When they return to Charlie’s apartment building in Chelsea it is after ten o’clock. Sky finds a comfortable seat in the burgundy colored couch behind the glass coffee table. She feels exhausted under the pressures of bearing her soul to Charlie. She flops down into the soft cushions, and rests her head against the overstuffed corner behind her. A painting catches her eye on the wall. It is one of Charlie’s paintings from art class in college. The image is a playful abstract of purples and blues set in time with the touches of amateur practicality. Sky is an artist as well, and an artist knows when an artist is holding something back from the World. It is a painting that marks a change in Charlie’s life, the point in which she found her true calling. Charlie’s imagery has improved since that first art class and Sky never needs to ask why Charlie chooses to display that particular piece in the living room. It is an understanding that comes with appreciation for another person’s growth as an artist.
Charlie scoots into the kitchen, and tells Sky to stay put until she comes back. Sky is the kind of woman that will crawl along broken shards of glass and burning coals just to disobey a direct order. In this instance she is too tired to be her usual stubborn self.
“ You are the only person who can get away with giving me directions. I promise not to go anywhere, for now.”
Even in submission Sky needs to assert defiance.
Charlie’s voice carries from the kitchen, “Sky, I swear that you are worse than some of the cats I treat in my office! Do I need to sedate you in order to keep you still!”
Sky laughs and replies, “No sedation is necessary. You just have to wrestle me down, and avoid my scratching your eyes out!”
A few minutes past before Charlie emerges from the swinging kitchen door with two crystal wineglasses filled with blush. She hands a glass to Sky and then puts her own glass on the table. Charlie leaves the room for a second time.
Sky leans forward to pick up the wine glass between her middle finger and her thumb, “Where are you going? I thought that you were trying to get me drunk so that you can take advantage of me.”
Charlie says, “Ha, I don’t think that there is a living person who could take advantage of you! I shall return. Don’t you worry about that.”
Sky looks at her watch. Charlie has been gone for five minutes. “What the hell are you doing in there, wrapping my present?” She barely finishes her accusation when Charlie walks back into the living room with a gift in her hand.
“I was trying to figure out how to wrap it without destroying it. The only hope for salvation was to wrap it two minutes before I gave it to you. Merry Christmas you pain in the ass!”
Sky removes the paper with delicate motion. If the present is that susceptible to damage it is not a good idea to go at it with fierce curiosity. The bright colors and perfect detail of the painting force a lump to lodge itself in Sky’s throat. “It’s beautiful Charlie. Is this what I really look like to you?”
Charlie whispers, “I took it from that picture of you at that park in Allegheny. I stole it from your photo album a month ago. I assumed that you wouldn’t notice that it was gone. Do you like it?”
Sky places the painting on the table and puts her hand on Charlie’s knee. “I love it.” Then Sky kisses Charlie with heated wine on her lips.
Charlie holds Sky in her arms against the warmth of the couch. They sit and talk into the night about family and friends. Sky allows Charlie to do most of the talking because she is completely worn out by the holiday. Although she is not concentrating on her own Christmas nightmare it is still a strain on her physically. Stress can tense up the body without much consultation with the brain.
Charlie talks about the relationship she has with her parents, and attempts to describe them to Sky before their first meeting in the spring of the New Year. Charlie paints a portrait of these strangers with the same finesse that she creates with strokes from a paintbrush.
“My mother’s parents were wealthy southerners from old plantation money. Completely despicable in my opinion, but my opinion rarely mattered to my mother. She is so conservative that you can actually hear a creak when she walks. A staunch debutante and a daughter of the confederacy. She is completely dedicated to her physical appearance, and has spent a good portion of her life trying to mold me into her ideal younger self. I resisted throughout most of my life. I studied different cultures in my teenage years. You know, the natural fledgling homosexual reaction to ignorance and discrimination? Growing up in Amherst I had encountered very few people who weren’t the white shadows of their well to do parents. It was disgusting to me, and I never really fit in with those uppity, self-riotous children of the damned. It was my goal to become an intellectual, and I had always loved animals. That is why I chose to become a veterinarian. It was also a chance for me to go to school out of town. When I found out that Cornell had a great curriculum for veterinary medicine I packed my bags before my approved application landed in the mailbox. With my grades from high school and my volunteerism with local charities, I was almost guaranteed admittance to the college. It was sad for me to leave my father, but he spoke to me with his usual loving tone when we said our good byes. The campus was in Ithaca. That’s far enough away from home to be comfortable, but not too far away to prevent my parents from visiting. Am I boring you yet, Sky?”
Sky smiles at Charlie; “No you’re not boring me. I want to hear everything about you, and it is better that I am prepared with some knowledge about your folks before I spend a week in their pool house putting my filthy lesbian paws all over their little girl!”
Charlie frowns at Sky as if her statement were true, and wonders how She will behave toward her parents, “You are going to be nice to them aren’t you?”
Sky laughs and says, “Of course I will be nice to them. Do you think that I’m some kind of barbarian? No wait, don’t answer that.”
Charlie lifts an eyebrow at Sky as if she wants to answer that, “Swear that you will be socially acceptable, and try not to use the word fuck like it’s the only word in your vocabulary.” Teasing Sky for the endless stream of profanity that usually came out of her mouth.
Sky catches on to the sarcasm in Charlie’s voice, “Stop harassing me, and continue your fucking story! Your father owns a restaurant doesn’t he? What was it like living with little Miss pris and a culinary wizard?”
Charlie glares at Sky for her blunt approach, “My mother is a princess, but she is also a fabulous interior designer. All of that old money was put to some good use I guess. She really is brilliant, if you can get past the stench of expensive perfume and her stuffy conventional attitude. My father loves her despite all of her flaws, and I expect that you will get along with my father famously. If you’re anything like him, and I know that you are, you will appreciate my mother’s neurotic habits and deem them somewhat charming. I speak ill of her because she is my mother. I think that most children find fault with their parents. What I say about her is true for me, but truth is subject to the observer isn’t it my little journalist?”
Sky replies, “Yes truth is subjective, but I don’t understand what I could possibly have in common with your father, aside from our shared attraction toward women?”
Charlie shakes her head, “You are such a pain, Ms. Sky. I thought you wanted me to finish my story?”
Sky quiets down, “Okay, okay I apologize, but I am curious about the similarities that I share with your father. Also note that I am wondering why you would choose to date a feminine version of your dad. Just a note for future reference.” Then she leans back further into the couch with the appearance of a psychiatrist taking notes on Charlie’s Freudian tendencies.
Charlie continues with the knowledge that she is being observed by the writer. Talking to a student of journalism can become a bit uncomfortable for the person divulging information. Even if they are dating. Charlie breaks with the thought of being monitored, and finds comfort in the sparked interest of her audience, “ Anyway, my father’s parents were poor immigrants from Poland that settled in the Buffalo area in the 1920’s as children. His mother worked in a flour mill until crippling arthritis prevented her from working, and my grandfather worked as a cook for a while, and then for the railroad until he died in 1977. I was only three when he died. I don’t remember much of him, accept that he used to drink warm beer that he kept under his chair. My grandmother still lives in Buffalo with my Aunt Sarah. My parents take care of their financial needs for the most part, but my grandmother is still very adamant about taking care of herself. She’s seventy-three now, and I think that she still stuffs money in her mattress for safekeeping. People who lived through the depression are funny that way you know?”