He’s going to ruin you.
“She keeps coming back to you. Or you keep going back to her. It’s maddening.” Her hands clenched into fists, and she shook her head with frustration.
“I need him, Melissa. I don’t want to paint without him, or eat, or even get out of bed. He’s all I ever think about. And he probably hates me. He should, but I can’t do anything not knowing where he is, if he’s okay. I just need to know that he’s safe.”
“If I find him for you, Martin, you have to promise me that you’ll survive this. You can’t lose your shit every time the two of you get separated. I won’t watch you self-destruct and ruin what we’ve so carefully created.”
“He could be living on the streets. He could be hurt.” He could be sucking cock for a place to sleep at night. And it was my goddamned fault.
“Martin, you have to paint. Nicky wants to show your work exclusively. Twelve pieces. They have to be better than anything you’ve ever done before. If you do that, I’ll find him for you.”
“Promise me,” I said while a shaft of hope cut through the dark basement of my mind.
“I promise you.” She grabbed my hands and squeezed while her eyes lit up with a strange intensity. Was her energy dark or light? I had no idea, but I knew she had powers. She would deliver him to me. The price was my soul on canvas. The reward was Andre and the chance, however slim, to win him back.
“You must really believe in me,” I said with fearful wonder.
She smiled sadly and touched my hair like a mother might. “You’re the only thing I believe in, Martin.”
I didn’t care if she was an angel or a demon, my champion or my demise, so long as she kept up her end of the bargain and brought him back to me.
I made the deal.
19. Missing
WHERE DOESan artist find inspiration once his muse has flown away? I tried my usual wellsprings—the botanic gardens, the beaches, my streets. I people-watched down at South Beach and invited former models to pose for me. I listened to new music and old music, read some books, went to art shows, but nothing stuck with me. My paintings felt like work and everything I created was flat, boring, and uninspired. They looked like paint-by-number versions of my past work.
I hated every single one of them.
Melissa tried giving me pep talks, but it only made me feel worse. Instead, I asked her to tell me about Simone, to learn more about Andre, so that when I found him again, I could say all the right things to make him come back to me. I was obsessive in my questions.
“She liked tea cakes with frosting,” Melissa said when I asked her what foods she liked. “There was a baker who put icing flowers on top. It was an extravagance for her to buy them.”
“She bought them for me,” I said without knowing how I knew that. I also knew that she had brown eyes, even though in the painting her eyes were closed. Warm brown eyes that emanated kindness and compassion, just like Andre’s. “Were her eyes more red or gold?” I asked. In the sunlight Andre’s eyes looked golden, like a lion.
“I don’t know, Martin. It was a long time ago.”
“Was her laugh more like wind chimes or church bells?”
“Church bells,” she said. “She had a deep voice, and she was always smiling, at least she was when you were around.”
“The lantern, out front, where did it come from?”
Melissa looked away. “I found it in a swap shop downtown, and I saved it until the right time. I wanted you to rent this place, so I asked the owner to hang it up. I made him promise not to tell you.”
“Andre recognized it.” I did too.
“There was one just like it outside the brothel.”
It was like a beacon to the both of us. Home, only because we were together.
“You were jealous of her,” I said. Just like she was jealous of Andre.
She cleared her throat and looked uncomfortable. “Yes, I was.”
I saw a flash of her and I in bed together, only it wasn’t from recent years. “Did we…?”
“Yes, we did.”
