Chapter 34

CHAPTER 34

"Drive safe," says Aunt Mari, handing me a travel mug of tea as I do a mental run-down to make sure I remembered everything for the art intensive. " Disfruta tu semana . I'm sure you'll learn a lot."

" Gracias ," I say, giving her besos before getting behind the wheel with excitement and anticipation. The Camaro starts up well, thanks to Luko and Denny, who took a look and figured out it was a squeaky belt they could easily replace. I wave as I leave the driveway, then take the main road off the island, over the bridge, and onto the freeway. The sky is deeply blue, the ocean is sparkling on my left, and my Karol G playlist is matching my mood.

But as I get onto the 405 freeway, with forty-five minutes left to drive to Marina Del Rey, a pit forms in my stomach. I turn off my music. I have no idea what the other workshop participants will be like, what Giada will be like, what the atmosphere will be. What if they're all stuffy art elitists and I'm the one who barely got in thanks to a favor from a friend? What if I'm not as good as I think I am? What if Giada is demanding and brusque and we don't get along?

You're going to do great. It's going to be awesome.

Cole's kind voice comes into my head as clearly as if he was in the car with me. It sucks that I can't talk to him, can't hear his voice in real time. There's so much I want to tell him, and I want to know how he's doing and what he's learning. It's ridiculous to have a favorite person in the world and not be able to communicate with them.

I run my hands over the steering wheel, the one his hands are usually wrapped around. He believes in me. I can believe in myself too. There's no reason I have to be self-deprecating and allow negative thoughts to take over.

I whisper a new-to-me Winston Churchill quote out loud: "Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision." I switch the song to Karol G's " Mi Ex Tenía Razón " as I slip on my sunglasses, and let the Camaro roar a little as I head north.

I park in the driveway of a narrow, but tall modern concrete building in a residential neighborhood. According to the website, there's an apartment set-up on the ground floor and the open space where our classes will take place is above it, on the second floor.

A tall, willowy woman in a black linen caftan, her gray hair elegantly done up in a French twist, comes out of the apartment to greet me.

"Hello, hello, hello, I'm Giada. You must be Tia Lopez."

"I am, thank you for having me," I say, as she gives me a quick handshake with a pat to the back of my hand.

"I'm very glad Lorraine reached out to me, I'm always looking to have newer artists in my workshops. I am selective, you know, but I think you're going to have an amazing experience. I'll show you your room, then we can get your things set up in the studio."

I grab my bags out of the trunk and follow her into the apartment, a sparsely furnished space reminiscent of a dorm room, with one couch in front of a small TV. There's a tiny kitchen in the corner with a stove, sink, microwave, and refrigerator, then a hallway with two bedrooms across from each other and one bathroom at the end of the hall. It's all white walls with natural lighting, macrame wall hangings, and light oak floors, reminiscent of the pictures I've seen of the studio upstairs.

"It's small, but perfect. You won't be spending much time down here anyways," Giada says.

The itinerary was emailed out a few weeks ago and my mouth went dry when I saw that we would be painting under instruction from eight a.m. to noon, then listening to presentations from guest artists during lunch from one to two in the afternoon. After a break from two to four p.m., we would gather for art critiques over dinner from four to six, then one more round of painting from six to eight p.m. Intensive was the right word for this week of instruction.

"Make yourself at home, then once you're ready, bring your supplies upstairs and we'll get you set up at an easel. Also, all the food will be in the dining room off the studio. We only have the one intro session today, from one to four, so no rush, but it'd be best if you were ready to go by quarter to one." She smiles as she glides out of the room.

I set my bags in the corner and take in the petite bedroom with a twin bed covered in white linens, a small leather chair in one corner, and a wardrobe across from it with a fake green plant draping down the side. It's austere, but comfortable and perfectly suited for a one-week stay. The first thing I do is pull out the framed photo of Cole and me, and prop it on the nightstand.

I take a picture and send it to Aunt Mari to let her know I've arrived safely. She responds with a GIF of a baby saying " ?Qué linda! " which makes me laugh. She has date number two with her rich love interest tonight and I ask her to tell me how it goes.

My next instinct is to text Cole, but I exercise the utmost self-control and hold back. I wonder what he's doing right now, what he looks like. I picture him in uniform or scrubs, sterile blue gloves on his hands, maybe some blood, like he alluded to. But his face would be intent under a surgical mask, his eyes focused. He'd be in control of the situation, making calculated decisions and?—

No, I'm not going to spend mental energy daydreaming about him. This is my time, my week, my realm.

I am definitely in over my head. At one o'clock on the dot, Giada had us pick up our paintbrushes and start in on a portrait of a live model. The woman sits across from me in a wingback chair, in front of the semi-circle of six artists and their easels. She looks like something from a Gothic novel, in a white high-neck dress, her black hair streaming down past her shoulders.

Giada's instruction was to paint the woman's portrait in our usual style, using our usual methods. She offers advice and direction as we work, pointing out different things about the lighting, background and shapes we could use to refine our portraits. She stops by each of our easels as we work, noticing the distinctions between each of us artists.

I'm hesitant about my brushstrokes, trying to think ahead and plot the whole painting in my mind so I can control every detail and dimension.

Giada breaks through my thoughts as she speaks from across the room. "If you have the larger value shapes right, that's eighty percent of the portrait done. The other twenty percent, the smaller details aren't nearly as important. Your outline sketch is the surest foundation. Again, if you have the larger value shapes right, that's eighty percent of the portrait done."

Her words fly into my brain, coming to rest in my heart, resonating with meaning. I can easily outline a sketch with confidence. My brush starts to fly between my palette and canvas and in no time, Giada is looking over my shoulder, nodding at my canvas in approval.

The next morning, I start in on another portrait challenge—high-contrast colors. As I paint the background with cadmium red, bright as a bell pepper, I keep turning over the eighty-twenty analogy that Giada told us yesterday.

When I left D.C. to come to San Diego, I only had eighty percent of the picture. I knew I could stay with Aunt Mari, that I could get a job to earn my own money, that I could be happy. I didn't know the other details, which was fine, but those "details" became the best surprises of all. I didn't know I would make such great friends, that I would grow in my artistic abilities, that I would meet the incredible Cole Slaeden.

It dawns on me that if I say yes to Cole, I'm not looking into a future of one hundred percent unknowns. I just have to trust the eighty percent that I do know—the larger value shapes of the love Cole and I have for each other, our character, our personal values. And the other twenty percent…well, I can choose to not let it worry me. I can choose to move forward. I can choose to stop holding back. I can let my love run free and not be fettered down by unknowns.

That night, I read through my collection of courage quotes again and find what I'm looking for from Lao Tzu: "Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage."

I love Cole Slaeden deeply. My love for him ignites my courage, which fuels my willingness to do whatever it takes to be with him.

Once I stop trying to temper my love, desire, and want for Cole and finally admit it, it shocks me as it courses through me, powerful and ecstatic. It's a relief to stop arguing with myself and surrender to my indomitable love for Cole. My heart is pounding in my chest and adrenaline shoots through my body traveling outwards to my fingers and toes. I feel alive and awake and ready . Finally, finally.

Courage.

The next morning, I struggle through our prompt from Giada to use contrasting colors to create depth. I achieved the desired effect to a degree with Cole's portrait, but I'm trying to incorporate stronger colors this time around. However, every time I add a paint color to my palette that feels like the logical choice, it mixes together wrong. I want to smear my canvas with alizarin crimson, then layer it with French ultramarine, to see what will happen with the violet hue, but that seems like a crazy leap. I stand in front of my easel, paralyzed with indecision.

My phone vibrates in my pocket, in a rhythm that tells me I have an incoming call. It's not Cole, I know it's not him, I know for a fact it's not. I don't even need to check.

I still want to double-check.

I pull out my phone and nearly drop it. Cole is calling. Actually, he's FaceTiming. Is this a test? Am I not supposed to answer it? Oh, screw that, even if it's a pocket dial, I'm answering. I set my brush down and take my phone across the hall before answering.

"Hey, Cole."

As soon as his face fills the screen, he starts talking, his voice slightly echoing like he's sitting in a stairwell. "Hi. I am so sorry. I don't know what I was thinking about not talking to you." He clears his throat. "I feel so terrible. I left and then I left you alone and that was the wrong thing to do. I'm so sorry, I should never have done that."

A weight rolls off me and I take a deep breath full of relief. "I'm not mad," I say, with a soft smile.

"Just disappointed. That's the worst. I totally deserve it too."

"What's prompting all of this?" I ask. I hope Denny didn't go chew him out after our phone call last week.

"There's a guy here on the course who's married and he calls his wife every night and every morning. It started to eat at me that he probably had it figured out, that he was doing the right thing, and I was the one who was doing it all wrong."

"Oh, okay," I reply, relieved to hear his reasoning.

He sighs and adjusts his angle. I can see he's in uniform, with a surgical mask in one hand and he is sitting in a stairwell. "I totally understand being mad, I really do. You don't deserve that."

"Well, did the past week or two give you time to yourself at least?" I ask.

"No," he says with a deep, rueful laugh. "All I did was think about you. Turns out, everything isn't black and white, yes and no, talking or not talking. You're part of everything I do now."

I understand that feeling all too well. I bite my lip and look down at my shoes for a moment. The minority voice in my brain thinks he really needs to grovel his way back into my good graces, while the overwhelming majority says, Isn't it incredible, to hear that he couldn't stop thinking about you?

Cole sniffles, drawing my attention back to him and his penitent face. I think love is going to win this round.

"After all my promises and reassurances about being there for you, no matter where I was in the world...I'm so sorry, can you ever forgive me?"

In his humility, willingness to admit wrong, and ability to genuinely apologize, Cole illustrates exactly why I trust him, why I can forgive him quickly and easily.

"Yes, I can. And I do."

He sighs and I watch his shoulders sag in relief. "It won't happen again. All I want to do is talk, I'm dying to know how you are. I miss you so bad."

I hear Giada giving instruction, then she pops her head out of the classroom to scan the hall for me. I give her a sheepish grin as she waves me back to the class.

"I miss you too. I'm on my art intensive right now and it really is really intensive," I tell Cole in a hurried whisper. "I think I won't finish class until you're asleep. We can at least send messages throughout the day and I'll check them when I can. I'd love to hear how you're doing too. My instructor is waving me back, I have to go now."

"Okay, sounds good, love you, bye."

I press a kiss to the screen and hang up.

Giada glides over to me as I hurry back to my place. She takes a glance at my palette, then my blank canvas.

"Let your heart and your mind go where they want to go, don't cage yourself in with ration," she murmurs to me. "Just like love, art has its own logic."

She moves on to the woman painting next to me and I blink hard. Okay...okay.

I close my eyes and refocus my mind from the excitement of my conversation with Cole back to painting. After a moment, I decide I'm not going to mess around with a background of melded colors, I'm going to use them as shadows and highlights. I'm going to paint a portrait in red and blue on a yellow background. I allow myself some titanium white to create different tints of the alizarin crimson and French ultramarine, add cadmium yellow to my palette, and dive right in.

As I add the colors in the hollows of the cheeks and the bridge of the nose, my mind rearranges the sagacious phrase Giada said earlier, repositioning the words. Just like painting, love has its own logic, and I cannot cage it in with ration.

That's exactly what I've been trying to do. I've been trying to take the love I have for Cole and shove it into a cage and it's not working because it was never meant to. I can't reconcile my own box-shaped plan with a love that will not be contained, because they are incompatible. I have to decide whether to stick to the cage of what I think I want from life, or go with the wild, ecstatic life of love with Cole that scares me with all its unknowns.

How does everything in this art class also apply to Cole and me?

Over dinner, we all take turns critiquing each other's work. Giada has set the tone for our feedback to be encouraging and positive, and I've learned so much by listening to how everyone processes and receives each other's art.

When it comes to my yellow, red and blue portrait, the table oohs and ahhs.

"This, this is what happens when you don't overthink," says Giada. The other participants chime in with phrases like, "Interesting and eye-catching," and "I wish I had thought to try that," and even "I'm obsessed with this idea."

My cheeks heat at everyone's praise. As I've learned more about each of my fellow participants and watched them work, I know I'm in the company of greatness. To have their admiration is incredible, and I leave the table for the evening round of painting floating on cloud nine. I think tonight will go down in my personal history as the night I feel I've arrived as an artist.

By Friday, I'm a new woman with half a dozen portraits I've produced in a frenzy of painting and the new-found freedom of working with the strange logic of art, instead of against it. I've experimented all week, under Giada's helpful eye, and we're both a little in awe of what I've done. She gives me a big hug as I get ready to leave. "All you have to do is let yourself be inimitably you. See what you're capable of? You don't even realize how strong you are and how well you can rise to the occasion until you try. Please stay in touch, I know you're going to do great things."

I am capable of great things. I am capable of loving fully. I am brave enough. I am courageous.