Painting by The Numbers

"There's a new exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art? In Manhattan? And they have a video walk-through that's pretty cool. I was thinking maybe we could get some Chinese and check it out. I have the basement apartment at a place close by. What do you think?"

What did I think? I thought this kid made too many statements that sound like questions, and he was way, way too young to be hitting on me.

"That sounds great. Unfortunately, I don't think it will work. I like the execution, and like I said, the concept sounds great, but why don't you come back in five or six years, and we'll see how things are then?"

"If it's the age thing, I just look young. I'm actually nineteen."

I raised an eyebrow and stayed silent.

"All right, eighteen, but what's a year?"

I shook my head. "Want to try again?"

He sighed. "Okay, I'm sixteen, but, like, four or five hundred years ago, that would've been totally cool. Sixteen, twenty, no difference."

Shaking my head again, I chuckled. "Well, it's not four or five hundred years ago. Wait until you're twenty-two and come back and see me. If we're both single, and it works out, we'll give it a shot."

"Okay. You think you'll never see me again but in six years, I'll find you. Maybe you'll be at one of my showings."

"I bet I will. You've got serious talent."

He went back inside.

I wasn't sure if I had decided to go there that day because I truly did need the supplies, or because of its proximity to Lori. She was Nicky's mom, and possibly the nicest lady I had ever met in my life. She had every reason in the world to hate me, but had been nothing but sweet. My father had walked out on her and Nicky when he was tiny, and within two years had married my mom and they soon had me. Lori and Nicky had struggled for every dollar while we were solidly middle-class and did better year after year.

Yeah, the normal reaction to seeing me would have been resentment. But not for Lori, it just wasn't in her. All she knew, and all she cared about was that I was Nicky's sister, and he loved me.

That made me family.

As sweet as she was, and as much as I enjoyed seeing her just to say hi, the truth was that she was the director of a nonprofit that helped homeless veterans, and she was the co-owner of a successful travel agency. I wasn't happy thinking about it, but Calvin had been in the back of my mind, pushing me to speak to her. I drove over to the home for veterans she ran and was happy to see her car in the driveway.

I knew most of the staff and a few of the residents and said hi when I went in.

"Lori in her office?"

Two of the residents were in the kitchen. One was carrying in boxes of food and the other was washing and prepping vegetables.

"Yup. If you see her, tell her we need to get new knives. These are horrible."

"Got it."

Her door was open, so I walked in.

"Veronica! What brings you here?"

Aside from Dad, she was probably the only person in the world that I allowed to call me Veronica. "Can I ask you a personal question? Actually, maybe it's professional. Maybe both?"

She looked confused, but smiled. "Of course. Sit down. Can I get you something to drink?"

"No, I'm fine. I need the opinion of someone who knows business. You know, management staff and what should be accepted, I guess."

"All right. Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, everything is fine. I just... I'm not sure about something, and I wanted to bounce it off of you."

She leaned forward in her seat. "I'm all ears."

"Okay, so here's the thing. I've been commissioned to do a portrait of an athlete. He's a wrestler who might be making it to the Olympics. It's not like boxing where the people in charge choose who goes and who doesn't. With wrestling, the Olympics follow the same format every year, the only difference is that three years in a row it's like a world championship type thing and then the fourth year they call it the Olympics. He has to win his matches, but if he does, he's going to represent the U.S.

"I guess that's not important. The thing is, I think he likes me, and I sort of like him. I wanted to ask him out, but I'm not sure if that's appropriate or professional. You have to have a lot of HR experience, right? What do you think? Should I wait until after I'm done working with him?"

Lori laughed. "Sweetheart, you do understand that I married a man that I worked with, right? And we dated while working together. I'm not exactly objective. Let me ask you this, can you do a good job painting someone that you dislike? Like, if there was a celebrity that you really hated, would you still be able to make him look good in a painting? If so, I don't see the issue. If you break up, you could still do a professional job. I say you should go for it. If you still have concerns, send a note to the person that commissioned the paintings and let them know. Cover your ass."

I hadn't thought about that. Could I paint someone that I hated? I wasn't going to go home and start working on depictions of Hitler, Pol Pot, or Stalin; but there was a kid who teased me mercilessly in high school when my kidneys started failing. His image was burned into my brain, so I didn't need reference material. Maybe I'd see if I could make him look good. If so, they shouldn't be an issue with Calvin, regardless of things working out.

"That's excellent. That helps a lot, thanks."

"Good. I'm happy to hear that. I'm also happy that you stopped by. I'm not sure if I can afford you anymore, but I'd like to hire you to do a family portrait of Nicky, Cat, and the girls. How much time do you need for something like that? Would it be possible to get it done by Christmas?"

I did some quick mental calculations and decided it could work. "Absolutely. Do you have any thoughts on what you would like? Did you want something formal, a painting over the mantle sort of thing?"

"Oh, sweetheart, I absolutely trust your vision."

"Okay. Let me put some thought into it. Oh, and whoever's in the kitchen asked me to tell you that they need new knives."

She shook her head. "It's always something." Lori paused, looked past me, and lowered her voice. "Could you recommend anyone who does murals?"

I thought she might want something for the side of one of their travel agency offices. "I know a couple of people. What sort of dimensions are you looking at and how much do you want to spend?"

Lori pursed her lips. "It's for a bedroom. A children's bedroom."

"For the girls?"

She shook her head. "No. Do me a favor? Close the door."

Getting up, I closed the door and sat back down again. "All right, what's the big secret?"

"Please keep this to yourself, but I'm retiring."

The pieces weren't coming together for me. "Are you joking? I thought you'd be here until the day you die."

Lori shook her head. "Not here, the travel agency. I'm set for money, and relatively newly married. I'm too old to have any more kids, but we are applying to be foster parents. I... I want to give some children a chance. Does that make sense? When Nicky was young, we always lived on the edge. I was terrified that social services was going to take him from me. Well, I have a chance now to be a good mom to some kids that need one."

I sat there, stunned. "Lori, you know that you're the best mom ever, right? I mean, except for mine. I have never met any woman who loved their kid so much. Nicky thinks you walk on water."

She waved her hand in the air, as if dismissing what I had said. "I'm not anything special. All boys think their mother is great. The truth is, I failed Nicholas. There were times when I could barely afford to put together a decent meal or buy him a good jacket for the winter. Veronica, your brother felt that he had to leave our home when he was a teenager and earn money on the X Games circuit to support us. He was my little boy. You can't imagine what that did to me."

Leaning over, I stared at the floor and counted to five. When I sat back up, I wiped my eyes.

"That wasn't on you. You worked two and three jobs at a time to make sure that he had a roof over his head and something on the table, regardless of what it was. That's all on my father. All of it." I needed to get out of there. "Look, I'll do the murals. You would be an amazing foster parent. Whatever I can do to help. Just give me a call, and I'll be there. Honestly, it's going to be amazing. Congratulations. Do you, like, need references or something? Just... Just, I dunno. Whatever I can do. I've got to go."

When I got back to my car, I sat behind the steering wheel, my hands clenched into fists and my eyes shut tight. We went to Disney three times a year, and Europe at least five times during my childhood. Lori felt like a failure because she struggled to give Nicky what he needed. When my father left them, the woman worked herself to the bone to give my brother what she could. How the hell could Dad be the same man that I looked up to?

I went home angry, and I channeled that into my work. I unloaded everything from the trunk and then stood there staring at a blank canvas for a while. Eventually, I sat down and picked up the iPad Pro. Bringing to mind memories of the asshole who had teased me in high school, I got to work. Hours later, I had an image of him on the prow of a ship, staring ahead into destiny.

It wasn't bad. It wasn't bad at all. If I could do justice to him, I was confident that I could do justice to Calvin if things didn't work out with us. I took a shower, touched up my makeup, and checked my scheduler. The wrestling team would be getting off the mats in another two hours.

Grabbing my keys, I headed out to my car. I was tired of waiting.

My phone rang on the way to the university. I didn't recognize the number, so I didn't pick up. The phone rang again. Same number. Still ignored it. A few minutes later, it rang again. I pulled into the parking lot of a CVS, and answered.

"Hello?"

"Ms. Tremaine? Please don't hang up. Please. My name is Corey and I work for ROK 101.9. Are you familiar with us? We're the local sports station in Cleveland. The producers would love to have you on the morning show the day after tomorrow. If you could see your way through to say yes, it would mean the world. Actually, it would sort of mean my job."

I chuckled. "Corey, are you gonna get fired if I say no?"

"Not really fired, but I'm an intern, and you saying yes will likely get them to hire me, like a real job, permanent and stuff. The show has two producers and they're upset with each other. One of them works for the station and reports to the owners, the other works for the show and reports to the hosts. They were both supposed to have reached out to you, and each thought the other was doing it. Now they're telling me to get it done."

Bewildered, I sat there for a second. "You know I'm an artist, right? I'm not an athlete."

"Oh, yeah, we all know. You did some promo art for the Guardians last year and the year before. We've got some of your paintings and some of your prints hanging up in the studio."

I was quiet again. Finally, I responded. "You have my work in your studio?"

"Absolutely. I mean, we're a sports station, and we're in Cleveland, so we focus on the Guardians. There's a lot of your stuff around. Ms. Tremaine, do you make it down here often? You know, if you walk into any sports bar near the stadium they'd be hanging your prints, right?"

"I have to be honest with you, Corey. I never thought about it. I guess that's sort of amazing. And I can't say no to helping you get your job. What's involved?"

"That's fantastic. Thank you so much. I'll email you a packet with general information, but all you really have to do is be available to take a call at six fifty. You'll go on the air at seven ten and the show's producer will prep you for those twenty minutes. The packet will have information on the station and the hosts, but really, the whole thing is informal. You'll be fine just winging it."

"Okay Corey, I'm in."

I gave him my email address, but Corey had it. I had done some work for the Guardians over the past couple of years. Doyle Mackenzie, their Director of Community Relations was a nice guy, and I had met his son. The kid couldn't care less about me until he found out that Nicky was my brother and that I could introduce him to supermodels.

Lori had been running a giant fundraiser for the veterans home. I was lending a hand and got the Guardians on board to be one of the sponsors. Angie was there acting as a reporter, and she got some of her friends from her modeling days to show up. I could only guess, but I assumed that the Guardians had something to do with this interview.

Pulling out of the parking lot, I began heading back to campus. The traffic gods had found favor with me. It was usually a tremendous pain in the ass to find a reasonable parking spot, but I snagged one close to the training facilities. I had a staff-parking lanyard that I could've used, but the campus layout was byzantine enough without me trying to figure out how to get back to where I had parked in some minor, out-of-the-way parking spot for employees.

If Calvin had a car, I would give him the pass. It was only good for ninety days, but it was a nice perk.

There was a media office in the training facility that was just a bit larger than a broom closet. When I went down there a student from the journalism school was on what looked to be an ancient desktop. I showed her my pass.

"Hi. I'm Ronnie Tremaine. I'm working with the Olympic Committee. I have about ninety minutes to kill. Would it be okay if I just pulled up a chair and went through some of the athletics department's press releases?"

"Help yourself. I was about to head out to grab some tea. Can I grab you a cup?"

I smiled up at her as she stood. "That'd be great. Thank you."

While waiting for the wrestling practice to be over, I sipped my tea, and thumbed through an endless file of brochures, pamphlets, and marketing material. Some of it had made its way to publication, others had been scrapped, but they had everything I could've hoped for in that little room.

Finally checking my watch, I thanked the girl again and tried to give her a couple of bucks for the tea. She refused, and I headed out. I was a few minutes early, so I sat in the stadium seating, watching the end of a match and waiting while the athletes cooled down.

As they headed past me to the locker room, Calvin looked up and noticed me. He did a quick double take and then offered a lopsided smile that sent butterflies aflutter in my stomach. I gave him a small wave.

Calvin climbed the seating and plopped down one row in front of me. His hair was wet, and the muscles in his arms glistened, even after having toweled down.

"I won't come very close. I am afraid I need a shower. Was there something you needed me to get for you?"

I took a deep breath. "I was hoping you might have time to get dinner."

"Of course. I was just going to do some reading, but I could do that later tonight. What did you need to discuss?"

He wasn't getting it. "No, just dinner. No business stuff."

Confused, Calvin narrowed his eyes. "No business? So, you... Oh!"

Yeah. There it was. Now it was clicking. I gave him a smile and shrugged.

"If you want to. No obligation."

He held up his hands. "No, I would love to. Of course. Where did you wish to go?"

"Why don't you choose.? Maybe not to your aunt and uncles again. They're nice people, but I still have most of the leftovers."

He laughed. "I understand. She is a lot. Can you wait here? I am going to go take a shower. Half an hour, tops."

While he was gone, I spent too much of the time thinking of him in the shower. Done showering, Calvin came back, and we cut across campus and into town. I wasn't sure if long walks were part of his cooldown regimen, but I enjoyed it.

"Where are we headed?"

He looked left and to the right with a small, mischievous smile on his face. "It's a secret. We're going to get some Chinese food, but won't eat there. I think you will like where we're headed."

I tried to pay for our food, but he wouldn't let me. I tried to pay for my own food, and he would let me do that either. The place looked like a hole in the wall, but the food smelled amazing. It was also dirt cheap, so I didn't feel too guilty. He probably spent as much on me as I had spent on him at McDonald's. We had a bag full of food and two cans of soda and headed back to campus.

There was a shift in our vibe for a moment. Calvin looked directly ahead as he spoke.

"I don't think I have told you about my father. He was a scientist. My father did not work at the technical university, but he had access to whatever he wanted to take from there. He worked for the government and his position was secure. It was different then. Not like here. Working for the government in a field of science, well, we had privileges.

"When I was a little boy, he would take me to a hill. We would park his car at the bottom, unload our supplies, and then walk up to the top. For a little boy, it was a mountain. He took the telescope and binoculars and would carry them. I would be responsible for our food. We would have cold chicken, sliced bread with butter, and juice, but for a child on a midnight adventure with his father, it was the food of the gods." He had a small sad smile and was quiet for a while. "Anyway, astronomy was his passion and hobby. And he shared that with me. I do not have as many memories of my parents as I would like, but I remember each of those nights so clearly."

We had crossed the campus and were standing outside of the building that housed the planetarium. He held the door open for me and we went in. He waved to a couple of people as we made our way to a door in the rear. Calvin entered the passcode, the door unlocked, and we stepped into the dark planetarium.

"I'm going to run a preset. Grab a seat, anywhere you'd like."

I hadn't been to a planetarium since I was a kid. The seats were plush recliners and I grabbed two in the middle, putting my jacket on one. Calvin had gone into a small room that had tinted black windows. I called out, hoping he could hear me.

"Hey! How did you get access to this place?"

His voice came out over a speaker. "Haven't you heard? I'm a celebrity. The famous wrestler named Calvin. That's why they let me come and go here whenever I want. Or, maybe my suite mate is in the astrophysics department and is a bigger academic star than I am athletic. Maybe he knows I like to spend time here and put in a good word for me. No, not that. It must be that I'm so famous."

I laughed. Some lights went on and then off again. He was doing something to test speakers and I heard what sounded like thunder and rain. Eventually, he got everything set and came out to join me. We had our own private show as we ate our Chinese food. He sat next to me and supplemented the narration with his own insights,

I could picture him as a little boy, standing on that hill next to his father, looking to the skies and never imagining he would have to leave his family for another continent with an aunt and uncle.

I could sense that the program was close to the end, and I took his hand. When it finished, we were in almost complete darkness. Calvin stood and led us towards the door.

Before he could open it, I pulled back on his hand and leaned against the wall. My other hand fell to his hip.

"Those last stars, why were they important?"

We were mostly in shadows, but I could still see his smile.

"One, the brightest, was a sky god. No one knows which one. Maybe Zeus, maybe Odin. The one closest was his daughter. She was a seamstress. The third, a little farther away, he was a shepherd. One day the seamstress and the shepherd met. He fell in love with her immediately." Calvin reached up and brushed some hair from my eyes. "She was beautiful, and talented, and so much more than he was, that the shepherd was surprised she would even talk to him. They fell in love, but the shepherd soon forgot his flock, and the seamstress forgot her sewing. The sky god grew angry and forbade them from seeing each other. Seeing how sad his daughter was, he relented and gave them one day together every year."