Muse

“Who is she?” Bert asked, and I felt my stomach prickle with distaste and near panic as he held up one of my paintings. I hadn’t seen it in years. I hadn’t seen any of them in years. They were there though, lingering in the back of my mind from time to time, tucked away in that old black pleather portfolio. How he stumbled upon them, I didn’t know.

“Just a muse of mine.” I replied, suddenly remembering that questions often require replies.

“It’s a good painting.” Bert stated solidly, in that candid, Spartan way of his. I couldn’t help smiling. Several of my friends, most of them girls, had looked over a few pieces of my art work and claimed that they were fallen stars from heaven. My mother had raved about them. My little brother had assured me that I was bound to be remembered alongside Rembrandt and Michelangelo.

But, “It’s a good painting.” Said Bert. His was a far more accurate assessment, as far as I was concerned.

“Thanks.” I answered.

“How many are there?” He asked me, pulling the portfolio up off my desk. I swallowed, feeling nervous again, resentment rising. Those paintings were private. The oil on each canvas was infused with lost memories that I didn’t dare tempt into resurrection. Something about them made me uncomfortable.

“Not many,” I said, moving to take the portfolio from his hands. I tugged, but he resisted with surprising force, startling me into letting go.

“Come on, let me see the rest of them.” He jostled the case out of my hands and slumped down onto the chair with it on his lap.

“Don’t you want something to eat?” I muttered, a tickling twinge of anger creeping up inside me.

“Sure. What do you have?”

My voice was flat. “I meant go get something.”

“Oh.” He said. “No thanks. But I’ll take a beer if you’ve got one.”

“Beer.” I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “Sorry, I think I’m out. But how about a nice Cabernet instead?”  

“Sure, that works I guess.” His reply was absent as he bent over the painting in his hand. Bitterly resenting wasting a good Cabernet on Bert, I poured him a miserly amount and then a served up a generous glass for myself. I handed him his and sat down in the chair across the room, where I didn’t have to look at my paintings. For a while, Bert said nothing. He went from piece to piece, studying each for a moment before returning it to its place in the portfolio, and selecting the next. When he came to the last one, he lingered, fixated on its image for a full ten minutes. Cross and jittery, I poured more of my Cabernet and played merry-go-round with my glass, brooding while I waited.

“You’re sure she’s not real?” Bert said at last, his normally deep voice sounding suspiciously hollow and tight. For a moment I thought he would start to cry. Panicking, I stood, avoiding his eyes.

“She’s just a muse.”

“But she looks so real.” He said. In that moment, I dared to look down, back at her face, back at eighteen, back at loneliness and back at confusion.

She did look real. And not real as if the lines in her face all matched up exactly right, or real like the catch lights in her eyes were accurately portrayed.

She possessed real emotion. As if, inside of her, was a real, tormented, heartbroken soul. There was something so sad about her that I couldn’t explain it away as the mere whim of a troubled young artist. And though I hesitated to acknowledge it, Bert’s innocent commentary had struck and old nerve.

The truth was, ever since I’d painted her, I myself had had the lingering impression that Muse was somehow real.