Chapter 17: Truths and a lie
Mariah remembers
Mariah lost track of her placements. The dark-skinned sisters who squabbled over her until they realized they were both bored; the redheaded man who liked her to always be near, until she thought she would scream if she didn't get five minutes away from him; the woman who gave her a fearsome beating when she realized her cat liked Mariah more than her; there were more, she was sure, but she couldn't remember them.
Present day
Animal hummed as he worked, his morning's annoyance with Rose forgotten. He was pleased with how the fifth and sixth panels were shaping up. They were both simple scenes. The fifth showed a boy and a girl studying together, their heads bent over a shared manuscript. The sixth depicted the same boy and girl, older now, sitting at the edge of a swimhole, their feet in the water, their knees touching. Animal wondered if it was too smarmy, but sometimes a picture needed to paint itself.
Rose was preparing the wall for the seventh panel. That one he would give to his apprentices, if they bothered to show up. A circus scene. The apprentices would enjoy painting contorted slaves. Acrobatics was a dying art. Somewhat of a pity, Animal shrugged to himself. Even he could appreciate the years of training it took for a slave to be able to achieve those positions, balancing on their tiptoes as they pranced or on their heads as they twirled.
He turned when he heard the main door to the revel room open with a loud squeak. He smiled. "Amalie!" As she walked toward them he said with pretended crossness, "Come to grouse about my windows again?"
Amalie climbed onto the scaffolding where Animal was working, and examined the half-finished panels. She knit her eyebrows, then looked at Animal and laughed. Animal grinned in return and shrugged. "Sometimes a picture paints itself," he said out loud.
"It was good to see you last night," Amalie said, her tone somewhat abrupt.
"You saw me yesterday morning, too, at the museum," Animal said.
Amalie smiled briefly. "I liked watching you teach," she said. "But it was good to see you someplace else. With our friends. Relaxing."
Animal winced. "Your friends," he said.
"Yours, too," Amalie said. "Or they used to be."
Animal turned back to the panel. He lifted the brush but didn't paint. "They tolerate me," he said.
Amalie put her hand on his raised arm and turned him to face her. "They're worried about you," she said. "So am I."
Animal tilted his head and cocked an eyebrow. Amalie took a half step closer. "They say you've been keeping to yourself for a long while now."
Animal took a half step away from her, looking briefly behind to make sure he was not at the edge of the scaffolding. "I'm working," he said.
"They work too, some of them," Amalie said. "But they don't hide in their apartments when they're done, or spend all their time with . . ."
"With who?" Animal said. "Outlanders?"
Amalie shrugged. "The outlander," she said. "And . . ." Animal followed her look to Rose at the next scaffolding, seemingly engrossed in washing the wall with a soda ash solution.
"They begrudge me a housegirl?" Animal asked. "As I recall, I was the only human at the party last night without a slave for a personal footstool."
"If you had brought her we both know you wouldn't have used her for a footstool," Amalie said. Rose turned bright red. "And you wouldn't have let anyone else, either."
"Yes, we both know I'm a pansy," Animal said. "Is that what you came to tell me?"
Amalie turned back to look at the panel. She reached out and almost touched the figure of the boy with his feet in the pond. "You weren't always," she said softly. "We had some fun."
Animal looked at the panel as well. He said, just as softly, kindly almost, "I was trying to impress a girl."
"Do you regret it?" Amalie asked. Her hand came down and took his, and they stared at the painting together. Animal knew that they were both seeing the memory of what he had depicted, not the painting itself.
"No," Animal said after a moment. "Not trying to impress the girl, never that. But some of the things I did . . ." He shrugged.
Amalie pulled his hand out to the side and turned, so that they were facing each other, only inches apart. "And if I told you the girl was impressed?"
"I'd say the girl told the boy a long time ago that they would never be anything more than friends."
Amalie put her hands on his shoulders, and looked up at him. "I'm coming to you as a friend," she said. "When is the last time you made love to a human?" When Animal shrugged and didn't answer, she continued, "The last time you were with a girl who could take initiative, who could tell you what she wanted, who could make you wait until your pleasure exploded out of you?"
Without thinking Animal looked past Amalie to Rose, who was looking back at him. He smiled at her, the same knowing, secret smile he had given to Amalie when she first gazed at the panel.
Amalie saw. She backed away from Animal as if he had slapped her. "You're just like your father," she hissed.
"My father was a good man," Animal said.
"Your father was a laughingstock!" Amalie shouted. "And so are you." Animal's face froze, but Amalie continued, pointing out to the empty revel room. "You know why your apprentices don't come back?"
"Enlighten me."
