Even for someone as disorganized as me, the piles of Old Navy shirts that had been on the floor for two days started getting on my nerves. If they stayed in Landon's room, that'd be one thing, but guests didn't exactly love almost tripping when they were just trying to get to the bathroom.
Landon and I were in the second half of our senior year, sharing a two-bedroom dorm after three years of rooming together. What started as a challenge to see who convinced who to drop out first began to blossom into a friendship, little by little. It started with listening to Landon vent about his parents, then turned into him looking over my shoulder and giving me tips on my homework, and eventually became an inseparable bond. He wasn't always kind, and I wasn't always responsible, but he was there. That was good enough for me.
Coming home after my last class of the day, I stuck a butter knife into Landon's doorknob, twisting the poorly built security measure open after a couple of wiggles. The smell of dirty clothes tortured my nose the second I stepped in. Landon, who had been receiving the cold shoulder from Tara for a few days now, had been glued to his bed whenever he wasn't in class. I was jealous of his ability to sink into sadness while still getting straight A's, but I also didn't try enough to be vocal about it.
"You need to take a fucking shower," I gagged, plucking my nose. If it wasn't for his turning underneath his comforter, I would've assumed it was actually a corpse causing the stench. I spotted a rolled-up sock nearby, picked it up, and threw a fastball against the lump that was my best friend.
"Stop," Landon grumbled, shuffling under the cover once again to face his fall.
Impatient, I walked over to the feet of his bed and pulled the comforter off before he could grab onto it. He was curled up on his untucked sheets, dressed in a tank top and his underwear. His hair resembled a bird's nest, and his glasses were nowhere to be found.
He still didn't turn to me, instead wrapping his arms around himself. "Go away!"
"You're really gonna let all this affect you like this?" I asked, tossing the blanket on the floor and crossing my arms. "It's not like you broke up, man."
"But she will. She's going to dump me, and my whole family will ask where she is at graduation, and it'll be miserable."
So dramatic. I stood over him. "Okay, and say she doesn't. Besides, how are you gonna patch things up if you don't shower? You think Tara's gonna think it's hot to see you like this?"
That seemed to do the trick, at least for eye contact. He rolled over to face me, his eyes sticky and a couple of uneven patches of facial hair surrounding his jaw. "She's the one I'm going to marry, Heath."
"Then get your shit together!" I urged. "Or at least enough so you stop scaring the girls I bring over. Brittany Mitchell came to visit her little sister last week, and we were about to hook up 'til she saw your closet in the living room."
"Has Tara stopped by?" he asked.
Did he want her to stop by the place like that? "No, but she sure as hell won't when I tell her you're like this. No one wants to see you like this. C'mon, let's go get a drink."
He fixed his eyes on me. "You know I don't drink."
"Okay, then let's go get me a drink, and you can get a water or something. I don't care; you just need to get out of the dorm.
I expected more diversions, but Landon sat up. He reached into his bedside drawer and began to pull out some clean clothes.
"No, absolutely not," I snapped, rushing to pry the clothes out of his hands. "Shower first."
-
"Heath, that doesn't make me feel better," Pagliari's oldest daughter, Margaret, moped from her velvet seat. She had been holding the same pose for a few hours now, as I worked to keep painting her image before we lost light.
I touched up some shadows of her teal gown, not letting my words break my focus. My multitasking had gotten way better since New York. "Mags, I don't think anything can make you feel better. What I do know is that a little reset can make your head a little less foggy, at least. "
"Maybe a spa day would help," the woman sighed.
After half a year of working on Pagliari's family portraits, the phone had not stopped ringing. Turns out having the praise and approval of one of the biggest names in art opened nearly every revolving door in New York. He had gushed about the pieces to anyone who laid eyes on them... as much as a serious man like himself could. An apparent trendsetter with relations to both the business and artistic world, he didn't hesitate to give people a card with my information in case they wanted work of their own. He hadn't even told me that he printed them.
His family's portraits currently hung at the entrance of the museum he had inaugurated. Although he was still quite square with me, he and Aaron had really hit it off. Aaron insisted that they just clicked, but I was certain that it came from them both having the same breed of cat. The few times Aaron would accompany me to the Pagliari's massive home in Westchester, he'd bring Elote along. He and Clouet would run around the house while Pagliari and Aaron talked about the economy or something.
At the moment, however, I was working on a new piece from the large balcony of Margaret's penthouse - a renovated beauty from the 1940s that made me nervous to even get a drop of paint on the floor. She had just split from her husband of five years and wanted a new portrait to symbolize her newfound freedom. The Margaret on the canvas held a reserved grin, but the Margaret before me was deflated.
I agreed with her idea. "Exactly. Remember when you told me forever ago that running that marathon made you feel like a new person?"
She pressed her lips together in contemplation. "There is a heart disease run coming up that I was thinking about signing up for..â
"Why don't you train for that?" I suggested. "Training will keep you distracted, you'll feel healthier, and you can beat everyone else for an extra endorphin rush."
Margaret raised her shoulder.. "At my age, I don't know if I can still win."
