Page 23 of Ace of Hearts

Oh. I get it now. My smile completely disappears. I knew she wouldn’t let the subject drop. Rose isn’t the type to ignore things or pretend they don’t exist. She meets them head on.

I reply casually, “Gray.”

“OK. Mine are brown. Chocolate brown, I’d say.”

I nod, but my heart beats a little faster.

I’ve been longing to know what color her eyes are!

I could never have asked Thomas—he’d have taken my question the wrong way.

Brown ... Chocolate, to be precise. Chocolate, but which kind?

Now that I think of it, they do look the same shade as dark chocolate. Like my morning coffee.

“What are you driving at, Rose?”

“Nothing. I just want to talk about it.”

“It’s not a big deal, this thing with colors. You can see that for yourself.”

She gives me a piercing look, refusing to back down. “You don’t have to lie. Not to me. You shouldn’t be ashamed either.”

This time, anger rises inside me. Why is she poking her nose into this? I didn’t ask her to. I’ve gotten by perfectly well without her interference. “You think I’m ashamed of it?”

“Aren’t you?”

“No,” I say curtly.

I used to be ashamed when I was young, because other children kept reminding me of it; adults too.

The whole world kept reminding me I couldn’t see things the proper way.

I couldn’t understand why I was the one with the problem.

Why was my world the wrong one, not theirs?

Was it just because there were more of them?

I rejected their reality. In time, I learned not to give a damn.

“Why hide it, then?” she asks.

“Because until I’ve beaten Tito, he’ll use my weaknesses against me. Also, I don’t want to be treated differently, like you’re treating me now.”

“But you are different. You’d do better to accept it.”

With that, she grabs my laptop bag, shoves it toward me, and opens her car door. I hesitate but then join her on the pavement, maintaining a resolute silence.

Her interrogation continues as we walk. “Is it that you can’t tell the difference between colors, or that you can’t see them at all?”

I give a deep sigh and resign myself to the conversation. She’s already guessed most of it anyway. “I don’t see them. My world is made up of shades of gray, from white to black. At least, that’s what I was told when I was four.”

“Like an old film, then,” she says with a slight smile.

“I guess so. All films look the same to me.”

After a few seconds, she says, “Yesterday, I asked you what your passion is—remember? Well, mine is painting. I’ve always painted, ever since I was little—mainly abstract.

And almost always self-portraits. It sounds very narcissistic when I say it like that.

” She laughs softly. “But I can’t manage to draw anyone else. I don’t even understand myself.”

I suddenly wish I could see her paintings. I’d like to give her a canvas and spend a whole day watching her work. I ask her why she didn’t study art.

“I didn’t think my work would stand up against the rest.”

We stop in front of a boutique. Rose pushes the door open and lets me go in ahead of her.

As I look around the room, my fake fiancée informs me she made an appointment for us earlier this morning.

The woman in charge asks us to follow her, then leads us into a room behind the shop and down a narrow spiral staircase.

We step out into a large, light, air-conditioned room, where several people are already gathered.

“You can choose a spot wherever you like,” says the woman in a southern accent I find almost impossible to understand. “The teacher will be here right away.”

I suddenly realize what’s going on. My eyes take in blank canvases on easels, tubes of paint, and a platform in the middle of the circle.

All of a sudden, my arms are covered in goose bumps. People are looking at us, smiling shyly, and I feel an urge to run away as fast as I can. I’m about to turn around when Rose’s hand takes mine. I want to shake her off, but she holds on tighter.

“I want to leave.”

“It’s only for an hour,” she says, looking pleadingly at me. “Please, give it a try. For me.”

“Why should I do it for you when you’ve tricked me?”

My tone is more cutting than I meant it to be, but I can’t help it.

Why has she brought me here? To mock me?

Torture me? Because it feels a lot like that.

I’m surrounded by works of art, but I can’t appreciate their true beauty.

I examine the tubes of paint in front of me, unable to know what they hold.

“It’s not a punishment, Levi,” she counters quietly. “I can’t possibly imagine what it’s like not being able to see the world as others do. I’m sure a lot of people have told you that you can’t paint. But you know what will never judge you? Art.”

I calm down a little, but my teeth are still clenched. She looks at me without blinking, very serious. Her hand warms mine.

“In art, anything’s possible. Everything’s subjective.

In painting, colors don’t matter. Who cares if they don’t go together?

The important thing is what you put into your work.

What you bring to it. In the end, somebody will see themselves in it, and that will touch them so much that they won’t be able to see anything else. ”

It’s a nice speech, but I’m still not convinced. I’ve already tried, but attempting to use colors only increases my misery, because doing things other people do makes me hope I can be like them. See what they see. Then I remember I’ll never be able to, no matter what I do.

“That’s why you gave up photography, isn’t it?” she asks.

I sigh, feeling uncomfortable. “When I was ten, I told my father I wanted to be a photographer. He burst out laughing as though it were a joke, then said, ‘That’s not for you.’ And he was right.”

“Rubbish. A photographer captures moments and emotions, not just colors. It’s the same with painting.

” Then she asks, “Do you know Jay Lonewolf Morales? He’s a famous American painter, but he has achromatopsia, like you.

I just want you to ... try something different.

Instead of trying to see colors, why not try to feel them? ”

I look at her, drinking her in for several seconds, and my heart beats faster. I hate what she does to me. I love what she does to me.

“OK.”

That’s all I manage to say. The teacher arrives, and we take our places in front of our easels. I look at the brushes and tubes of paint like they’re an army ready to fight me, as the teacher explains how the hour will go.

He arranges objects on a table on the platform: a tray of grapes next to a vase, flowers, and a glass half-full of wine.

I spend a good ten minutes just thinking. Rose whispers to me, telling me not to think about the colors, and to get started. But I’m lost. What if I use orange to paint the grapes, when I know in theory that they’re green?

“Don’t overthink it.”

I follow her advice, a little timidly at first, and force myself to begin. I’m grateful to her for not trying to steal a glance at what I’m doing, and for giving me the privacy I need.

I choose a tube that looks as though it could be the same as the grapes in front of me—a light gray to me, but not too light. Obviously, I’m working completely at random. I have no idea how to draw.

“You can do something abstract if you prefer,” says Rose. “That’s what I’m doing.”

I glance enviously at her canvas. It’s true that she’s departed a long way from the still life in front of us. The colors are mixed up wildly. It’s wonderful. How could she have ever thought her work wouldn’t stand up against others’ work?

I decide to follow her example and let inspiration guide me.

The more time that passes, the more I let myself go.

I stop worrying about the colors I’m using and focus instead on the shapes, the lines, and the spots I make with my fingertips.

I feel energized by adrenaline and by the urge to create something, to express my feelings on canvas.

Suddenly, Rose daubs a line of paint onto the back of my hand with her finger. I look at her in surprise. She smiles, tilts her chin up at me, and whispers, “That’s the color of my cheeks when I blush. I thought you might like to know.”

I swallow, struggling to keep my face expressionless. I’d rather she didn’t see how much I want to smile right now. I glance down at my hand and take in the color, nodding absently.

I’ll try to remember that. Eventually, I smudge some of the paint onto my thumb and dab it gently onto her cheeks. She lets me do it without objecting, her eyes gazing into mine. When I’ve finished, I pull back to look at her.

I may not see colors, but I’m not blind. She’s ...

“Stunning,” I say. I imagine her blushing again and laugh quietly.

The hour passes quickly. I contemplate my work with a mixture of pride and wonder. I never thought I could do something like that. I have no idea if the colors work well together, but I don’t care. I don’t even want to know. I like what I’ve done.

“I love it,” Rose says, smiling too. “It’s very you.”

“Yours isn’t bad either.”

That’s an understatement. She thanks me, although I don’t think she shares my opinion. We take the canvases back to the car with us. Rose asks me if I want to drive, but I finally admit I’m not allowed.

“Oh, of course. I should’ve realized.”

We drive back to the hotel in peaceful silence. I’d never admit it, but this little outing has done me a world of good. For the first time since we arrived in Las Vegas, I’ve thought about something other than poker or Tito.

Walking into the suite, I feel like a little boy eager to show off his messy drawings to his mother. Thomas has to see this!

“Also ...,” says Rose as I’m closing the door behind us. “Do you want to talk about what happened last night?”

“Not really, no.” I keep walking toward my room, bag in hand, but she grabs it and puts it on the kitchen counter behind me.

“I do.”

“And since when do I have to do what Rose Alfieri tells me?” I joke, putting my hands in my pockets.

She comes dangerously close, taking me by surprise. Why does what happened mean so much to her? It’s none of her business.

“I hate secrets, Levi.”

“Oh, and you haven’t got any of your own, I suppose?”

She doesn’t bat an eyelid. I appreciate what she did for me yesterday, and what she’s done today. But she isn’t my mother, or my girlfriend. This isn’t her place.

“I don’t owe you anything. Now, let me past.”

“Not today.”

I’m about to turn around and pick up my bag, but she suddenly grabs my shirt and pulls me toward her, and urgently presses her lips against mine.