Read Online The Colorman by Erika Wood - Free Book Online Page A

teasing attention usually dealt her by Brits, especially during her teenaged tan-and-blonde years. France was a much more comfortable arrangement as far as Rain was concerned. Having grown up in New York City, she found a similar gruff positivity in their manner and treatment of tourists.
    It had been almost eight years since her last trip to England. And really, she wasn’t sure she wanted to experience that treatment while being there as the Mrs . It seemed wrong to stay in New York while Karl spent months away in London, though, and too depressing to deal with the end of this studio. But the more she thought about it, the more she grudgingly admitted to herself that Gwen might have been right.
    Rain was washing out her brushes. It was no use trying to work when she was feeling this out of sorts. It was too sad knowing this would be one of her last days working here.
    But four months without her husband? That seemed awful y long. She wasn’t sure if their relationship was strong enough to put up with that stretch. They’d been together now almost eight years and yet she still found Karl attractive. He had an itchy pull on her; she was not sure what it was. His needling and then the sudden odd and unexpected throes of passionate attention were some kind of addictive combination to her. He was a skilled and purely attentive lover, but he kept her guessing and often played games with her expectations. Rain wondered whether this was maybe a formula for a long-lasting, healthy intimate life. However passive her friends might have considered her role, had they known anything about it, there was nothing formulaic about her and Karl’s connection. Nothing boring or predictable.
    Karl, bare-chested, half covered in a sheet, his twinkling eyes large and strikingly blue without his glasses, his lips full and moist, like fat plums.
    Rain covered her palette with a sheet of waxed paper, screwed on the tops of a few open tubes of paint, dried off the brushes she’d left in the sink with paper towels. She checked and buckled up her leather backpack.
    Karl smiles and rolls on top of her, going in for her neck.
    Rain tugged her bag up over one shoulder and strolled through the West Village. Their apartment building was at Lafayette and 4th Street. Just about equidistant from Parsons where Karl taught and the School of Visual Arts from where Karl had plucked her, had directed her work, narrowed it, taught her so much more than art school could have, challenged her, pushed her, gave her passion and focus and clarity without the suspect motivation of running a business—art school being, he always said, useful for graphic artists, il ustrators and technicians at printing companies (oh, his disdain for his employers ran pretty deep) but pointless for someone with something real to contribute to art history.
    Karl strokes the curve of her waist, down along her jutting hipbone…
    As she pushed open the door to their apartment, Rain could hear a rustling from the bedroom. She dropped her keys on the table by the door and her bag on the floor underneath. Maybe the sound was coming from the back elevator next to the kitchen. It was an old building and the back elevator still worked for half of the apartments. It was used mostly for trash and deliveries, but otherwise not very often.
    â€œHello? You home?” Rain called out, heading toward the kitchen.
    Karl groaned from the bedroom.
    Rain turned back toward the bedroom. There Karl was, lying all rumpled in the bed. He rolled over huffily as she entered the room. He wasn’t wearing his glasses.
    â€œOh, you poor thing…” Rain said. She leaned in to touch Karl’s face and he turned crankily away.
    Rain was used to his behavior by then. He was such a baby when he got sick. She smiled at him, anyway. “Do you need anything?” she asked him.
    â€œWhere have you been? I’m dying here,” Karl said, invoking the blame-equals-innocence