Thank You for Ten: Short Fiction About a Little Theater Page 21

  *

  "Seven weeks," she said, crossing her arms and addressing the image on her final day. "Does it seem that long ago to you?" She thought back over each of her previous sessions as she mixed the final small amount of paint for the job. "Truth be told I didn't get much done that rainy morning. But we won't tell anyone about that will we?"

  The second eye proved far less challenging than the first, but it too was delicate work. She took her time with it, savoring her final day on the project.

  "I got some of my internship papers in the mail yesterday," she said, dabbing a tiny brush in astringent. "Lots to take care of, not a lot of time. All happening so fast, you know what I mean?"

  She stepped off of her stool to get the long view again.

  "Though what do I know? Time may move quite slow for you. Or you know, would if you were actually here and able to hear me."

  She ascended the stool again.

  "Guess you could be real. I don't know what's real and what's not. Maybe I should. I should pick a church and stick with it. Force faith. Do what they tell me. That just doesn't feel like me though, you know? And not because I'm an artist. It's just because I think sometimes I can see something Divine in everything. Well, most things. Not a table usually, or things like that. But definitely art. Good art that speaks to me."

  She pulled out her magnifying glass and examined the eye with a passing glance at the one she had already finished.

  "Now are you the best painting, artistically speaking? No offense, but no. Your creator was competent, had some flare for the dramatic, but as a painting you're fairly run of the mill. Except these eyes. And that damn grin." She shook her head. "They got something right about that." She looked at the grin momentarily, and than back up to the eye. "There's life in you. I suppose that makes you a success as a painting."

  The grin neither agreed nor disagreed with her as she glanced at it once more.

  Even at her more casual speed she finished the eye in less than half an hour. She stepped back, assessing the whole painting. She deemed her work satisfactory, though each time she stepped back for what she knew would be the final viewing in her final session, she'd squinted and rushed to her kit to correct one more minor flaw, even in the sections she had long ago declared complete.

  After the eighth or ninth such correction, she came to terms with what she was doing, and swallowed her perfectionism. And her stalling. She began packing up her things, and washing her brushes at last. (Nodding at the finished painting a few times during the process.)

  Less than 90 minutes after she'd arrived for this final session, she stood in the warm sunlight that shone through the windows, her box with Sarah's picture still attached sitting by her feet.

  "I guess that's that," she said. "You're all done. Well, as done as I can allow you to be. I could sit here another 50 years and find something else to fix. My professor says a good artist knows when to conclude working, since a piece is rarely finished. Time to conclude, wouldn't you say?"

  The perpetual grin, topped with freshened eyes and a face recently made blemish free looked back at her yet again. She felt in her heart this time that the look was one of approval for her work.

  "I'll miss this," she said, looking around the lobby. "I won't cry or anything, don't worry. I'm not quite that much of a flake. But it's been an interesting two months. Not all paintings bring out that much conversation you know, so feel proud."

  The painting grinned.

  "And I'll be back in two weeks to see Heidi. That's when they're having the unveiling. I didn't want to make the unveiling a big thing, but Dr. Gruber seemed so excited about it, so I agreed.”

  She walked up to the painting, and took each curtain between her fingers. One last check over everything. It would be the last moment, she new, when this painting was her restoration project. Once she closed the curtain, it was the LDP's painting once again. Hopefully a better painting than she'd found when she started.

  "Nice working with you," she said, as she slid the curtain shut. The last thing she noticed as she did so were the eyes.

  She smiled and walked back into the house toward the little hallway She'd recently noticed the words "The Funnel" had been painted on one of its walls at some point. She’d asked Emma what it meant.

  "Nobody knows," Emma had told her. "Been there for years and years."

  Alicia decided she could live with the mystery. What was life, after all, without a little mystery?