Another

My best friend warned me not to marry an artist. “He’s not a full-time one,” I reminded Francis, as my manicurist applied a pale pink the color of ballet slippers. Francis’s acetone-soaked fingers stood covered in tinfoil, the silver tips sharpened like stilettos. She was already suspicious of my proposal to frequent a nail salon given the wedding wasn’t for another two weeks.

My fiancé was an attorney but had a side hobby for charcoal drawings. “Poor man’s art” is what he called it. Though over the past month, he began spending much more time in the spare bedroom that functioned as his art studio. I didn’t mind at first. My fiancé kept close track of the guest list and helped plan the seating chart. He washed the dishes and walked Kasbec. But while our cars kept each other company, I grew used to a silent condo and late nights with our Afghan Hound as my sole companion. “We’ll be spending our whole lives together,” he whispered to me in bed, on a rare night I managed to stay awake until he came. “I just feel the need to draw right now.” I nodded. Told him I understood. Perhaps his final days as a bachelor spurred him on.

Francis told me about Picasso’s lovers. How one hung herself, one shot herself, and another drank poison. Or it was some other relative for that last one, I couldn’t remember. Then she warned me about the men in her musical theatre group. The drummers were especially big drinkers, followed by the pianists. I told her I would be fine. My fiancé’s closest contact with an instrument was the guitar controller he picked up at parties back in college. She was about to tell me another story, but it was her turn to pick a color.

“Just remember,” Francis began as she stood. A long strand of curly, brown hair got caught underneath her lower lip, swinging back and forth as her mouth moved. “Artists have a reputation.”

I wasn’t too concerned about her opinion. My friend wasn’t enthusiastic about me moving an hour away to Chicago where Logan’s firm was. My new job as a research technician in a university lab drained more time than expected, and we had lost touch. But I did manage to stay updated on her theatre group’s posts. Their last show was a rendition of Rocky Horror. I didn’t know much about it except that they would see which first-time audience member could shove a banana down their throat the farthest.

I came home from the salon to the usual: Logan was and wasn’t home. My fresh nails made the careful venture into my purse for my phone. Had dinner at work, his text said. After I finished his leftover fries and checked on the delivery of pink roses for the aisle down Daley Plaza, I headed to our bedroom. I paused outside the spare one. Nothing seemed unusual about the door. As if it hid nothing but an IKEA bed and his mother’s Tiffany style lamp that clashed with any bedroom past the ‘70s. I watched the reflection of my concaved hand curl around the metal doorknob. It didn’t budge. The room was locked.

---

I discovered my future-fiancé two and a half years ago on a day I dropped a lab mouse on the ground. Losing a mouse according to my supervisor would cost three hundred dollars to replace, and the injured animal had to be euthanized. So I came home to my apartment and collapsed on the bed. I ignored the smell of sheets when Febreze wears off to scroll through a dating app I downloaded to satisfy my mother. My phone was the sole source of light in the bedroom when I found him. There in the harsh block of brightness was a man with brown hair and deep brown eyes. They had a certain intensity about them. A kind the carefree smile on his lips couldn’t dampen.

Logan Walker, 28. Hobbies were sleeping in and charcoal art. He liked going to parks and hiking. And no pets. There wasn’t much more a person could convey about themselves within one hundred fifty characters. He was on the old side, but he did pass the “dad test.” For my sanity and my mother’s, I resolved to never date anyone who resembled the man that passed away on our kitchen floor from a stroke. While I was away at college, my mother would’ve been home with him had she not left earlier to grab coffee before work. She couldn’t bring herself to visit our local coffee shop for years, knowing at that moment her husband’s brain drowned in his own blood as he lay alone for hours.

I scrolled to a couple pictures of Logan next to his artworks. I could see the charcoal crumbs etched into the pads of his fingertips. The thick, faded black streak coiled like a snake along the edge of his right hand where it must’ve rubbed against the canvas. I knew in the joints of his thumb and forefinger on his palm must be calluses, or blistered skin rubbed raw, from the hours, years, spent holding burnt wooden twigs over empty spaces.

I didn’t reach out that night. I let myself ruminate over mice feedings and cage washes till the weekend. The weekend was a more appropriate time to message a busy man, and I didn’t want to send anything till noon in case he was one to draw early in the morning or late at night. The decision paid off. I sent him a message saying hi, and he sent one back. And there a conversation began. Everything seemed too simple. It took less time to land a date than it would for a takeout delivery.

Our first date was set for the following weekend, at a safe time I would be done with work. Saturdays were my days to shoot up mice with opium and shock their toes. Yet one skittish mouse held me back. I messaged Logan I needed to push back the time and still ran fifteen minutes late. My hair must have smelled like a rodent’s bedding. But when he saw me, a stranger to him, he smiled. He told me work stuff happens and he understood.

I find many words can justify why a relationship doesn’t work. It’s easy to say our priorities didn’t match, that he was too selfish or withdrawn, and get those nods from family and friends who knew exactly what that looked like. But I find it hard to explain why our relationship continued. I don’t know if it can be summed up in phrases like “he’s caring” or a “good listener.” Because we accompanied each other on walks or took an interest in how people behaved, whether it was inside a lab or a court of law. Words couldn’t describe it all. Whatever we had, it kept going.

On our fifth date he invited me to his apartment. After a fettuccini dinner (which he later confessed was the only meal he could prepare well), I told him I wanted to see his artwork. He led me to a former office. Newspaper fragments and smudged tissues laid scattered across the floor and under an easel. Shelves were piled with sketchpads and manuals with names like Aristides and da Vinci. On the desk laid trays of gothic-looking pencils, strips of white charcoal, and blackened kneaded erasers. Beside the desk hung a full-length mirror.

“I’m just an amateur,” he said. “Sometimes I sell them online but not for much. Definitely won’t be quitting my day job any time soon,” he laughed.

“I think they’re beautiful,” I said.

There were drawings of birds, one a dove carrying a rosebud in its beak. Still lifes of a bowl of cherries or black gloves embroidered with roses. He also drew people. An old, balding man with a nest of wrinkles in his forehead, sketches of ballerinas and black-capped matadors, a young woman with chin-length hair naked under the covers, a silken sheet spilling off her bare backside and breasts. I could tell he was growing uncomfortable from the way I looked around. I used to wonder how many other women admired his work or stepped inside his creative space. But it felt too invasive to question him—if not irrelevant.

A work in progress sat on the easel. The canvas showed a burst of steam from a kettle’s spout.

“I messed up on that one,” he explained. “The kettle’s shape is off, and I don’t feel like finishing it.”

“May I?” I asked, letting my hand hover over what resembled a miniature stalk of a wizard’s staff.

“Sure,” he said, after a moment of surprise. “But use a pencil. It’s easier for beginners.”

I traced swirls of black clouds into the pale fabric. Made them rise and disperse like locks of hair floating down a river. I felt him come stand behind me.

“Here,” he spoke softly into my ear. I had to resist a jump. “Try holding it like this.”

His warm hand draped over mine and angled the pencil till the marks went from trails of soot to a gentle gray. His other hand came to rest on my waist. I wanted to know what his eyes looked like at that moment—if they were as intense as the heat which crept up my neck and trembled down the arm which spanned against his. But we were too far from the mirror. All I could see to my side was the naked woman fast asleep against the wall.

“You’re a natural,” he murmured into my ear.

After that night, I began to wonder what it would be like for him to draw me. No, not some careless nude caricature from a Hollywood film, but to really draw me. Picasso drew his lovers when they were young. I thought about what I would wear. Something mysterious, strong, a deep black against my skin would work well with the medium. I could sit on the window seat in his bedroom, perhaps at dusk so the sun’s glow would fall just so across my cheeks. I wondered how he saw the texture of my hair or the curve of my smile. What kind of light he saw in my eyes. How hard would he have to press down with the charcoal till it seeped into the canvas like tendrils of smoke. It would be unlike anything I’ve experienced before. Maybe even better than sex. But I didn’t want to get ahead of myself. And he never offered to.

He did stick around long enough for dates to turn into trips to the grocery store. Parents were introduced and keys exchanged. One night we ran into my mother who was on a dinner date with another man, which triggered a half-hour conversation in Logan’s car on her hidden love life. She described her date as nothing serious, just an experiment, so she didn’t want to tell me yet. I told her all experiments have a cost. When we returned to the restaurant, our dates had occupied themselves in a game of pool. Logan waved off my apology for the delay on our drive back, admitting he liked the man who now lives with my mother.

When Logan got into an advertising law firm in the city, he asked if I wanted to move in with him. He agreed to my request for a dog, even though the breed I loved wasn’t fit for confined spaces. And before long, on an evening picnic he knelt beside a bush of pink roses and asked the question.

---

I was sitting in the living room when Logan emerged from his studio, my YouTube feed having regressed to jewelry infomercials and anti-aging skincare routines. He dropped onto the couch beside me. I wanted to ask if he was hungry but decided not to.

“What the hell are you watching?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said, shutting off the woman holding a microneedle. “You know,” I continued in the remaining silence, “if you wanted to lock yourself up with a secret wife, you should at least keep her somewhere besides your studio. There’s enough dust in there to classify as a biohazard.”

His shoulders stiffened but soon relaxed.

“I locked the door so it wouldn’t touch some drawings I left on the ground. I didn’t know you knocked.”

I remembered the scratch of the wooden door against my knuckles, but I let my hand fall before it made a sound.

“At this rate you’ll run out of space to walk.”

“No, I messed up on a few, so I’ll get rid of them soon.”

Logan’s gaze returned to our plasma T.V. It showed us side by side, the room a blurred haze around us. It was a hiccup between familiar and strange, reality and other, as if the shapes couldn’t decide what to be when nothing was on display. I could see the charcoal grains buried beneath his fingernails next to dead skin.

I liked to think something akin to guilt flashed across my fiancé’s face as our eyes met on the screen. Whatever image he saw, it prompted him to suggest we watch a movie before retiring to bed.

That night I thought about my mother. I thought about what she felt the night before her first date since my father’s death. How did someone know when they were ready to begin another relationship? My mom must have found a way to test, to experiment, long before she said yes to the accountant who worked two cubicles down from her. There must have been nights she lied awake in bed, waiting for something to tell her the pit of grief in her stomach had been chipped away.

Maybe when alone in the dark she would say her husband’s name. She would close her eyes and whisper his name and track what kind of pain followed. There was the sharp kind which stabbed through her insides, or the dull kind, blackened and blurred at the edges till it felt almost virtual. Perhaps, after a while, she didn’t feel much at all.

---

A mix of feelings weighed down my stomach as The Day inched closer. I would’ve called them strange had my mother and Google not said they could be normal. A similar clash of sensations must have crept into my fiancé, for he began to spend more time alone with Kasbec while also packing for our honeymoon. We were making one last pass through the seating chart when he mentioned a friend of his couldn’t attend last minute.

“I haven’t seen her in years anyways,” he said.

But she arrived on Sunday afternoon, six days before my wedding day. Logan had left to get ahead on work when a persistent knock drew me from our bedroom.

I was prepared to ignore the image in the peephole and drag Kasbec away. Yet the woman holding a gift bag on the other side had no intention of leaving. I opened the door.

She was older than me though still young. Her brown hair was tied into a smooth bun, which showed off her round cheeks and brown eyes framed under thick brows. There was a seriousness to her face that felt odd against the baby blue bag and the Hound lapping at her fingers.

“Hello, is Logan home?” she asked, not minding the dog’s affection.

I shook my head no. For a moment she seemed disappointed.

“I’m sorry to intrude like this. I’m Jacklyn, an old friend of Logan’s. I RSVPed to the wedding, but due to a recent death in the family won’t be able to come. I wanted to stop by and give this to you.”

My fingers fumbled with the straps as I took the wedding gift from her fingers. I didn’t say anything except, “I remember him mentioning you.”

“Yes,” she smiled. “We were good friends in college but lost touch after graduation.”

Despite the gift in my hands, Jacklyn stood as if she were an invited guest. At my eventual offer to make tea we moved into the living room. She sat in Logan’s spot on the couch and patted the seat next to her for me to sit.

We talked about topics typical for a party but surreal under the circumstances. She asked about how I liked it in Chicago and how wedding preparations came along. She also wanted to know about my job, as did I with her work as an author and journalist.

“I was the first in my family to major in literature and journalism,” Jacklyn explained. “They really wanted me in a more high-paying profession. The STEM or business types, you know? But I couldn’t do anything else. Did you know Logan applied to a few Master of Art programs?”

She took my silence as my answer.

“He actually got accepted into one but turned it down for law school. I don’t think he ever told anyone he applied. I only knew cause I helped him with his personal statement. I’ve seen some of his work online, though. I’m glad he continues to draw.”

I mentioned his makeshift art studio in our apartment and Jacklyn smiled.

“Is he working on something now?” she asked. “Does he let you inside?”

My yesses to both questions prompted her to stand.

“Let’s see it!” she said, offering me her hand.

“Jacklyn,” I protested, “I know you and Logan were friends, but I don’t feel comfortable showing you.”

“Oh, he won’t mind,” she dismissed with a wave of her hand. I could imagine her doing such a gesture when nudging aside strips of caution tape at a crime scene.

“I’ve seen his work throughout college,” she added. “Besides,” she shrugged, “he isn’t home.”

We found ourselves standing outside the spare bedroom. Jacklyn leaned against the wall and watched me open the door. For the first time I wished it had been locked. I opened it slowly, cautious of any artwork on the floor.

We both gasped as we inched inside. The room was covered in drawings, some refined in great detail, others jagged and grotesque. There were likely more than a hundred of them, scattered across the desk or pinned up to the point that the room’s walls didn’t seem to exist. Upon a closer look, they were of various people and scenes I couldn’t recognize. One was a man kneeling on the ground with his head stuck inside a door in the sidewalk, a pale hand with painted fingernails that crawled out of a shell on a beach, a young man lying near a tree, his screams portrayed as zig-zagged lines that descended into scribbles that threatened to spill onto the wall beside it. My breaths came a bit easier till I saw the woman next to me.

Jacklyn’s face lost all color. Her mouth hung open as she walked around the room. Before I could ask, the artist of the hour arrived. Logan stood in the doorway, silence choking the three of us like a weed.

“What are you doing here?” he exclaimed.

“These are my…” Jacklyn’s voice came out broken. “What is all this?”

My fiancé was at a loss for words. The pair of eyes next to me filled with tears, and the woman I’d known for an hour stormed out. Logan looked at me. I didn’t need any drawings, words, film, nor even a reflection of us in the mirror to tell me the truth of what I saw. I turned my back to him, and soon heard his footsteps disappear.

---

I took Kasbec with me. My mother and her partner tried to get me to talk when we arrived, but I promised to tell them tomorrow. I don’t think they would understand. Only Francis could.

I examined the hollow space of the studio after Logan left. The images didn’t help, so I looked at what lay around them. Underneath a few of the sketches were magazines dog-eared to a specific page. A ruffle through his shelves showed more of the same. There were news articles and literary journals from around the world, all tagged to one story. Logan must’ve had them sent to his office since I never saw one in the mail. I began to skim through and try to match them up till I realized there was no need. They were all by the same author.

There was something worse than witnessing the man you love with someone else. It would be far worse to walk in and see the figure of another lover immortalized, skin flushed and buttocks plump under full lips and lidded eyes. An effort that would take months, if not years to render, and then last forever. But worse still was to see a devotion to another woman’s ideas. A pursuit for what lay hidden inside her mind, what timeless ideals drove her beyond mere looks or character. It was an intimacy I never imagined.

I left my ring on the coffee table next to the gift wrapped in blue. I knew then I was no muse, no name to remember, barely worthy of a footnote in an artist’s life. I had more in common with those bits of charcoal erased off the canvas. The ones left out of the final picture.

We tried to warn you, I heard Françoise’s voice, Marie-Thérèse, Jacqueline, Pablito, the others. We warned you this is what happens in art.

He was nowhere near as cruel, I protested, he was different. His love was different.

There was a laugh. Of course, he’s the same! The same story happens again and again. No matter how many versions pass by, there’s always another.

Yet I knew I was better off than those who came before me. I was much more fortunate than the ones tossed aside for a younger model or strangled in a string of affairs. Spared from a fate of waiting at home, famished on letters and unpaid bills, while my partner took off to cityscapes and galleries or caravanned around the wilderness for crumbs of inspiration. I wouldn’t end up like those mice with infected ears and a fractured balance, twisting over and over inside their glass asylums till they starved.

I was lucky to find an amateur.

I now lay alone in my childhood bed. I closed my eyes and wondered if I could speak the names of those others. There were so many my body would wither from skin to liquid to bone if I said them all. Teeth would chew up the slippery flesh inside my cheek and tongue. The blood would pool into the cracks of my lips and spill down my neck. One after another, they would pour out of me like dust coughed up my throat. Their ashes would pool over my limbs, stain my skin like layers of grime kneaded into rubber. They would gather into clouds all on their own. Block out the sun.

At last, I whispered his name. I released it out into the night, and waited.