Faces & Colors

I.

Isabella peeked through the plastic blinds beside her bed, squinting her eyes at the blinding white world confronting her. Snow mingled with the city street outside, each speck of pavement and loose piece of trash slowly began to disappear. Quickly grabbing her Polaroid, she captured the blanketing snow. The photograph developed. The emerging brightness showed that not a soul had made a track yet, and she didn’t want to be the first to disrupt the perfection.

She collapsed back into the warmth of her bed, pulling her oriental printed comforter up over he head, her feathery brown hair tickling her cheeks. Isabella conducted a silent plea to the universe that her 3-hour art studio would be cancelled this morning.

She sighed, louder than anticipated, and her roommate Olivia came barging in asking, “What’s wrong?” You could hear everything in their tiny, shabby apartment.

“Nothing, I’m just ready to go home.” Isabella gave her best smile. She had mastered the art of faking a smile when she needed to. She knew how to get by despite the immense weight of her overworking mind. Isabella did just fine.

“Me too. Oh by the way, let me know when you need a ride to the bus station tomorrow!” Olivia replied with her usual toothy grin and a quirky wink. She softly shut the door, not pausing once to take her twirling finger out of her blonde curls.

Isabella breathed in the scratchy embroidered comforter beneath her nose. The scent of her apartment mixed with an unfamiliar aroma embedded in the fabric, one she was sure belonged to the previous owner. She was pretty sure her name was Bina, that’s what her dad said anyways.

Bina used to live in their old neighborhood outside of Boston, until she died last summer. Isabella had never met her formally though, Bina kept to herself. She was distant, so far away and unknown that she would forever remain a mystery to Isabella. No one really knows how she died, but Mr. Powell next door reported hearing bottles smashing one night, and then the police found her body in the kitchen after no one responded to their urgent knocks.

Isabella remembered reading the police report. It was a hazy memory now. She had always had a hard time grasping death. Isabella’s biggest fear was time, and wondering if she’d ever become something her parents could be proud of in her lifetime. She looked around her room from under her cocoon of a bed, trying to make meaning of the stacks of old books she stole from her dad, and the piles of clothes, and wall decorations. She wanted to find beauty. Something she could hold on to. Something to keep her going.

They said Bina’s body was unharmed except for scrapes from broken glass. But the kitchen was a mess, and they just assumed she passed from the amount of alcohol she drank, or old age, or something. Isabella remembered feeling the tragedy from Bina’s obituary, “a former single mother”, “one of the greatest artists of her time”. Isabella couldn’t help but feel like what she knew of Bina’s life screamed wasted potential, it was like looking at her future in some distorted mirror.

Bina’s family lived in India apparently, so she was alone in the suburbs of Massachusetts among the L.L. Bean catalogue obsessed families with golden retrievers and expensive SUVs. A place Isabella thought was odd for an older Indian woman with no family, but some people just try to fit in in the wrong places.

There was an estate sale a couple days after she died, and the neighborhood got first come first serve. Isabella’s dad went in with practical blinders on and got functional things – cups, plates, cutlery, bedding and small furniture – things they could put in the new Boston apartment her parents moved to recently. But most of it ended up with Isabella, the comforter on her bed, the kitchenware in her apartment, the old world map hanging above her desk. It kind of freaked Isabella out to be using someone else’s stuff, but her dad was more frugal than the scrooge and that was that. She could live with the mysterious history behind Bina’s – now Isabella’s things.

Isabella could hear the sputtering of the ancient coffee maker muffled by her bedroom door – another belonging of Bina’s – which surprisingly worked better than any other cheap coffee maker her parents have gotten before. Olivia must have made coffee. The rich aroma seeped under her door. That would get Isabella out of bed, despite every fiber in her being wanting to stay in bed and watch the snow fall.

*       *       *

Isabella took a cab to her parents’ apartment from South Station, her eyes strained from gazing out the window at the passing skyscrapers. Normally she’d walk and enjoy the views, but her hefty duffel bag killed that daydream. She loved this city from any angle.

Olivia had dropped her off at 34^th street earlier that afternoon, blasting “All I Want For Christmas” by Mariah Carey, Isabella couldn’t help but sing along. That excitement was quickly diminished by the hours of bus delays because of the ongoing snowstorm, she didn’t arrive until 7PM in Boston. What made the traveling bearable was that she was able to draw a sketch of an old couple embracing at the bus station and leave it on their luggage when they weren’t looking. She longed for that kind of love, the comforting repetition of someday is what kept her hopeful.

Drawing strangers was one of her favorite things to do, she drew on napkins in restaurants and coffee cups at work to pass the time and she’d leave them for people to find, never revealing that she was the artist. An unfamiliar face was her muse, and her mysteriousness fed her curiosity.

The cab slowed to a stop outside the apartment. She dug through her brown leather tote and scraped up enough cash from the coffee shop she worked at to pay for it, and hoped that the driver wouldn’t mind being bombarded with a plethora of ones. Garland was wrapped around the railings and twinkling lights adorned the doorframe. Her mom must’ve decorated just for her, she thought. She knew how much Isabella loved Christmas. Or at least she used to when Santa was still real and reindeer still ate the frosted sugar cookies and carrot sticks. But it was still magical, and she had hope that this Christmas would be a good one. Isabella needed a break from NYU. The old wooden door swung open before Isabella could reach for the rusty golden doorknob.

“How’s my Bella?” he asked, crushing her into his infamous bear hug and then releasing her, letting her breathe again.

“I’m tired, hungry, and cold, but other than that I’m happy to be home”, she rambled sarcastically, gave him an over-enthusiastic smile and moved in to give her mom a squeeze. The cold air came swirling in with her, mingling with the warmth emerging from the crackling fireplace. Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers” was playing way too loud from the kitchen stereo. She knew she could blame her dad for the volume.

Isabella plopped down onto the brown leather couch and put her feet up on the coffee table, looking at it curiously. Wine glass marks and pencil streaks attempted to disappear beneath wear and tear.

“Where did you guys find this coffee table?” She thought aloud, racking her brain for the answer.

“Oh, that’s just another thing we found at Bina’s estate sale, you remember the woman from our old neighborhood?” Her dad replied. Isabella thought it looked out of place, but then again everything did in the new apartment. Its space unlived in by her small family.

“That reminds me! We have an early Christmas present we thought you might want tonight.” Her mother rushed into the kitchen and returned with a small box wrapped in her signature white and red striped paper.

“Hmm, what could this be…?” Isabella joked, shaking the box around a little like her dad used to do when she was little. She tore the paper off, revealing a petite, carved wooden box.

Isabella ran a pale finger over the carvings; there were intricately carved patterns surrounding a small lotus flower on the dark wood. She flipped open the small golden latch eagerly, the wood creaking a little and finally giving. A pair of bright turquoise earrings lined in gold lay on the maroon lining. They were beautiful, and must have cost her parents a fortune. Money was tight, and Isabella knew there was no way she could help, except to go to school and see where it took her, which right now was nowhere. Guilt washed over her, and she turned a ghostly kind of white.

Her mother sensed her discomfort, “Oh honey, don’t worry about the money. The earrings used to belong to Bina. That woman sure was a blessing in disguise.” She smiled, tapped the coffee table, and squeezed Isabella’s shoulder.

Isabella nodded, and slipped her small hoops from her ears. She slid the turquoise studs on. Isabella smiled, thanking her parents with a soft kiss on the cheek. She placed the wooden box back on the coffee table, the sound echoing into the high-rise ceilings and traveling throughout the hollow apartment.

Isabella wandered to the large mirror in the front corridor. Her reflection begged her to stare back at it. With shaking hands, Isabella reached to her ear lobes, and stared herself in the eyes. The light from the hallway allowed the turquoise earring to glisten like the way the sun’s rays reflect over the ocean. Momentarily blinded by the color, she let go of the earrings, letting their weight pull her ears down.

Overwhelmed with beauty, a tear spilled down Isabella’s cheek and glided down her neck. She wished she could create something that evoked this feeling. She wished she could bottle up this feeling and dip her paintbrush into it, spreading it throughout her art. Isabella couldn’t help but wonder if Bina glowed as much as she did when she wore these earrings. Isabella felt the softest smile creep up her cheeks, and in one swift motion she swiped the tears off of her. She tucked her hair behind her ears, and let Bina’s earrings come alive, like a second pair of eyes.

“Bella, will you grab your grandmother’s vase from downstairs? She’s going to be here soon and will kill me if I don’t have it out.” Her mom shouted from the kitchen, snapping Isabella out of her world.

Isabella forgot that soon her uncle Mark would wander in through the front door with Aunt Cathy and the Christmas chaos would commence. Mark would already be four scotches deep, on the cusp of intoxication and babbling with no filter. He’d probably ask to see some of her art, and find some way to make fun of it. Cathy would prance around carrying her infamous cheese platter from the “good cheese shop”, making them all try every kind even though it’s the same every Christmas. Then grandma would emerge from the cold at 8:01, claiming she preferred to be fashionably late. She’d sit in Dad’s armchair and refuse to take her wool scarf off, after putting her pre-prepared lasagna that she burnt every year in the oven. They’d all tell the same stories. Isabella would know when to laugh and make the right faces, pretending like she’s never heard them before.

Isabella disappeared into the basement. It was surprisingly clean and empty, one of the perks of moving. She grabbed the string attached to the singular light bulb that illuminated the entire space and shadows bounced off the walls. The first thing she saw was the box of mementos that her mother used to bring out every Christmas. She opened it up. Nostalgia crept through her veins. Inside were train tickets from their trip to Washington D.C. in middle school, Isabella’s favorite old beanie baby, and too many other things that her mother couldn’t seem to get rid of.

They hadn’t added anything to the box in years. After her Dad’s company went downhill, their adventures were cut short. Their new normal was a tiny apartment in Boston – filled with cheap takeout leftovers, outdated furniture, and a bunch of stuff belonging to someone her and her parents had barely known. Isabella had only gotten into NYU because of her bullshit essay and her uncle Mark’s generous contributions to the university. And of course there was the promise of world-altering artwork, that wasn’t going well so far. Halfway through her sophomore year and Isabella was barely scraping by with a 2.75 gpa. She needed something to lift her out of the muck. Her life resembled a dull penny these days. She needed luster, something to wipe the dust off her once overactive imagination that she lost to darkness somewhere along the way.

Isabella spotted the white oversized vase on top of a stack of boxes in the corner, looking forgotten. The boxes looked out of place. They were marked with a “B” in black sharpie. She assumed it stood for Bina. Isabella couldn’t help her wandering mind, and put aside the vase, ripping the tape off of the biggest box.

Inside were layers and layers of sheets of paper. Isabella picked one up, it was a drawing of someone, with layers of watercolor paint tracing the sketched lines. It was beautiful. She picked up another sheet of paper and it was the same thing, but another face. Shades of blue defined their bone structure, fading into yellows and reds and purples and greens. It was like explosions of color painted delicately onto stranger’s faces. The artwork was created in a way that made Isabella want to stare at each individual one for hours on end.

Isabella searched through the entire box, sifting through various faces and colors, easily getting lost in the allure of each one. She pieced together that each was part of a collection of Bina’s art. Isabella picked one up that looked familiar, and noticed the freckles on the girls’ cheeks, the two missing front teeth, and realized that the girl in the drawing was her. An enigmatic feeling washed over her, as she stared back at her this representation of herself.

B.

Bina loved to walk. She got lonely, especially during the evening when the rest of the neighborhood was eating spaghetti dinners with their families and watching American Idol. Usually by the time she stepped out her front door with no shoes on, the kids had abandoned their bikes on front lawns and basketballs were left to roll down driveways. And by the time the kids were all gone and the families were safe inside, she was usually a half a bottle of wine deep.

The neighborhood was typical Massachusetts’s suburbia, a place Bina never thought she’d end up in. She walked around in a long black dress, her favorite turquoise earrings, and no shoes. The road in the neighborhood was uneven and rocky, but she claimed the ground made her toughen up. The sun was setting over the trees, it would be dark soon but she wanted to walk around that night until she could barely see. She was in the mood to get lost, and forget who she was. A couple houses down, in front of one of the bigger white houses, a girl was drawing with chalk on the driveway. They must’ve just moved in, or maybe she had just never seen them before. She heard the girl’s father calling out, Bella, she thought it was.

Bella’s hair was in braids swinging down below her shoulders, and she was wearing light wash overalls. Her hands were covered in layers of chalk. Bina wiped her hand on her dress, remembering the dry feeling. Bina was approaching their house, and that was when she noticed the flowers Bella had drawn all over the driveway. Flowers of all shapes and sizes, pretty detailed for a girl her age, she was maybe around seven years old. The flowers went from the back of her parents’ silver mini van all the way down to the edge of the street, where Bina now found herself standing.

“Those are some pretty flowers you drew there”, Bina said to the girl, Bella, making sure her words didn’t slur.

“Thhhanks!”, Bella smiled back, exposing two missing front teeth, explaining the heavy lisp. Bina picked up a piece of yellow chalk, and wrote her name on the driveway in her signature handwriting. Then she handed the stubby chalk to Bella’s gentle hand.

“Never forget to sign your name on your art, just like that.” Bina watched Bella bite her tongue and try to write her name exactly like she did. Their names were almost unreadable on the uneven ground, only they could make out the loopy letters. Bina took a good look at Bella, and wandered away before the little girl broke her concentration and realized that she had left.

Tears rolled down Bina’s cheeks as her pace quickened around the bend in the road. The sun was almost below the trees now, its shadows taking over the street. The lampposts would turn on soon, and her darkness would be disrupted. Bina knew that what happened to her daughter, Lioda, wasn’t her fault. That was what kept her going, and kept the sobs at bay. But her heart ached for her child. The wine made its way deeper into her system, and her head started to pound.

She pulled back her gnarled black hair, fastening it with a hair elastic at the base of her neck. Bina wiped the silent tears that had gathered below her chin and kept moving. It was time to go home, and it took every ounce of power within Bina to not turn around. Looking back on that day years ago, Bina couldn’t escape the reasons for her tears. Nothing was harder than letting in that little girl’s innocence, and wishing she could help someone grow. The absence of Lioda’s young soul was like a hole in her heart.

*       *       *

On days when she could peel herself from her permanently unmade bed, Bina would go to her favorite gallery in town, owned by a woman of Indian heritage like herself. They would talk briefly about what they were working on and then Bina would walk to the bar across the street, and order their cheapest white wine – it was usually some type of Chardonnay, and drink until she forgot their conversations.

Bina hadn’t worked on her art in years, since the car crash, when a drunk driver hit her and Lioda on the pike. Drinking was the only way she could let herself think about it, but when she drank too much, guilt flooded her body and rage engulfed her emotions. She drank to remember. That night she sipped on an extra glass of wine, tugging at her grey hairs for too long until the bartender told her, “Last call”.

The T rattled through the suburbs of Boston, and Bina’s body trembled along with each bump in the tracks. Neighborhoods identical to hers whizzed by. They were all safe little neighborhoods with good school systems and happy people. The environment any mother would want to see their child grow up in. Everyone was living the good ol’ American dream. That’s why Bina moved here from India, for Lioda. Bina knew it was lethal to stay after the accident, but still she never left. She held out with the hope that eventually something good would come around. Bina let her wrinkly eyes go out of focus and the cookie cutter houses blurred into one continuous line out the window. It was too much. It was all too much.

All of the lives inside the houses provoked Bina’s forgotten artistic desire. She wanted to see their faces, she wanted to feel her hand create each wrinkle and eyelash on paper, she wanted to construct the beauty of individuals. Bina wanted to make art again. But the time separating her from Lioda caused her thoughts to stir, it had been too long. Time had set its course for Bina. She wiped the condensation from the T window, and saw clearly for the first time.

Bina made her lonely walk home from the T to her neighborhood. She knew her way, even in the middle of the night. The “Al’s Liquors” sign lit up, bleeding red in her vision, the “q” blinking quickly and tempting her.

“Just one bottle”, she whispered to herself. Bina never kept alcohol in the house, and the flashbacks were bad that night. She needed something to be able to fall asleep, something to keep her dreaming.

The glass door chimed when she walked through the entrance, ringing in her ear as she strode straight to the whiskey. She slapped a twenty on the counter, and walked out, making her way back to the house. A for sale sign was freshly planted in the white house down the street, glowing like a night light in the dark. She remembered the little girl Bella, who used to spend her afternoons with chalk on the driveway. Bina could remember the flowers she drew, and the details in her face that she hastily drew for her collection years ago. The unfinished collection was buried deep in the basement somewhere.

Her house was dark, echoing with emptiness. Bina washed the T off her hands, drank her whiskey, and went straight to the basement. Artwork was strewn about, exactly how she left it years ago. It was a waste. Lioda was watching down on her, Bina knew that, and knew that she had to make her proud.

The whiskey lingered in her mouth, still burning like a coal sliding down her throat. Memories stirred inside her. Closing her eyes, Bina thought of the neighborhoods, she thought of Lioda’s beaming smile, she thought of the suburban families living cookie cutter lives, she thought of the crash. Life passed through her vision. The whiskey made her memories fade into each other. Bina wasn’t getting any younger.

Before her, her unseen art shined like gold, waiting to be dug up. Bina knew what was each box, there was no sense in opening them all up just to put everything back again. Someone else would find them someday. Hopefully someone with the talent that only comes around every so often. The for sale sign in the neighborhood came back to her like a boomerang, and the thought occurred to her that she could give the little girl – who wasn’t so little now – the rest of her artwork, in hopes that she still drew. Bella, she thought. Repeating the name in her head, turning it over like a coin.

“Bella. Bella. Bella.” She thought aloud. But “Bella” turned into “whiskey”, and she made her way upstairs for more. Water flooded the kitchen, Bina reached for the counter to steady her wobbling body, she didn’t reach out far enough, knocking the bottle to the ground and soon she was flat, parallel to the ceiling. Bina lifted her head and touched the back, feeling nothing but wetness. She held her had to her eyes, her dark skin was covered in crimson and it trickled heavily down to meet her shirtsleeves.

“Too much…” Bina attempted to mutter. She closed her eyes and blackness was all she could see.

I.

Isabella felt like a child on Christmas morning, which was in fact right around the corner, as tomorrow was actually Christmas. Bina’s work was bursting with talent, and Isabella’s imagination grew like a forest fire. The drawing of her captured the beauty she couldn’t see, the beauty she saw the earrings reflect in the mirror moments ago. She felt something, in the clouds of beauty and creativity that surrounded her. Inspiration flowed through her. Her body and her mind were high, she floating above herself.

She’d never know who Bina really was, but the drawings in front of her drew her into a deep part inside of her. Her basement felt like an alternate universe, one in which Isabella could see herself creating something equally as beautiful. With each uncovering of a new drawing, she could foresee something new. The faces of strangers that Bina composed were so intricately detailed. Isabella thought of the old couple in the airport, already playing through her mind how she could improve her style, her pencil strokes, shading, and delicate painting,

“Isabella? What on earth are you doing? Everyone just arrived, grab the vase and head up,“ called her mother from upstairs. She could barely make out her silhouette from the basement. The sound of her mother’s voice brought her back to Christmas Eve, she turned her head, emerging from the cardboard boxes, smiling through welling eyes. Isabella felt her mind expand with colorful creativity. Walking up the stairs, Isabella looked around at her family, recognizing each of their features with new eyes. She found comfort in the unfamiliar, comfort in her talent to see the unseen all around her.

*          *          *

Isabella walked down the city street, while the sun peaked through the clouds, desperate for its rays to emerge through the veil of cloud coverage. The winter air lingered, while snow banks dwindled on city corners, and flowers nudged through the cement sidewalks.

On her way to class, Isabella lifted her face towards the sky, letting the sun warm her skin. Looking back to the city, she saw so many faces pass by, doing the same as her, letting the winter melt off of them. All this spring weather brightened up the people of New York City, the warmth changed the aura of every person she passed. Pulling out a small red moleskin notebook, she wrote down the details of this moment as a reminder to draw it later. She reached up to her ears, expecting to feel her earrings, and felt nothing.

“Damn”, Isabella said under her breath, and quickly turned around without another thought. She walked back up the stairs to her apartment, and threw open the door.

“Have you seen my earrings?”

“Yeah they’re on the kitchen table, right there,” Olivia gestured with her head from the couch, never taking her eyes off of Friends.

“Perfect, thanks Liv.” Isabella moved swiftly back down the stairs, paused at the entrance, and slipped on Bina’s old earrings one at a time. She looked through the scratched glass window at the street, and pushed open the door. The breezy light spring air wafted around her, and mixed with the musty smell of her apartment. The lazy morning sun’s rays made the unfamiliar city streets feel like home.