“Sure are,” he said, his chest puffing out with stupid pride. “They mean something about resilience and growth. Thought it might be fitting.”
“Oh, these are perfect!” Alta beamed with a praising smile. Handing his papers back to him, she added, “Thank you.”
“Any time, Ally,” he said. As if he’d had a fucking say in the matter. He drew the picture because I told him to draw the picture. But whatever. I guess the blush on his willowy cheeks was sweet.
Next was Lana. Pulling up her tablet, she scrolled through a couple pages of honestly some real unhinged shit before finally landing on a very rough sketch of two very cute characters. They were drawn with large round figures and big animated features, each characteristic childlike in a way that was impossible not to be cute.
But there was something off about all the characters.
“Lana, where are their mouths?” Alta asked. Leaning in further.
“Oh, uh, they don’t have any. To represent, like, silence…” her words trailed off as her eyebrows pulled down.She was so full of shit. Unlike Gerald, those sketches weren’t for the event, they were just another set of her unhinged doodles.
I snickered, barely catching it on my shoulder. I wasn’t fast enough to escape the sidelong glance Alta threw me over her shoulder, her glare silently telling me to shut up. Looking back to Lana, she gave her an encouraging smile. “Um, maybe keep workshopping it, L. It’ll get there.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Lana snapped her tablet closed, her voice holding a bite to it as she popped her eyes up at me. “Needs a little more time, I guess.”
Ryan outright admitted that his design wasn’t ready but promised it would be something good. So Quis came forward next, prepared and excited to show her his drawings.
He was another tablet user, but unlike Lana’s sticker cluttered device, his was clean and simple. On the screen he showed a girl curled up with her knees so far to her chest that they covered her eyes, her arms wrapped around herself protectively. It was submissive in a way, but behind her there were tall sprouts of tangling roots and thorny vines shooting in every direction, and in the dead center sprouting right out of the woman’s head was a small flower.
Damn. That was a good one. Alta seemed to agree as she puffed out a silent, stunned sigh. Her body leaning forward as if drawn to the image.
Looking sideways, I was mildly jealous that his was the art that put that stunned look on her face and not my own.
“Oh,” she said on a breath as she leaned over his work. “This is gorgeous. It reminds me of my sister.”
“The redhead?” Quis asked, and I forgot he’d been here too when Alta brought her sister around to see the shop.
Alta shook her head. “No, my older sister.”
The way she said that, solemn and guarded, both made me want to ask more and change the subject. We’d just gotten that look off her face, I wasn’t trying to bring it back so quickly.
“What do you think? Are we on the right track?” I asked, still close to her shoulder.
She straightened in her seat before tipping a look up at me, her soft eyes hardening and going serious. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Where’s your sketch?” she asked.
I looked at her, trying to read her eyes. I thought about lying and saying I hadn’t worked on it yet, but the truth was I’d sketched something the first day she’d asked us to come up with a piece for the women’s festival. And now she was looking at me so genuinely, like she really wanted to see it. So pulling out my phone, I flipped through my photos, mainly an array of art and sketches; and slid the rough sketch in front of her eyes.
She took the phone and stared. The image was simplistic. Normally, I did a little of everything in my art, enjoying toying around with different images and techniques, but my main love was for the large billowing pieces with intricate lines and details. So the simple little line art heart that decorated the screen was something different for me entirely.
It was misshapen in a way that gave it corners a heart normally didn’t have, as if it had been dented and bruised somehow. And while it was totally intact, it was only just barely, with the ragged lines of cracks running down the length of its form. Some of the cracks had little flowers and weeds sprouting out, and some had the undertone of blood splatter.
In front of me, Alta swallowed, her face serious as she blinked down at the image. She didn’t gush as she did over the others, but she stared much longer. For a second I didn’t think she would return my phone, but finally she turned her shoulders and lifted it back to me. Her eyes met mine with more than one question in them.
I offered the easier answer before she could ask anything I might not want to disclose. “It’s not done. Something’s missing. I was thinking a word would look good with it.”
She leaned up, tipping her chin as her body came closer to me to look at the phone again. As she did, I caught a trace of her scent. Today, she smelled like lime and the faint hint of soap. I felt myself wanting to fidget in her nearness, but didn’t allow it.
Breath puffing hot over my hand, she said, “Yeah. That would be pretty.”
I refused to examine the airy feeling hearing her agree with me put in my gut. Instead, I did something else stupid. I said, “Cool. Let me know which one you want, then.”
She jerked back, her gaze snapping up to meet mine. “You want me to pick it?”
