Page 18 of Tanner

I keep trying to tell my body to tell my brain that I got the message loud and clear, and I don’t care. As much of a rebel as I’m pretending to be tonight, I’m still the rule-seeker.

The elevator door opens to a small hallway with four doors. He walks to the one on the left and unlocks it. He steps in first and flicks the lights on. They’re not very bright, just an amber hue to soothingly accent the space.

I follow him in, and he closes the door behind me, putting his keys on a nearby table.

There’s a kitchen to my right with metal cabinet doors and an island in the front. It’s not fancy, but it’s much bigger than most kitchens I’ve seen in the city.

The ceilings are high, maybe ten feet, and there are prewar moldings on the casements and doorways. The windows are large with thick black panes and no curtains.

While this looks like an apartment, it’s anything but. The normal dining room table and living room set are pushed off to the side, as if they are nowhere near as important as the canvases everywhere. Some are large; most are small. A few are the size of me. Most are painted, and there’s a stack of white ones in a corner, waiting to be created upon.

Paints, charcoals, pencils, and brushes are perfectly lined up on a long wooden table in the middle of the room. A pottery machine is in one corner, and there’s a giant sheet pinned to the wall with a spotlight pointed at it.

If I’m seeing things properly, I think there’s a bed behind a curtain that hangs from the ceiling, but I’m not quite sure.

Tanner said he liked to paint, but I would never have imagined this. Here lies a nirvana, an artist’s paradise.

An easel sits in the corner closest to a window. I walk over and take a look at the image of a woman sitting by a desk, staring off into the distance.

“Who is she?” I ask him.

He steps close behind me. “I don’t know her name, but I see her every day.” He points to the building across the street. His eyes strongly focus on that spot, as if recalling a memory. “That window, across the way. Last week, she just sat there, looking out into nothing. She seemed so sad … like she’d lost someone. Tears fell down her cheeks, and my chest tightened. I could feel her pain. It was a sad hum buzzing under my skin. I couldn’t make the feeling go away, so I did the only thing I knew to do. I grabbed the brush, and I immortalized her.”

The drawing is done in charcoal. The lines are hurried, yet I can see every worry line in the woman’s face from her frown to the pinch of her chin. Around her is an angry shading, as if he couldn’t make the page dark enough. While he was capturing the woman’s pain, it feels like he was expressing his own as well.

As dramatic as the image is, it’s absolutely stunning.

I walk over to the rows of canvases and peek through them. He likes to paint people. His talent for capturing features is impressive. Many have bright colors, bold and vibrant. Others are more soothing in blues and browns.

“Do you sell them?” I ask.

“I gift them.”

“To whom?”

“Whom?” he teases.

I lightly push him on the shoulder. “Proper grammar is kinda my thing.”

“Kinda?” He steps back to avoid getting pushed again.

I smirk as I step toward another canvas that features a man in a suit, screaming out. He has black hair and equally dark eyes. His strong jaw shows he’s young and ruggedly handsome. While everything about him is dark, his voice is portrayed in bright yellow. The stream starts in his heart, beneath the tie he wears tight around his neck, and grows thicker as it climbs up his throat.

There’s another of a woman clinging to her child, as if she is being pulled away and doesn’t want to leave. It’s heartbreaking.

Not all of his art is sad. Some images are uplifting. There’s a series of canvases on the floor, facing up. Each bears a couple in a different stage of embrace. They’re utterly romantic and mildly erotic.

Another set is a child blowing bubbles. It’s humorous and sweet.

Of all, the one that speaks to me the most is of an older woman dancing in the park. She has shades of pink and gold all around her, and the emerald trees look to be cheering her on. It makes me smile.

“I wish I could paint like this,” I say, glancing up at him.

“Have you ever tried?”

I laugh out loud. “Um, no. I have problems with stick figures. I actually hate art.”

“You hate art?” he asks, slightly stepping back.