Each page is a trip back to New Zealand—every beautiful day, every moment captured. The clear, pale water and golden sand of Abel Tasman. The cold, dramatic ice of Franz Josef Glacier. Dawn at Key Summit. Foxgloves and milk-blue Lake Tekapo. Dolphins. Gemma’s attempt to paint in Kaikoura. Christmastime. The sunrise at East Cape.
This is where I pause. Her painting is glowing brilliantly off the page, like I’m seeing that sunrise all over again in her saturated, waxy lines. I feel just how messy life was at that moment.
But the painting is a bit different now.
Across the horizon she has written, in orange, This where I first loved you.
My throat closes up, my nose growing hot. I blink my eyes fast, trying to move through the love and pain competing for space in my heart.
She loved me.
I don’t even want to look at the rest. But I do. It’s more of my work, reflections of a journey and love that were slowly winding down.
I get to the last page. It’s the picture of a cold, cold sea.
She has written, I’m sorry.
I close my eyes and hold the book to my chest.
I’m sorry, too.
I stand there for a few minutes, in my mother’s kitchen, trying to absorb it all. The courier has to have been Gemma. It just has to be.
I whip out my phone and start Googling Vancouver backpackers. She has to be here; I can feel it. I know it. She delivered it this morning in person, she just had to. She wants me to see this, to have this. She wants me to know she’s here.
Yeah, I’m probably thinking like a lunatic, but at least when you’re nuts you take chances. I remember her saying she stayed at the Hostelling International on Thurlow Street when she was last here, so I call them up.
They don’t have anyone called Gemma there.
I call another backpackers nearby. They can’t give out info.
I call another and another and another. No leads, no answers.
No Gemma.
I log on to Facebook and search for her, hoping I can unblock her. She’s there and her picture is of one of her paintings, which thrills me in a weird way, but her privacy settings are high and I can only send her a friend request.
After all the paintings have been carefully stacked, I put them in my car and drive them back to my place. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with all of them, but while I wait to get her to accept my friend request, I end up placing them all over my room.
Toby steps in and tells me it’s like living in an art gallery. He knows all about Gemma and doesn’t bug me about her. Apparently the same thing happened to him and some girl he met at his parents’ place in Shanghai. We’ve become quite good at commiserating.
My evening class on illustration starts soon and I have no choice but to go. I’m tempted to leave my cell at home, just so I’m not checking Facebook every five minutes in class, though let’s face it, that’s what everyone does anyway.
Class drags on. My palms itch to take out my phone. I can’t concentrate and I need to. My computer is slow and Adobe keeps fucking up.
A war wages inside me. I’m all kinds of messed up.
But I feel alive for the first time in a while.
I feel a sense of hope I didn’t even know was missing.
When class is over, I stay a bit later, just to finish up what I should have. I take my time, giving the drawing the concentration it deserves. I have nowhere to be, no one to see. A beer sounds good, though.
I grab my stuff and make my way down the hall toward the back doors, where I parked.
There’s a familiar melody filling the air the closer I get to the end.
Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here.”
It unravels me.
It’s coming from a classroom at the end of the hall, and I slow as I pass by the open door. I peer inside. It’s empty and filled with canvases of all shapes and sizes. I can hear a tap running in the background.
I wouldn’t normally stay and linger but there’s a painting in the middle of the room, staring me in the eye.
Actually, it’s me staring me in the eye.
It’s a black and white pastel drawing of me with a wild teal background, painted with blue watercolor.
My mouth gapes. Thoughts dislodge. My heart shrinks and swells.
What the actual fuck?
What kind of dimension did I just wander into?
I walk into the room, quietly, as if I’m going to scare the painting, scare the me staring back at me, with its lip ring and asshole smile.
Suddenly the water turns off and I hear the tap tap tap of a paintbrush against a sink. There’s movement behind one of the canvases.
I hold my breath.
Gemma emerges into the open.
She’s wearing a white tank top, black jeans, tall boots. Her hair is piled onto her head. She has teal paint everywhere, on her chest, her arms, her face, her hands.