Olive was painting the water lilies, trying to capture the way the sun made their colors a little more golden, a little more vibrant in its slow decent. Cory found her watching the lake, the picture on her canvas only slightly begun. Olive gave him a familiar smile as he settled his canvas next to her, setting his own paint on the table.
“A perfect scene, isn’t it?” asked Olive. Cory returned her smile and sat.
They had dated when they were younger. At first they had been spontaneous and eager in their loving, but as they aged and their romance tired, their relationship blossomed into a wise and patient relationship. Olive proceeded to marry a man from her art class, while Cory had watched on, ever the supportive friend. They had continued their friendship, and over the years had become so familiar with each other the didn’t need to talk much. Enjoying the company of each other while painting was enough, and they met often to paint different landscapes, living out their quiet passion in this way. They were both older, past their prime, but not so old that their minds had forgotten what it was like to be young.
Corey painted with water colors. He liked to let the color and detail blur and mesh a little. It was the overall picture, the grand visage in its entire effect, which resonated with him. Olive preferred her oil paints, which allowed her to be precise. Every lily, every petal was apparent in her painting. Sometimes they would share paints or paint for each other, and Olive would offer a little intricacy, a little bit of exactitude to Corey’s painting, or Corey would allow Olive’s precision to slip a little, and let the colors of some petals bleed with others.
“Would you like to go somewhere?” asked Corey.
Olive looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“For our next painting. We always paint around here, which is nice, but what about someplace else?”
“Where did you have in mind?” she asked.
A slight pause. “I don’t know, someplace tropical, I think. Maybe a cruise, to Panama or something. Just… to get away.”
The idea of a cruise made Olive feel slightly queasy. Rocky waters gave her the sickness. But tropical, Panama, and get away sounded nice. “Someplace exotic might be nice, but I’m not sure I’d be ready to sail so far for it.” They shared a look, then the quietness took over them again as they finished their paintings.
They were quiet until the sun had dipped almost entirely behind the distant hills, and the sky above them was a deep purple, with only the lingering suggestion of the red and gold of daylight. A sly hawk dived to the lake from the twilight, trying to catch a fish, and the ensuing ripples scattered the lake’s reflected stars. Olive and Cory looked up at this new image, noticing the darkness which had crept into their scene.
“Olive,” Corey said, suddenly bold by this moment, “Will you marry me?” He watched her reaction, his eyes full of some hidden suggestion.
But Olives words struck something cold inside him. “Oh,” she said, and looked away. “I don’t think so, I don’t think I could.”
He would remember the way she had looked so startled, how she looked away. He would remember how wrong he had felt, that this wasn’t something she had hoped for.
Olive wanted to console him, to tell him that sometimes, lives could be like sharing paints. That she and he could paint small parts for each other, but the original artist’s intent would always be more apparent, and more important.
But there was nothing anyone could tell Corey, a man who had taken one of the most sublime gambles of life, and lost. There was no consolation, and no return from his path. In his mind, he had already set sail to a place like Panama, where oceans met, and he could blur them with his watercolors, waiting to become young again.