Page 47 of Go Luck Yourself
“I can be perfectly fucking civil.”
“So can I.”
“Well, awful good, then.” He holds the palette back out to me. “Paint.”
“What?”
“We’re being perfectly fucking civil. And this is a perfectly fucking civil thing to do.”
“I will screw up your painting.”
“Impossible. It’s abstract impressionism.”
“Oh, okay, that makes perfect sense.” That means nothing to me. “Why?”
His eyes go up and down my body. Not fast enough that he’s trying to hide it, not slow enough to be suggestive.
It pins me in place. A transitory statue moment, like I’m allowing him to look at me.
“You can tell a lot about someone by the way they do art,” he says. “I wanna see what kind of person you really are.”
“How will I see what kind of personyoureally are?”
Loch’s smile is ferocious. “Nah, you owe me first. Maybe this is why my magic brought you down here.” He steps closer, palette extended. “Paint.”
Stubbornness wends around us.
Fine. It’s his art at risk here. I have nothing to lose.
I grab the palette and dip two fingers into the orange paint. “If I screw up your painting, remember, you made me do this.”
“There’s no wrong way to paint.”
I step up to the canvas. Most of the white where I can reach easily is covered, but a few clean bits poke through. I have no idea what the intention behind those blank spaces is, but I choose one at eye level and put my fingers on it. Two dots of orange are left behind.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Loch hisses behind me. “You love proving me wrong, eh?”
“What?”
“Thatis the wrong way to paint.”
“Oh, piss off.”
“You made twodotsin a flow that’s all curves and motion.”
“Well, maybe I’m more artistic than you.” I wave up at the rest of the canvas. “There’s toomuchcurve and motion. You need something solid.”
“Back up.”
“What?”
“Back up,boyo. What’s the first thing you see now?”
I take a few steps back, fingers coated in paint, palette level on my other hand.
My eyes immediately go to those two dots. It’s all I can see. Two dead spots in palpitating, dancing waves.
I roll my eyes and return to the canvas. The dots are almost dry already; I scoop up more paint and try to add a curve over them that matches the rest.
