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He never had cigarettes when he really needed them.  She didn’t smoke, but she kept a pack in her bag.  It was a bad habit, she would say as she handed him the lighter.  Then why don’t you stop me?  He would question her with a smile, puffing sweet nicotine smoke in her face.  She would sit back and smile, replacing the hidden truth in the deep pockets of the bag.  Because I don’t have to.
They didn’t live together yet, but every now and then they would move boxes from one apartment to the other.  Nothing ever got unpacked, but it was a start.  She would pretend the stuff inside was fragile and he would pretend the box wasn’t heavy at all.  The lies were tiny little beads she kept in her pockets in that oversized winter coat he loved to see her in.  It was the knowing that something beautiful hid beneath the layers of cloth that turned him on.  She was his butterfly and he was her curse.
The day was a long November requiem to the soft snow that had fallen the night before.  The window fogged along the edges, but the view of the street below was sweet and unhindered to the pile of blankets on the floor.  The gray sludge that covered the car tires and sidewalks made her want to paint seashore landscapes.  He tried to imagine a shore covered in gray snow sludge as being beautiful.  If you say so, baby.  She pulled out her watercolors, set up her paper on his lap, leaning against the cold metal wall.  The heat only did so much to take the edge off on days like these.  It was Chicago after all.
She made short, sweeping strokes across the bottom in golden yellow.  The beach, she whispered, paintbrush clenched between her teeth as she watched the semi trucks pass by in slow, steady succession.  The water turned a nasty shade of green and she swirled it about to watch the waves form and lap the sides and out onto the floor.  He yawned and she giggles, spraying him with little green droplets from the tips of her fingers.  He pretended to sweep them up off his face with his tongue.
The clouds came last, after long thought and pacing.  He had fallen asleep while she tried to recreate the water lines of her youth.  The ocean was her home, no matter how far from it she lived.  The waves lapped the shore, white with foam that turned gray as it returned to its mother’s arms.  The seagulls that walked the sands found little bits of bread left by the couple of children that had imprinted their souls in the simple form of footprints.  She lit a cigarette from the deep recesses of her bag, placing it carefully on the window ledge so that the sweet nicotine smoke would keep her mind awake, alive.  He shifted in his sleep, a silly smile crossing his face as the smell of cigarettes reminded him of home.  He dreamed of the study his father had hidden in most of his life.  It was dark and beautiful, like her, like the deep winter coat that lay on the floor near the too big door to the apartment.  He had hidden in the unused fireplace late into the nights to hear his father play the violin as he did only for himself.  The old country had been hard on the stoic immigrant.  The new country wasn’t much easier either.  But the father made it through with his cigarettes and his secret violin.  He would listen as the music of the farmlands would roll through the air thick with smoke and memories.  He could imagine the world through the eyes of his long dead grandmother, watching her children spread out across the world in search of something more.
She had paint on the tips of her pale hair now, splashes covering the lower half of the window as the brush moved faster than before.  She would place the now masticated end between her teeth and look up, sending little droplets of paint to cover his sleeping face.  She used his hands as palettes to mix the grays and blues and greens of the sea and sky.  They lay out before her like grassland, like the beaches of home, soft and pale and just waiting for you to leave something behind.  Because you always leave something behind.  The clouds were heavy with rain, waiting silently above the deep mother of pearl ocean for the right moment.  The wind would be cold that day, she thought to no one in particular.  It would whip the flags that hung just out of sight and make the women’s hats go flying.  No one would come to the shores this day but you and me, baby.  He couldn’t hear her, but she said it anyone.  No one but you and me.  It would be like November in Chicago, when no one leaves the warmth of their homes unless they have to.  Only it would be more beautiful than gray snow sludge on car tires.  It would be gray white foam on pale yellow sand.  It would be your hand in my hair, baby.  It would be the sundress I bought in San Fran for fun on my pale legs.  Your softest tee shirt on that untannable back of yours.  It would be us and the sky, no one but the birds watching the world spin by.  Because you always leave something behind.