"Finally, I'm finished." A deep feminine voice said. Opening my eyes, I saw my creator for the first time. Her short brown hair was pulled into a loose pony tail and she wore old, comfortable-looking overalls that were paint splattered in a rainbow of hues and colors. She stood in front of the canvas with her arms crossed over her chest examining me; trying to detect any flaw that didn't meet her standards of perfection.The purple in the background is perfect. The black/brown in her hair matches the other paintings. Bone structure resembles mine. These thoughts belonged to my creator. There were other things in there too, like lyrics to songs from her childhood, Spanish phrases, a grocery list, and memories of her father. They slowly swam along my mind and became one with the rest of me. I could feel as her memories connected with everything in my being.I gazed at her face and her body. I began mimicking her movements. They were small gestures. A hand on her hip, tapping her index finger against her lips or the way she arched her eyebrow. I let out a light giggle as I tilted my head to the side the way she tilted hers. She was the first person to see me. I knew the depths of her soul just as she knew mine. Her chestnut eyes twinkled when she smiled at me. She was my creator. Looking around I found that my vision was limited to the four walls of her studio. At the other end was a tiny, square window that was close to the ceiling. There was a neatly stacked pile of blank canvases on a corner of the room. There were three easels, all of them covered in paint. A rust colored couch was beside me with a coffee table in front of it. The top of the table was covered in magazines. Underneath the tiny window were several shelves with dirty jars full of brushes and tubes of paint. It made me happy to see the paint. There was always potential hidden inside the tubes of color. The sound of footsteps came from up above. It startled me. I took a few steps further inside my canvas and waited for the noise to stop. Carefully I peeked at the person who was making the loud noises.I saw that it was a man who walked into the room. He wrapped his arms around my creator. She turned to him and brushed a kiss across his lips and then turned back to me to continue her appraisal. I came to the conclusion that they couldn’t see me moving inside the canvas. I allowed myself to relax a little."Wow," the man said when he saw me. He stood in front of me, hand on chin. "I can see why you spend more time down here than you do upstairs, Rachel." He took a step towards me and reached out to try and touch my face. I drew my face back slowly. I feared that he would smear my paint, therefore ruining my face. Luckily, Rachel slapped his wrist. "You silly ass," she said to him, "Don't touch, the paint is still wet.""Oh...yeah. Sorry," he said as he took a step away from me. I felt myself sigh with relief as I watched him leave. I didn’t like him."You need a name, my sweet," Rachel said as she sat on the blue gray floor in front of me, her brow furrowing. I was quite entertained because she had a bit of black paint on the left side of her forehead and some light blue on the other side and as she frowned these two colors met each other in the middle of her face ever so slightly. "La Nena. La Nena preciosa,"she said. The Girl. The Precious Girl. That’s what she was saying in Spanish."Nina. You are my girl, aren't you? At least you would be if you were real," she let out a heavy sigh, her voice sad as she spoke. "Since I can't have children the only thing I can do is paint what I imagine they would look like if I had them," Rachel walked away, leaving me to my thoughts. I spent the next few minutes looking around the studio. There were dozens of paintings and all of them were different versions of me. From left to right there were portraits of me as a newborn child, a toddler, me at six, and so on. I realized that I was the latest in the series. I looked at the other versions and came to the conclusion that I'm pretty or at least as pretty as I can be in a two dimensional sort of way. I have brown hair just like Rachel's, but my eyes are not like her brown ones. No, my eyes are almond shaped, larger than Rachel's and dark green. My lips are full, but not overly large. In every painting there is a different color chosen for background. In one, there was a light pink, in another deep purple, looking about myself in my current version, I was standing in a royal purple room wearing a simple outfit of white blouse with black pants. I took a bit of pigment from my hair and drew myself a bed and an armoire and from the purple on the wall and white from my shirt I created a lilac color. This is the color I chose for my sheets. I sat down on my bed and thought for a moment and tried to think of what else was missing. What else did I need? I drew a chair and a window. Now all I needed was a good view. But what kind of view does one choose when all you have ever seen is the inside of an artist's studio?
Nina (c) 2007 Liz DeJesus
Now available through Blu Phi'er Publishing
ISBN 0977203492
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