Refrains of the Heart Read online

  Louise put down her paintbrush and studied the painting. She’d often painted out her feelings in college, sometimes not knowing what was niggling at her subconscious until it had shown itself in a mess of colors and shapes that her conscious mind could grab onto.

  “Interesting,” she said aloud, feeling unsettled, but good, her skin buzzing with something that bordered on the erotic as she looked at the page.

  *

  She’d run out of her supervisor’s goodwill and had to go in to work the next day. It was fine, but surreal. She did her job, paperwork and calls and e-mails and memos and office chatter, but she felt detached from everything. It was as if this was an old life, a I she was walking through.

  She got sympathy and poorly concealed thirst for gossip from her coworkers at the water cooler. She smiled and nodded and assured everyone she was fine. She watched with hidden amusement as their faces smoothed over in disappointment when she said no, there had been no cheating, no scandal, no physical fights, nothing that counted as interesting in their eyes. They drifted off, denied sharks in shallow water looking for fresher prey. She shook her head.

  As if what had actually happened, uninteresting on the surface, wasn’t the most interesting and important thing that had happened to her in years.

  Chapter Three

  Jennifer’s next talk was Wednesday afternoon, and she intended to miss it—she had work, she had a life that she had to keep up—but she found herself taking the afternoon off for a made-up doctor’s appointment and getting the bus two blocks down from the office toward campus.

  At least, that was the intent. Construction work nearby spread out traffic delays through the city like a bruise and Louise sat on the unmoving bus in snaking traffic, winding herself up into frustration.

  She made it onto campus five minutes before the talk was scheduled to end, useless to even try and catch the last bit of it.

  “Shit,” she muttered under her breath. She needed a coffee and something to eat as she hadn’t had lunch yet, which probably wasn’t helping her mood. She headed into the much-frequented I just off campus.

  It was more than a little ridiculous to get so upset and angry at missing someone she didn’t know give a speech about something she never used to have an interest in.

  She got a coffee and a sandwich and made her way to an empty table by the corner window, and as she stepped toward it, collided heavily with someone heading for the same seat.

  “Oh!” The coffee wobbled dangerously and Louise turned to apologize to the person she’d crashed into, but her breath stuck in her throat when she saw it was Jennifer. She could see clearly for a horrible moment that her already precarious grip on the coffee would slip, tip, spill all over Jennifer’s fitted white blouse.

  Jennifer reached out and steadied Louise’s wrist and therefore her coffee. Her hand was slim, long fingered, smooth on Louise’s skin.

  “Whoa, careful,” Jennifer said, but she was smiling.

  “Sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

  “Eyes on the prize?” Jennifer asked. At Louise’s blank look, she clarified, pointing toward the corner seat. “Best seat in the house, where you can see the lake past the edge of campus.”

  “Oh. Can you? I was just heading to a free seat. You can take it.”

  “Thanks,” said Jennifer. “It’s a big table, though, you can sit here too.”

  “Really?” said Louise, wishing she could take it back when it came out breathy and eager, like the nerd being asked to sit with the popular kids. Jeez.

  “Sure,” said Jennifer, looking amused. She waved Louise to sit across the table from her.

  Louise sat, set down her coffee and sandwich, put her bag in the seat next to her, and told herself not to fidget.

  “Hi,” she blurted out, then hid her face in taking a gulp of coffee.

  Jennifer tilted her head slightly to study Louise. The action made her hair tumble across her shoulder, the sunlight slanting in through the I window picked out gold sparks in the dark gleam. “I think I recognize you,” she said. She was gorgeous and Louise felt aware of that fact throughout her whole body.

  “I’m, uh. I was at the talk on Tuesday?” It felt like a struggle not to trip over her words. She didn’t know why she was reacting like this to Jennifer, what it was about her that made Louise feel over full and adolescent.

  “Oh, yes. That’s where I know your face. Did you like it? I thought it must have been terribly boring, but my friend told me it was okay.”

  “It was amazing,” said Louise immediately. “I mean—I didn’t understand it all, I don’t know anything about music, but I understood enough to get what you were talking about.”

  “If I remember right, you seemed to ask some sensible questions.”

  Louise dropped her head and tried not to go red. “I, well, I’m an artist, I studied art, so a lot of those principles are transferable, I guess.”

  “Oh, really? Do you paint, draw, sculpt? I’m so in awe of people who can create things with their hands.”

  “You can create things with your hands. It might not be tangible, but it’s as amazing as sculpting or drawing or whatever. I paint—draw, some, but I like to paint most of all.”

  Jennifer laughed, her dimples creasing in her face. “I hadn’t really thought of it like that. I guess so. Painting, that’s awesome. Is that your job? Do you study here, or teach?”

  “Oh, no, I…” said Louise awkwardly. “I don’t paint very much any more, I work in an office. I don’t work here.”

  Jennifer looked at her. “So why are you here?” Then she shook her head and laughed. “Wow, I didn’t mean for that to come out so accusatory.”

  Louise shook her head. “No, it’s fine. I, um.” She rubbed a hand over the back of her neck. “My boyf—er, my ex. He brought me to see your show on Sunday.”

  Jennifer winced. “That’s recent. I hope the music wasn’t that bad.”

  Louise shook her head, and refrained from saying, “actually, it was too good, and sparked both my inspiration and some long overdue words between us.” Instead she said, “God, no, nothing to do with you. Just unfortunate timing. But if it helps, I’m much happier.”

  Jennifer smiled softly at her. “It does help. So?”

  “So, I heard you mention the talks you were giving, and I came to check them out. I came in here specifically because I got caught up on the bus and missed the talk I’m guessing you just came from.”

  “Oh, no. I thought there was someone missing.” She grinned. “I can recap it privately for you if you’d like?”

  Louise blinked. Was Jennifer teasing her or flirting? Was this flirting? Was Louise reading way too much into Jennifer’s flash of bright smile and the glimpse of white teeth pressed into her lip? The possibility made Louise’s chest heat. Ideas flickered through her mind half formed and left her breathless. She tore a corner off her sandwich, drank some more coffee, and nearly inhaled it down the wrong hole. She coughed. “No, God, sorry. No, it’s okay. I mean, it’s cool.”

  “There’s another one on Friday, maybe you can make that one?”

  “Definitely,” she said. And then, because she’d wanted to do this since the first night after the show, she said, “Can I also say thank you?”

  Jennifer smiled, though she looked a little confused. “Sure. Uh, why?”

  “Maybe this is super awkward, but the first night I heard you play, it was so beautiful…and I know that sounds cheesy, but it really was…and it helped unlock something inside me. So I’ve been painting again for the first time in ages. Years. And that pretty much feels like the most amazing thing ever, so, thank you.”

  Jennifer’s eyes were bright. “Really? That’s amazing! God, that just—that feels incredible. Don’t thank me too much. It’s all from inside you, you should thank yourself. But if I could do anything to help, I know there’s nothing like it when you find your way past a mental block that stops your art, somehow. What are you painting? Can I—wow, sorr
y, that’s rude.”

  “Can you see it?” Louise grinned, feeling giddy. “I haven’t wanted to show anyone my art in a long time, even when I was last painting, but, uh.” The thought of Jennifer seeing her art—the woman that had somehow trailed music into Louise’s head and unlocked those doors—it was simultaneously terrifying and thrilling. “I don’t know. I’d like you to, but it’s scary.”

  “Do you have any with you?”

  Louise looked at her bag without exactly meaning to. She had a sketch pad in there with some pencil and marker pieces that she’d been doing in her free time the past few days. It wasn’t stuff like her painting from the talk, it was more practicing the basics, getting used to drawing and how it felt in different media, so there were quite a few realistic sketches of objects. Or at least as realistic as she ever got. She could draw shapes and images accurately, but she couldn’t bring herself to color them the way they appeared, so there were lots of black and white pencil drawings, and the ones that were colored were vibrant with blocks of bright marker colors. She had a cobalt and fuchsia and viridian landscape of her office building, an apple tree in six different shades of red and pink, a cat that was half green and unfinished.

  Still, it seemed less intimidating to show Jennifer some of her practice art rather than her real art, so she let Jennifer’s eyes follow her gaze to the sketchbook sticking up slightly as the bag slouched on the chair.

  Jennifer grinned. “May I?”

  “Sure,” said Louise, then hurriedly added, “I’m kinda weird about color, by the way. I do a lot of abstract stuff, too, and I just…It’s not exactly still life and portraits.”

  “I’m intrigued.” Jennifer reached over the table and pulled out Louise’s sketchbook, and it felt like she was letting her read through a private diary. Goosebumps prickled on her neck and she couldn’t help but hold her breath as Jennifer opened the book.

  Watching her face was torture, so Louise rolled her eyes at herself and ate her sandwich as Jennifer flicked through, though she did look over when Jennifer chuckled.

  “The cat. I love it.”

  Louise shrugged and swallowed her food. “Color,” she said, and waved a hand around, like that explained anything at all.

  Jennifer closed the book and gave it back. “There’s some really amazing stuff in there. The pencil stuff is really pretty, but I love the colored ones best. It’s like you use the most outlandish unrealistic color and it somehow looks perfectly right.” She grinned. “It makes me want to see the world the way you do.”

  “Kinda crazy?” Louise laughed. “I—thanks. It’s weird, showing people, especially you, but I’m glad you like it.” She tucked the book back into her bag, feeling both awkward and incredibly pleased with the compliments, her cheeks warm with it. “I, uh, I would like to see how you see the world too, though. From the way you play, it seems so beautiful and passionate, like you can’t help but make things like that.” She blushed harder. Who went around telling people they saw the world passionately?

  Jennifer sat back in her chair, looking thoughtful. “I guess it’s hard to think about how I see the world because, you know, it’s how I see it, I can’t imagine any different. But, yeah. I think there’s beauty in everything, everywhere, you just need to figure out how to find it.”

  “That’s a very optimistic way of seeing things. I’m impressed.”

  Jennifer laughed. “Don’t get me wrong, I know there’s a lot of shitty stuff in this world and this life. Not to be all poor little rich girl about it, because I know I’ve had luck in some ways, but it’s not always been easy for me. I’ve gone through some shit. Haven’t we all, of course. But I learned you have to find the beauty hiding in the corners and let it give you strength, use it as a shield to push away the bad and protect the good.”

  Louise grinned. “I don’t know if that’s inspiring and beautiful, or kinda cheesy.”

  Jennifer laughed, her head going back. It was infectious and Louise bit back her own laughter. “Yeah, yeah, fine, I’m moonlighting for Hallmark. Shhh, it’s a secret.” She winked. “Come on, you’re an artist. Be all over-the-top romantic with me and say it’s inspiring and beautiful.”

  Louise laughed this time. “Fine. It was beautiful. Totally inspired, check. Finding beauty in the corners, check.”

  Jennifer rolled her eyes and smirked. “Don’t make fun.”

  Louise sobered. “I’m not.”

  “I know.” Jennifer smiled. “Anyway, you don’t need to find the beauty. You can just draw it and create your own.”

  Louise didn’t know how to respond to that, so drank her coffee instead, feeling strange—in a good way—having all of Jennifer’s attention on her. There was an intensity, a bright, creative, passionate energy about Jennifer that felt scary, but amazing to have all directed at you, and she wanted to paint, paint, paint.

  Jennifer looked at her thoughtfully for a while, until Louise smiled and said, “What?”

  Jennifer bit her lip. “This might sound weird, but I get a good feeling from you. Can I propose something I think could help both of us out?”

  “Um,” said Louise, confused but intrigued. She got a good feeling from Jennifer, too, that was certain. “Sure?”

  “Say no if you don’t feel comfortable with it, but my agent and I have been talking about the cover art for my next album. Which makes me sound far more important than I am. But she wants to do another photograph of me playing the piano, and I…I want to do something different. So no obligation, but if you want to and I want to, you’ll get paid for it, whether we use it or not. What do you think about a portrait?”

  Louise meant to say, “That sounds amazing, but really, I honestly don’t do portraits; I do abstract art.” Instead, she blurted out, “Oh my God, sure,” and couldn’t regret it from the way Jennifer’s face split into a stunning grin.

  “Oh, wow, really?”

  “Yeah, but if you hate it, you don’t have to use it, I’m not very traditional,” Louise managed to get out.

  Jennifer smiled brightly. “Neither am I. You know I like it. In fact, I’m expecting you to color me blue.”

  Louise grinned. “I—okay. When were you thinking?”

  “Sunday? Does that work for you? My parents are visiting on Saturday and my stepmom is going to want to see the city so I’ll be out with her, but Sunday I’m free in the afternoon.”

  “Sunday works for me,” said Louise, not quite believing what they were organizing. “Text me the address and I’ll come over with my supplies.”

  “Great!”

  Louise nodded dopily. “Great!”

  They looked at each other, then Jennifer laughed. “Sorry. That was weird. I swear I don’t usually ask people I’ve just met to do portraits of me. At least, not that often. I’ve cut down to once a month.”

  Louise frowned. “And here was me thinking I was special.”

  Somewhere in the back of Louise’s mind she wondered if Jennifer was flirting as they talked and if she were flirting back. And if she was, if she was intending to. It was so easy to talk to Jennifer that she couldn’t seem to stop the banter and jokes and conversation, and she went with it because it felt good. There was a brightness to Jennifer that made Louise’s blood tingle, lighting up all the parts of her she’d half-forgotten existed. Jennifer was what anyone would call a warm person. Louise thought that had to have something to do with the way she felt when they were together. Jennifer’s eyes kept drawing her gaze, the dark irises warm as if backlit, glowing. Louise couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so drawn to another human being, unable to look away.

  They talked for a long while, until the sun started to sink outside the I, lining Jennifer’s hair with gold as it edged into sunset. Eventually, Jennifer looked at her watch and swore.

  “Oh, shit, how did it get to be so late? I have things to do tonight. Shit.”

  “Sorry,” said Louise awkwardly, looking around the I and realizing how quiet it had gotten. She gathered her ba
g up.

  Jennifer looked up in surprise. “No, don’t be! I would rather have been talking to you here than doing errands. It was really great to meet you.”

  Louise grinned. “You, too. Really. Thank you again.”

  Jennifer pointed at her. “Don’t thank me. It was all you. I will see you on Sunday and you can show me what you can do.”

  “Okay. I can’t promise anything, but okay.”

  She wiggled her fingers in a lame little wave. Jennifer stepped around the table and surprised Louise with a quick tight hug.

  She’d seen girls hug each other like this before, a quick squeeze as a greeting or good-bye, easy affection, but it wasn’t something she was used to. She rarely touched people extensively outside of her boyfriend. She and her friends almost never hugged, and her mom, while being great, had never showered Louise with physical affection since Louise had stopped being a kid.

  That was probably why it felt so intense and strange to have Jennifer so close. Why the feel of her pressed close—the warmth of her body, the tickle of her hair on Louise’s cheek, the press of her fingers into Louise’s shoulder blade—felt so good and shockingly new.

  Louise’s breath caught in her chest and she stood dumbly. Jennifer was stepping back before Louise could think to bring her own arms up to return the hug.

  Jennifer didn’t seem fazed by Louise’s plank-of-wood act. She waved and smiled, said “Bye!” and was gone in a swirl of dark hair.

  The buses ran less frequently now that they’d hit evening. Louise had to wait at her bus stop for about twenty minutes before her bus came, but she barely noticed it, replaying the afternoon in her head. She and Jennifer had really connected and she was certain that it wasn’t just her seeing things because she was a fan. They’d talked for hours, going from school to growing up to football to movies, and it had felt so easy. Louise felt like she was floating a couple feet above the ground.