#4 The Vision - An Fhis

My bicycle wheels squeaked softly as I walked my retro ride through the crowd of townees and tourists eyeing the nearly picked over fresh produce. The market was my favorite part about the sleepy town of Marbeth. There was something about it that welcomed you, emitting a feeling of comfort - just like the foyer of the B&B -. The market had been held in the middle of downtown for as long as I can remember. Farmers from across the county line the street with their fold out tables full of fresh fruit, vegetables and homemade goods.

As the market began to end, the crowds migrated from the farmer booths to the small shops, galleries, and cafes that stood on the other side of the sidewalk. Tourists and regular residents sat on sidewalk tables and benches, rewarding their feet for carrying them up and down the uneven cobblestone in search of perfect vegetables. Others took to the cafes and open air galleries immediately taking advantage of the beautiful weather. April brought with her warm mild weather, and good rains for the farmers harvests. I enjoyed the tranquil feeling as I walked my bicycle, whose paint job matched the color of the cloudless sky, down the last row of stands in the direction of the B&B.

I steadied the two jars of honey and a paper bag of assorted fruits that sat in the front wicker basket of my bike as I wobbled over a small bump in the road. Grace found and gifted the bike to me on my birthday after our first year at White Pine. She claimed it was tax deductible, but I knew that wasn't the only reason she'd thought of it. Grace loved having me at the B&B and said as much almost everyday, but I could tell she was also worried about me. In the way a mother would worry about a child. She loved having me, but she also didn't want to keep me from exploring the world - or at the very least Maine. As I cleared the last line of almost empty tables I took a moment to gaze back at the center of town.

I was content here.

I was about to mount my bike when out of the corner of my eye a flash of color caught my attention. I turned to fully face the building, it was a Spanish inspired white stucco, an art gallery I had been to once or twice before. The words Bella Arte, the only adornment to the galleries simple facade, was painted in a light coral color above the door on the bumpy exterior.

My eyes traveled below the words, to the door frame was propped open by a painted flower pot in the shape of a pig, but what had caught my eye was past the door.

Inside on the very back wall was a large impressionist inspired landscape.

I blinked. The image of my mother seated in front of an easel, paint brush poised in her hand as she stared at the canvas before her. I blinked again focusing on the painting beginning to subconsciously take a few steps toward it. She had a look of determination while she sat, as if she was facing off against the canvas. Who would conquer who. I leaned my bike against the wall and entered the building giving a dazed nod to the clerk as she welcomed me. My mother's long brown hair was loose as she painted, you could make out flecks of green and blue caught on a few strands.

I neared the painting, coming within a few feet of it. There was never a photo of my mother with her finished product, only ones taken while she way applying the first layers of blue or green to the landscape. My hands lifted from my sides to find the silver locket that hung around my neck.

"Hey." A voice welcomed from my right side. I flinched visibly dropping my hands from my necklace and snapping out of my trance.

This was not my mother's painting.

The images of her I compiled from photos faded, and I was left standing in the gallery. But, not entirely alone.

"Small world huh."

I turned to meet Lyle whom had taken up a position next to me staring straight ahead at the painted landscape.

I hummed in agreement shifting back to the painting before me. Upon taking a closer look at it, I found there were very little similarities between this artists and my mother. The colors were there but the brush strokes were much larger, not to mention the work itself was twice the size of anything my mother kept.

Since I'd uncovered her paintings every once in awhile I would find another like this one. One that even remotely resembled her work and my mind would instantly go blank. It was like seeing a ghost.

Somehow my subconscious was keeping the hope alive that she was still out there. One day I was bound to walk into a gallery unwittingly and stumble on one of her paintings, and maybe, her. She would be in the back of the gallery working and I would introduce myself -of course she would already know and we-.

"I saw one like this on your website." Lyle interrupted my thoughts, her fingers traced a circle in the air around the curve of the deep blue horizon line.

"What?" I shook my head completely taken off guard by her comment. I shifted to look at her, my mouth slightly ajar.

Was she talking about one of my mother's paintings? She must be. But how could she take notice of something so simple.

"Your website," She clarified. "I remember seeing one in this style displayed in the foyer." She was paid no attention to my astonishment as she squinted at the painting, intently studying it.

I furrowed my eyebrows turning back to the work before us and casting her a sideways glance. She was indeed referring to Mo Soileireacht, which had hung in the foyer during Grace's extensive and well intentioned photoshoot. A feeling of protectiveness flooded me just as it had when Grace revealed her plan to make Mo Soileireacht the cover of White Pine's new website.

"They don't look anything alike." I shot back instantly regretting my aggravated outburst.

I wasn't angry over the painting. I felt threatened that someone else had become so familiar with my mother's work that they could recognize and compare it. Even though Lyle didn't know it was my mother's, she knew of the painting, which may as well have been the same thing.

Struck by how much I thought about my mother in terms of her artwork I took a deep breath. I hardly separated the two, her works were an embodiment of her soul. They were the only window I was granted to look into her life, and I hung on tight, even if the window was constantly frozen over with mystery. Never the less, it bothered me that someone else had the capacity to sit next to me and share the same frosted view.

"I liked it and I took notice." Lyle gave me a brief look before turning back to the painting, noting my upset but not recoiling or defending herself.

"Oh." I mumbled letting out a sigh to calm my nerves. I began to feel a bit silly and fiddled with the hem of my baby blue White Pine tee as a silent beat passed.

I waited for her to move on and leave me in my embarrassment, but Lyle didn't seem to mind the silence. I however was desperate to leave the subject of my mother's paintings and jumped at the first question I could think of.

"Why are you here?" It came out a little more bluntly than I meant it. On the surface I was referring to this particular gallery, but underneath I secretly wanted the whole answer. What was Lyle doing at White Pine, she was unlike most of the guests who were extroverts that loved to talk your ear off. All I'd gotten from her in the few conversations we'd had were short and evasive answers. My mind struggled to wrap around her motivations and how she continued to pop up in unexpected places.

"You mentioned there were galleries in town, I decided I might as well check them out." She turned to face me for the first time since our odd encounter.

Her hands were comfortably in the pockets of her black jeans, her posture relaxed but still perfectly straight and not slouched. She smiled at me and I waited for her eyes to leave mine and travel around the room hinting that our run in was over. They didn't. Instead she granted me a small smile encouraging me to go on. I felt my cheeks blush a bit at her stare and I looked away momentarily, tucking a piece of loose hair behind ear.

"Do you like the town?" I asked without thinking then automatically did a mental face palm myself for asking a question so horribly vague and boring. I posed this to almost every B&B guest typically resulting in a mixture of content nods and polite smiles.

"I do, it's really quaint." She paused. "Do you like it here?"

"No it's awful." I shot back a clearly sarcastic reply. "What with all the fair weather, fresh food, art, and nature. A girl can only take so much."

Lyle gave a low laugh as she bit back another smile. "You live here then or just stay for the summers?"

"Live here, I'm up in one of the cabins across from the B&B." I motioned in White Pine's general direction.

As we spoke we moved naturally to the next painting, one by the same artists taking up just as much space on the plain white walls.

"That's a sweet deal."

"Yea, unless a customer decides they want to come complain about their bedsheets in the middle of the night. That'll teach me to lock my doors."

"I'll keep that in mind." We lingered in front of a black and white sketch of a building I recognized from around town.

"Where are you from?" I asked in hopes of gathering more details about this soft spoken girl.

"Not really anywhere, I move around."

"Alright, then what do you do that allows you to 'move around' so much?" I raised my fingers in air quotes mimicking her. I was determined to get one straight answer.

"A little of this a little of that." Lyle ran her fingers through her hair uncomfortably.

"Oh my god." I rested my hands on hips and raised my voice an octave in mock surprise. "You are a bank robber aren't you!" I leaned in close so that my whisper couldn't be heard across the gallery.

"You aren't going to let that go are you?" A broad smile overtook her face signaling that she understood the reference to our little inside joke.

"Not until I get a straight answer about something - anything really." I waved my hands about as we walked through a wide doorway that led into the backroom of the gallery. It was similar to the first except it contained several installation pieces that rested on pedestals dispersed through the middle of the room. We made our way to a carved wood piece similar to a small totem pole and decorated in earthy tones.

She chuckled. "Alright ask me something else."

"What brought you to White Pine?"

"Why do you want to know that?" She rounded the other side of the totem and shifted her gaze from the art to me. Her arms crossing over her chest and posture becoming slightly more rigid. Again her tone and body language differed, she sounded calm and unworried but her stance took on a more defensive vibe.

But I wasn't about to back down.

"That's not an answer." I replied mimicking her stance.

"It sounds like you're searching for some grand response." She circled the totem and I followed her to a framed modernist piece to the right of the doorway.

"Would I be right to?" I asked as I stood beside her. "Most people come to White Pine for the hiking or galleries, but you didn't seem to know about either of those."

"Like I said I am just passing through."

"You could have stayed at a motel in town instead of White Pine."

Lyle pivoted to the next wall, her back to me as I spoke. I took a large step to catch up with her when she suddenly turned around catching me off guard.

"Is this your polite way of kicking me out?" She leaned in and raised her left eyebrow. She was close enough that I could again make out the freckles that dotted her nose and cheekbones. This time however I notice small flecks of brown in her light eyes that mimicked the look of her dotted skin. Her eyes were hard to read, just like her voice they were neutral. Not devoid of emotion, but masked.

I assumed her to be upset when she didn't continue and was about to apologize when she surprised me.

"Why did you come here May?" A wry smile overtook her features and she uncrossed her arms, her defensiveness was gone, overtaken with something else. She was challenging me.

"I didn't really have a choice, this is where I've always been." I qualified.

"But you have the choice to leave, and you haven't." She quipped turning back to a framed portrait of a postal worker.

I paused. Her words struck me. Of course I wasn't that dense to think I was physically stuck here like a stick in the mud, but it was more complicated than a simple decision to book a train ticket. I was tied to this town, and further to Unit #16.

A year before Grace bought me the bike, the first year I was on my own, I'd purchased a train ticket for Boston. One morning I just walked into the station at the edge of town closed my eyes and pointed randomly at the list of weekly departures. Boston, Massachusetts. I purchased it and that was that. That night I went to my then apartment packed my bags and set my alarm to leave the next morning.

I made it all the way to the platform at the station. Then I saw it. Similar to the piece in Bella Arte, but much smaller. I was waiting on the wooden platform with the other Southbound riders and my bag by my side when out of the corner of my eye I saw a piece of paper on the ground. It wasn't a canvas or anything framed, but I could see bits of green and blue in broad strokes poking out from the simple white flyer and I was transfixed. I abandoned my bags and chased the paper all the way down the platform until the wind carried it onto the tracks.

Without thinking I jumped off the platform and onto the rails. Luckily, I jumped right onto the flyer trapping it beneath my feet. The next few moments were surreal. First I realized that it was of course not my mother's work but a flyer for a local art show of Van Gogh inspired works. Second was the yelling, people began screaming at me. Then came the horn.

It took me a few moments to shake myself from my mesmerized state and realize that the train was on its way to pull into the station. The next thing I knew I was hauled onto the platform with the wind from the train pushing my hair from my face. I lay there clutching the flyer to my chest as a few men and women tried to discern what I needed.

I walked home that day with my suitcases in one hand and the flyer in the other. I don't know if I believe in god or a higher power, but I felt it that day at the train station. Feeling is different than believing. Feeling you can't dispute. You can't go back on your feelings or alter them like you do your beliefs. You may be the only one that can truthfully discern them, but they are tangible and you never forget.

That morning I felt my mother, her paintings telling me to stay. And so I did. I listened to my disillusioned mind and my feelings toward some dry paint. And I never looked back.

I didn't tell Lyle this, only shrugged and muttered "touche" before changing the subject to something a bit more lighthearted, giving up my twenty questions game for now.

We fell easily into conversation, and I forgot about the chores that I had awaiting me at the B&B and even for a couple moments my nagging curiosity about the private girl before me. I enjoyed talking to Lyle. We flowed naturally and although there were silences here and there they were comfortable. I was never used to silence being comfortable, to me it was always something that had to be filled, but with her I was fine leaving them empty.

I waited for her to slip during our talk, to let out something about her life, some personal experience that could relate to our topic. But she held strong, and somehow this made me even more intrigued by this freckle eyed stranger.

After another comfortable moment of silence I figured it couldn't hurt to try one more question.

"What's your last name?" I asked remembering what she filled out on the sign in sheet, or rather what she didn't.

"Who's asking?" She smiled mischievously.

We returned to the main room. "Do you have to make everything difficult?" I returned my hands to my hips for the second time that day.

"Can't you leave anything a mystery?" She quipped.

"Nope," I replied defiantly. "Now quit stalling, what is it?"

"Ayres."

"Lyle Ayres." I hummed appreciatively, overjoyed to finally have one piece of her puzzle nailed down. "Not bad, now what about your middle name?"

Lyle's laugh made me smile as she ran her hand through her hair again and shook her head. "You'll have to work a little more for that one."

Our journey around the gallery concluded as we stood in front of the last piece, a pastel fauvist painting of a woman holding a bouquet of flowers at her chest. Lyle moved within centimeters of me as if she were trying to get a better angle. We stood shoulder to shoulder taking in the daintily framed work.

"What's on June 2nd?" Lyles inquiry broke the bubble I occupied while lost in thought.

My head snapped toward her. I exchanged her look in confusion as to why she spoke the date aloud.

"Your necklace," She gestured to the simple silver chain.

I looked dumbly at my chest, and sure enough the locket hung open revealing my mother's neat handwriting.

"Oh," I mumbled feeling as if a part of me were naked. "It's my birthday." I explained as nonchalantly as I could. Mentally I prepared myself to lie if she were to ask who gifted me the necklace.

"A girl named May born in June?" A chuckled rose from her throat.

"I was late I guess." I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear and managed a tight smile. I looked lazily to my right, clicking the locket shut and stowing it underneath the collar of my shirt. Water gathered at the doors clay tiled entrance and I followed it to the source. It had begun to rain.

-

oooOOOooOH, some tension.  Anywho, I definitely wove in my own love for farmer's markets. Like May, I leave the market with my hands full of fruits - sometimes I have to make a second trip for watermelon !

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