Round 4: Artist House

Autumn Brennan and Felicitas (Liss) Kirsch are Young Adults.

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Just because a house is in the nice part of town doesn’t mean it’s actually nice.

There was nothing wrong with the house Autumn and Liss christened Artist House, per se. Well, aside from the cockroach infestation, or the hot water that randomly cut in and out. But it had clearly seen better days, and Autumn and Liss could  practically see their new neighbors lifting their noses a little higher in the air as they passed by.

But they had better things to worry about than what the neighbors were thinking. They were working artists now, out to make their mark in the world. There was nothing they had to do with their time but give themselves over to the muse.

It was one of those things that sounded a lot better in theory.

As it turned out, producing art was a lot harder when they had the pressure of bills to worry about. And listening to the muse wasn’t as easy when they couldn’t afford anything but cereal – not even a table to eat it at.

Their biggest concern, though, was affording painting supplies. They didn’t need a kitchen table. They didn’t need all those fancy foods like meat or vegetables. But if they ran out of paints and couldn’t buy more, their experiment would come to an early and humiliating end.

And Autumn’s father would be proven right. More than anything, Autumn knew she couldn’t let that happen.

More often than not, the muse was silenced in favor of more mercenary impulses. Liss discovered that a certain painting of hers sold better than anything else she had ever done, and promptly painted two more versions of it, which buyers eagerly snatched up. Sure, she was essentially just copying old work, but it meant getting to splurge on mac and cheese for dinner instead of eating cereal again.

Even Autumn got in on the act, when she saw the kind of money Liss was pulling in.

The more work they did, the less they had to worry about starving or freezing to death – but even so, Liss refused to spend every waking moment at her easel. She had to have at least a little time for fun. Most of that time was spent with Ellis.

She had been afraid of what would happen with them once they both graduated high school. She had worried that staying with her high school boyfriend would make her feel limited and constrained, like she wasn’t experiencing all life had to offer. But if anything, their relationship had only gotten stronger – and the way Ellis had quite suddenly and visibly emerged from his teenage awkward phase certainly didn’t hurt. As long as she avoided any of Ellis’s questions about the future, they were good.

Every once in a while, she found herself feeling wistful for what she and Dmitri had once shared. After all, before they had made things romantic, he had been her best friend. And she couldn’t pretend that their friendship was all she missed, either. But that ship had sailed the moment Dmitri had gone on a date with Liss’s little sister. From what Liss heard at her weekly family dinners, Izzy and Dmitri were still ridiculously smitten with each other. Good for them. Liss wished them nothing but the best. Ellis was all she needed, anyway.

Autumn, on the other hand, didn’t have any way of easing her own isolation – or having fun doing something that didn’t involve painting – besides going to the club. Despite her first disastrous experience there, she soon found herself becoming a regular.

Sometimes Cari dropped by to visit. Just to chat, she said, but Liss detected a look of bug-eyed desperation in her eyes. Liss knew exactly how Cari felt. She suspected Cari would be moving out herself before too long. Liss considered offering her a place to stay, but the artistic atmosphere of Artist House just didn’t seem like Cari’s thing. Besides, although Liss had always been close to her family, she had to admit it was nice to finally live apart from them. She felt like she was finally starting to learn who she was without her younger sisters looking to her as some kind of guiding influence all the time. She wasn’t ready to give that up yet.