Retreat to Love by Melanie Greene

speak to Rafael tonight, and want you all to know I am available to answer your individual or group concerns whenever you see fit to bring them to me.” Pushing back her chair in some magic way that didn’t make the leg scrape against the wooden floor, she stood. “Does anyone have any other questions for me at the moment?”
    We shook our collective heads.
    “Very well, then. Good-night.”
    It took a good two minutes of listening to her take the lake path towards Rafael’s before anyone spoke.
    “Well, I want to know who’s been leaving lint in the dryer,” Lizzy said. “My jeans took at least an hour to dry the other day.”
    “I vote we have an exhibition in the laundry room,” Angelica added to the laughter, “We can preview each other’s work and figure out who the culprit is at the same time.”
    “Oh, I know who it is,” I said.
    “Who?” Theo and Angelica asked together.
    “Who else? Our recluse. He spends his days wandering the abundant lint-forests of central Texas, and stays up all night eating our left-overs and fluffing things.”
    Caleb reached across and took my hand, kissed the big knuckle. “She’s hilarious,” he told Wren next to him. “Aren’t we lucky?” He squeezed my fingers and let them go.
    “I wouldn’t mind an exhibition of sorts, actually,” Lizzy said, standing to clear the coffee mugs. “If that’s not falling too much for the party line. I’d be interested in what yous all have to say about what I’ve just finished.”
    “You finished it? You rock. I still have a couple day’s more work on Chains .”
    “Technically, it’s half done. But before I start on the other half I’d take some good critical reaction.”
    “I have some things I could show,” Caleb volunteered. “You do, too, don’t you, Wren?”
    She nodded.
    “I’m almost to that point myself,” Brandon said.
    “Theo’s done wonders.” Angelica put in.
    “Thanks.” He gave her an absorbed smile. “Your stuff, too. Don’t be modest.”
    “Right. So, we’re almost all ready.  How about this? We do a door-to-door thing, each day, say after lunch? We visit one person’s studio and talk about their work. We can start with Angelica’s, then mine, Wren, and so on. Would that give you enough time?” Lizzy asked me. I nodded.
    “Brandon?”
    “I could swing it. That’s a week for me.”
    “Eight days,” she corrected him. “Saturday Ash and I will be unavailable.”
    “Do we invite our silent member?” I asked. Quite admirable, the way the woman who earlier implored me to spend a day saving her from direct contact with her parents had become the ringleader and swept the issue of their arrival aside as if it were no more inconvenient than an annual check-up.
    “Does no harm to ask him. He doesn’t have to come, doesn’t have to say anything, doesn’t have to let us into his studio.”
    “Okay, but please don’t ask Margie,” Wren said. “I couldn’t take what passes for critique from her.”
    “Absolutely. Are we agreed? Angelica, will you be ready on the morrow for an invasion of artists into your world?” Lizzy looked at her as if anything but agreement would be ridiculous.
    “After lunch,” she confirmed.
    “Great. Brandon, finish this washing up, will you? I’m bushed. Night, all.” And with that, she left.
     
    I don’t know if our first meeting about Angelica was stilted because of her work, or the way Theo wouldn’t let us say anything negative, or because despite our growing ease with each other, we hadn’t yet experienced many group discussions about our art, and didn’t know where each other’s biases lay.
    She started us off on a porcelain rose, glitteringly beautiful, with had three over-sized and rather fierce aphids crawling up its interior petals. We all (exception: Rafael, not there) stammered at her expectation we’d be carried away on its loveliness, until Theo said, “I think it’s all about the ephemeral nature of beauty and the fragility of