Not Your Type's Type | Part Three
A Flash Fiction RomCom | Every romance has it's rival. Enter...Nelm.
Despite my fledgling intention to be reasonable, something about him irked me. It had nothing to do with his character. He seemed pleasant, amicable, worldly. He and Esme worked effortlessly together. Their shorthand was obvious. As the casual introduction continued, he had already reorganized her table in a way that put everything within her reach, aligned the first tasks, prepared the tools, and somehow made the space more pristine.
I even felt more clarity of purpose just standing beside him… infuriating.
In loving memory of Jonathan Martin.
May he live on as the best friend in every story.
The doors opened to reveal golden sun pouring in from the vaulted skylight. Its glass had no business being that pristine. You could see the clear sky, and if you squinted just right, it’s partitions disappeared, and you could feel like you were looking directly into heaven. Knowing her, she probably hadn’t replaced the glass, but restored it, meticulously.
The morning light painted the studio in a surreal radiance, bouncing the purest form of every color off the polished wood floors and concrete pillars. The west wall was almost entirely a window overlooking the skyline. The north wall was for raw materials of every kind: linoleum, wood, soft metals, fabrics of nearly every shade, and other materials I couldn’t begin to name. Some were stacked on shelves, others hung in rows or were sectioned off by rolling dividers. I knew from talking to her that some of the materials were rare, while others were proprietary to her process.
On the south wall were rows of nearly every artistic tool you could own. Some I recognized as artistic tools: a thousand paintbrushes, pencils, tools for cutting, carving, and etching. But others seemed like they belonged on a construction site, or at a surgical station, or even in an experimental science lab.
Near the east wall, between three sets of concrete pillars, were 3D printers, presses, and a sleek computer: a little pocket of sci-fi in the middle of a world of analog. Beside that, sectioned off by dirty plexiglass, was the area for the usual tools of wood carving and metalwork: the only “dirty” section of this otherwise unnaturally pristine and orderly sanctuary. Not too far from that was an ink station, and a small space with a rug and two couches.
But at the very center of the room, right underneath the skylight, was what could only be described as the altar of this sanctuary: the main worktable, broad and immovable, surrounded by metal stools. At its center lay a stack of linoleum, and beside that, the beginning sketch of what would become her layered linocut masterpiece.
As full as this space was with tools, it was in no way cold or sterile. It was full of her expression. Finished works, paintings, etchings, and sculptures hung, stood, and were arranged around arched fabric banners of rich color. Plants and greenery were positioned wherever the sun would touch.
I did not feel like I was walking into a dirty warehouse art studio. Walking in felt more like entering the ancient hanging gardens of Babylon. It felt like stepping into the scene of a Persian or Ethiopian myth. Like I said, I didn’t feel like I was on Earth anymore, or at least not a version I was used to.
My breath was gone. All of this was a manifestation, an extension, of her.
I had walked in determined not to let my mind make Esme mythical, but stepping one foot into her space defied my intention.
Before an awkward silence could betray my thoughts, I muttered, “This place is badass…”
But hearing my own tone back in my mind, I still felt like I was giving too much away.
“The cinematographer is going to have a time…”
“I’m sure they will,” she said, still walking ahead toward the central workstation.
Arriving, my eyes fell on the giant sketches laid out on six-by-five-foot sheets of paper, neatly shingled. Her thick, curvilinear linework was mesmerizing. All drawn by a disciplined hand. The curves flowed like a multitude of parallel rivers, streams that carried my transfixed eyes along every weaving line until the full image rendered in my mind and finally let me exhale.
I wondered if her lines had the same effect. But before my thoughts wandered too far, I felt the awkwardness I wanted to avoid. “I’m sorry, these are… sublime.”
She laughed. “It’s not the first time you’ve seen them. We’ve discussed them at length.”
“I know, but it’s different this close. And these are just the sketches!”
“Well,” she said, “the sketches are the easy part…”
She told no lies. Her process of linocut was a current that only rushed forward.
1On a section of linoleum, with the precision of her tools, she followed the topography of her sketches, cutting channels into the material like a deity carving a delicate landscape of elevations and depressions. But the carved surface was an inverse of the intended image. What she cut away would remain untouched by ink. What she left raised would carry it.
The next step was to roll ink across the carved linoleum, then press it onto the final canvas. That would be the first layer. Layer upon layer would follow as the process repeated, each one building from background to foreground, until what began as a badlands of lines became whole.
If even one layer was misshapen, miscut, or misaligned, the entire piece could collapse. Only someone with her level of mastery could complete something like this, and no one but her would attempt it under the pressure of time.
Behind a stack of linoleum, I could see smaller squares, each carved with single or doubled curves. Some complete. Some were abandoned.
I held one up. “Already started?”
She exhaled nervously, picking up another square, one incomplete. “No…” she said, scrutinizing it. “Practice. The sketches are… ambitious. Some of the lines are thinner than what my tools can carve while still maintaining the integrity of the serpentine curves.”
“The line of beauty…”
She grinned, but the kind one gives a toddler for being clever enough to fit the square block into the square hole. “You’ve been reading up on aesthetics.”
“I have to, to keep up with you.” And I guess that was a subconscious attempt to flirt.
“You’ll have to read more than old books on aesthetics to keep up with this goddess,” a smooth masculine voice purred from behind me.
And like an unwelcome breeze rushing into what was already a comfortably cool moment, a man swept past me, folded Esme into an embrace, then gave her a familiar kiss.
The floor of my stomach collapsed to my knees, and I prayed to all the muses that no one could see the blood drain from my face, because it felt like it’s flesh had been replaced by TV static.
“This is Nelm, my studio assistant,” Esme offered.
I wish “studio assistant” had been enough to slow the escalating dosage of adrenaline pouring into my bloodstream. The static in my face was rapidly usurped with hives, and my thumping heart beat primed for fight or flight. The curse of testosterone and its involuntary entitlements.
He reached out his hand, and the empty feeling in my gut was replaced with a caged roar for him to go away. He’s ruining everything.
What was he ruining? Nothing. If this were an animalistic territorial dispute, Esme was the apex, and this was her territory. And apparently his.
Logic prevailed, as it always does, because I’m a civilized man in a suit. And I was here for work. I shook his hand. “It is very nice to meet you, Nelms.”
I ignored my instinct to check the firmness of his handshake. That’s for the corporate Hunger Games. (It was soft, though.)
“Just Nelm…” he politely replied.
“Just Nelm. My apologies.” I returned.
“This is the ad exec I was telling you about,” Esme added.
“Ah,” he said, “the aspiring artist. She’s told me so much about you…”
Despite my fledgling intention to be reasonable, something about him irked me. It had nothing to do with his character. He seemed pleasant, amicable, worldly. And it was clear he and Esme worked effortlessly together. Their shorthand was obvious. As the casual introduction continued, he had already reorganized her table in a way that put everything within her reach, aligned the first tasks, prepared the tools, and somehow made the space even more pristine.
I felt more clarity of purpose just standing beside him… infuriating.
They were paired winds, whirling around me.
What bothered me was that when he entered the room, I was immediately outnumbered. I was a suit among the two artists. Their styles were even complementary. He was almost exactly my height, his complexion a dozen elegant shades darker, his hair styled into a messy afro, golden nose rings, diamond ear piercings. We seemed equally physically fit, but he was far less modest about it. His outfit was elite alt-Black punk, fitted, shredded, and sagging in the most tailored fashion. The hater in me wanted to call him a discount Duckwrth, but the truth was, “Just Nelm” might actually be cooler.
And here I was, the uncool; outnumbered. And “Nelms” was exactly what I imagined as her type.
A rustling and shuffling of many feet in the distance, coming up the stairs, kept me from spiraling. Reinforcements.
I’d never tell him this, but I wished Tom was among them. A confidant would have been great right now. But knowing Tom, he would see exactly what was going on and try his best to make me crack. Alas, it was just the production crew.
And for a brief moment, as awful as it sounds, I gained some level of power in a space where I felt completely vulnerable. Every member of the crew was handpicked. The best on my roster, and they knew I had their respect.
“Where do you want us to set up, boss?” asked the gaffer, sweating, the heaviest of Pelican cases in tow. In that moment, I caught myself before ego made me make an ass of myself.
“Actually, this is… Nelm. He’s Esme’s right hand. He’ll know better than me, and he’ll be your go-to so Esme can lock in.”
And with the last syllable of the last word, I relinquished whatever usefulness I had in the room. So it had to be.
“As we aren’t recording sound, I like to work with music,” Esme instructed, and the crew, of course, welcomed it.
Nelm put on a track.
A warm, distorted riff and rhythmic beat thrummed through the air, charging it with more creative force. The realness of life was replaced by the fantasy of a montage. It was driving, exhilarating.
But I fell back. Entirely outnumbered, I watched the room full of artists go to work.
My mind went numb, sinking under dissociated layers of suffocating envy. Beyond that of losing the fleeting attention of Esme, I once again felt like a man apart. This was all their native country, and they all came alive in it, choreographed by its prince, “Just Nelm,” and its empress, Esme, wielding all of them with divine craft.
I could not believe I was feeling something that had once been familiar, something I thought had long been resolved. A feeling I dared not name, because naming it might beckon it back with force.
So, as I did long ago, I simply let go. Let myself reform. I felt the solidness of the hard soles of my polished loafers against the wood floor. I let myself feel the refined fabric of the suit hang, and my body rested against the fitted tightness of my undershirt. Not in the sense of hiding behind a constructed shell. This was me, or at least what I had genuinely become.
And by now, I had come to like me. It unfortunately was just not… enough.
“That’s that bullshit,” Tom fired, eyes glaring at me from over a glass of scotch. “Not enough? The hell are you talking about?”
“Okay, Tom, here’s me showing my friend my interior,” I laughed, genuinely amused at his consistency of self. It didn’t matter what I told him. Tom was gonna be Tom. I could tell him my dad died, and he’d still say something uncouth, which he actually had. He was the only one who got me to laugh, because he knew laughing would make the other emotions break.
But damn… sometimes…
“Guy, I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it a thousand times. I’m your friend, not your therapist. But I will send you to one.”
“Or be the reason I need one.”
He chuckled and took a sip. I waved for the bartender to refill my Coke.
“That is some bullshit, though,” he pressed. “And you should know better. ‘Not enough’ is the psychology we weaponize to make people buy things. And you know that.”
“Land that plane… what are you talking about?”
“Something in you won’t feel fulfilled until you capture a girl like her. It’s a crack in your armor.”
I, of course, immediately disagreed….
…to be continued.
Esme’s process was inspired in part by the real work the artist Emils Salmins. (The similarity in name is completely coincidental.)