Paint Me True Read online

  a novel

  OTHER BOOKS BY E.M. TIPPETTS

  The Shattered Castles Series

  Castles on the Sand

  Love in Darkness

  The Fairytale Series

  Someone Else’s Fairytale

  Nobody’s Damsel

  Break It Up (a spinoff starring Kyra Armijo)

  A Safe Space (a spinoff starring Lizzie Warner)

  The Hunt for the Big Bad Wolf (Coming Fall 2014)

  Standalone Novels

  Time & Eternity

  Paint Me True

  Science fiction and fantasy short stories, written as Emily Mah

  Across the Sea

  Coyote Discovers Mars

  Root

  Polar Shift

  Avatar (co-written with Ty Franck)

  Under the Needle’s Eye (an anthology edited by Emily Mah; it contains Coyote Discovers Mars and works by ten other science fiction and fantasy authors)

  for Trevor,

  I know you must love me

  because you read

  my rough drafts

  Six months isn’t a long relationship for normal people, but Len and I weren’t normal people. We were Mormons. For our kind, it was a courtship long enough to be respectable, but not so long that it looked hopeless. Six months was a terrible oversight on my part. One minute I’d agreed to go with the guy on a pity date, and now here I was, being taken on a Big Night Out by the nerdiest loser I’d ever met. What was even worse? I let him take me out on this date. Whether this was out of pity for him or myself, I couldn’t say.

  Said date was at a steakhouse. As we walked in, Len held open the heavy, wooden door for me, which had been stained dark and shellacked with a layer of varnish. Odd the details I noticed as I tried to avert my attention from him. His worn slacks, with threads that brushed the tops of his not exactly formal shoes cut a sharp contrast with the warm and luxurious interior of the restaurant. His shirt was threadbare, but he’d ironed it, at least, which meant he’d made a real effort, and he vibrated with nervousness. His gaze darted here then there, not resting anywhere for more than a second, and his fingers drummed against his leg. I’d never seen him do that before.

  “Reservation for two, Leonard Hodge,” he told the hostess.

  She ran a perfectly manicured nail down the seating chart and blinked in surprise. “Table outside? Under the awning?”

  “With the outdoor heaters.” Len nodded. It wasn’t raining at the moment, but clouds hid the late evening sun. And this was Portland, Oregon, so an awning and heaters were no doubt a permanent feature of the outdoor table.

  I didn’t even know this place had an outdoor table. It was the most expensive steakhouse in the neighborhood, not a place I dined often, but Len had said he wanted to make this evening, “Something special.”

  I’d spent almost as much time on my makeup that evening as I had on the last painting I’d done on commission. Nothing looked or felt right, so I’d washed my face and started over again and again. I didn’t want to look overdone, but I had to hide the puffiness under my gray-green eyes and my sunken cheeks from a sleepless night, and I had to draw attention away from my mouth, as I knew I’d scowl no matter how hard I tried not to. My hair was a mouse brown that wasn’t dark enough to be dramatic or light enough to be notable, but it curled just right and was easy to style. I’d pinned it up in an elegant twist.

  The waitress picked up two padded leather menus from her podium and led us through the restaurant and out the back door onto a covered porch, decorated with some potted plants and fruit trees, and a table with two chairs and two long candles burning away, shedding their muted gold light on the dark tablecloth and white china dishes.

  Len pulled out my chair for me, and I did my best to compose myself as I sat down. I smoothed my hands down my blouse and skirt, crossed my ankles, and tucked my feet under my chair.

  The hostess laid the menus in front of us and slipped back into the restaurant.

  “Sooo,” said Len. He took the seat opposite me. From the determined look in his eyes, I could see that he wasn’t going to wait until after the meal.

  I squared my shoulders. I could do this. I’d turned down proposals before from guys way better looking and more enthusiastic than Len.

  “I- look, you know how I feel about you. These last six months have been unreal, just... yeah, unreal.” Eloquent he wasn’t. “So, I think we should stop seeing each other.”

  That was a new twist. He was going to pretend to break up with me and then pop the question? I was supposed to look devastated and then really happy? I’d been planning to look uncomfortable and politely upset, but he’d thrown me off. I laid my wrists on the table and waited for him to continue.

  “That’s all,” he said. “Figured we could have one last meal together and make it a nice one. I mean, thank you for the last six months. That was cool, but it’s time to put you out of your misery, you know?”

  In the silence that followed, I heard one of the outdoor heaters go tick-tick-tick, as the metal expanded with the heat. A soft breeze stirred the leaves of the plants.

  Len covered his face with his hands for a moment, then pumped his fist in the air. “Yes! I did it. I mean... sorry, I don’t mean to be a jerk. Really, I know it’s gotta hurt your pride to be dumped by me, but better than the alternative, right? Look, order whatever you want. You deserve it. You just got broken up with. If you need a filet mignon to deal with it, be my guest.” He gestured at my menu.

  All of his nervousness had evaporated and now he grinned a goofy grin. “It’s okay to look happy,” he said. “I mean, come on. You and me? That never made sense, though it was cool to be that guy for a while, you know? The guy who got to date you.” He flipped open his menu and perused the contents.

  I looked down at my hands and saw they were shaking. A lump rose in my throat.

  “Whoa, what’s wrong?” he said. “You didn’t want this to go another way, did you?”

  I shook my head, which wasn’t the nicest thing to do, but he was being honest with me, so I returned the favor. “No,” I said. I dabbed my eyes with the corner of my napkin. “Sorry. You just surprised me.”

  “I surprised me too.” He grinned again. “I mean, not that I didn’t plan this. I just wondered if I’d chicken out at the last minute. But look, I am sorry, okay? What do you need? Prime rib? Top sirloin? Extra chocolate on your dessert? Or are you meeting up with your friends for dessert so that you can all gossip about how you almost bit the bullet?”

  “What?” That came out before I could think.

  “Hey, it’s nice of you to look all surprised, like you don’t know what I’m talking about, but gimme a break. An hour from now you’ll be in the ice cream parlor gossiping with Hattie about this whole evening.”

  “No,” I spluttered. Len was a guy. He wasn’t supposed to intuit things like that. He was supposed to be clueless and loyal and enamored with me.

  “Don’t lie,” said Len.

  “It’s in ninety minutes,” I confessed.

  “Wow, you must’ve thought I was gonna hire some musicians or something-”

  “No.” That idea now felt absurd, that he’d make some extra effort.

  “It’ll give you time to eat dessert here and there, though. I think you’re entitled.”

  A tear spotted the tablecloth in front of me. I dabbed at my eyes again with my napkin.

  Len stopped smirking and stared. “I’m sorry. You all right? I know this is a real low point for you. I wasn’t sure how to do it. I mean, over the phone is too mean and I knew I’d never get the nerve up to do it on a date unless I prepared so... I did this.” He had the palest blue eyes. Those and his sandy blond hair made him a pretty decent looking guy, if only he’d get a haircut n
ow and then. It wasn’t scruffy kind of long – even that might’ve worked on him. It was “I’m-too-cheap-to-get-regular-haircuts” kind of long, and his shirt was even more worn than I’d noted before. There were holes in the breast pocket. I wondered how many years he’d had it. “E-li-za,” he singsonged my name. “You know you’re happy about this. It’s okay. The waterworks were real nice of you, but enough. I’m flattered. Let’s eat steak.”

  Now he was teasing me? I covered my face with my hands.

  Len fell silent.

  I did my best to compose myself. For a moment I toyed with the idea of making a beeline for the bathroom, but if I did that, everyone inside the restaurant would know I’d been humiliated. I didn’t need to make this moment public. I wondered what was over the fence behind the ornamental fruit trees, and for an insane moment I pictured myself trying to vault it. In a skirt.

  Len still stared at me. It was mortifying. “So... did I at least make this date memorable for you?”

  How to answer such a stupid question? “Yeah,” I whispered.

  “Score.” He said it tentatively. No laughter. “Do you want me to take you home?”

  “Can we not go through the restaurant?”

  “Liza, I’m really sorry. I thought you’d be happy and relieved. Seriously, that’s what I wanted. But I guess I screwed this up too.”

  I made myself take a deep breath, then another, the cool air flushing all of the quivering sadness out of my chest. I could look him in the eye now.

  He really did look contrite, and he began to fidget, moving the silverware around on his side of the table as if it wasn’t laid out perfectly to begin with.

  I considered my options. We could leave. I could ask him to drive me home and say goodbye to him and have that be that. We could stay, and eat steak in an uneasy silence and I could make him pay, financially, for all this nonsense. The former option seemed like the obvious one. I ought to storm out of this situation and rake him over the coals. It’s what I always did when a guy treated me badly.

  But even just the prospect of having a fight wore me out. I wasn’t sure I could sustain the drama for the entire drive home, and if I could, then what? I’d have to be huffy to him at church, maybe? Whisper about him to my friends? Ten years ago, that would’ve been easy. I’d have done it without thinking. Now though...

  “Look,” he said, “you sure you don’t just want to have some steak and that can be that?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “All right.”

  “He did what?” Hattie still stood, her light jacket half off and half on.

  The ice cream parlor was empty except for us. Most people weren’t crazy enough to eat ice cream on a chill night like this. It had begun to rain, not heavily, but enough to make the air that gusted in the door smell sweet.

  “Look, that’s not the worse part,” I said.

  “You got dumped by Len, and that’s not the worst part? What did you do? Propose to him?”

  “No, I-”

  “Did you beg him to take you back?”

  “No. Um-”

  “Did you run into the restaurant with your eye makeup all smudged from crying?”

  “No-”

  “Did you-”

  “Stop. Let me talk, okay? It’s not anything that happened tonight. The worst part is...”

  Hattie tugged her jacket the rest of the way off, sat down across from me, and leaned in as if drawn by a magnet.

  The words were stuck in my throat. I couldn’t look my friend in the eye.

  “Do you have cancer?”

  “No.”

  “Pre-cancerous-”

  “No.”

  “Did another relative die?”

  “No.”

  “Is your dad getting divorced and your step mom about to throw you out of her old house?”

  I shook my head.

  “She going to charge you rent?”

  “No.”

  “Your last painting got rejected?”

  “No.”

  “The Church is going to ex-communicate you for your subversive art?”

  “No.”

  “You’re pregnant with Len’s baby?”

  “No.”

  “You’re pregnant with someone else’s baby?”

  “No.”

  “You registered as a Democrat?”

  “No-”

  “You’ve decided you’re a lesbian?”

  “No, just-”

  “You voted for Obama?”

  “Stop!”

  “Look, I love you, but if you join the liberals, our friendship is over.”

  “I did not join ‘the liberals’.” I made air quotes. “So spare me the lecture about Obama being the antichrist.”

  “An antichrist, not the antichrist. The scriptures say-”

  “I’m thirty.” There. I’d said it. “And nine months.” Three months away from the dreaded age of thirty-one, when I would be too old to go to church in the singles ward. My records would be sent to a regular old family ward full of married couples and children.

  Hattie sat back, then grinned as if she’d won a bet. “I knew it!”

  “You did?”

  “Well, I knew there was some reason you were dating my loser cousin.”

  Yes, that was another detail. Hattie and Len’s mothers were sisters. She had his same pale blue eyes, though there the aesthetic similarity ended. While he was rail thin and all angles, Hattie was all contours. Full cheeks, a graceful curve to the neck, hands with short fingers that always rested closed, little fists even when she was relaxed. Her hair was light brown and cascaded down her back in gleaming waves.

  I raked my hair back from my face with my nails and then stared miserably down at my hands.

  “It’s not too late,” said Hattie.

  “I’m not gonna find my soulmate in three months, and please-” I held up one hand “-don’t tell me some story from the pioneer days about an ancestor of yours who met someone and got married in five days or something.”

  Hattie smirked at me. That was something else she and Len had in common, the ability to laugh without making a sound. A dimpled cheek and twinkling eyes said it all. “You can still date even when you’re out of the Church’s young single adult program. It’s allowed, you know? And so what if you can’t come to the singles ward? You’ll be that exotic girl the guys don’t see every Sunday. You can totally make this work for you.”

  “Hey,” said the guy behind the counter. “Your sundaes are ready.”

  Hattie made a pushing gesture to keep me in my seat and went to get them. Once she’d returned, she slid mine and a spoon across the table and said, “Your age isn’t why you’re single. It’s the fact that you settled. You have to stop doing that.”

  The truth was the last thing I needed to hear at the moment. I wanted more sympathy first. My first spoonful of ice cream was the perfect grace note to a symphony of good eating that night. Sweet strawberries and the non-low fat ice cream.

  “Seriously,” said Hattie, “you’re gorgeous. I bet you’ve been proposed to at least three times.”

  I swallowed. “Five. But I lived in Utah before. People propose on the first date there.”

  “How many non-first date proposals, then?”

  “Well, five.” I hadn’t counted the time Ryan had proposed on April Fool’s day, or Andrew’s proposal at the airport when I arrived home from a trip. I’d assumed that one was a joke too, since he was dating my friend, but he never did speak to me again after I cracked up laughing, pranced around with the ring on my finger, and then pretended to punch him in the face with my left hand.

  “So see? You’re in demand. You need to remember that.”

  “You’re one to talk,” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You agreed to go out with Mike when his friend asked you out on his behalf, and then had to go convince him to follow through. Talk about undervaluing yourself. You shouldn’t date a guy who isn’t clearly interested in you.”r />
  “Mike was interested. He likes me.”

  “Not interested enough to ask you out himself.” I knew I was being cruel. Hattie had been infatuated with Mike for years and had leapt at the chance to date him. Still, truth was truth. “Listen, you don’t date a guy who doesn’t ask you out himself, and who can take no for an answer. You want a guy who adores you. Who thinks you’re the most amazing person ever.”

  “So, what, a guy who keeps asking you out even when you say no?”

  “Yes. He needs to show commitment. I used to require that guys ask me out at least three times before I’d consider saying yes.”

  “Fine,” said Hattie. She reached into her purse and pulled out a little notebook and pen. “Rule One, guy has to ask you out three times and still act interested. Len wouldn’t have passed that test.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m writing you a list of things you need to remember for next time.”

  “I don’t need a list.”

  “You were dating Len. What’s Rule Two, then?”

  “I don’t do rules.”

  “Guidelines, then. Suggested practices.”

  I shook my head and focused on my ice cream.

  “He has to be in your same political party,” said Hattie.

  “No,” I snapped. “Maybe for you they do, but not everyone’s even into politics.”

  “Then name another Rule. What’s something else my cousin did wrong?”

  I ignored that prompt and instead thought about her and Mike. “Remember how Mike forgot your birthday?”

  “He didn’t forget-”

  “He did. And when someone reminded him, he got you a gift certificate to McDonald’s?”

  “It was a gag gift.”

  “I don’t see how that’s even funny. You need a guy who can give good gifts, who stops to think about it, who really wants to make you happy. I mean, even if he can’t think of something creative, he can at least buy you flowers.”

  “He gave me flowers.”

  “He gave you a half wilted bouquet from the grocery store. I’m talking real flowers, from a florist. The kind that can run fifty bucks or more.”