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He could feel it. His time was up. He’d managed to exist off of his reputation as a provocateur for nearly twenty years, presenting his brand in whatever medium held the attention of the Rockford creatives: music, writing, drawing, painting, blogging, poetry reading, whatever. His creations lacked finesse and skill, but he took risks that few others in a mid-sized city like Rockford would ever take. Still, he’d balk at being reduced to provocateur. Whatever you called it, his work earned him plenty of social currency over the years.

Jeremiah would be one of the earliest victims of Rockford’s downtown revitalization, though he never knew it. Before boutiquey shops with designer skin products, before restaurants that forced knowledge of their ingredients origin upon its diners, before city market nights full of black-people-fearing white people, before the hipster pizza restaurant with its enchilada pizza, before the taco shop with the sashimi taco, before the sushi joint with the fried chicken roll, before the two breweries that collectively brewed thirteen IPA’s… Jeremiah ruled downtown (almost literally, too. His run for alderman failed by only 150 votes). 

He was still a name, a brand all his own, but the creatives that once ruled the city’s abandoned downtown had been forced to accept a smaller role. It was an unspoken agreement. Rockford needed them to retain a modicum of the counterculture that kept downtown breathing in the decades where the money stayed east, the town’s upper-middle class satisfied with chain restaurants and movie theaters. His bands had once commanded strong audiences from Kryptonite, CJ’s and Mary’s Place, but Kryptonite closed and CJ’s--despite failing to attract classy patrons--had turned its nose at the punk rock shows that it once hosted every weekend when CJ’s was the epicenter of the scene.  Now, it was just Mary’s Place, the Oldest Bar in Rockford.

On Saturday, Jeremiah’s latest project, The Sure Cocks, were set to perform on a punk rock bill. Like everything else Jeremiah did, The Sure Cocks--or just, The Cocks--were more performance art than punk rock, the music always second to the stunts. All week, Jeremiah had entertained different ideas, depraved acts, but as the date neared, he opted to go for comedy, mostly because the waitress from the new Peruvian restaurant, Riley, was coming. He didn’t know her well enough to get a read on her sensibilities, but he predicted that one of his more shocking displays might kill any chance he had of fucking her. He’d met her a couple of weeks ago, and knew that she fancied herself an artist, and her tattoos, dangerous without being offensive, had given him some other hints about how she saw herself: atheist, socialist, vegetarian, dog lover, Nirvana fan. An easy mark. She was exactly the type who found the avant garde to be profound but could never articulate why.

After loading in the gear, Jeremiah spent his time in the seldom-used kitchen behind the Mary’s Place stage, where the bands kept staged their gear before it was ready for the stage. He’d immediately spent all of the drink tickets that were given to performers so that he wouldn’t need to venture into the crowd and could get nice and lubed up before performing. For all of his bombast, he still relied on the crutch of alcohol to get him through his performances. The Cocks were slated to perform second, which was not exactly the prime slot, but was better than performing last, when much of the crowd would have already dissipated. This also allowed Jeremiah to remain hidden without Riley thinking he’d ignored her. 

When the first band began playing, Jeremiah changed into his stage costume: a “sexy” cop uniform meant for a woman and a Barack Obama mask painted white in a reverse-minstrel blackface design. He carefully applied the fake blood to each hand, creating the appearance of stigmata wounds. He then tied an identification tag around his toe. When the band rang out their final chord, he zipped himself into a black Christmas tree bag, and stuck his foot out of the back so that the tag could be seen. Then he waited.

Tim and Carl, the drummer and bassist, each grabbed an end and then carried Jeremiah onto the stage. The plan was to have Carl sing the first three songs in order to confuse people, make them think momentarily that Jeremiah would never emerge from the “body bag.” Carl initially objected, because, while his voice was just as bad as Jeremiah’s, he didn’t know how to own his shortcomings and sell it to the audience like Jeremiah could. That, Jeremiah argued, makes it even funnier. Carl eventually saw the light. 

At the beginning of the third song, Jeremiah--who’d remained perfectly still--began to wiggle his toe with movements dramatic enough for the audience to notice. Then, when he was sure he’d had their attention, he began to wildly jerk his fist up and down near his waist to create the illusion that he was masturbating. The crowd ate it up, slapping each other on the back, pointing it out to friends who may not have noticed. Finally, during the intro to the fourth song, Jeremiah emerged, striking a Christ pose in front of the microphone, and with the voice and inflection of a child, said, “have any of you motherfuckers seen my mommy?” Without having a clue what he meant, the crowd roared in response, bottles to the sky as if they were swords in the hands of warriors ready to engage. He had them, Jeremiah knew. 

Off to the left, he noticed Riley. She was standing on her tiptoes by the merch table, trying to get a view of the spectacle at a safe distance. But despite her passivity, she was intrigued, her face displaying a you’re-fucking-kidding-me smile in order to feign a slight bit of disgust. He knew she was into it, and it empowered him to turn up the antics. He slipped some of his signature grotesque bits of improv into the lyrics pantomining sex acts as he did. He never felt more alive than he did in these fleeting moments where he could do anything he wanted and it was in these moments when he overshot. Introducing the final song, he said, “thank you all for coming out tonight, but an extra special thanks to the pretty lady who makes me feel funny in my pants.” The crowd laughed, but his feelings of invincibility momentarily waned, and he couldn’t bear to check Riley’s face for a reaction. When the song reached the final chorus, he looked back to the merch table, but he could not see Riley. He looked frantically for her, but couldn’t see her. 

He helped the band load their gear into the van and then changed back into his normal clothes. He didn’t wash the fake blood. No longer having to maintain his wits and sexual potential, he approached the bar and ordered two shots of Jameson and a Budweiser.

“Is this one mine?” The voice over his shoulder startled him, but he didn’t show it. He turned to confirm it was Riley. 

“I thought you left,” he said.

“I tried to hold out, but I had to pee so bad.” Jeremiah felt pang of disappointment that she hadn’t heard his dedication, because if she had, her not having left would have confirmed her interest in him. All was not lost, though. He slid the second shot her way. She picked it up, and said, “to your pants.”

“Hmm?”

“That they may be feeling funny right now,” and she took the shot without waiting for his reaction. Jackpot.

They didn’t stay long. She wanted to see his studio.. He’d cleaned in advance, an advantage he had over the much younger men who competed for girls in their early twenties. Single men rarely understood the need for tidiness before age thirty. Still, his place was cluttered with his work. Photographs, sketches, paintings, and a few sculptures. None of his work showed any level of technical skill, but it all maintained a certain childish aesthetic, despite the wildly offensive depictions of his subjects. To the untrained eye, it was dangerous and profound, but what Jeremiah had always understood about art--or at least Rockford’s art culture--was that the less somebody understands a piece, the more meaning it appears to hold. His whole artistic ethos was simply grotesque and random, but he’d gotten the whole scene to believe he had something to say. All he’d ever wanted was to be wanted, and when he’d discovered that art could grant him that in a way that his looks and station never could, he exploited the fuck out of it.

Riley poked around a series of notebooks full of sketches and portfolio folders with photos. Jeremiah had left out only those he wanted her to see, the work that fit within his brand of pop culture imagery presented in a miasma of filth. It was what the girls expected to see in his studio, he’d always figured. As she flipped through the pictures, she said little, which concerned Jeremiah. She made her way to his photographs, a series of black and white shots of the urban decay which was so easy to find in rockford. There were pictures of dilapidated factories, the typical stuff, but what usually impressed those who found depth in danger were Jeremiah’s most exploitative stills, like the one that captured a pair junkies shooting up by the library or the homeless drunk who’d pissed himself, passed out next to an empty bottle of King Cobra.

“Wow,” she said without breaking her gaze into the photographs.

“Oh, that?” Jeremiah said, unsure of her tone, “yeah, there’s some Gnarly shit in there.”

“They’re beautiful.”

“Thanks.” Jeremiah used to be disappointed by this reaction. He hadn’t captured beauty. He’d captured desperation and sadness in its most pathetic form. But he’d seen this reaction of Riley in so many others, girls who were living out a phase. They hadn’t grown up in a trailer park, they hadn’t witnessed parents in the grips of addiction. There was no glamour in addiction, and it sure as fuck wasn’t interesting. But to girls like Riley, who’d probably never known this kind of darkness, pictures like this said something, though they never knew what that statement was because they’d never have to understand it. She was just another girl going through her dangerous period, one that would last a few years before she realized she’d realized that security and stability mattered. He’d learned long ago that he would only be a souvenir for these girls, evidence that they’d once been edgy, cool. He’d made peace with it. This realization freed him to use these girls just like they were using him. 

Riley was particularly enticing. Though her tattoos were meant to amplify the alternative identity she’d cultivated, their placement still left the door open for an office job. Often, girls like her presented an untraditional beauty, which made sense to Jeremiah. He’d always figured that the untraditionally beautiful were drawn to the alternative scene because their looks weren’t cut out for the sorority girl-turned-housewife path. And through tattoos and bold fashion choices, they took hold of what they were given and presented something more alluring. Unlike those others, Riley had nothing she needed to hide. She had the ideal body, beautiful eyes, and delicate skin, not a trace of teenage acne that often directed girls into his scene, a scene of misfits. Her smile revealed parents who cared and had the means to show it. He’d never admit it, but he always preferred the more traditionally beautiful even though a guy like him was expected to find that look uninteresting. He fantasized about the types of girls who’d never given him the time of day, girls his friends labeled boring. He always doubted that they believed that.

“Can I get you a drink?” he asked.

“Sure. Just get me whatever you’re having.” She said.

“You sure about that? I generally just drink boxed wine. I have other stuff.”

“Boxed wine works for me.” She said. This was all part of the experience, she’d figured.

Jeremiah went to his small kitchen, remembering that he’d not washed the only acceptable glasses for wine. They weren’t wine glasses, but they were short and made of glass. He washed them by hand, then ran cold water in them to cool them. When he returned to her, he realized he’d made a mistake. She’d opened a box that he’d not hidden well enough. The box contained his off-brand work, work closest to his heart, but work that most showed his flaws. 

“Are these yours?” Riley asked, confused.

“Oh. Yeah.”

“What the fuck?” Was she mad? He couldn’t tell. It was possible that she’d been creeped out by the nudes he’d drawn. The aging artist luring girls into his apartment in the name of art, only to get them to take their clothes off. But it wasn’t that.

“I’m sorry, do those bother you?”

“Oh, God no. I guess I just don’t understand.”

“Go on.”

“It’s like, this doesn’t seem like something you’d do. I’ve seen so much of your shit at Art Scene and all the other shows. It’s weird as fuck, offensive. I know this will sound super shitty, but it always seemed like you only ever aim to piss off the people you don’t know, and make the ones you do laugh. How come nobody ever sees this shit?” She held up the sketch of Amy. Amy was the last girl he’d truly loved, and maybe the only one who had ever loved him, the person behind the persona. She was the only person who’d ever gotten him to try. The sketch showed his flaws, but hid others. In it, Amy was taking a slow sip from a large coffee cup. The cup obscured all of her face except her eyes, which were smiling at him. He’d loved the way she looked up at him from her cup of coffee and had realized that if he captured her in this moment, he would not need to accurately capture her face, which had always presented a challenge he couldn’t overcome. Though he’d failed to accurately draw her eyes, he somehow succeeded in capturing everything behind that look, the way she’d caught him admiring her, how happy they’d been together. It moved him, and him alone. He never thought that there was a place for it alongside his painting of Elmo skull-fucking Karl Rove, which somehow commanded a selling price of 250 dollars. 

“I don’t know. Some art is just for me.” 

“But why?”

Jeremiah thought about it. He knew the answer, but didn’t know how to spin it in a way that wasn’t pathetic. If he admitted it, that he didn’t want to be exposed, would she leave? Would she go back to her circle of friends, this new generation of Rockford tastemakers, and tell them that he was just some sad, one-note has-been that never developed any skill? He couldn’t tell the truth. “It goes against my aesthetic, and I think it would make my message unclear in my other work, which is my primary focus.”

“Blah blah blah,” she said. “You know what I think?”

“Yes.”He didn’t.

“I think you’re afraid of being seen as anything other than The Jeremiah Paulson, and if you let people see this side of you, you’ll have to become something else.”

“So you think my whole thing is a front?” He wanted to see how much she understood.

“I can’t say how much of what you put out there is covering up what’s inside this box. But I know that nobody is one thing. And I know that the version of you that you present seemingly ninety percent of your waking hours is just a part of you. I’ll be honest with you. I’m not here to see the artist, or the lunatic I watched on stage tonight, as funny as that shit was. I’m here to see that version of you I saw at work. When you thought nobody was watching. You were just shy. Vulnerable. Painfully polite to the point that you almost seemed afraid of the people around you. I watched you before I ever even came to your table. I want you to show me the part of yourself that you don’t let most people see. That’s my end of the transaction, you know?”

“Transaction?”

“Oh, don’t be silly, Jeremiah. I know why you invited me here,” Jeremiah almost objected, but then let her continue, “You have a reputation, you know. I know you brought me here to fuck me. And that’s fine. I have my own reasons for being here.” The suggestion that sex was not ultimately what she wanted stung, but in that moment, what she said made perfect sense. She saw him. Somebody saw him. For the first time in ten years. Most people were only interested in the side-show version he’d created. 

“So,” he said, “how can I give you what you want?”

“Tell me the story behind this picture. Who is this girl drinking the coffee?”

Jeremiah paused. “How much do you want to know?” he asked.

“Everything.”

“Well,” he began. “ Here it is. I’ve always thought that every person has one, maybe two shots at real, pure love. She was mine, and I fucked it up. That’s the short version, which I’m sure isn’t enough for you. The longer version is that  I met her almost twenty years ago. She’d just gotten her bachelors and was slummin’ it downtown. I say this because she came from money. A lot of it. I didn’t know any of that at first. All I knew was that she was beautiful, and the kind of beautiful that was unobtainable for a guy like me. Just that perfect combination of everything, bright eyed and sweet but sexy all the same. Usually you have to pick one or another. We’d initially bonded through surface shit. Pop culture and all that. But the more time we spent, the deeper the connection. That picture there? Probably one of a thousand. After almost a year of dating, I finally met her parents, good people, but I was nothing close to what they had envisioned for their daughter. They pretended to be good sports about it, but I still knew the score, you know? Well, one day, her dad pulls me aside and tells me how Amy had gotten into this amazing masters program out east but now she was backing out, and he was pretty sure it was because of me. I told him that she’d never mentioned it to me, which she hadn’t. He said that he was afraid that she was making a big mistake, and that he needed my help to convince her to go, and if she went, that he’ll put me up in one of his properties, rent free. And not just any property, but a loft big enough to be a full-on studio. Hell, I could even use it for band practice, even though I hadn’t yet tried my hand at music yet. 

But here is where shit’s fucked up. You know how whenever this type of shit happens in a movie, the guy always says no? Like, fuck you. You can’t put a price on love? Well, that wasn’t me. I told him I’d see what I could do. I wasn’t sure if I would take the offer, but I just wanted to see where Amy’s head was at, because remember, she’d never told me about any of this. So when we finally get to talking about it, she gets this sad look on her face, like how she can’t think about leaving me for that long. But I ask her about the program, and the more she talks about it, the more her face lights up. I remember thinking, shit, she’s doing it. And I didn’t want to deny her of that, you know? So, I ask her, do you think we can go long-distance? And she goes, absolutely. She asks me and I say that I don’t know. I run this conversation through my head over and over, like that’s the first place I went wrong. If I’d just let it play out the way she saw it, things might have been different. But instead, when I express doubt, she’s like, ok, then that’s it. I’m not going. I’m not risking us. So I start arguing with that way of thinking--mind you, I’m not even thinking about her dad’s offer, honestly--I’m just like, Amy, if this is what you want to do, you have to do it. If we don’t last, then we weren’t meant to be. And she’s like, so you don’t think we’re meant to be? And it wasn’t like I thought we weren’t meant to be. I loved her with everything I had. I wanted to be with her every minute of every day, just the way she could so effortlessly brighten up a room, the way she could hold deep conversation but then make some irreverent joke to keep everybody in check. I would have married her a million times, and I was always like, fuck marriage… I could never be sure that she would always feel that way about me. Our souls were a match, but that was the beginning and end of our compatibility.”

Riley, who’d remained silent all this time, finally spoke up, “but come on, that’s the hard part. You can make everything else work.”

“I’m just telling you what I felt then.”

“So what happened?”

“She was upset. Thought I was pushing her away, so she left. The week she left, her dad calls me. Gives me an address to meet him. I show up, and there he is with keys to my loft. It was perfect, right on Market St. Huge. I’d dreamt of one day having a place like that. And there he is with keys for me. I thought about refusing for a second. It felt dirty, you know? But then I thought, fuck it. Amy’s gone, what difference does it make, and I moved in. About a month after she’d left, she reached out, said she was sorry, and that I was the bigger person, so selfless to let her pursue her chosen future. Of course I felt like shit. I should have told her everything right then, but at the same time, I’d never really intended to accept the deal. It just kind of happened.

The weeks go by, and we’re talking more and more. Next thing you know, we’re a thing again. Winter break comes around and I can’t wait to see her. I picked her up from the airport and took her home. I’d told her I moved, but I hadn’t told her anything about living in one of her dad’s places. We pull up and I park in front of the building. She breaks down. She saw the building and she knew everything. I can hardly make out what she’s saying, but she brings up a fight she’d had with her dad. How her dad had been adamant about getting me out of her life, how he’d joked that he might have to ‘offer the kid one of my lofts to get him to leave you alone.’ So when she saw it, she knew. I still denied it, saying that her dad offered it to me because he couldn’t fill it, but she’s like, ‘you don’t get it, he hates you!’ She demanded I take her home, and so I did. I didn’t have a defense to any of it. All I could say before she got out of my car was that I loved her more than I would ever love anything. And so far that’s been true. I never saw her again after that.”

“Did you try to get her back?”

“I did, but she wouldn’t talk to me. Wouldn’t see me. As I understand it, she went right back to Massechusets after Christmas. I even told her dad that I didn’t want the apartment anymore. He laughed at me, said it would be there for me when I came to my senses. I’d helped him, and he was a man of his word, and I could have the place as long as Amy and I weren’t together. And you know what? He was fucking right. I was back there in a couple of weeks and am still here.”

It was as if Riley had only now become aware of her surroundings. She looked up and around like she now understood the building more. Jeremiah thought it was a silly reaction. “Holy shit. Isn’t it, I don’t know, hard to be here?”

“People think that if you can’t get over somebody, that you’re forever tortured. It’s not like that. It’s just the occasional sting. There are times when I’ll see her in a dream and wake up sobbing when I can’t get back into the dream and see her, but even that’s rare. I don’t think about her much. The only real consequence of it all is that I’ve stopped trying to find love. I had it, I fucked it up, so there’s no use in going down that road again.”

“You really believe that, huh?”

“Yeah.” He wasn’t lying, but he wasn’t exactly being honest. Over the years, his life had become one giant performance art piece, and the identity that he’d spent so much time cultivating had taken over, burying the wide eyed kid who only ever wanted to show the world how he sees it. He’d never meant to become any of this, somewhere between Robert Crumb, Andy Kauffman, and Charles Bukowski. Occasionally, the prospect of reinvention would cross his mind, but he’d built up too much social currency and was too afraid to lose it. 

Riley looked at him in a way that made him uncomfortable, but her empty glass gave him a lifeline. He went to the kitchen to fill their glasses. When he returned, he noticed her fumbling through the box again. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all, the damage is done,” he said.

“So, I know that you’ve already held up your end of the bargain, but I’m a greedy girl. I want more.”

“I’ve told you the whole story.”

“No, not that. I just want more of the Jeremiah I just met. I want honesty. I want you to look at me through the lens you used to create this stuff.”

“So you want me to draw you.”

She pondered this proposition for a moment. “No, I think that would take too long. Can you just tell me, in your most honest terms how you see me? Like complete honesty.”

Jeremiah was rarely completely honest with himself, let alone his sexual conquests, but he was already emotionally fatigued enough where he didn’t care, which sweetened the deal a bit. He looked at her, trying to remember the first couple of times he saw her. What did he notice? What was he thinking. No, he knew what he was thinking. He was trying to imagine the shade of her areolas, how her labia looked, what kind of noises she made when she fucked.

“You’re taking too long to be honest,” she said, impatiently.

“Ok, ok ok. You want it?”

“Lay it one me.”

“I think that within the first ten seconds of seeing you, I imagined what it would be like to fuck you.”

“And how was that?”

“Confidently.”

“Confidently?” Sitting on the floor, her posture straightened and she scooted in his direction. He hadn’t lost her. “I don’t know what to think of that.”

“Neither do I. Here’s the thing. You’re hot as fuck. Like sex hot. There are some women who are beautiful, but too delicate. And don’t get me wrong, those ones can surprise you, be total freaks, you know? But girls like you, you have a body that is made for fucking with the lights on, it was like you were built for sex.”

“So good then.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“Some girls who look like you, they relish the attention in the bedroom. Put a show on and all that. And that’s a good thing, unless you get the girl who’s literally trying to recreate a porno scene. That can get obnoxious. But confidence can go the other way, too. See, some girls know what they’ve got. They know they don’t have to work for it. They just kinda sit there, like, you’re lucky to be fucking me, so I’m not going to do a whole lot. Especially with a guy like me. I know what’s up. I know that I’m not what women picture when they fantasize about amazing sex. I get it. But in my personal experience, many of the most beautiful women are the most unenthusiastic in bed.”

It wasn’t Jeremiah’s intention to present a challenge; he’d only done what he’s asked: to be honest. He hadn’t known much about Riley at all, but if he did, he’d know that she was an all-conference basketball player in high school. He would have known that she filed a formal complaint at her university when she didn’t feel that the explanation from the judges who rejected her essay from the quarterly publication was sufficient. She refused to be ordinary. To think that somebody could do something better terrified her. 

Jeremiah fascinated her, a fascination that fueled a modest amount of desire. Just enough. Given his reputation, she knew what his intentions had been, and she was in that time of her life where she felt the need to engage in reckless behavior in the name of acquiring experiences. Truth be told, she probably would have been more of the you’re-lucky-to-get-to-fuck-me variety Jeremiah spoke of, but the gauntlet was thrown. Determined to earn a place in his box of secrets, she was going to give him something he’d never forget. And so she did.

The sun spilled into the studio, something Jeremiah had never addressed for financial reasons. It didn’t bother him as much any more. As he aged, he couldn’t sleep in if he tried. He turned over and Riley wasn’t there. Must be in the bathroom, he thought. Riley. Wow. He hadn’t expected any of that. Surprises become hard to find with age, and Jeremiah felt like a young man again. To be surprised. To feel something. He couldn’t remember a time that he’d felt so connected to somebody. He shared a part of himself that he hadn’t shared with anybody. Was the sexual chemistry a byproduct of that? Hard to say, but he did know that Riley was the best sex he’d had in as long as he could remember. He started thinking of nights with Amy. Did they click like that? Were they ever so in tune with each other’s bodies? She’d loomed so large in his mind that he began to question whether they were ever that good together, as good as he was with Riley. 

Was it just the honesty? Had he been denied truly fufilling sex because he’d always been performing as some sort of character? It seemed logical. Maybe he’d been doing it all wrong. Maybe it was time to move on from his adolescent provocations that the scene had always allowed him to call art. He looked through his books of secrets, flipping through the sketches of Amy, the poems, the photos that captured beauty instead of the grotesque, and it looked good to him this time. It seemed viable.

It occurred to him that Riley was probably not in the bathroom. She left. Gut punch. He rolled over and was granted a small reprieve through the note she’d left on a paper towel from his kitchen. It read:

Had an awesome time last night. Let me know if you need a model sometime.

-xo

R

The note sure didn’t give him much to work with, but it did open the door for her to return, which gave him hope. Riley wasn’t the first girl to inspire him to create, but it had always been different. The others, they’d only ever wanted something he was willing to give. Riley got something out of him that he’d protected. Her ability to get it, his willingness to give, it was new. Riley found a version of himself that hadn’t existed, and now Jeremiah wanted to give her more of it.

He went to Wired Cafe so that he could figure how to go about his transformation. He resented the bell above the loosely-hinged door that announced his arrival because this was not the time for him to perform for the people who’d known the character. There was nothing worse than running into a bar acquaintance during the day. So far, he was safe. He ordered his coffee and a bagel and began to conceptualize his transformation. He needed a new wardrobe. His ill-fitting thrift store clothes and homemade accessories had to go. It was time to grow up. But what was an artist even supposed to look like? Clothes that actually fit could be a good start. Around the cafe sat people of varied ages, some in business attire, others dressed casually. It occurred to Jeremiah that he’d been so absorbed in his own aesthetic that he’d never really stopped to notice the subtle changes in trends over the last several years. Tight jeans were still the standard for men, but men were wearing them shorter, not 80’s Michael Jackson short, but short. The hem just kissing the heel of the shoe. Otherwise, it was all the same. T-shirts, some flannel, that was about it. He noted that none of the t-shirts were of the v-neck variety, and wondered when that ended, gratefully. 

Jeremiah felt ashamed. This was stupid. If the whole point was for him to transform into his true self, why was he taking cues from other people? He needed to figure out who the fuck he was, not what he thought other people wanted from him. He took his to-go cup and headed back home. His identity, he’d figured, was somewhere in that box. Beautiful pictures that reflected a more hopeful person than the jaded man he had become. I’m going to draw Riley. 

Closing his eyes, he conjured up an image of her sleeping. She was on her back, her face to the sky, lips slightly puckered. The comforter did not rest perfectly below the shoulders--like they always did in the movies--so her right breast was exposed, falling slightly to the side, but held up by youth. She’d been lightly illuminated by the tv that had been left on, which created a bit of a blue glow around her. He pulled out the paints mixing shades of blue and gray, staying true to the image in his mind. It only took an hour for the painting to be complete. Experience had taught him that it wasn’t the right move to do what his heart told him to do, which was to invite Riley to see it. Girls are fickle at that age, and for a guy like him, 40, anything but traditionally handsome, there was a fine line between pursuit and stalking when it came to a girl like Riley. He’d let her come to him. 

He took a picture of a portion of his painting that obscured the subject’s identity; he wanted to reveal just enough for Riley to think she might be the girl, but not enough for her to be certain. When he’d cropped the photo just right, he posted it to Instagram with the caption: Back to my roots. To prevent himself from obsessing over likes, he turned off his phone to move onto the next painting. For this piece, he wanted to capture the Riley that got him to open up. He pictured her sitting Indian-style on the floor with her glass of wine. She wasn’t smiling, but had stared right into his eyes, mouth open like a riveted child at the library’s storytelling hour. She’d made him feel safe in exposing what he’d often hidden and didn’t turn away when he showed it to her. She wanted that part of him. It was a look of desire that he hadn’t felt since Amy, at least how he remembered things. 

This one would not be as quick. Perhaps it was the pressure that he’d placed on the outcome, but Jeremiah couldn’t get the eyes right. He’d started over three times before he had something he thought worked, but every detail presented a similar challenge. Photorealism had never been his strong suit, which is why he hid behind the bizarre and often macabre works from which nobody expected technical skill. Her body was especially problematic. The outline of her hips was far too wide. He’d already lifted so much from Robert Crumb, he wasn’t about to create some big-assed caricature. Still, it wasn’t lost on him that he was painting how he saw her, and there was something to learn from that. How he’d already forgotten his mission. To be himself. If, in his mind, Riley’s hips were a bit more pronounced than they actually were, it wasn’t a mistake, it was him expressing her femininity, inviting it’s viewer to be drawn in just as he had. With renewed focus, he began again.

Buzzzzzz. Somebody was at his door. 

“Hello?”

“It’s me. Riley. You busy?”

“Come on up.” 

Shit. Would it be weird for her to know that he’d already started a second painting of her? Quickly, he dismantled the easel and covered his newest projects with a sheet. He let her in, not exactly sure how this visit would play off. He gave her a little peck on the cheek and guided to the couch. “To what do I owe this pleasure,” Fuck. What the fuck did I just say, he thought.

 “I don’t really play games,” she said, “I’m direct, right? And so I thought, hey, that was fun. I’d like to get a drink with him tonight. But then I called you, and it was all straight to voicemail. And I’m like, ok, phones off. I’ll hit him up on Insta. No response, but I see your post and I’m thinking, ok. This could be one of two things: One, I conjured up some painful shit and that picture was Amy, or two, that picture was me and he’s busy. Are these today’s projects? May I?”

Before he had a chance to respond, she walked over to the covered paintings and lifted them up. Only the first was finished, but the attempts at the second gave her a definitive answer.

“Phew,” she said.

“Phew?”

“Yes. I’d hoped it was option two. Jeremiah, I want you to paint me. I want to see how you see me. Don’t say no.”

“Ok. I will. But you need to know, portraits are not my--” She held a finger to his mouth to shush him before he could finish. 

“Where do you want me?” she asked.

“Just Here on the couch.”

“How should I pose?”

“How do you want me to see you?”

Jokingly, she made a series of silly poses, and in doing so, Jeremiah detected a trace of vulnerability that hadn’t shown itself in their previous encounters. Why now? Why,  after what they’d already done, would she be bashful? She settled on a somewhat serious and stiff pose. Legs crossed, sitting up straight, head turned slightly so that only one side of her face could be seen fully. She was wearing a white, buttoned-down shirt that made her look like a catering server. Sexy, but stiff. He noticed she hadn’t worn a bra, but he didn’t know if his limited skill would allow him to capture such a detail with any level of subtlety. 

“Is that the one?” He asked.

“Oh fuck. I don’t know. I’ve never done this before.”

“Maybe we should have a drink first.” Jeremiah was in control, technically, but he was as clueless as she was. 

“Right.” Jeremiah returned to the kitchen. Last nights box had run dry, but he remembered he’d had some bottles left over from a show. There was a corkscrew somewhere, but he couldn’t find it. He fumbled around cursing the audacity of whatever piece of shit company would stick a cork in such shitty wine. Just give it a fucking twist-off, he thought. The twelve pack of High-Life was ready and waiting, but in his mind, he’d committed to wine. After all, he wasn’t going to create a beautiful picture of his muse holding The Champagne of Beers. No way. He wouldn’t have to, because he found the corkscrew in the pen drawer. Turning back to the couch with two glasses in hand, he saw that Riley had settled on a pose, and in doing so took back the power. She lay on the couch, on her side. She’d taken off her pants and opened her shirt. The picture she created invoked cohabitation, and what that could look like, her being comfortable enough to wander around the house wearing little, but still putting the little bit of effort to turn him on. 

Jeremiah said nothing, handed her to glass and went to work.  Lying on her side had created an illusion of a more vuluptuous hip, creating lines that mroe reflected what Jeremiah had created earlier. The two smiled at each other as he made his initial strokes. Soon, the smiles would give way to concentration: him focussing on getting the lines right, her focusing on his process. She’d never modeled for an artist before, and the only point of reference she had to the whole experience was the scene in Titanic where Leo paints Kate. That was her expectation. But as the session carried on, she found it far more clinical than the passionate scene in the film. No longer did Jeremiah look upon her body in admiration like he had the night before, hungry and desperate to consume her. Instead, he focused on each part of her body as she was a science project. Perhaps she hadn’t given him enough. Eager to see the completed project, she held as still as she could, waving off his offer for a smoke break. But with every minute that passed, she became less confident in what he was seeing. She could not detect a trace of desire. 

When the painting was finished, he was pleased. He thought that maybe he’d sold his technical ability short. The details were crisp. He’d successfully captured the details in her shirt, it’s buttons and the way it draped over her. The curves of her body were just right and the shadows were subtle and accurate. But the component of the piece in which he took the most pride was her face. He’d first painted her body, because he felt most confident in the long strokes. By the time he got to her face, she’d lost the excitement, and the resulting look almost betrayed a hint of sadness, which he thought was interesting, even if it was accidental. He turned it for her to see.

Riley was struck by the graceful depiction of her body, and like Jeremiah, was impressed with the delicate accuracy. But where he’d taken pride in the painting’s face, she was disappointed. It wasn’t off; it was definitely her. It just looked… dead. How had Amy’s eyes been so full of life, yet hers were devoid of any emotion at all?

“What do you think?” He said, after she’d said nothing.

“It’s amazing.” She meant it, even if she was disappointed. He wouldn’t have noticed anyway. His eyes were locked on the painting, not her. He seemed only to want her feedback, not to know that she was pleased. This troubled her, to be jealous of a painting of herself. It was ridiculous. 

“Want to do another one?” He asked with a different kind of hunger.

“I don’t know if I can be that still again. How about we move around a bit.” She stood from the couch, and straddled him in his chair. He buried his face into her chest. He was hers again, but only for a moment. As she bobbed up and down, she was disturbed by the attention he’d paid to her body. He focused on her hips, then her breasts, her stomach. This was nothing new for her, it was what most men did. But she couldn’t separate this look from the one he’d had behind the canvas. He was someplace else, and she worried that that place was with Amy. Could the flame that she’d ignited in him have brought him back to her? She’d never felt unsure of herself in this position like she did right now.

For his part, Jeremiah wasn’t thinking of Amy, but he wasn’t there with Riley in the way she wanted him. He was with his next painting. He was absorbing what he hadn’t remembered from the night before, committing her body to memory and planning all of the ways he wanted to put her on canvas. He didn’t know why, but it seemed to frustrate her. She kept guiding his eyes up to hers, as if she was angry, and the more angry she was, the harder she thrusted herself onto him. Too hard. Though they’d only just begun, he couldn’t hold it in.

“Sorry,” he said, “I think that was just built up from getting to look at you for so long.”

“It’s ok.” She didn’t believe him, but his pathetic endurance was still a victory. She went to the bathroom. To talk herself down. Why should she be disappointed? He’d worshipped her with his eyes. He’d spent hours focused on only her. Why did it feel so empty? Maybe he really wasn’t talented, she thought. But then, the pictures of Amy. Maybe he just needed to work out the kinks. “Do you want to do another painting?” she asked.

“Yes.” He said, without a moment’s hesitation. “What did you have in mind for this one.?”

“How about like this?” Still naked, she walked to the bed, and lied down, leaving herself entirely exposed. This, Jeremiah, thought, was a far easier task. No clothes to interrupt the smooth lines of the human form. Again, he worked, not breaking his focus for a moment, but this time, Riley felt at ease. She could see admiration in his furrowed brow, straining to see every last detail of her body. It was her turn to study him. Though he’d thrown on some of his clothes, he became the vulnerable one. She could see the uncertainty in his own skill in the way that he looked to the painting, then to her, then back to the painting. She wondered if people had ever actually seen him try like this, and deciding that few likely had, she felt close to him. 

Soon, his deep concentration gave way to frustration. Riley could see that something wasn’t working, so it was her turn to suggest a break, which he accepted. They both poured a drink and shared a cigarette at the kitchen table. She was getting a bit cold, so she put some of her clothes back on. “How’s it going so far,” she asked.

“It’s going well. It’s just a lot of pressure.” He said.

“Pressure?”

“Yeah. You’re flawless. Beautiful. And I just don’t know that I’m capturing that. Doing you justice, you know? Maybe I’m just putting too much pressure on myself.” Riley agreed, but still worried that he wasn’t inspired enough. He’d loved Amy. He didn’t love Riley, and Riley wasn’t sure if h

“It might be too much at once. Wanna just get drunk or something?” 

The night carried on without the pressure of creation. Riley was playful, but always sharp, which made Jeremiah feel young. These were the girls he’d dated in his youth, not the serious, but ultimately submissive girls who filled his thirties. Riley could hold her own in a conversation, and wasn’t afraid to challenge him. The two talked about art and books and music, and though there were a good fifteen years separating them, Riley had enough of a sense of history to keep up with his references. She excited him. Throughout their series of manic conversations, Jeremiah would not draw Riley, instead choosing to snap pictures of her on his phone in case the mood hit later. 

In the night’s final act, the two watch Less than Zero, on DVD after Riley had explained that she’d only read the book. Jeremiah didn’t so much like the movie as much as he enjoyed it’s representation of the 80’s, a decade in which he had been alive, unlike Riley.  Perhaps because she’d not known the 80’s, she could not tire of it, but Jeremiah was quite bored with the movie within the first ten minutes. Content just sitting next to Riley, he didn’t say anything. Being next to her was all his heart needed, and though he knew that the intensity of this feeling would fade, it was still impossible to imagine feeling any way other than he felt in this moment. 

Before the movie ended, she fell asleep. Jeremiah covered her with a blanket. He thought about carrying her to bed, but didn’t want to wake her. Besides, he wasn’t tired, his blood still electric with euphoric new love. He returned to the painting he’d earlier abandoned. He was a little drunk, but he was inspired, and figured his inspiration would bail out his declining motor skills. He made a few trial strokes in easily correctable areas, and felt he could finish. He did, but it took almost three hours. He tried to rouse Riley to get her into bed so that they could fall asleep together, but she did not budge. Still, wishing to be close to her, he fell asleep on the La-Z-Boy chair next to the couch.

When Riley woke up, Jeremiah was out cold. The night was fuzzy, but she could reconstruct its parts. Her head hurt. Jeremiah was snoring, head tilted backwards in his chair that had somehow not toppled backwards. It was hardly his fault, but the way that his belly folded over the waistline of his pants made Riley shudder, of which she was ashamed. She’d always told herself that she was above looks, but now she could not deny that there was nothing sexy in this image of Jeremiah. His hair line had begun its descent and she  She noticed the canvas by his bed. He’d finished the painting, and it was just what she needed in order to assure herself that she’d not made a mistake. 

There she was. All of her. Had she really not positioned her legs to obscure her most intimate parts, or did he insist on painting it anyway? She couldn’t recall, but it was hard to imagine feeling that confident, and if she did, why didn’t she feel that way now? None of what she felt made sense, especially when she looked at the canvas and saw something objectively beautiful. The curves in her body were so perfectly proportioned that she almost went to the bathroom to confirm the painting’s accuracy in the mirror. But the face. Again, it looked like her. It was her, and nobody who even remotely knew her could look at the painting and not immediately know. It just didn’t feel like her. She studied the face that she made in the painting and wondered if she’d ever made it in her entire life. And if this was the face she’d made throughout the session, why? A more acute dread began to form in her mind: What are his plans with this? Stupid Riley, and your stupid big mouth, she thought. This wasn’t going to be put in a box. Artists are needy people. The final destination of these pieces would not be a box under the bed. Surely, he would show these, at some show, or even worse, on Instagram. She couldn’t quite imagine the implications of having so many strangers see all of her in this way, but she couldn’t bear to think of what it would be like at work, never being sure if every knew customer had seen her naked.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she took the canvas from the easel. She covered it in her jacket and left. Though she had no intention of either keeping it or returning it, she could not bear to throw it away, so she just put it in her trunk. She drove her short drive to her apartment across the river without any music or podcasts. Just silence and the ever present question: what were you thinking? And then: How are you going to explain this to him?

She hadn’t thought of the repercussions when she showed up at Mary’s place two nights ago. He intrigued her, and she wanted to know more. Given that the unspoken agreement was a one night stand, she never expected to have anything for which she’d need to apologize. It was he who was supposed to take from her. She knew she could play the part of Amy in order to keep the painting in the box, but the snoring, drooling image of Jeremiah presented a stark reality. She could never love him, at least not now. He was entering his middle age living in--for all she knew--an apartment still either subsidized or under rent control. He’d spend most of his adult life running from responsibility, spending his obsessing over pop culture and filth. He’d likely had no insurance, no 401(k), or anything other milestone of adulthood. To be fair, Riley didn’t have them yet, either, but at least there was yet. He’d seemed revitalized, but she couldn’t say how special it actualy was, or if it would just fade away. She knew guys like him, guys who love you in the beginning when it’s easy, who run when the mystery is gone.

 Maybe this was what he did every time. Maybe the box was meant to be found. Maybe that was his trick. Maybe he was smarter than she’d given him credit for. Maybe he knew how girls drawn to guys like him all believed they would be the one and only person to get beneath the surface. Maybe he’d only made her feel like she was in control. Well, guess what, she thought, I’m not going to be another one of your girls, you frightened, philandering, two-hump-chump has-been who can piss a decade away with only boxed wine and 20 year-old pussy as sustenance. He was a loser, and she didn’t owe him anything. 

By the time he texted her, she’d softened a bit, but with that softening came anxiety. She didn’t want to hurt him, or she didn’t want to be the one who hurt him. She couldn’t decide which was more accurate. Hers was an unwinnable situation, so when she read his text--one that simply read, “u ok?”--she had no response. She had no response today, and wouldn’t for countless tomorrows.  

She’d alerted the girls at work that he might look for her, and they agreed to cover. Told you, they’d say, he’s a creep. She thought about defending his name, since he hadn’t really done anything wrong, but she didn’t really know how to tell the story succinctly, and she had tables to cover. He never came in, and he’d only texted her a couple of times over the course of three days before he ceased entirely, which she thought would be more of a relief, but it validated a lingering fear which she held with deep shame: that she was just another girl. It was all anybody assumed she ever was to him, so nobody thought any differently about their hookup, yet she became devastatingly embarrassed. Within days, she began looking for apartments and jobs in Chicago, a place where she could maintain anonymity as she recklessly stumbled through her twenties.

Within days, she loaded a U-Haul van with her belongings, among them, the painting she couldn’t bear to destroy. It would remain the only evidence that she’d ever lived in Rockford. 

“You really don’t think it’s weird?” Henry said as he was preparing for a night out with the guys. He didn’t understand the obligation Riley had felt to some one night stand from 8 years ago, but he wasn’t threatened by it. He’d never asked for any more of her sexual history than she volunteered, and only caring that he was forever the present and future. 

“I guess I’ve just never lost my guilty conscience over the painting,” she said as she stared at an unfamiliar version of herself. If she didn’t look at her face, she could allow herself to linger in pride of her former body, but when she came back to her face, trying so hard to be mysterious and sexy, but losing all humanity. God how she’d tried so hard. She never felt like she owed the painting to Jeremiah, but throughout the years, she never allowed herself to throw it away. 

She’d thought of Jeremiah periodically but was perfectly comfortable never seeing him again. And she never would have if she hadn’t seen a small write up in the Trib for a show at a small gallery featuring his work. She wasn’t surprised that he was still creating art. If he hadn’t grown out of it at forty, there wasn’t any reason to believe he would stop. She was, however, surprised that he’d ventured into Chicago. The big leagues. She’d seen him as someone who would never wander outside the Rockford bubble. It was safe. People knew who he was. In Chicago, he was nothing. Though she’d been upfront about her brief history with Jeremiah, she would never admit that part of her plan to return the painting came from her desire to see which version of Jeremiah would be presenting art. More specifically, even after all of the time that had passed, she wanted to know if she had an impact on him and his work.

With the painting securely wrapped in plastic, Riley hailed a cab. Henry had offered to drive, but Riley wanted to go alone. When she reached the destination, a small gallery in Logan Square, she almost thought she’d written the address down wrong. The windows were covered, a strange way to sell art, she thought. She almost tugged at the handle on this door, it’s chipping paint somehow prohibitive and cool. Then she stopped. The exchange. How would that even go? Would she just walk in and say, hey man, this is that naked painting you did of me after we fucked that one time. I felt bad about taking it, so I wanted to give it back. She lit a cigarette to figure out how to handle things. The sooner she could unload it, the better, she figured. She decided that her best approach was just to dive in head first: find Jeremiah, say sorry, hand it off, and leave.

The interior of the gallery was far more conventional than the outside suggested: white walls, blinding lights, and wood floor. The crowd and her work told her this particular gallery carried the punk rock ethos without going too far to include performance artists. To the left, there was a table with assorted vegan snack and a few boxes of wine that gave Riley a sentimental jolt. And in the back, there he was. He was talking to a small group of admirers, head down, and nodding, in that thoughtful and shy way he’d speak to people who made him nervous. He looked good. Healthier, like he’d taken jogging or started eating healthier. He wore a black t-shirt and black jeans, and Riley couldn’t help but think that he looked like he was doing tech for a high school play. 

When she approached, she lingered a bit on the outside of the half circle that had formed around him. In one of the few moments where he looked up from the floor as he spoke to the group, he saw Riley. He held his gaze for just a split second longer than one would in an incidental moment of eye contact. He had to have recognized her, she thought, but his face gave no evidence of his recognition, which disappointed her. In that moment, she realized how foolish it all was. Standing there holding a canvas wrapped in plastic, she looked like some stupid little art groupie waiting for Jeremiah to sign it. Pathetic. She decided to instead look at his pieces. He’d wisely done away with the schlocky I-dare-you-to-look-at-this-shit-you-fucker aesthetic. The work was simpler, more subdued, but it was somehow still grotesque. There were ordinary pictures of pictures, just slightly askew. Pictures of women at unsettling, but not vulgar angles. Some were more traditional in form, but still melancholy. She liked it. Finally, she saw something more familiar, the painting of her sleeping. It didn’t look the same as she remembered, but she couldn’t say whether it had been changed. Her features seemed exaggerated, her lips plump in a cartoonishly sexy way, but her eyes drooped. She thought she looked ugly.

“Riley, hey.” He remembered. Riley was still young enough that six years felt like a lifetime, and she’d convinced herself that she’d grown so much in that time that she would be unrecognizable to somebody like Jeremiah, whom she’d not seen since the beginning of her metamorphosis. 

“Hi… I brought this. I’m sorry I took it.” She nodded down to the wrapped canvas resting on her boot. She peeled back the paper to reveal a bit of the painting. Jeremiah looked at it, but she couldn’t get a read on what he felt. 

“You tricked me, you know.”

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s fine. I’m grateful, really. You put me in my place. But I want to thank you. You brought something out of me that I’d lost, you know?” He lit a cigarette and peeled back more of the paper, the canvas still resting on Riley’s foot, which to her felt intrusive, though she couldn’t explain why. He tilted his head, studying the painting. “Yeah,” he said, “this was good. You know, I didn’t think I could do something like this.”

“Yeah?” She could see the pain in his eyes, but couldn’t determine whether he’d mourned the loss of her or the painting,  Either way, she was moved to see how much that night had meant to him. In that moment, she realized that the night was important. It didn’t matter that she’d ghosted him. She’d ignited something in him, something that would help him find himself, realize his potential. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I shouldn’t have bailed like that. I shouldn’t have taken this from you.” 

“It’s yours as much as it is mine.”

“Well, I want you to have it.” She lifted it from her boot and held it out toward him, more of a symbolic gesture than anything else.”

“Thank you, Riley. Thank you.” Jeremiah took it and leaned it against the brick wall, tracing his fingers over the lines in his body. The old Riley might have been turned on, but now she just felt content with herself. She’d righted a wrong. She’d done something good. Jeremiah would forever be stuck in this life, and she pitied him. The least she could do was return his art, something that carried no meaning for her anymore, but from what she could tell, still meant something to him.

“Anyway. I just wanted you to have it. I should probably go.” She said, not knowing what else she could say. It was her naked body, and the painting was hers as much as it was his. 

“Of course. It was nice to see you. And thank you, really. This painting holds something in me that I’d forgotten existed. Take care, Riley.”

“Yeah. You too.” She turned and walked down the sidewalk. She’d done something noble, she told herself. He would forever be stuck in his own adolescent dream of creating something meaningful. And for all she knew, the painting could have been it. Maybe she was his last shot at love, another Amy. Other girls wouldn’t have gone to the art show. But Riley always knew she was different, and she knew that Jeremiah could see that. But it wasn’t her fault that he fell for her. It wasn’t her fault that their brief encounter meant so much more to him than her. He’d known the score. Either way, they were both better off. He abandoned his juvenile aesthetic in favor of something more meaningful, and she found a life with meaning. 

They were both better after having encountered each other, she realized. She moved into a career she loved with a husband she adored, and Jeremiah returned to a more worthy and honest art. There was no reason for her to apologize. She’d made things right returning the painting. It felt good to know she still meant something to him, a thought that made her feel guilty. Henry was all she needed, and she couldn’t reconcile why having a part of Jeremiah’s heart made her feel so good. It was intoxicating, and she wanted more. She wanted to know if that night inspired an entirely new body of work. Not having anywhere else to be, she turned around, heading back to the gallery. She needed to hear it from him. She needed to know what exactly she’d meant to him. It felt like a betrayal to Henry, but this could be her little secret. As she walked back to the gallery, she imagined the story Jeremiah would tell. How he’d locked himself in his loft for weeks, furiously transferring his polaroids to canvas, and how he’d truly found himself, the artist that he’d buried when he lost Amy. 

And though she’d never thought of staying with him all those years ago, she began to wonder what life would have been if she’d stuck around. What would her life have been if she’d stuck around in the art subculture? The first thought was how little money she’d have, probably supporting Jeremiah on her tips which would surely eclipse what he brought in from his art. But there was always something so freeing about living that way, foreign to the work culture which consumed her and Henry. Could she have been happy in a life without ambition, one where work was just a means to cover a bar tab, one where the future only went as far as the waking hours of a single day? Perhaps she could have lived that way, filling the time between shifts with boxed wine and fucking at random moments throughout the day.

No, that could never have made her happy. She needed somebody like Henry to challenge herself. But still, no matter how much she wanted to right her brief time with Jeremiah as an artifact of her experimental youth, she could never rid herself of him. There were plenty of men with whom she shared a bed in those days, but she’d never wanted to be anything to any of them. After all, she didn’t go to the gallery out of sense of duty, she went to confirm that she’d meant something to Jeremiah. But even though she got what she came for when she saw his fingers trace the lines of her body on his long lost painting, she wasn’t satisfied. She wanted to know that she’d changed him somehow, that she was the reason he’d come to Chicago in an attempt to legitimize himself as a true artist. She needed to hear it from him.

Once again, she stood at the door of the gallery, and just like before she paused for a smoke while she gathered herself. She couldn’t be obvious. She couldn’t just waltz in and demand he tell her how much she influenced his growth. They’d have to revisit their night and let the aftermath flow organically. She stomped out the cigarette on the sidewalk and took a deep breath. She opened the door and scanned the room, but Jeremiah was gone. The show still had a few hours left, so she knew he would be back. She took her time working her way back to his exhibit, carefully regarding the work of the other artists. She’d even considered buying a few pieces, not so much because she wanted them, but because she liked the power. There are only ever a few people at these exhibitions who can actually afford the pieces; artists don’t have rich friends until they become something. When she’d studied all of the other artists’ work, Jeremiah still had not returned, so Riley finally ventured back to his exhibit. Already, two of the paintings were marked sold, each commanding over 700 dollars, an impressive sum for an artist like Jeremiah. Maybe she’d underestimated him, she thought. 

She continued to regard his work, considering whether any of it might look good in the brownstone she shared with Henry. And then she saw it. The painting. Her painting, leaning against the wall that displayed Jeremiah’s work. In the lower corner of the painting, she saw a hastily made label. She bent down to read it. It read:

Untitled

By Jeremiah Crandall

$1

She left. 

 

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