Free Picture Imperfect by Nicola Yeager

Danny is
also the sort, I suspect, to try and impress his mates by getting them ‘fixed
up’ with some bikinied beauty, so they’d be in his debt forever.
    If Danny left Mark alone, Mark could wind up being the
only company for the two girls, whose names I’ve already forgotten. Was one of
them Margaret? Margot? Yes, Margot. That was it. And the other one? It’s gone completely.
Margot was pretty attractive, though.
    I realise that I’m clenching my teeth together and
pursing my lips angrily as I think about this. Damn it! I just can’t stop
thinking about Mark on this fucking holiday! No matter what I think or do, I
just can’t put it out of my mind. I can’t stop it putting me in a bad mood.
Damn you, Mark. You are ruining my week. In fact, I can’t remember a worse week
since I started going out with him.
    I remember the effect that the two paintings had on me
last night when I put them next to each other. Often, when you get that sort of
feeling from your own work, you take a look at them the next day and all the
power you thought you’d achieved has gone. It was all in your mind and the
painting just looks at you, mentally transmitting a message like ‘Ha! You
thought we were really good, didn’t you! Now look at us, you deluded,
talentless bitch!’
    With a little fear in my heart, I turn the hall lights
on and take a look. The paint has dried a little, so it doesn’t look exactly
the same as last night, but the impact is still there. I now get the familiar
‘is it good or is it bad’ feeling rising up, so I turn the hall lights off and
go back into the kitchen to make another coffee.
    Just as I’m sitting down and thumbing through an eight
month old copy of Vogue, the doorbell rings. I look at my watch – it’s only
8.17! Who the hell…?
    I spill my coffee as I get up. Surely it can’t be Rhoda
this early? Is it Mark? Has he come back after a couple of days because he
couldn’t stand it and missed me terribly? Will he be out there with his bags,
begging my forgiveness?
    I look through the peephole in the door. It’s Rhoda, of
course. Anyway, Mark has a key.
    It seems like she’s in the flat before I’ve even opened
the door properly. She breezes past me and the canvases straight into the
kitchen. I’m left standing in a cloud of spicy, sensuous perfume that leaves
the air sparkling with sage and jasmine. I don’t know where she’s come from and
she isn’t wearing a coat.
    ‘Any coffee on the go?’ She
looks around the kitchen and spots the coffee maker, pouring some into the cup
I’d just been drinking from. Her eyes roll up into her head as she takes the
first sip. ‘Coffee is better than sex and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.’
    Maybe she doesn’t have such a good time with her young
men after all. I’m amazed to find that she’s so glammed up at this time of day.
She looks around the kitchen with an expression of bafflement on her face.
    ‘Have I been in here before?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Thought so. What is this?
What is this on the mug?’
    ‘It’s Patrick from Spongebob .’
    ‘Mm.’
    ‘I didn’t realise you were out and about so early.’
    ‘Haven’t been to bed yet, my sweet. I’m still up from last night. As far as I’m concerned, it’s still Tuesday. I
was with Kevin last night, well I’m telling you ‘Kevin’ like you’d know who
that is but you don’t know who I’m talking about do you and why should you?’
    ‘New boyfriend?’
    ‘I suppose he is. But ‘boyfriend’ is such a stupid term
for the whole thing isn’t it. It’s as if you’re hanging around with some six
year old child or something. Hello everybody this is my boyfriend Peter, he’s
just started school, isn’t he a sweet little thing? How tall are you now,
Peter? Anyway, Kevin is a post graduate student in some university or other.
He’s actually twenty-five which is a nice change. Handsome like you wouldn’t
believe. I mean really wouldn’t believe. I bumped into him in