Sing of the Moon - 3.
It was so close. It was almost exactly what she’d been envisioning, but it was off somehow.
What was it?
Lola squinted, then swiped her brush through a soft green blob on her palette and brushed a thin, almost transparent layer over the dark blue dress on the left of the painting.
There it was.
She’d been working on this one for six months, almost longer than any other piece in her portfolio (the longest had taken eight months and looking back, had really been rather simple, but that was years ago—“simple” meant something very different to her then). Now she’d just have to let it dry, get it packaged up, and send it off. But first, dinner.
The clock read exactly 5:30, and before long she’d have Harlan knocking at her door as he did every Thursday, usually bearing dessert and a long conversation to be had. Lola enjoyed seeing her brother, she really did—the conversation was never bad, and with her own rather reclusive lifestyle, most of her news came from their once-a-week meetups. But staring into her sparsely populated fridge now, she almost wanted to call it off tonight.
She sighed and shut the fridge door to find Harlan’s grinning face inches away from her own, and jumped back in shock. “Jesus!”
“Well, not Jesus, but…the next best thing?” Harlan shrugged, barely containing his laughter.
Lola laughed and reached over to hug him. “You need to let me know before your resurrection next time, dude. I haven’t heard from you since last week.”
“Well, you weren’t answering your texts,” Harlan said, holding up his phone in one hand and a bag in the other, “and judging by your look of despair there, grabbing food on the way here was the right move. Shall we?”
“Yes, please, I’m starving. I spent way too long working today.”
Harlan raised an eyebrow as he set the bag on the table. “Still no chance I can see what you have?”
“You know the deal, Harlan. No peeking until it’s public unless you’re the one buying.”
Lola grabbed a sandwich and unwrapped it, squinting at the tomatoes layered inside before carefully pulling them off. “Besides, if I can’t hear your music, you can’t see my art. That’s an easy tradeoff.”
“Touché.” Harlan groaned and waved her off, but he couldn’t hide his smile. “Man, I can’t wait until Mom comes up to visit and I have three people telling me how to live my life.”
“We tell you because you won’t live it yourself! Go share your work with the world instead of hiding it in your apartment and pretending it doesn’t exist!”
Harlan’s face hardened a bit. “You saw how it went last time. I’m not about to bare my damn soul to the universe for a dollar on a street corner.”
Alright, back it up, Lola. Too much.
“Okay, maybe don’t share it with the whole world, but a little goes a long way. Share it with somebody. When I was starting out painting Stevie was great about asking questions and giving feedback and explaining things. You need your own Stevie.”
“Clementine’s not good enough for you?” Harlan said, faking offense.
“You didn’t even mean for her to hear your stuff in the first place, Harlan,” Lola countered. “You need a creative partner.”
“A creative partner, huh?” Harlan laughed ruefully, then frowned and went quiet for a minute, seemingly lost in thought. Finally he sighed and spoke again. “I don’t know, Lola. I can’t. Not right now.”
Lola leaned forward and raised an eyebrow. “Harlan—“
“Can we please drop it? And move on?” Harlan burst out. “I’m sorry, I’m not mad. But I’m not talking about this right now.”
Oops. Way too much. “Yes. Sorry.”
An awkward silence filled the room, broken only by the crinkling of the wrappers as they returned to their sandwiches. Finally Lola spoke again: “Maybe…I’ll let you see it next time. You’d see it before Stevie.”
Harlan laughed softly. “Before the infamous Stevie? I guess I’ll be ignoring my negative feelings about him to accept this honor.”
“Very mature decision.”
“Very mature.”