Page 19 of Memories of the Lost

Tillie surfaced from painting with a sense of awakening. She stood in front of her easel, but it was not the gazelle girl she’d started with.

It was the giant cat from her dream, who in turn had come from the painting at the gallery. She’d drawn him with oil sticks in deep indigo and amber, with long, long whiskers and pale blue eyes. Wise eyes, wise and kind, knowing. Human eyes but ... not.

Her hands were covered with color, which happened with the oil sticks, but usually, she pulled on latex gloves. Not this time. Her arms were smeared with layer upon layer of color, up to her elbows.

At her feet were scattered multiple drawings of him, in many poses. They were tossed carelessly on the floor, one after the other. Tillie squatted and picked up a few of them. This one just his face, his nose as big as a building; a pose with him asleep, tail tucked over his paws. Always the bandit stripes.

She had no memory of drawing these pieces. The place where the memory should have been was as blank as if she’d had anesthesia. She frowned in confusion.

How many drawings had she made? She picked them up and stacked them in a tidy pile, counting.

Sixteen.

Her heart raced erratically.

An urgent need to pee suddenly overtook her, and of course, the buzzer rang from below. Dumping the drawings on the big table in the center of the room, she dashed over to the wall, pressed the intercom. “You can leave packages with the super.”

“It’s Liam,” he said.

Liam.She looked down at herself, then at the room, but honestly, she had to pee before anything else. For one second, she considered sending him away, but her gut sent up such a huge roar of resistance that she said, “Come on up.”

She buzzed him in, then dashed for the bathroom. In the mirror, she saw that she was a complete mess, hair yanked back into an erratic ponytail, smears of turquoise over her cheekbone and neck. Her hands would need serious scrubbing.

There was nothing she could do in the three minutes it took for him to get to the top of the stairs. Before she got out of the bathroom, he was knocking playfully on her door:tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

“Coming!” she called, and looked around wildly for one thing she could do to make herself or her world more presentable.

There was nothing. She yanked the door open. “Welcome to the madness,” she said, gesturing broadly for him to enter. “Sorry. I lost track of time.”

He looked quite different. Cleaned up, as if he’d come from some hip, posh job. His hair was brushed back from his face and secured, and the scruffy five-o’clock shadow was gone. The shirt was high-end linen, patterned in light purple, and although he wore jeans, they were similarly expensive. She blinked. “Wow. You look fabulous.”

“My disguise,” he joked. “Looks like you’ve been hard at work.”

A stab of terror bolted through her chest—how did she losehours?—but she recovered. “Afraid you caught me as myself.”

“I like it.” His voice, as smooth and resonant as a long chord on a cello, worked through her skin, landed in her blood.

He waited outside the door, hands in his back pockets. “Sorry, come in,” she said, flustered. “Sit down. Let me get you a beer—no, I don’t have any. Um, how about coffee, or maybe—”

He closed the distance between them, hands landing on her arms above the elbows. “I’ve caught you at a bad time. Do you want to keep working?”

The scent of him filled her head, lime and clove and the promise of sex.

What shewantedwas to lean in and wrap her messy arms around him, make imprints of her color-smeared breasts on that beautiful shirt, but instead, she took a breath. Shook her head. “I’m actually starving.”

“Me, too.”

“Uh ...” She spread out her hands. “Ihaveto shower. Help yourself to something to drink. Bubbly water or—” She shook her head. “That might be it.”

“Truly, I don’t need anything.” He sounded like he meant it. “Take your time.”

It was a little odd that he just settled in the big chair so easily and took out his phone, turning on the lamp, which cast a warm yellow light over him.

As if he belonged there.

As she scrubbed the layers of oil color from her body, Tillie tried not to think about the lost time, but the mess itself was part of the strangeness. Oil colors could stain the skin, and she did what she could to protect herself from them: gloves, long sleeves, a mask. She hadn’t done so this time.

She didn’t remember shifting from the charcoals she used to draw the gazelle girl to oil sticks. Didn’t remember tossing drawing after drawing to the floor. Didn’t remember any of it.