex, that’s a fascinating painting over there.” It’s Lilia, pointing to a canvas hanging over Rex’s couch. I know it well.
“The orange-and-blue one?” Rex says. “Well, you can compliment the artist. You’re sitting right next to her.”
For the first time since the foyer, we’re looking at each other at the same time. “Ah, okay,” Lilia says, and then glances away. I thought I heard it before, but I’m sure of it now—she has a Puerto Rican accent.
Lilia goes on, “There’s something unexpected about it. The way you mix the colors. At first, they seem like they go together, but when you look at it again, they’re definitely angry with each other.”
“It’s a mood piece,” I tell her. I guess maybe it could be. “It’s just how the sky looked one night last summer.”
“A mood piece? What do you mean by that?”
She wants me to explain it, to set it cozily in the context of my life, to tell her that it was the seminal piece of my Orange Period or whatever. But really, it was a painting I did sort of absentmindedly right after junior year ended. It was a distraction from thinking about Victoria and knowing I was going to break up with Bill.
“I saw Mercedes finishing it on her porch,” Rex cuts in. “I asked her if I could buy it, and you should have seen the look on her face!”
“It wasn’t actually finished,” I say. “It’s still not finished. I gave Rex a bargain.”
“That look, right? That’s the look,” Angela says.
Rex grins. “That’s it. It’s the ‘please don’t everybody talk about my art’ look.”
“Okay.” Lilia has more of her Sunday Slop, and her gaze shifts back to the painting. My painting. “Well, I was just wondering.”
Rex and Angela exchange silence, and since I don’t say anything either, they think I’m a part of their conversation. I dig for a sausage-heavy bite of the casserole to take at the same time as Lilia, so we can chew in unison and I can buy some time to find the perfect gateway to the artsy chat that maybe we’re meant to be having. Where do you get your art supplies? Do you love the smell of a brand-new canvas? What’s your favorite way to get paint out of your hair? Do you paint from real life or memory or a different place entirely?
“You’re a painter, too?” I finally say.
Lilia’s long hair is in her face. “On and off,” she tells me, brushing her hair away. She looks at me for a minute, and I’m not sure if she’s trying to decide whether to trust me, or if she’s already made up her mind that she doesn’t. I wish I was better at making friends, artist friends especially.
I glance out the window, at the spot where we found the piano.
And a car pulls up.
When Victoria Caballini gets out of her mom’s car, or does pretty much anything, she has a nice follow-through, as though every action needs an equal reaction, and the first part of that reaction needs to be made by her. That’s the effect of being in dance classes and troupes for over half her life—she has control over her every movement, so much that it slides into directing how people see her and feel about her. But not everything about them.