I'm Normally Perfect (re-upload)

Chapter Thirty

Alex showed me how to wrap a painting so it wouldn't get damaged in transit and as we were hanging it in the house Alex asked, 'Are you certain you're fine with this being in here?' I nodded. 'Would you mind terribly modelling for me again?'

I blushed, 'That'd be fine. It wasn't so horrible last time.'

'It's more for the future. I believe I have enough sketches to do a portrait.'

'Oh.' I felt my face growing hot, I wasn't sure about a portrait.

She was looking behind the painting, making sure it was on the wall securely. She gently laid it against the wall. 'What?'

'Like a big picture of just me?'

She smiled, 'Not as large as the portraits at Tillington.' Thank God for that, some of those were nearly ten feet high. She held her hands about a meter apart, 'Perhaps this much. But I want to do it in a period outfit. I hadn't yet decided if it will be a Victorian or Elizabethan costume. Do you have a preference?'

I considered it before asking, 'Could you do one like the Dutch Masters?'

Her eyes lit up, 'That's not a bad idea. You'd look beautiful in velvet and lace.'

I blushed. 'Yeah?'

'Yes. I believe that's what I'll do.' She sighed, 'Oh, splendid, now I want to run off and begin work on that.'

'Yeah, I often make people want to run away.'

She chuckled and pulled me to her, 'Shut up, you.' The more time went on the less I wanted her to let go when she held me. It was becoming physically difficult to separate myself from her, as though some internal magnet was drawing me towards her.

We'd returned to Kidlington a few days before Trinity was to begin, and the dread over having to return to America in a few weeks began in my stomach again. The land of SUVs and strip malls. Oh joy. I tried to occupy myself with making the back wall of the study into the World Literature section, sub-divided by country, but it was no use. The fear seemed worse this year than the year before, though perhaps I'd felt exactly the same way last year, but unable to compare the anxiety side by side like the glasses in an optometrist's office ("Is this one worse, or this one? This one, or this one?"), it only felt worse because it was immediate. It probably was worse, though, because a year ago I'd only been in England for ten months and though I'd known Alex for several months by then, I hadn't lived with her.

I tried to imagine having to see my family every day for three months. That was when I realised that we hadn't discussed my returning to England early as I had done the year before. Oh Lord, I might have to spend a whole three months with my family! No, no, that was unacceptable. I'd have to speak with Alex about that very soon. The sooner the better. Now would be great. I put down the stack of French Literature I was sorting and found Alex in the front garden, trimming the bushes that ran round the front edge of the house.

I sat on the front steps, 'Hey, whatcha doin'?'

She chuckled, 'Seeing to these naughty bushes. Do you think I should put in flowers instead? Perhaps something multi-coloured.' She chucked a handful of clipped pieces onto a small pile on the lawn.

'That's really up to you, since you'll be the one looking after them.'

She smiled and kept at it for a bit, before looking at me, 'What's on your mind?'

'America.'

She looked concerned, 'Oh, do you miss it?'

I felt my eyes go wide with shock. 'Have we met?'