The Pink Portrait, Ch. Nine

Nine

The next few days are pretty much a routine of getting up, spending the day with Ales, my mother, Halli and Chad, or Cherice. The lion’s share is with Halli, since she and Chad have to go back to Baltimore the weekend after school resumes. Most days are just spent around my house, taking care of our mother—almost to the degree of her annoyance—playing video games with Chad, even though I am terrible at those silly first-person-shooters that he likes so much. To greater degree, I just shut myself up in my room reading Jane Austen novels, wondering what to paint or sketch next. I don't do it as often as she'd like me to, but I also have Skype conversations with Kirsten.

On rare occasion, I go into town even if it is just to wander around with Ales. Going into town has become a less than comfortable setting for me as sometimes a passerby—mostly teenage girls—will recognize me and either ask for a picture with me, to which I begrudgingly comply, or sometimes try to get a conversation out of me. To them, I am probably just a shy, albeit handsome young man that sent a football player twice my size running out Ales Neri’s door shirtless. I have no illusions about my personality. I am shy. I do not make small talk with new people easily, even if they might be people that Ales knows. I can easily approach the opposite sex, but what ultimately throws me off is when they start getting flirtatious.

Seems the only solace I can find is when I go on hikes through the forests surrounding my house. That is one of the few things that Ales refuses to accompany me on, even if she does consider herself a country girl.

“I love the city, but my casa is away from all that,” are her words. However, she does not like to get dirty. Nor do I, but I do love the solitude that the woods provides. I never wear my expensive clothing into the woods, but I still take care in my appearance. I never walk the exact same trail when I go for my hikes and since I started going through the woods on my own, I tend to go off the given paths. As I grew more and more familiar with the land, I went farther and farther away from the paths. I could almost consider the woods to be a second home to me. It also continues to serve as an inspiration for my art, as well as being a place where I can paint or sketch in peace.

Today I venture west; away from the trail that is more or less a straight path away from my house. I listen to the rustle of the late-summer leaves that veil the scenery behind them, deepening the mystery that is the woods. I stare in wonder at some of the trees that have grown into each other, forever entwined in an embrace that can be as derisive as it can be love. All these plants have a story to tell. I just wish it was less difficult to tell it through the colors of my paint cabinet. I walk, choosing where to place my feet with special care and even walking in very intricate zigzags so as to avoid any accidents or finding myself at a dead end that is oddly more often to be made of trees rather than cliffs, until I reach the river that runs out of Ash Lake. The tide is very high this year and the rushing water can be heard before it is even seen.

I walk alongside the river until I reach my favorite stepping stones across it. I remember making them myself when I was twelve, stacking large rocks high enough so that I would always have somewhere to step no matter how high the tide was. For the most part, it worked. This year, there is only enough of those stepping stones above the water for me to place one foot on. Not my first time, but still not uncomplicated.

I take a breath and I leap. I waste no time as I hop from stone to stone, dreading that I might slip and cause myself serious harm. When I reach the other side of the river, I let myself breathe again. I smooth down my clothes. Not that they are particularly rumpled or anything, just a reflex that follows my adrenaline.

I continue my trek through the woods downriver and eventually I find a sizable stream that runs off of it. I’m curious because I haven’t come across it before. Maybe it was from not hiking far enough or simply not paying any attention to it whenever I found myself following the river. My interest gets the better of me and I start following the stream. As I walk, the ground below my feet begins to feel a little more downhill. If the ground is no indication, then the quickened flow of the stream should definitely be. All around me the ground slowly turns into stone. Not unusual as the forests surrounding Cedar Falls are full of cave networks. Some that are simply deep gorges and others are actually ones into underground networks that are still being mapped.

I follow the stream and I have to stop in my tracks. My trail is ended by a cliff. I am mesmerized. The stream itself tumbles down in small forks that end in spray and below me is a pool. The pool is almost completely closed off by similar sheer cliffs like the one I am standing on top of save for a twenty-foot-wide ravine with a larger stream flowing into the pool. I am seriously tempted to strip down to my underwear and dive into the pool, but I do not know how deep the pool is. I might as well find a safe way down. I circle around the cliff side and I manage to find a narrow rocky foot trail that leads to the lower level. It ends a little short, but not before it opens to a little strand that is partially overshadowed by the cliff, almost acting like a ceiling. The strand drops into the pool and I start removing my clothes. I have no towel and there is no one around so I remove all of my clothes. I set them in a neat pile where they won’t get wet and I sit on the ledge, placing my legs into the water.

The water feels cool upon my feet, sending a ripple of goosebumps up my entire body. It is not unbearably cold so it must be heated by whatever sunlight it gets during the day. I carefully lower my body into the water. The water is already up to my chest before my feet find the bottom. I walk towards the middle of the large pool. Eventually, my feet no longer touch the bottom and I have to start treading the water.

“I wonder how deep it is,” I say to myself aloud. I take a deep breath and submerge. In my head, I count to twenty before my hands touch the bottom. The pool must be at least twenty to thirty feet deep. Plenty safe for diving. I return to the surface and catch a breath. I swim back to the ledge and get out of the water. I pitifully wipe off whatever droplets of water that I can reach, not that my hands could pass for a towel, but at least I can keep my dry clothes from soaking through from the inside out. As I return to the top of the ravine, my phone rings. Even in the solitude of the forest, I am shoved back into reality by three bars of reception. It’s Ales.

I roll my eyes as I answer the phone. “Sì?”

“Ho bisogno del tuo aiuto,” begs Ales.

“What is it this time?” I ask, unconcerned.

“I cannot figure out what to wear on Monday!” she squeals so loud that I have to hold my phone a foot away from my face.

“Sweetheart, you go to a uniform school; why are you so concerned about what to wear?” I can just see her groaning while covering her eyes with her thumb and index finger.

“I may be the ricco one, but you are the expert where fashion is concerned.” A moment of silence follows as I consider her words.

“Alright, fine I’ll help you,” I say and hang up. I walk back to my house. When I arrive home, I sit on one of the chairs on the patio overlooking the woods I just emerged from. Sometimes I can spend hours just sitting here, listening to the woods. Occasionally I attempt, with success sometimes, to translate that sound, that…spirit to the depths of the canvases that I keep stockpiling in the garage and my studio. I hear the door open behind me, snapping me out of my fantasy. I crane my neck to see who it is.

“Hi, Mom,” I say before returning my eyes to the woods.

“Hey, buddy,” she says before taking a seat in the chair next to me. “Find anything interesting out there?”

“Yeah, I did,” I reply. “A very beautiful place. I might even show it to you one day.”

“Oh, but isn’t the forest like your fortress of solitude?”

“I make a few exceptions here and there.”

My mother laughs. “How did you ever get so sweet?”

I frown at her. “I was raised women, remember?”

We both laugh.

“Okay, now I remember.  I need your help, son.”

I recline in the chair, groaning. “What do you need?”

“What’s the matter? Am I not the first person to ask you for help?”

Cancer or no cancer, my mother’s intuition still remains remarkable. “Ales is facing a wardrobe crisis.”

“Hmm, I hope she figures something out,” my mother’s concern for my friend always makes me smile. “Anyway, I am blocked.”

“Blocked how?”

“I have a presentation coming up in a week and I could use your artistic appeal.”

I scoff. “Mom, what’s the matter? You always have great ideas running through that mind of yours, just look at our house.” I gesture with my arms spread wide. This house—at least the interior—was born out of my mother’s imagination.

“I know, but the contractors that I am presenting to have asked for something different. They love my style, but they are requesting something…different.” We share a long look. Two artists: one—me—who puts it on canvas and parchment and the other—her—who makes it the inside of someone's of property.

“Okay, do you have your portfolio?” I ask.

“Uh, yeah, it’s in the kitchen.” We get up and I follow my mother inside. We walk through the large living room and into the kitchen, which is separated from the living room only by a counter and a connecting wall that leads to the far side of the living room. Mom has her portfolio spread out on the island that we normally eat breakfast on. She has everything divided into two groups: one, the finished designs that I suspect she will be asking my opinion on and the other—the larger one—a bunch of empty sheets of paper. I gaze at the completed sets. It looks like each of them are the same foundation, but that is where the similarities end; each are very different in theme, expense, and…personality.

One of the proposals—the one that I like the most—combines the love of log cabins with a very clear taste for modernism. While some fixed things, such as the floors, the walls and even the staircases are wooden, other things are more…glitzy. Each room offers what seems to be a clever balance between wooden-framed furniture found in the beds, the tables, and the wardrobes, and the modern feel of HD smart TVs and a kitchen with granite countertops.

Some of the other ones, while each of them are unbelievable in their own right, I just find myself not wanting to be the interior of my dream home. Some of them appeal to the color scheme lovers, some to the “spare no expense” type of people and not always in a tasteful way, and the lovers of simplicity. Those particular lovers can go in two very different ways. There are the ones who love “simple” and all that implies and there are those who favor simplicity, but are unafraid to express their personality in the interiors of their homes. Like my family and Ales’ family.

“When you say ‘something different’, how do you mean?” I ask, still observing each of Mom’s proposals.

“I showed them that I can create interiors that would appeal to the vintage lovers, the people who say ‘I want this place to look like something out of Hollywood’, people who go for simple with their own ideas to spice things up here and there, but…” Mom leaves the sentence hanging. I almost smile at how she sometimes seems to voice what I am thinking.

“But what?” I ask, lifting my eyes from the designs.

“They want something that is completely me,” she basically enunciates.

“Completely you?” I repeat. I gaze around and gesture. “This house is completely you!”

“And you and your sister, don’t you forget.” She is right, of course. Over the years, Halli and I have thrown out ideas that eventually became part of the house. The covered patio was my idea that we also had to hire a landscaper to help with; the large living room with the ceiling-high window looking into the lake and the sunset was all Halli’s idea. Of course we had to live in Ales’ house for a few months while the renovations were completed.

“They have seen this house, Kieran, and that is why they asked me to come up with something else that is completely me.”

I smile at my mother. “I have faith that you will, Mom. You always do.”

“Just like you always paint a masterpiece.” She reaches over and kisses my cheek. “Now, why don’t you go help Ales with her superficial issues before she paces a hole into her father’s floor?”