Sunroom

Ariel Favis

Mahlia had been taking the long way home lately. She’d grab a can of milk tea for $1.75 from a vending machine outside the studio building. Peonies bloomed in bundles of blue amongst fresh soil. She plucked a petal off the outer layer and dropped it in a leather pouch for safekeeping, tucked in like a paint sample. Mahlia would show Eli later and tell him she'd dye the spout of her teapot that color when the clay dried. He’d tell her how grounding it must be, to create something for holding with your own hands. She’d say, it’s the anticipation. He’d tell her she must feel powerful. And then her boot heels would melt into gravel, and his hand into hers.

She always arrived just in time for shop closing. Eli saw her lingering near the window. Her hair was twisted into two long braids that had grown unkempt and loose by the end of the day. He wrapped the plates faster, pulled the shutters a little clumsier. He hung up his apron and stumbled out the back door.

Eli always took the evening shift. His boss was a humorless man with coarse gray hair across his jaw and outer arms and knuckles. Mahlia had exchanged a couple grunts with him at the counter before. Eli said he was generous in his own way; each morning, he would cook a sweet, steamy pot of tea on the stove for his workers. It was spiced and earthy simultaneously. Eli tried to imitate it last week so Mahlia could try – a futile attempt which he dumped down the sink.

“It’s hot,” he said. “Jesus.”

It was mid-evening. Eli loved the sun, but not the heat. It stuck to his black hair like moss. 

“Well, the studio has AC,” Mahlia said. “But the heat peaked around 12, so you haven’t got the worst of it.”

“Lucky for us, walking in 90 degrees instead of 96.”

In many ways, Eli was envious of Mahlia as much as he admired her; that being, she was naturally artistic. She’d throw around all these words like handbuilding and wheel throwing and casting that made her sound entirely intelligent and perceptive to the world in ways he wasn’t. He held pieces of her world as if it were a flame, carefully and curiously, anytime she’d offer.

“How was your trip to Venice?” Eli said.

“Oh, cold. It’s winter there. There’s no dead-end path to reroute from, because the river is just boundless. It keeps going and going, and it’s so pretty at nighttime, like Where The Sidewalk Ends.”

Eli knew Mahlia was downplaying her excitement as she had a tendency to.

“Keep going,” he said.

For the past six months, Mahlia had been working on a sculpture the size of her torso. The base was a vase she’d glass blown with ribbon-like waves at the rim. Reddish paint glazed around the shape like jelly. At either side were two figures, nude and Virgin Mary-esque, with arms extending into vines and flowers. One of her classmates called it visceral, whatever that meant. She considered inviting Eli to the studio, but the idea of him basking in her art felt too intimate in a way that overstepped a physical boundary – into something emotional and thus, real.

Mahlia had often thought about what it meant to share a physical relationship and how an emotional part of herself would play into that; how they would intertwine, if ever. Last month, her uncle died, and Eli drove her to the Cathedral. The structure had sand-toned spires that towered overhead and heavy doors she could feel collapsed on her ribcage. Above her hung rose windows, sculpted and reminiscent of kaleidoscopes. Nail polish began to chip as she dug her teeth into her nails. She ended up sitting in the parking lot the entire time, forehead on the dashboard.

“What’s wrong?” Eli said.

“I felt queasy at every turn, and my head hurts.”

A year ago, her hand couldn’t hold rosary beads without shaking. Mahlia knew Eli had never latched onto his father’s Buddhism, nor any other religion at all. He didn’t get it, but he didn’t think he had to. Despite the occasion, Eli thought Mahlia looked quite lovely in her long black dress, fitted at the top and flowy near the skirt. Eli let her stay just like this.

“I wouldn’t know the words,” Mahlia said. “To the Hail Mary. I forgot how.”

“You can pretend. A building is just a container of memories,” Eli said.

Mahlia turned her head sideways to face him in the driver's seat. She looked so small.

“But you don’t have to,” Eli said.

As the sun fell low, they made it to Eli’s house. The town was hilly and flowery and infused with sweet olive bushes bordering the shops and paths. Fig trees spread above their walk, and Mahlia felt its presence follow like the moon would. Their time together till nightfall was all routine.

Her mother told her it was love if he was the first thing she thought of when waking. Her father told her it was love if he was the last thing she thought about before sleeping. But with Eli, it was everything. Something that flickers like lightning in a rainstorm. Hands held like a little heartbeat. The lamp lights dim in Greenbelt Park. They were friends first, lovers second. 

Mahlia slept on her back, with her heart open.

“How many times will she visit this summer?” Eli’s mother said when Mahlia made her way out.

“Do you mind?” Eli said. “I thought you liked her.”

“No, you know I love the girl. But she’s off to college soon, no? Certainly not here.”

“She hasn’t gotten her decision yet. She doesn’t talk about it often.”

“Well maybe it’s time you start to,” his mother said. “It’s only May.”

“And she’d leave in April, dear.”

In a way, he thought pushing the topic of leaving each other, pointedly due to Mahlia’s future artistic prospects, was simply out of his realm. Eli was aware of the fact that they hadn’t met through art or any common interest for that matter. Maybe that would make things a little easier. His heart was in the right place, particularly when Mahlia looked at him like one of her sculptures.

***

Mahlia thought it was about time she invited Eli to a gallery exhibition. Secretly, she knew she wanted him to come to her exhibits, and she didn’t know what that meant for the two of them. But there he was. Mahlia saw the bouquet of lilies before Eli and reached for a hug. Eli always thought she was pretty, but even more so now.

“You made it. I’m so glad.”

“Of course. I wish you had shown me how talented you are before.”

“It’s nothing special. I’m working on something bigger, better.”

“You don’t have to prove anything to me. Just keep showing me more.”

Mahlia found herself thanking God, and then thanking Eli. When they embraced, and they strolled the gallery floors, Mahlia traced her thumb on the back of his hand in the direction of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Afterwards, they went back to Mahlia’s home, and Eli undid those braids she was so fond of. He was so gentle, and they welcomed all familiar sensations, for the first time, together. Mahlia looked at him like looking into the eyes of God, holy and blinding, and Eli could feel Mahlia’s search for solace, the myriad of herself she was willing to give, and crumbled. He held her back like fighting a current, asked to stop, and they did.

“Sorry,” Mahlia said. “Sorry. Are you okay?”

“I’m okay. I’m overwhelmed,” Eli said, and thought it got very hot all of a sudden – but an uncomfortable hotness bubbling up only from her bed. How could Mahlia handle this? Him, and the heat, as they were.

“Are you mad?” Mahlia said.

“I’m not mad.”

He couldn’t be mad when it’s her and him – the two of them, together. Mahlia’s palms never burned when holding his hand, how they tended to in prayer. She was always counting on him. That night, she recited a Hail Mary the best she could, though the majority of the verses were almost completely forgotten. In their places, she settled for a future that’d treat her kinder.

***

Five months later, Mahlia applied to a college in Venice and moved in with her aunt, where she had a studio and a sunroom all to herself. It got easier with time, just like how it was easiest for her to love Eli, to take a leap when one doesn't like where they are and can’t go back. She found how giving things were, and had always been – tubes of oil paint, the way her hair fell, swallowing spoonfuls of honey when sick, when boys would kiss her in the back of the arthouse and tell her she’s so much prettier in person. She sat as the sky turned yellow and reflected in her sunroom. Though temporary, it was all the more real. Under a sun-baked earth, the mosaic of their youth.