PART FIVE

Liz had jotted off a quick note to David Peyton moments before, explaining that she was going to wait until the next morning to open his final painting, Insert Pictures Here. Then, she’d added with a devilish smile, Your pieces are far too special to open all at once.

It was a silly confession, a flirty one she knew, but she’d made it nonetheless.

And he had taken the bait heartily.

Ms Parker,

So you’re doling out the paintings to yourself now? I think I must resolve to shower you with them forever, then, if they bring you this much joy. Still waiting on the Liz/Ms. Parker answer, though. I think I very much prefer Liz…with all due respect, of course.

Yours, David

"I think I very much prefer Liz," she whispered aloud, feeling undeniably breathless as she examined the newly opened Segue to Dream. Until she unwrapped the final piece, this one would remain without its mate.

Yet even on its own, Segue to Dream was stunning. And different than David’s other paintings, at least that she’d seen. It was oddly edgier, although it was less about movement and urgency, and more about stillness. Quiet. A hush hovered over the canvas like a spirit, whispering to her.

For some reason, as she studied the work, she found herself thinking of a Sunday afternoon, the kind where you’d lie on your bed, just reading, dust motes cascading through rays of sunlight.

The colors were far more muted than in his other two paintings. There was a large gray mass--what looked to be a wall--accented by splashes of bright light and golden oranges. The contrast was what captured her. Dark and light, fantasy and reality. This one was all about juxtapositions, surprises.

And beneath the arcs of light, a man lay facedown, sleeping. He was cloaked and faceless beneath a blanket, and almost seemed to be in a cell of sorts. Liz’s gaze swept the painting’s surface again.

The gray mass, the light piercing from one corner, then the man on the cot.

The man was in prison, she realized. He was surrounded by walls, and given only the one window—a beautiful portal glimpse into ethereal light. Segue to Dream.

Was the idea that this man’s life was a prison, and his only freedom came in sleep? Or were his dreams his prison?

Liz had to walk away, the painting troubled her so.
***
She’d read about the art treasures of Pompeii in her survey course, and studied them in depth later her senior year. But it wasn’t their art that impacted her so hauntingly. It was the moment, suspended forever, a study in human kind.

A child laughing as she clasped her mother’s hand. Lovers trapped in an erotic embrace, stealing kisses throughout time.

Two perplexed figures staring upward at the sky, confusion riddling their features, eternally mesmerized by an unforeseen avalanche of lava and rock.

Sometimes these ancients appeared on the hillsides of Liz’s dreams, overshadowed by temples and ruins. Jagged pieces of sky, pasted against fluted columns, lovers in relief against cloud.

That’s what Segue to Dream reminded her of. Her own nightly frescos, painted on the gray walls of her sleeping mind.

But occasionally in her dreams, it was blackest night. Wet streets reflecting light and movement on the pavement. The city. Like now, as Liz walked through the brisk nighttime world of New York, drawing her coat close around her body. A turn off 45th Street, and there she was in the heart of Times Square, garish neon flashing.

Human bodies pressed close together, shoving past her, never meeting her gaze.

In the median, a man turned. Familiar dark head of hair, but longer. Older than he’d ever been, a face etched by slight scars. She could see the outline of his perfectly muscled arms even from where she stood, recognized the leather.

Max turned slowly toward her, smiling faintly, a beautiful warrior marred by unthinkable battles. She began waving frantically, dropping her briefcase as her mouth worked to form his name.

"Max!" she cried, as cars cut a swath between them, speeding arcs of color and sound. Hordes of people stepped among them, ever moving.

He raised a hand, scattering something into the traffic, something she couldn’t quite make out. For only a moment, she glanced down at the wet pavement of Broadway, a chiaroscuro of dark and light. Then just that quickly he’d vanished.

"Max!" she shouted again, leaping after him into the traffic. But like the night they’d danced on her balcony, and he’d twirled her in his strong arms as his bride, he was gone.

The scraps of paper fluttered in the wind, sticking to the wet pavement. Other bits floated down from the sky. She knelt in the road, determined to divine their meaning, like so many tiny Chinese fortunes.

Cars swerved, missing her with keen wailing horns, as one by one she lifted the papers from the pavement. But then they were caught by the wind, billowing upward into the neon of Times Square. She reached for them, had to know what prophetic utterances he’d left her.

She never heard a sound, was simply catapulted onto the hood of the taxi, sprawling painfully against the glass windshield. She lay on her back, breathless and aching, unable to move.

The small scraps cascaded earthward, landing in her outstretched hands. Open Your Eyes…Insert Pictures Here…Segue to Dream.

A mystery resolved. Truth fashioned together like a Warholian collage of her life.

Liz moaned softly, rolling over in bed as she glanced at the clock.

4:34 a.m.

No surprise in that, she thought, feeling her heartbeat instantly quicken. She needed to use the bathroom, but was vaguely frightened. Too afraid to confront the dark.

She’d never figured out precisely what scared her so about this nightly witching hour. Was it Max? Did she think his boundless spirit lurked in the depths of her closet, just waiting for her to pass by on her way to the bathroom? That made no sense. Max had loved her with all his heart. So why did the notion of his spirit hovering nearby paralyze her with fear?

Only at night, she reminded herself. Only when darkness draped her dreams like inky velvet, smothering her with memory.

Liz flicked on her bedside lamp. Her gaze fell on a small strip of photos inserted in her mirror. The same one that had been there for years now, though its edges had curled with age. But she reached for another set of pictures assembled in a small album on her bedside, and began thumbing through it.

A birthday present from Maria a few months earlier, it contained old photos from high school. And more recent ones of her visit to New York, when Maria had yanked her from one glamorous party to another. Finally, she’d included a few wayward pictures of Michael, his arm thrown around Liz’s shoulder, holding her surprisingly close during his opening at her gallery two years ago.

Why hadn’t she realized how intimate their pose looked? What had Maria thought, Liz wondered, tracing the photo lightly with her fingertip. Yet Maria had included the pictures in her folio album, almost as if she intended for Liz to notice something about them.

In the first one, Michael was staring at her, his soft brown eyes wide and joyous. His hand was tucked around her shoulder possessively, as if announcing to the world that Liz Parker belonged to him.

And in that picture, Liz had to admit that she didn’t mind being claimed by him. She nestled her head on his shoulder, and for once, was smiling.

She flipped a page, and her gaze fell on pictures from junior prom. Liz’s stomach tightened convulsively. Max stood beside her, awkward and stiff with his arm on her shoulder. Things had become so strained by then. He’d been so young and handsome, more innocent than he looked even just a few weeks later. How was it possible that one could age so much in only a matter of days?

Another page showed a picture of her on Max’s lap from sophomore year, before Tess had shown up. Max’s hands had slipped around her waist, as Liz leaned into his arms. She could almost smell his leather jacket, so familiar and soft, even after all those years.

Liz closed her eyes and inhaled, just remembering.

"Wake up, Lizzie," Maria had whispered in her ear a few weeks after Max left for Antar. "You’ve got to get up." Maria had found her curled up in her bed with Max’s jacket, something she’d managed to wrangle out of Isabel right after he’d disappeared in the granolith.

"Go away!" Liz cried, burying her face in the familiar leather coat again. It still smelled like him, just a trace.

Liz wasn’t even sure how much time had passed since the awful day at the pod chamber, just that she’d told her parents she was sick, and pulled the curtains shut. And slept. Day in and day out, a cocoon of dreams woven around her, she’d slept.

And the dreams had smothered her. The images had bled one into another…Future Max, Tess, Max, herself. But never any answers. No matter how long she held out her hands, they remained full of empty promises.

Maria jerked back the covers, wrenching his leather jacket from her hands. "Stop it!" Liz shouted, but Maria wouldn’t be daunted, flopping down on the bed.

"Liz, I love you, but this has to end."

"What has to end?" Liz asked, nestling her face into the down pillow.

"This death watch, or whatever the hell it is."

"Max isn’t dead," Liz countered defensively, lifting her head.

"No, Lizzie, he’s not dead. He left with Tess," she reminded her gently, leaning close into her face. "You know, the girl he slept with and knocked up."

Liz groaned, rolling onto her side again. "When I left the chamber, I didn’t think he would still go. He didn’t even tell me goodbye," she whispered into her pillow. "Or anything at all…like why."

"You may never know why."

"He loved me more than he ever cared for her…he told me so. You read his letter."

Maria curled up beside her on the bed, slipping her arm around her, slowly stroking her hair. "Liz, Max left two weeks ago. You’ve been holed up in here for almost that long. You’re going to have to live," she said with loving force.

"I can’t."

"Lizzie, Max would have wanted you to live. That’s one answer I do have."

"It’s killing me, Maria," she said and a little helpless cry escaped as she began sobbing softly. "Alex, then Max…I’m dying inside."

Liz felt like someone had thrown a dark blanket over her head, capturing her so that now she was trapped, suffocating soundlessly.

"I know, I know," Maria shushed gently. "But you’re still here and you’ve got to join the rest of us. It’s time to get out of bed and just breathe, babe."

***

The shiny knife blade flicked open easily, and Liz cut the wrapping around the final painting, Insert Pictures Here. It had haunted her all night—in her dreams, her fantasies. What would this final revelation bring?

Liz had almost sprinted the entire way to the gallery, so eager had she been with anticipation. And she felt melancholy with the knowledge that her stolen pleasures ended with this painting.

Unless David Peyton proved true to his suggestion of "showering her with paintings," a promise that had caused her pulse to skitter wildly, at the way it implied something sensual. As if paintings were the same currency as furs or diamonds--or languid kisses between two lovers on long winter nights.

Liz brushed the paper back, wide-eyed with expectation. What latest lover’s gift had David Peyton bestowed on her now, she wondered.

Paper curled away to reveal what appeared a woman’s bedroom. A mound of blankets and quilts heaped in a disheveled mass, and in the middle of the bed a woman peeked out from beneath the covers. A cloud of dark tresses spilled across her pillow, but she lay facedown, unknowable. Just as the solitary man in the companion painting had appeared on his jail cell cot.

Only this woman was a study in sensual pleasure, not surrounded by the cold masses of gray walls in Segue to Dream. Her room vibrated with color—a plum vase, a sun-dappled quilt, a splash of wild flowers by her bedside. But all through the room, on her vanity, on her walls were picture frames—and none of them held any pictures inside whatsoever. As if this faceless young woman somehow lacked the memories or experience to fill the frames. As if she herself were something of a blank slate.

Liz shivered, cocking her head to the side. Because the woman on the bed bore a striking resemblance to the raven-haired beauty in the Ms. Parker painting—and somehow, in a nearly amorphous way, the bedroom was reminiscent of her old room above the Crashdown.

***

Isabel had called her, later that very day after Max left in the granolith. They’d lingered at first on the hillside, just kicking at the rocks, discussing the inconceivable. Not only had Tess murdered Alex, but Max had left with her for reasons none of them could fathom.

And then finally, they’d all slowly scattered, each to their own homes to rest a bit. It had been several days since Liz had slept at all, and she’d collapsed onto her bed, unbelievably numb. Yet it was a familiar feeling, much like the morning of Alex’s funeral, as if some part of herself had just stopped moving. Like a clock, with its hands forever positioned at one time of day.

Sleep had come like a gauzy thing, wrapping itself around her mind, muting the voices in her head. The ringing phone had jarred her, and she’d sat upright in bed, just gazing around the room in confusion as she fumbled for it on her bedside.

Isabel’s voice had been almost unrecognizable with grief, as she’d murmured into the phone, "I have something for you, Liz. Something that Max left you."

"Okay," Liz answered, her heart clenching painfully. "I’ll be right over."

She’d walked all the way to his house, hoping to regain her equilibrium, but had only felt overcome by heat the further she strode. By the time Isabel opened the door, she was nearly faint from the beating sun, and Isabel had pulled her quickly into Max’s room.

"Our parents have no idea," Isabel whispered softly, tears glinting in her eyes. "They think he’s out running errands or something. I don’t know what to tell them."

"They’ll find the jeep," Liz suggested, sitting on the edge of Max’s bed. Everything still appeared just as he’d left it. A book was even propped open on the covers, as if he’d just set it aside moments earlier.

"I don’t understand why he left, Liz," Isabel said quietly, walking toward his closet. "Why he would have gone with her, once we knew what she’d done." Isabel stood surveying Max’s clothing, and Liz had the feeling she was hiding tears. "God, Liz, you do know how much my brother loved you, don’t you? I mean, do you have any idea?"

"He still does," Liz asserted in a small voice. She didn’t like Isabel’s use of past tense in describing Max.

Isabel reached inside his desk drawer, and withdrew a thin white envelope. "He left you a letter, Liz. I found it on his bed when I got back." Isabel extended it to her, and Liz accepted it like a sacred offering, something pristine and delicate. "I think he wrote it before we left for the pod chamber," Isabel explained.

"Thanks," Liz said, turning it over in her hand.

"My parents aren’t here, so I’ll just leave you alone in here, okay?" Isabel suggested and Liz nodded, already gingerly opening the letter.

Liz stared down at Max’s neat handwriting, at paper that now seemed little more than an artifact of their love, the words blurring with her tears. She swiped at her eyes, and began reading.

Dear Liz,

God, I hope you know what this is doing to me. How leaving you behind, when all I’ve ever wanted is you, is tearing my heart out. There was so much I should have said in the jeep earlier. I should never have let you leave without saying those things. But I was scared. Scared that I would only hurt you more, if I tried to explain that I ran to Tess because I thought...

What? I don’t even know what I thought anymore, Liz. Just that all I ever really wanted was you. And when I thought I’d lost you, I was almost crazy for a while. I swear I didn’t even feel sane, Liz. And now all I wish is that I’d pressed you harder for the truth. Asked more questions; kept my faith. Now I’ll only ever regret that I gave up on you. On us.

I’ll never know why you wanted me to believe you’d slept with Kyle, though I fear I have a theory. I think maybe you were trying to push me toward Tess all that time, weren’t you?

How could I not have seen it??

Because I’m a fool. I had the perfect love of the most perfect girl and I threw it away.

Tess is never going to be you. Not tomorrow, not ten years from now. All my life I’ll only be wishing she were you. All my life. And all my life, I’ll only be wondering what my soul mate is doing, if she’s happy. Because that’s what I want for you, Liz: to be happy.

I don’t deserve your forgiveness. I can’t even ask for it. But just know that I’d undo it all, if only given the chance. You would be the first woman I ever made love to, the mother of my first child. Because in my heart, you’ve always been first. And even when I slept with Tess, my heart wished that she were you.

Wherever it is I’m going now, whatever Antar turns out to be, I know that you’ll always be my compass. That no one can erase you from my mind because you’re written there indelibly. No matter how bad things get, I know I’ll feel you, even at the worst of it…because a part of you is inside me now, and I can’t shake that. Nothing can break that bond between us. I’m not even sure death could.

I’m not going to say I’ll come back, Liz. I can’t promise that because it wouldn’t be fair to you. All I’m going to say is that no matter where I go, no matter how long I live, I will always love you, Liz. Always.

Max

Liz sat staring at the paper for what seemed hours, just gazing at his handwriting, the last personal touch she’d ever have from him. Until Isabel finally came, and slowly helped her up off the bed, pressing Max’s leather jacket into her hands to comfort her. Until Maria came to drive her home.

Later that afternoon, she crawled in bed, just holding his jacket and reading the letter over and over. And that’s where she stayed for weeks.

***

Liz carefully hung Insert Pictures Here on the main wall of the gallery, leaving enough room for Segue to Dream right beside it. They were inverted images of the same idea. One painting represented a desolate life, yet with glimmers of hope, where as the other was of a rich, verdant one pervaded by inexplicable emptiness. Opposite sides of the same coin, the man and woman seemed to be.

Liz only wished that both paintings weren’t such a piercing reflection of her own life. That they didn’t leave her feeling as if David Peyton were able to glimpse inside her soul, delving out her heart’s most tender secrets.

Something about that idea caused her stomach to tighten with an indescribable heat. Something strangely akin to desire.

As she stared at the girl in the disheveled bed, nearly buried under a mass of brightly colored quilts, she wondered why David Peyton left her burning so. And as she reached a finger to delicately outline the brushstrokes of the man sleeping on the cot, the dark head of hair, the subtle outline of shoulder, she traced every lift of David’s brush. She stroked every swirling line, aching to know what the faceless stranger looked like.

The door chime tinkled, interrupting Liz’s reverie, and a little girl and her mother entered the gallery, holding hands. They were regulars who Liz instantly recognized. The mother dabbled in pottery, selling a few pieces on the plaza occasionally, and her tiny daughter was her constant companion.

"Good morning," Liz called brightly, swiveling in her chair.

"It’s snowing!" The little girl cried, clapping with glee. "Look," she offered, extending a mittened hand for Liz’s examination.

"Look at that," Liz agreed with a smile, as the little girl twirled in a sudden circle. Lacy flakes vanished into her pink woolen hand.

"Is that an angel, mommy?" Lelia asked, her delicate blonde eyebrows knitting in confusion, as she stopped her pirouettes in front of Open Your Eyes.

"Yes, sweetheart, it is."

"Is he going to heaven?" the little girl asked seriously. "Is that why he’s flying, mommy?"

"I think he probably is going to heaven," the mother explained with a patient smile.

"I don’t think he’s a happy angel, though."

"Why not?" Liz asked, feeling curious as she stepped closer to the little girl. "Maybe he’s happy to be going away," she suggested.

"No, happy angels would never wear black. They’d wear gold or pink. Never black."

The little girl spun in another circle, unsteady as she reached toward Liz. "Are you a happy angel?" Little Lelia laughed, gazing earnestly up at Liz. As if it were the most important question in the world.

And for some reason, Liz felt tears instantly sting her eyes.