Page 85 of All That We Never Were

“I don’t know yet.”

“How can you not know?”

“Because I just…I just let myself go.”

“I don’t get it,” he whispered, looking at the aimless lines I was tracing out slowly, just thinking about how nice it was to move the paint, mix it, feel it. He crossed his arms in frustration. “How do you do it, Leah?”

“It’s abstract. There’s no secret.”

Axel rubbed his chin and, for the first time, he seemed not to like what he saw. I don’t think it was the image; I think it was his own hang-up, because he couldn’t understand himself. I stayed there painting awhile longer, with no limitations and no aims, just doing it and enjoying the sundown and the darkness spreading across the sky. When the crickets started chirping, I cleaned my brushes and went inside to help him with dinner.

We prepared it side by side. A casserole of potatoes, soy, and cheese, one of Axel’s favorite dishes. We ate sitting at the surfboard-shaped table in the living room, talking now and then about pointless stuff, like how the cat had come by that afternoon or what we needed to buy at the store that week.

I took away the plates while he made tea.

That night, instead of going out onto the porch as we usually did, Axel sat on the floor in front of the record player and pulled out a big pile of records. I sat down next to him, cross-legged and barefoot like him.

He set a few records aside, then smiled. “This is the best cover in the world.”

He picked it up so I could see it, and I gulped when I saw the color illustration of the four members of the group standing over the title printed in yellow: The Beatles Yellow Submarine.

Axel put it on, and as the childish rhythms began, the voice amid the sound of waves, he tapped his fingers. He smiled, entertained me, and sang part of the chorus, not knowing what that song meant for me, that every time I heard, “We all live in a yellow submarine,” it was an I love you that got caught in my throat.

It felt like my heart was going to leap out of my chest, but I couldn’t help laughing when he lay on the floor, still belting out the chorus.

“You’re a god-awful singer, Axel.”

He was still smiling when I lay back on the floor. He turned his head toward me. We were so close that his breath tickled me. His eyes descended to my lips and remained staring at them a few tense seconds. He sat up quickly and looked back through his records, showing me one.

“Abbey Road?” he asked.

“No! Not that one! It’s…”

“It’s my favorite.”

I looked with new eyes at the mythical cover where the Beatles appeared on a crosswalk. I loved it too, but track number seven…I hadn’t listened to it again, and I didn’t want to, not then and not ever. I always skipped it, always. Finally I nodded, saying it was fine, and “Come Together” filled the living room, followed by “Something.”

We chatted for a while, lying there close to each other. I was fascinated as he talked about Paul Gauguin, one of his favorite painters, with his synthetic style and his swaths of color. His masterpiece was Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? and he painted it just before attempting suicide. He also liked Vincent van Gogh, and while “Oh! Darling” was playing, he fooled around and sang, and I realized that neither of those artists had achieved success while alive and that madness had united them.

“What about you? Who do you like?” Axel asked.

“There’s just so many.”

“Come on, name one.”

“Monet transmits something special to me, and there’s a phrase of his I love.”

“What?”

“‘For me, the motif is something completely secondary. What I want to represent is what exists between the motif and me,’” I recited from memory.

“A nice phrase.”

“But you always want to know the motif! You spend the whole time going, ‘Leah, what does that mean?’” I imitated his gravely voice. “‘What’s this red dot here? Why did you do that line?’”

“I can’t help it; I’m curious.”

I didn’t reply. I was relaxed, my eyes focusing on the wooden beams in the ceiling, thinking how perfect it was to be by his side, to spend a Saturday by the sea, painting, listening to music, cooking together, doing whatever we felt like… I wanted it to last forever.

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