Chapter 6

6

ELLIE

T he softness kissing Ellie's forehead refuses to let her slip away from dreams. Her mind feels hot and gooey, sticky fragments of thoughts intertwined with dreams mill around her head. Dreary clouds, hanging heavy outside the window, dim all morning light. This cloud-induced sleepy atmosphere in the room ties her to the bed even further. She twists her head left to right, slowly making peace with the need to face the day's reality. Getting up has never been her strength, especially after difficult nights.

Brushing her teeth, Ellie plays the memory of sex with Tatiana Khan over and over again, like a washing machine inept at its job. The memory becomes no less dirty, no less confusing, no less intimidating. She spits the toothpaste out into the sink, creating a nasty stain.

What the fuck, she thinks, remembering the bathroom stall.

For breakfast, she decides to make a three-egg omelette with spinach and garlic, her sister's favorite morning dish. When life presents her with difficult situations, she resorts to making easy decisions, choices she can be certain in. This way, she keeps up the sense of control and stability she always craves—and always seems to forsake in her relationships with women. That's the problem, she thinks, flipping the omelette. She knows what she wants, the mature woman that she is, and she knows what she can give. But somehow, she gets infatuated with these chaotic thunderstorms of women. Margaret…

That memory stings too much, and she gently lets it go.

Sprinkling salt and pepper into the pan, she rewinds the evening to before the intimate act. It's good. It's not great, keeps playing in her thoughts, a stinging reality to be confronted with. The overheard conversation with Fred upset Ellie more than anything else Tatiana had said before, upset and angered her at the same time. There was no reason for Ellie to accept Tatiana's authority regarding anything. Especially because Tatiana's art itself was not to Ellie's liking, she repeated this idea to herself to no avail.

Sitting down to have her breakfast, she resolves to at last visit Tatiana's exhibition before going to meet her father. She has been looking forward to seeing him for weeks now, their phone calls sparse and unfulfilling. His health is not the best either, she has recently learned.

Circling back to Tatiana, she supposes that giving her art a fair chance seems a reasonable thing to do. Perhaps the paintings look better live. But truth be told, she doesn't even want to like them anymore—she grew comfortable in her line of critique. The thought of the landscapes upsets her, even.

Why was fucking her so satisfying? Fucking her contempt for my art out of her. Opening her up to take all of me. Hearing her moan for me, cry for me, come for me.

Then leaving her, wet and spent in a bathroom cubicle.

Her pussy felt so good around my hand.

Stop it, Ellie. It was a mistake.

Finishing up, she looks out the window, let down by having to take out her woolen sweater again. Those days were supposed to be past already, their cold and grey attitude affects Ellie, and also means worse light in her studio. Not wanting to work under artificial light, she has been particularly excited for the sunny days, the paintings she can create, inspired by the spring.

She gets in her car, even though recently she has been feeling a strange aversion towards driving. Behind the wheel, every thought seems to be able to sleaze around her mind infinitely; memories, dreams, and fragments of conversations stumble in and out of her train of thought. She can't wait to talk to her father, who always manages to take her thoughts into his gentle palms and straighten them out. He's always been able to do that, throughout her teenage years especially. Years wrought with confusion and getting constantly lost, figuring out her own identity. When she said she might like women, he was the most supportive person in her life, together with her mother.

She had been lucky.

–

It's not a bad gallery, she admits, on her arrival. She has been here before, five or six years ago, to see another rising artist. His linoleum art made a true impression on her back then, unfortunately his career came to a halt, and she didn't hear much about him afterwards. Leaving her coat in the cloakroom, she enters the space currently empty of visitors except herself. Sustaining herself purely as an artist, she likes the freedom to move around the city when most people are at work.

The paintings exhibited here vary in style; she can see that Tatiana's earlier paintings are hung around the walls, as well as the most recent ones. There remains a common thread of splashing vibrances, jarring colors clashing or mingling with each other against the backdrop of landscapes, sometimes incorporated into them, though rarely. Tatiana's earlier work seems less coherent, though Ellie finds a particularly interesting painting.

Below stormy clouds, mingled with the sea appear pools and boiling splashes of bold, red blood, storming together with the forces of nature. Lightning bolts spin their thin white scars along the dark sky, and looking at it, Ellie can almost hear the thunder. Apocalyptic though it is, Ellie is entirely captivated by the pure emotion of the piece, as well as its skillful execution. It's called Sacrifice and was painted four years ago.

Ellie stands there, transfixed by the painting. She could easily admit it to be Tatiana's best work, so different from what she focuses on creating now. The blood seems well incorporated into the piece, in theory taking place within it, even though appearing mythically out of the realm of the storm. She looks at other paintings, disapproving of some, and admitting that others are not as bad. Looking at the time she hurries to the cloakroom, not wanting to be late for her meeting.

Sacrifice stays with Ellie the whole way back, down the galleries numerous steps, on the way to her car, and driving to the coffee shop. She feels curiosity rise within her; what inspired such a raw and unsettling painting? She feels that Tatiana could be better than she is, if she would rely less on the boldness of her pieces alone. The ones placed within the soft realm of ambiguity, in Ellie's opinion, are the ones which leave the most impact on the viewer, allowing one to dive into the piece entirely.

Once out of the car, she notices her father standing on the pavement in front of the coffee shop, smoking a pipe. A nasty old habit, he used to say, wanting to discourage his daughters from smoking.

"Dad!" She waves to him, almost brought to tears by how much older he looks now. His fragile frame stands engulfed in an old tweed jacket, and his dark complexion contrasts more and more sharply with the silver devouring his rich curls. She still has a little picture of him in her wallet from the time she was twenty, departing for college.

"Ellie, sweetheart!" He smiles wide, embracing her in his arms. "How're you doing?"

"Lots to talk about," she admits, leading him into the lively coffee shop.

They order and sit down by the window, beaming with joy to see each other again. Ellie sets her bag on the floor and having heard all the medical updates about her mother, sighs heavily.

"She's going to be alright, really," her father says, trying to cheer her up. "The doctors are very hopeful."

"I know, I know." Ellie nods. "She's a strong woman."

Their coffee arrives, steaming and milky.

"But tell me something about how you're doing," he urges.

Ellie takes her cup and decides to talk about her stormy feelings about Tatiana's art, omitting the bathroom incident, naturally.

Why did fucking her feel so good?

–

"So the way I see it," says Ellie's father, having listened to the story, "both of you dislike something about one another. One another's art," he corrects. "But maybe, it's really a different feeling."

"Like what?" Ellie leans in, always eager to listen to advice.

"I don't know. Envy, jealousy. You name it." Her father takes a long sip from his steaming cup, not a single trace of rush in his movements.

"I just think she's wasting the potential she has," Ellie continued, "I saw some other paintings of hers today, and one in particular… I really think it would be good for her to reflect more on her style, is all."

"So you like her?" He laughs, entertained. "You want to help her."

"I don't know what to think about her. She can be very mean." Ellie looks away. "I told you that."

Each time Ellie talks about Tatiana, she's brought to the point of mingling the personal and the artistic, which begins annoying her. She annoys herself, really, always trying to stay in one track but soon bending over to the other. She wants to talk about Tatiana's art philosophy alone yet ends up grieving over her personality.

"It's always easier to like people," her father says pensively. "If you're unsure, choose love. Really, sometimes it's that simple. Especially among artists, you have to be understanding."

He takes out a sturdy, wooden box of chess from behind the table.

"Look," he says with a bright smile. "Should we?"

They play, winning interchangeably until they get bored and realize they've been sitting in the cafe far too long. Ellie goes up to the register to pay, returning in her thoughts to her father's advice.

"There's another side to this," she says, getting back to him. "I think I'm very insecure about my style next to her," she sighs. "Which is ridiculous, I mean, considering how long I've been doing this. I'm so much older and more experienced than her."

Her father shakes his head.

"What are you insecure about? People love your art, look at the two exhibitions you recently opened."

"Yes, but I recently started painting something new, and it really seems influenced by Tatiana Khan. I don't know how to feel about that, letting my art be so fragile."

They get outside, welcomed by a pleasant breeze. Ellie's father gestures to the nearby park, offering a walk before they part.

"Maybe you're not letting your art be fragile," he says after a while, "maybe you're letting it be flexible? You know, life lies in being able to bend and change form, stiff things are dead things."

"Maybe you're right, I shouldn't overthink it," she agrees.

The park grows crowded with children after school and young workers having their lunch breaks. The overall ambience is particularly joyful, play and laughter enveloping Ellie and her father in a pleasant atmosphere. Their steps remain unrushed, savoring the blissfully calm moment together. Unfortunately, the evening before keeps weighing her down.

"I think I do rush things when stressed," she confesses. Her throat feels tight.

"Don't we all," her father laughs. "Did something happen?"

"I um.. well.. had sex with Tatiana yesterday, and I don't know where that leads us, or where I want it to lead us."

"Oh!" He stops for a moment. "Well, that's complicated. At least it explains a lot of things between you two."

"I think I should take a break from all this and just focus on my painting," Ellie finally decides.

"If that's what you think you need, that's what you should do," her father agrees.

–

She drives him to his train station, telling him in detail about the exhibition's reception and how well regarded it is by critics. All that praise got eclipsed by Tatiana's scorn, unjustly, she realizes. How easy it is to let a single negative thing overshadow her hard work.

"Tell Alexandra to be proud," she smiles, "she's a part of the project."

They say their goodbyes and promise to see each other again soon. Ellie misses painting around her childhood home, where there is plenty of beautiful nature and landscapes only waiting to be captured by an observant eye. She's been thinking of acquiring a house somewhere in the area, perhaps when she's older. To have her own family settled among the lakes and forests of her youth.

Once her father disappears into the building, she contemplates driving to the studio. Seeing the cloudy sky, however, she heads home, on her way buying baskets of flowers. She misses the natural environment of her home, feeling separated from nature in the city, where every green patch seems scarce and unwelcoming. The parks seem tame and miserably small compared to the grand forests only a few minutes away from her old house. Perhaps the quiet force of nature imbued her paintings with the same kind of sensitivity, making her question the necessity of the screaming boldness she sometimes encounters within her contemporary peers. She begins suspecting that Tatiana, having grown up here, in the city, learned its violent language. Ellie wonders about her heritage as well, how it influenced the way she developed artistically. Perhaps for her, and where she has come from, the delicate expression stands as more revolutionary. In her art, she allows her brushstrokes to be gentle, unlike the course her life may have taken.

Having arrived at this thought, she decides to abandon the bold sketches of waterfalls.

Why can't I stop thinking about her?