Free Villa Blue by Isla Dean

really good. It’s been so routine for a while. Painting,” she explained as she shook drops of the vinegar onto the fish that was fried to a golden crisp. “It’s what fills my days here and I love it. Even when I hate it, I love it.”
    “When did you know you wanted to be an artist?”
    “I was seven.”
    “That’s specific.”
    “It is.” She picked out another fry coated with the most seasoning, dipped it in the little cup of sauce and devoured it, thinking back. “I was seven and we were at breakfast, me and my mom and dad. My sister hadn’t been born yet; she’s a lot younger than me. Anyway, we were at this restaurant in Carmel, where I grew up. The place was packed full of people and I started getting fidgety and wanted to go outside.”
    “Not much has changed.”
    “Guess not.” She drank more of her beer, still thirsty, as she considered.
    “So on my way outside, I stopped at the hostess station because I knew they had sidewalk chalk behind the register. That jumbo kind, not the chintzy little pieces that easily break.” She paused, letting the details pulse to life. “The woman in a bright pink shirt—I’ll never forget that—handed me a bucket of chalk and I headed outside and got to work. I had this whole scene drawn that spilled from the sidewalk out onto the side street—a whale and fish beneath these swirling waves, the sky’s curvy arms reaching down—it was all very fluid.”
    She swallowed the last of the beer from her glass. “It’s so strange to look back and see such a distinct style, even then.”
    He didn’t say anything, just listened. Fascinated.
    “So I heard this loud rumbling and felt the ground vibrating, so I stood back and watched as this huge monster came down the street. A street sweeper, you know with those scary spinning brushes and growling, moving parts? So this monster street sweeper comes at me and I have this moment of complete panic. Do I run out and try to stop him? But I was so short, I didn’t know if he’d see me. So I just stood there, in total horror, waiting for my creation to be demolished.
    “And at the last second, the guy in the street sweeper pulled up the brushes, drove over the scene, then put them back down on the other side and off he went. He kept going.”
    “He saved your art.”
    “He did,” she said, pleased as if it had just happened that morning. “That was the first time anyone had paid attention to my art. My parents always considered it a distraction, but not that man. That man made it important. I’ll never forget it.”
    “That’s when you knew you wanted to become an artist?”
    “I’ve always known that, I guess. That was just the day I knew I could do it. Sounds silly, doesn’t it?”
    “Not at all. I don’t think very many seven-year-olds are wise enough to experience a moment like that. An important moment is only fifty percent of the significance, awareness of it is the other fifty. That’s what my mom always told us. Most kids would’ve cried or just tossed the chalk aside and gone back to their pancakes. But not you.”
    Her brows pulled together as she watched him. What words described the feeling of having someone understand, truly understand you? Instead of searching for words, she pulled off a piece of fish and dunked it in tartar sauce then ate it.
    “Any chalk drawings on the island by Ivy Van Noten?”
    “None yet.”
    “We should change that. How long have you lived on the island?”
    “Almost a year. Wait, yes. Almost a year exactly. Funny how in some ways time flies and in other ways, this year has lasted ten years.”
    “Why’s that?” he asked as he drank from the beer that was delivered to him, keeping watch of Ivy and waiting for the story.
    She opened her mouth to respond then closed it and wagged her finger in the air. “I’ve been talking too much. I know nothing about you. It’s your turn.”
    “What do you want to know?”
    “Why are you on Parpadeo by yourself? That’s