Maybe it's time

Eleanor pushed the table against the wall of the living room and threw a white linen cloth over it. She wiped the coffee cups and polished the numbers Brenna had painted in black on each of them to identify which cup was which. Seven in total. She crawled underneath the table to plug the small hob that would keep the Americano pot hot for the whole afternoon. Only the velvet cake was missing - judging from the smell floating out of the kitchen, it would be ready soon. She opened the window and stepped to the side as salt, sand, and pines notes flowed in. The air was fresh and biting, like in every fall of that little town in Nova Scotia.

"Hi, Nora." Brenna entered the living room, her black shiny heels hitting the brown tiles loudly. She liked to call her niece Nora instead of Eleanor. Brenna looked at the table and decorations around the room. "Seems like you've made good progress. Early morning?"

"Kind of. I went for a run."

"Don't you go on Thursdays?", Brenna asked, heading to the kitchen to check on the oven. Eleanor couldn't hide much from her aunt. And yet, over the past four weeks, she had kept her anxiousness secret. Insomnia hadn't struck since she had settled here five years ago, fleeing her parents' divorce and New York's honks. But insomnia crept back up that night. How could it not?

"You didn't reply, Nora.", the voice of her aunt echoed from the kitchen.

"Yeah... Just felt like running."

That was not a smart thing to say. Brenna would now leave the kitchen to collect the mail outside, like every morning, and she would notice Nora's trainers weren't in the corridor. She would tease Nora until she told the truth. This, Nora wanted to avoid at all cost. But Brenna did none of that. She walked back slowly into the room, her eyes glued to a letter.

Brenna was a woman of curves and beauty. She had the allure of actresses that age with character. That grow with their art no matter what the industry throws at them. Her ginger hair waved into a long and blur mass. Her skin had freckles. A line of coal structured her sharp blue eyes. Whether in summer or not, she wore a silk dress with thin straps that unveiled her round chest. In those midi dresses - blue, red or green - she looked like an actress closing a performance night, receiving flowers from anonymous hands. And yet, Brenna was no actress. Brenna was just Brenna.

"There's also a letter for you." She folded her letter and handed Nora a sealed enveloppe. Nora's heart beat - in her hand was now her acceptation, or rejection, letter. As much as she wanted to rip the enveloppe apart and devour its content, she pushed it in the back pocket of her jeans. Family, first - that's what Brenna had taught her.

"What did your letter say?", Nora asked.

"Close that window, will you. It's cold in here." Brenna headed to the kitchen and came back with stalls. Seven of them. She positioned them in circle in the middle of the rather empty living-room. She fetched three boxes of paint tubes from the wooden cabinet. Nora understood she should leave her aunt alone. She moved on to their weekly ritual - preparing the living-room for the live model class of the afternoon. Nora grabbed three pedestals and set them between the stalls for Brenna to put the boxes.

"It was a letter from the council.", Brenna finally said as if hearing Nora's question only now. "No grant for us this year."

"Oh." Nora paused. She had been so busy applying to architecture schools that she had forgotten about the annual grant.

"That's fine." Brenna fetched a glass jar full of brushes. "I think you're right - we need to modernise this place. With online classes, we could reach a broader audience and maybe... charge a fee." The glass jars tinkled as they landed on the pedestals. Brenna's thumbnail scratched her upper lip. She didn't like to admit that she had been wrong and, worse, that she had been stubborn. "I wanted to keep this space local and accessible. Be an activist." She looked into her niece's eyes. "I have said this to you a gazillion times already, but I am convinced no artist should have to pay to practice their art." Nora nodded. "I was lucky - my parents paid for college, travels, and studio renting. But it shouldn't be so." Nora looked down.

"You haven't moped the floor yet, have you?", she asked. The flesh of her arms shook as Brenna pressed the broom into the water. She pushed her actress hair behind her shoulder and started to mope around the place.

"Maybe, I'm old-fashioned. I've been teaching 5 classes a week for free for twenty years. Since I bought this old house. Since my little graceful arms made those decorations and painted those walls." Nora smiled. "But things change." Brenna stopped mopping the floor and leaned with both hands on the broom. "You should take over - this place needs a new compass." This, Nora had not expected. "I'm not surprised by the council's decision - over the years, their aid has shrank and shrank. But we still need money. And you're right, we should involve Richie." Nora raised her eyebrows. Not only had Brenna never accepted any help from her brother, Nora's dad, but she had also never called him Richie.

"What made you change your mind?"

"Money. We can't get it from the local students - online, perhaps and, still, not sure. Council won't help and the other grants I never get. These guys know nothing about art. They treat me fine because I'm famous but they don't care. They never accept my conditions."

"Have you tried negotiating?", Nora said, anticipating her aunt's reaction.

"I never negotiate." She went on to mop the rest of the floor. "And I'm too old to kiss butts. Therefore, the only options are me and Richard."

"Do you have money?"

"I have paintings."

Nora raised her eyebrows, again. Brenna's remaining paintings were sacred. They were locked upstairs in the attic and Brenna allowed no access to that part of her house.

"Selling them could keep this place afloat for a while. But once the paintings are gone, they're gone." Brenna laughed "Unlike your dad's money." Her laughter was bitter and irreverent.

"He doesn't have that much."

"Come on. Arranging Director on Wall Street, stingy and paranoid as he is-"

"Managing Director not Arranging Director."

"Whatever." Brenna grabbed the bucket and the broom and disappeared in the kitchen. "And you know, if you run the thing, Nora, I'm sure he'd help out."

Something pinched in Nora's chest. Her aunt who had welcome her when she needed space now needed her. The enveloppe was still sealed in her pocket. Maybe the school's answer was a no and it would relieve her. As Brenna sounded busy in the kitchen, Nora opened the letter. With trembling hands. Was she trembling because she expected a yes? Or because she now wanted it to be a no? She would be miserable in both cases. She went through the dark letters without understanding a single word. She looked for a y or an n, anything to end her struggle. The fourth time she read it, she found it. And it was a yes. She pushed the letter back into her pocket. She had waited for this for so long and now she was sad.

Doorbell. Hi's and voices. Nora adjusted the speakers at the back of the room. Brenna appeared in her white coat, glasses and low ponytail, like any other time she painted or taught. Three faces soon popped along: Leo, the model, skinny and grey. Li, with her glasses and straight hair and Carlie with her bun and red spots. Three, compared to the five expected. Brenna had lost two students over the summer - they had been accepted to an art school on the other side of the country. Thanks to her teaching but also to her contacts - she had helped them secure scholarships. Nora wondered why despite her contacts, fame and wit, her aunt never got grants. Maybe she was less flexible when it came to her projects. Maybe she was too proud. Nora had never asked and she knew she shouldn't.

Leo took off his jacket and shoes and sat down at the centre of the room. Brenna stood on a stall to adjust the lighting above his head. She teased him about his shirt and their usual banter started. Leo had been posing for this class for a year now and had always refused to take his clothes off. Li tied up her hair and adjusted her glasses, oblivious to their noise. Holding her pencil in front of her nose, she assessed the proportions of the space and of his face with her thumb. She started to sketch. Brenna put on a piece of classical music by René Aubry - this week's theme was "bucolic". The guitar was light. Nora thought she could paint Leo swirling through fading clouds. On a blue backdrop. Leo did not like to expose his body but he enjoyed offbeat portraits of him - he was more confident with his image than he liked to think. Carlie was sitting in a corner, stuffing velvet cake into her mouth. She was seventeen at most and attended classes regularly, except when Leo wasn't coming. Carlie had almost bursted into tears the week before. Brenna had stopped by and screamed as she saw Carlie, like a toddler, had represented Leo's body with sticks and his hands with sloppy circles. Instead of his head, she had drawn a heart. "Is that all you can do!" Brenna had yelled out, half-laughing, half-angry. She realised she had exposed Carlie's little secret only as the words had come out of her mouth. Luckily, only Nora had understood the scene and, although she was dying laughing, she quickly took Carlie to the kitchen to comfort her. Carlie seemed to have recovered since then. Nora shook her head and focused on her model.

"You never told us how you came to pose here." Brenna said as her students stood in front of the house, ready to live. Ready to live, not leave. Carlie's eyes sparkled and Brenna patted her back discreetly.

"I came because of social anxiety, actually." They frowned, he went on. "My therapist said I should put myself out there more. Then I saw your ad in the town's newspaper and thought I'd swing by. Came back."

Brenna gave him a warm look. As if to a son. As if to the ghost of a past lover. Had she ever loved? Nora didn't know. Brenna had taught her a lot. And yet, she had told her nothing. Nora knew nothing of the boho time she spent in Big Sur forty years ago, while Richard ran from printer to printer "sweating like a dog", as Brenna liked to put it, in rainy New York. Nora felt a tiny hook in her chest.

"You've been quiet all day." Brenna lit up a cigarette as she sat on the sofa of the veranda. The night was dark. The moon was bright, the stars discreet. The waves of the sea came and went under the light of the old beacon across the shore. Nora was sitting next to her, quiet indeed.

"Nora?"

Nora wanted to hide her face in a fluffy pillow and disappear. The smoke of Brenna's cigarette undulated in front of her, prying. Looking down, she drew the enveloppe out of her pocket. Brenna blew out a cloud of smoke and read the letter.

Silence.

"What's your decision?"

Silence.

Brenna took another smoke and looked at the beacon far away. "I think you should go." She paused. "This is a good school. Plus you've never been to Sweden. You'll see Swedish males are", she laughed, "fine."

Nora pouted. "How about you?"

"Me? You don't make your decisions based on me."

"But you said "family first"."

"And?"

"You need someone around."

"I'm a big girl, Nora. You go. It's your life."

Maybe Nora had hoped Brenna would ask her to stay, forbid her to leave. Make the decision for her.

"What if more students came? Maybe online classes will become a thing? Maybe I can wait another year, make sure you're all set here? Maybe -"

Brenna stubbed out her cigarette.

"Maybe it's time."