Phases of the Moon

“Artists just are, I think. They don’t grow.”

That’s what she said.

It made me sick to my stomach. Would it be so hard for her to just say she wasn’t really dedicated to her art?

Of course it would. Where would she be if she couldn’t put on her artistic airs?

And it was her idea to come here, too. Get together, grab a cup of coffee, hash out the details of some collaborative painting project that had her so excited — something depicting the phases of the moon, is what she said. Although I don’t think she had a real concept in mind when she texted me at three in the morning, drunk, wanting to meet up and talk about working on a project together.

I was busy with my own painting, but I agreed to go. I like the girl, for one thing, even if I hate her more than I can say.

Plus — and this is barely worth mentioning, by the way — she bears an uncanny resemblance to my idea of what the perfect woman looks like. I won’t bore you with the details, though. Just imagine your own idea of the perfect woman and that should work just fine.

So anyway, I end up heading over to Under Grounds Coffee Shop to meet up with her. Two story brick building, used to be a bakery or maybe a laundromat. Sort of close to the college, so it’s always packed with hipsters, sorority girls, and drifters raving about the time the government tested a laser on them.

But most of all, it’s the place where the mousetrap goes off on all my dreams.

Anyway. It doesn’t take long before I realize I’m wasting my time. She’s happy to discuss vague generalities of the project, things she’d like to include, things she’d like to exclude — “Can’t be having you drawing any naked women, John,” she tells me, “Wouldn’t want things to be vulgar.”

(Which is a bit much coming from her, let me tell you.)

But then when I try to figure out when she thinks she’ll have the first painting ready, she balks. Or hedges, at least. And you know how it is, you can always tell when someone’s hedging because they really don’t know and when someone’s hedging because they don’t have any intention of doing the project on the phases of the moon.

Which upsets me a little, if I’m honest.

Not that I don’t have enough to keep me busy already. Part of me is actually pretty relieved I won’t be having to add a new project to my workload.

But I care about the girl. Just a tiny bit, mind you. Don’t make a thing out of it.

Even if every time I see her beautiful face I’d love nothing better than to bury a dagger in her abdomen — which isn’t just a sexual innuendo, by the way.

I care about her a little bit. And I know what an idiot she can be sometimes.

And I don’t mean she’s an idiot in the sense that she’s unintelligent. I mean she’s an idiot in the sense that all women who are as beautiful as she is can’t help but be idiots. Everybody’s always so nice to her — the men because they want to fuck her and the women because they think it will make them look good if they can make her their friend — so is it any wonder she ends up thinking she’s bright and charming?

Apart from the President of the United States, no one on Earth gets away with saying quite as many stupid things as a beautiful woman does.

And that’s why all beautiful women are idiots. Even the intelligent ones.

See, somewhere behind all her indefiniteness and timidity and fake profundity there’s a sharp mind. A mind that’s at home talking Heidegger and Dostoevsky — maybe not with any particular insight or analytical skill, but still capable enough.

No, she has a bright mind. Bright enough that I wanted — still want, really — to help draw her mind out of her indefiniteness and timidity and fake profundity.

So after all the dithering, after all the avoiding the subject, after all the pretense, I told her: “Listen, if you really want to do this thing, I think it would help us both grow a lot as artists.”

And that’s when she said it.

The awful thing.

The stupidest thing I’ve heard in my life.

“Artists just are, I think. They don’t grow.”

Have you ever felt physically ill and wanted to throw your steaming cup of coffee in someone’s face at the same time? Well, I have.

But then she went on, “You seem really diligent about your work, but I can barely even get myself to stand in front of a canvas… so I think maybe there’s a balance?”

I took a deep breath. This really wasn’t about whether artists grow or simply are. It was about her self-image, her self-conception as an artist, defending itself against the fact that she really wasn’t producing any art.

And I was.

So no wonder she’d wanted to work with me. And no wonder she tried to attack my ego now and again — here I am, after all, doing something she knows in her heart she ought to be doing and still isn’t.

My heart went out to her. She really is a fragile woman, beneath all her pluck and hostility.

I still wish we could have worked on that project together. But I can’t make a grown woman do anything.

Still. She said the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.

So on my way out of the coffee shop my foot “accidentally” caught on her chair leg, pulling it out from under her.

She squealed in surprise and sudden anger as she fell straight on her ass.