Pink Magic by Margaret Lee Runbeck

Author:Margaret Lee Runbeck
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction
Publisher: Distributed Proofreaders Canada
Published: 1949-07-15T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

I insisted on sleeping in the single bed that night. Horty and Corney willingly let me, because they had to go over every atom of their evening with a fine-toothed comb. Their silly girlish chatter was the last thing I wanted to hear at such a time in my life. I turned my back to them, and drew the covers close around my ears. I fully intended to stay awake all night, savoring to the full this first great emotional experience that had come to me.

But to my disgust, no sooner had I got myself settled than it was broad daylight, and the others were up bickering as usual about who should have the first shower. The second shower from our prankish Mexican plumbing is stone cold, also there is not a dry spot the size of a dime in the whole bathroom.

My blessed near-sightedness kept me in my own lovely world. Ten feet away everyone’s face became a blur, so that I didn’t have to bother with it, either to attempt to be pleasant or to snub it so that it wouldn’t break in on my privacy. My day was completely subjective.

To my surprise, I found that my painting was much better when I couldn’t see what I was doing. Señor Mariano held off one of my creations at arm’s length and said, “Now we are getting somewhere. You have not niggled, Señorita. You see the broad masses, and not the irrelevant lines.”

I remembered the story about Monet (or was it Manet?) who had painted in happy abandon all his life, only to discover when he was an old man that he had defective eyesight. Someone persuaded him to have glasses fitted. For the sake of his painting, he did. But when he put on the glasses and walked out into his beloved world, he was horrified. Everything was sharp and outlined. . . the lovely simple masses were broken up. So he took off the glasses, jumped happily on them, grinding the lenses to powder, and went on with his work unhampered.

All morning I painted, apparently absorbed in it, but my mind and my heart were carrying on a fine dialogue. I had so many things I wanted to talk about with my new friend, so many things I wanted to ask him about himself. I had no worry now about whether or not I would know how to talk with him. I could talk with him as easily as I could think by myself.

It didn’t seem at all strange to me that I could have fallen so utterly in love with him on such a brief acquaintance. It was as if I had been waiting for him all my life, and had been preparing to find him. The picture was all ready, and had been for years; all that was missing from it was his particular face, and his name for me to call him by.

I had no idea when I should see him again, but of course it would be soon.

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