“And you think theater or visual arts or the symphony will be different?” he guessed.
After Caroline relieved him of the crate of fruit, he trailed his fingers gently over a bunch of Japanese anemones. There was something satisfying about the look of Adrian’s angular artist’s hands on the bright petals, an attractive contrast maybe.
“Well, that’s what you talk to me about, isn’t it?”
Adrian shot her a challenging look, suspicious that she was trying to wind him up again but unable to sustain anyannoyance in the face of all the flowers. He looked through the selection with obvious interest, a nearly doting softness spreading across his face.
“Are you buying any flowers?” he asked.
“Yeah, which ones are the best?”
“For?”
She grinned.For making you smile like that.“Is there a versatile flower? A team player? Best all around?”
Adrian considered it, then grabbed a sheaf of tiny yellow blossoms.
“Smell,” he told her, holding the flowers out.
She took a deep breath. “Oh! Licorice?”
“Yes. These are goldenrod. I used to—” He broke off, probably thinking of his garden that was now a hot tub. “Anyway. These are seasonal. And they do well as a cut flower.”
“Perfect,” Caroline said, grabbing another couple bunches and piling them into the fruit crate.
After they paid, they made their way to the edge of the square. Adrian took the crate back.
“Should we go put these in your car? What do you want to do next?”
Caroline stretched, flexing her arms behind her as she took in the city center. The aquarium was nearby, and so were the Freedom Trail and the cannoli shop she’d read about. The prospect of a full day of pleasant things ahead of her was like having money in the bank. Better, really—she already had the money. Right now she had Adrian’s undivided attention too, her window into the bigger world she wanted. Caroline rolled her shoulders.
“Is your studio nearby?” she asked with studied casualness. She’d asked a few times, and Adrian had been careful not to say no, but he hadn’t said yes either.
Adrian winced. “I don’t actually have anything in progress there right now. You wouldn’t rather go to the Institute of Contemporary Art?”
“No, I want to see what a working artist’s studio looks like.”
“If you really want to.” Adrian sighed, adjusting his grip on the crate. “As long as you don’t expect to see any working.”
It was ridiculous to worry what she’d think of his studio. The space itself was nothing to be ashamed of; he was lucky to have the grant that paid for it. But unlike the other dozen or so tenants in the building, Adrian didn’t have any finished art Caroline hadn’t already seen when she’d moved him out of Nora’s house. Perhaps one of his neighbors would be in on a Saturday morning and wouldn’t mind showing off what they were working on. There was a radio playing Brazilian ballads somewhere nearby, filtered through layers of drywall and echoing off the metal roof high above them. He put his key in the padlock of his plywood door.
To his relief, Caroline looked nothing but pleased as she followed him into the room and set the crate of fruit and flowers down on his worktable. She took in the toolboxes full of paint, the racks of brushes, the cans of mineral spirits and linseed oil and gesso, the stacks of canvas, and the few rescued paintings under repair.
She peered at the big board of reference images he’d collected for the mostly abandoned Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising project. Wrinkling her nose at the violence of a couple of the scenes, she wiped the expression from her face when she caught him looking at her.
Adrian began moving stacks of books off his paint-splattered futon to clear a space for her to sit, but Caroline remained standing, closely examining every mundane object in the room.
She cleared her throat. “So, this is where you do all the actual painting?”
Theoretically.
“Yes, always in the studio,” he said, gesturing between the easels and the stack of canvases. “I’m not one of those artists who can concentrate while workingen plein air.”
“Even the garden paintings?”
“Once upon a time, in a different studio,” he said.
Caroline nodded and pulled the goldenrod out of the crate. “Do you have a vase for these?” she asked.
