I take the long, dark corridor to Javier’s studio, holding out my flashlight. Feign built this bloody hole as far from customers as possible. God forbid they see the true da Vinci! Javier is standing by an easel, mixing oil colors. They’re turning into a beautiful silvery gray that shimmers under the light pouring from the high window. A streak of paint has varnished one of the dark curls at his temple. The feeling of home that I usually have around Javier settles over me like a childhood blanket.
He looks up and smiles. But at the sight of my face, his eyes turn a guarded, stormy black.
“How did it go?” He sounds like he is choking.
I don’t have to answer. A gust of breath leaves his lungs like he was hit by a wrecking ball. He marches to me in three long strides and pulls me tightly to his chest.
Javier smells like peppermint, soap and paint. I break down, my tears soaking his thin, worn T-shirt. He does not speak. He knows there are no words for it. His family sneaked across the Mexican border for a better life when Javier was just a teenager. This is the only safe home he knows.
“How long do you have?” he whispers.
“Thirty days after graduation.”
“So soon.”
It sounds like a lament. His heartbeat has slowed. Almost quiet. In sync with mine—like everything else between us.
It has always been like this with Javier, since we met on my first Christmas Eve without my parents and I couldn’t even look in the mirror because of my mother’s face staring back at me, waning from grief. We are both outsiders looking in on this land with wonder. We both want nothing more than to belong. He wants to come out of the shadows and I want a new start after my parents’ death. I hope he still gets his happy ending, even if I don’t have mine.
“There must be another way.” His voice takes on a sharp edge of rebellion.
“There is not, Javier. You know it as well as I do. I’ve used up all the practical training time under my visa. I tried every other work visa I could. The lab retracted the job offer after the H-1B visa didn’t go through. I don’t have enough money for grad school and almost all scholarships are for U.S. citizens. I’m too old to be adopted, and I haven’t won the green card lottery.”
“I wish I was American,” he says.
“Why? So you could give up your own life and marry me just to keep me here? No way, Javier. Falling in love with an American girl is your only chance.”
He shrugs. “Better our family together than a love life.”
We stand like this until the door to the studio bursts open. Feign storms in, glaring at us like a bull in front of a red flag.
“What the fuck are you two doing? Look, I don’t give a shit if you fuck each other’s brains out on your own time, but I pay you to work.”
Javier’s fingers tighten on my arms. I know that in his mind he is breaking Feign’s already crooked nose and probably mutilating some other vital part of his anatomy. But their relationship is part poison, part sustenance. Feign needs Javier’s genius and Javier needs Feign’s fraud. We pull apart, and Javier shuffles back to the easel.
Feign leers at me in a way that makes my skin crawl. “You know the rules, Isa. Don’t linger in the reception lobby again! You’re lucky I don’t force you to use the back door like him.” He sneers at Javier and charges out of the studio, slamming the door behind him.
“Fucking cocksucker,” Javier mumbles.
I go behind the floor screen and take off my clothes. My sheet is draped over the screen. I secure it tightly around me, clipping the clothespins in the right folds until the only part of my body exposed is the curve of my waist and my hipbone. I come out, looking only at my bare feet. I can’t look at Javier when we do this, and he knows it. I take my place under the ray of light and close my eyes as Javier’s gaze focuses on my skin.
Then, slowly, the rhythm of his brush strokes permeates the air—the only sound in the room. My thoughts drift past this horrid day, past the worse, empty future ahead until the cold Mr. Hale appears unbidden behind my eyelids. A shiver runs through me—something like fear, compulsion and surrender all at once. This will be his painting. I busy myself with imagining where he will hang it. Perhaps, without either of us knowing, his eyes will rest on me for a very long time. With Javier’s brushstrokes, it’s almost believable.
Chapter Four
Sister