“Paint thief, thankyouverymuch. The art will be my own.” He helps me arrange the blanket, folding it over an additional time so there’s more space than usual around the rooftop’s perimeter. “I’ll need the space to work.”
I shrug happily. It’s sunny, probably one of the last warm days of the year, so I’m already slathered in SPF. I slip out of my wedge sandals and wiggle my toes in the air.
He studies the concrete wall. “Where will we go when the weather turns?”
“I tough it out through mid-November. And some winter days aren’t so bad, you know? But Kurt and I usually hole up in the dorm, sometimes the library.”
Josh glances at me. It’s so sexy that my heart misses a beat. “But where will we go?”
“Everywhere,” I reply. “We’ll go everywhere together.”
“I want to show you my favourite portraits. The Van Gogh self-portrait at the d’Orsay. And there’s this Van Dyck that I’ve always loved at the Louvre. Le Roi à la chasse. I don’t even know why I love it so much. Maybe you could tell me.”
I close my eyes to feel the sunshine against my lids. “I’d like to take you to the restaurant inside the mosque. We’ll have mint tea and honeyed desserts.”
“We’ll ride the Ferris wheel at the Place de la Concorde.”
“And then we’ll walk through the Tuileries and drink vin chaud to stay warm.”
“The flea market in Montmartre,” he says. “We’ll shop for rusted bicycles and broken mirrors.”
“We’ll ride the métro to its furthest stops, just to see what’s at the end of each line.”
“Those,” Josh says to the wall, “are perfect days.” I open my eyes. He dips a small brush into the paint and pauses mid-air.
And then…he comes alive.
His plan unfolds quickly. He’s painting a mural on the inside of the rooftop’s wall. He begins with a sketch, an outline, and moves around the interior in a complete circle. It’s already clear what this mural will be.
I smile and let him work in silence.
Josh switches to a larger brush and bolder strokes. Fat green leaves and thick green branches appear across the wall’s peeling white paint. I lose myself in a book about the search for an ancient lost city in the Amazon, glancing up occasionally to watch the tree grow. But when he circles around again, unexpected shapes appear between the leaves. He’s creating a mock-up of the surrounding skyline. It’s precise but with his usual touch of whimsy – certain buildings rounder, others more square.
Jacque visits. He purrs against Josh’s leg.
When Josh doesn’t notice – which is a first, Josh adores Jacque – he scowls and saunters towards me. I feed him scraps of duck gizzard from the salad I had for lunch, and he allows me to pet him for a few minutes before disappearing back over the rooftops.
The sun beats down. Josh takes off his shirt. He’s so deep into his work that he’s forgotten I’m here. He’s a work of art himself. The lines of his back and arms are strong, more so than his slender body would suggest. He has a small mole on his right shoulder blade and a faded scar on his lower back. The skull-and-crossbones on his arm looks even more him against this backdrop of similar brushstrokes.
And…his hips. They jut out skeletally from the top of his jeans, and I find my eyes returning to this area again and again. This right-above-the-pants area.
Christ.
Josh removes a second jar of paint from his shoulder bag. As he circles a fourth time, yet another unexpected layer appears behind Paris. Towering skyscrapers. Suspension bridges. Statues of lions. He paints a Flemish building with climbing garden roses and a tiled roof, and then a brownstone with ivy window boxes and an American flag. What surely must be his house.
I was wrong. Josh didn’t just turn my rooftop into an actual tree house. He turned it into a tree house with a view of the world. Our world. Paris and New York.
He circles around one last time, sprinkling in a few birds among the tree branches. Some look almost real. Others are so fantastical that they must exist exclusively in his imagination. The complete mural takes less than six hours.
When Josh emerges from his trance, he is dazed and art-drunk. He blinks at me. Inexplicably, I burst into tears. He continues to stare at me without expression, and I continue to sob – embarrassingly fat tears. He tilts his head. Another blink. And then he drops to the blanket. His eyes are wild with fear.
“It’s…it’s beautiful,” I say.
Every muscle in his body relaxes. He laughs so hard that he collapses backwards. His paint-covered hands clutch the blanket, and his body shakes with uncontrollable laughter.
“It’s not funny.” I dab at my face with the blanket.
He doubles up even harder.