***
My shop welcomed me with open arms. I rented a loft above the only grocer in Valdez, practically in the middle of town. I had a view of town square—a snow-covered cobblestone courtyard with a statue of a polar bear smack dab in the middle—from my floor-to-ceiling, triple-paned windows, and in the evening after the sun went down, the warm street lights gave my loft a romantic, artsy kind of glow.
I loved it.
Valdez was my home and my solace. It was the inspiration for my art. Most of my canvases, which were scattered all over the loft, depicted scenery of Valdez and the nature surrounding it. The snow, the pine trees, the rivers of ice—it was all home to me.
I stripped out of my puffy winter jacket and kicked off my boots. I left them by the front door and changed into my fluffy white slippers, which were speckled in paint. I didn’t care. They had been deemed my painting shoes ages ago after walking around on the hardwood floors had given me sore feet.
I started boiling the kettle in the kitchenette of the loft and went to stand in front of my current project: a ten-foot by ten-foot canvas oil painting of Valdez Harbor and the surrounding mountains. I was nearly done, and this was always the toughest stage. The temptation to start another project was strong. Inspiration was humming in my fingertips. But I had made an oath to myself that each new project I started had to be completed before I moved on to the next.
The kettle began screaming, and I poured the boiling water over my tea bag in my mug as someone knocked on the loft door.
“Come in,” I called.
I heard the door open and close, and it was followed by the sound of someone unzipping a jacket.
I looked over my shoulder and smiled at my best friend Gracie Taylor as she shrugged out of her jacket and pulled her long auburn hair out from under her scarf. Her nose and cheeks were pink from the cold, and her lips were painted an elegant shade of red. I knew what that meant. She was in a brooding mood. An “I hate this fucking town” mood.
“Hey,” I said. “You look nice.”
“Thanks,” she said, spotting my mug of steaming hot tea. “Do you have any water left over?”
“Yep, just boiled it. Green tea or breakfast tea?”
“Green, of course,” she said, stepping down the three rickety steps from the loft entrance door to the main level. She was wearing a pair of Aztec-patterned leggings under a baggy black sweater, and I knew without a doubt that she must have garnered curious stares from everyone out in the town square as she made her way from her yoga studio to my loft.
“Did you just get back from a yoga class?”
She nodded.
“How many people?”
“Twelve,” she said with a sigh, pausing in front of a painting in the far corner. It was the northern lights, and it was one of my favorites. Metallic silver paint streaked the blue and purple sky, and if the lights in my loft hit it just right, it almost looked like a photograph rather than an oil painting. “This thing is still here?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said flatly. “Someone will buy it one day. It just hasn’t been seen by the right eyes yet. Trust me. It will sell.”
“Not in this fucking town it won’t,” Gracie muttered.
I held in my sigh as I poured hot water over her green tea bag. I brought her tea over to her and sipped mine as we stared at the northern lights painting. “So, red lipstick,” I said. “Feeling broody today?”
“Every day,” she said.
I smiled into my cup. “I still can’t figure out why you hate it here so much. I know Valdez is a small place and all, but I think you’d miss it if you left. Los Angeles doesn’t have northern lights, you know?”
“No, but they do have more than twelve people who practice yoga.”
“Okay, fair.”
“And people who would buy your art.”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t want to leave, Gracie. I love it here. Besides, can you picture me in LA, surrounded by preppy guys who wear polo shirts and drive ricers? Not my scene, girl.”
Gracie giggled. “Maybe not so much.”
“Exactly.”
“But the men here aren’t any better. Instead of polo shirts, they wear thick wool sweaters their mothers or grandmothers knitted them decades ago. And instead of ricers, it’s big trucks and snow plows.”
“Don’t forget snowmobiles. They’re fun.”
Gracie nudged my shoulder with her own. “I know. You and I just like different things. Different vibes. You’ll still come to visit me when I finally get my ass out of here, right?”
I grinned. “Of course, as long as you still come back to visit me.”
“Promise.”
Gracie and I sipped our tea quietly for a few minutes, and she eventually got up to walk a lap around the loft, or “showroom” as I sometimes liked to call it when I was feeling particularly artsy. She paused by the one I was currently working on of the harbor and tilted her head to the side as her eyes ran over the many different boats floating on the water—which presently looked like snow more than the ocean. It was a work in progress.
“I like this one,” she said.
“Yeah, because it’s a painting of one of the only ways out of this place.”
She looked over her shoulder at me and flashed me a white smile. My best friend was ridiculously beautiful. She would fit right in when she finally fulfilled her dream of moving to California. Her spray on tan and pink fingernails already lent her the look of a millennial socialite who was better fitted for sipping wine on a posh patio under a palm tree.
“I can’t help it,” Gracie admitted. “When I move, I’m going to take one of your paintings with me so I can be reminded of you every day.”
I chuckled. “As long as it’s not the northern lights, you can take whichever one you want. Consider it my going away present.”
“I’ll leave you one of my yoga mats,” Gracie offered.
“Don’t bother. As soon as you move, I won’t set foot in another yoga class again.”
“Until you visit me at my dream studio in LA.”
I smiled. “Obviously.”
After finishing her tea, Gracie layered herself back up in her puffy jacket and made for the door. Before she left, she reminded me that we had a yoga class that night, and I assured her I would be there while mentally kicking myself for forgetting about it. Yoga was not at the top of my list of favorite pastimes, but Gracie loved it. Her studio here in Valdez was small and quaint, but she was slowly modernizing it to fit her vision. I knew, however, that it was nothing close to her vision, which she would one day bring to life in California.
I sighed as I stood in front of my harbor painting before dipping my brush into royal blue paint. I would miss Gracie when she was gone, and I would forever wonder why she wanted to leave in the first place.
Valdez offered everything a person could want. At least, it held everything I wanted. The town was family. It was home and a snowy paradise that the rest of the world had yet to discover.