Opalite
Painting has always been Dottie's first love.
It's where she feels closest to the people she's loved and lost, and the one place she has always known exactly who she is. Every blank canvas reminds her that with enough patience, color, and faith, something beautiful can emerge.
She's never questioned the life she's built around her art. In fact, she can't imagine wanting anything more...until someone begins looking at her the way she looks at her art..
STATUS: In Progress
The Story
At twenty-six, Dottie has built her life around the one thing that's never let her down: painting. Every morning she climbs the stairs to her studio, mixes fresh colors onto her palette, and loses herself in the work she loves. Creating isn't simply her career. It's the promise she made to her father years ago, and one she's kept every single day since.
Dottie's childhood wasn't easy. After losing her mother at just eleven years old, she watched her father sacrifice everything to keep them together. There were years when money was painfully tight. New clothes came from Goodwill, home was a small apartment on the south side, and every spare dollar seemed to disappear into attorney's fees. But somehow, there was always enough for paint, brushes, and canvases. Her father refused to let hardship take away the one thing that made her feel most alive.
Now, Dottie makes her living doing what she loves, something she never takes for granted. Every painting feels like another promise kept, another quiet thank you to the father who made sure she never had to give up the thing she loved most.
When she's invited to join a local figure drawing class, she expects nothing more than an opportunity to sharpen her skills. Instead, she meets Levi, the class's newest model.
While everyone else admires her drawings, Levi notices something no one else ever has. As the light shifts across her work, he sees details, colors, and emotions that even Dottie has never recognized. The more he talks about her paintings, the harder it becomes to ignore what he's seeing.
For the first time, Dottie begins to wonder if the life she's always loved might have room for something more.
Because being seen that way is exciting. And a little terrifying.
Meet the Characters
Dottie Riston
Dottie has turned a lifelong passion into a career she never takes for granted. Every morning she photographs the blank canvas and every night she photographs the finished one, a habit that started three years ago when her father got sick and needed proof she was still doing the thing he built his whole belief in her around. He's gone now. She still takes the pictures.
She talks to her canvases like they're listening.
It's a life shaped by discipline, routine, and the promise she made to her dad to keep creating, no matter what. When she's invited to join a local figure drawing class, she expects nothing more than an opportunity to sharpen her skills. Instead, she meets someone who begins to see both her work and her in ways she never expected, forcing Dottie to question whether a life she has always believed was complete might still have room for something more.
Levi Paterno
A talented woodworker by trade, Levi has built a quiet life doing work he genuinely loves. Years ago, he modeled for a photographer friend a couple of times, a fact his grandfather has turned into family legend. Levi humors him because making his grandfather happy has always mattered more than correcting the story.
When the community art center is looking for a a model, Levi agrees simply because his grandfather asks him to, never expecting the favor to change the course of his life. Patient, dependable, and quietly observant, he's the kind of man who pays attention to the small details everyone else walks past.
While everyone else admires Dottie's talent, Levi notices something else entirely: the way color shifts and surfaces in her work, an almost opalescent quality that even she has never recognized. He's never seen anything like it, and it leaves him wanting to know the person who creates that way.
Sal Paterno
A retired man with a reputation at the community center and zero shame about bragging on his grandson to strangers. Sal is warmth and mischief in one package, the kind of person who talks his way into your life before you've agreed to let him in. He unknowingly sets Dottie and Levi on the same path, becoming the story's quiet matchmaker without ever realizing it.
Emily, Becca & Jill
College friends who've stuck around long enough to know Dottie best. They clock her thinking face before she's said a word, tease her about deflecting, and follow her anyway when she tries to change the subject. They remind her that life exists beyond the walls of her studio and love her enough to call her out when she's hiding from herself.
Inspiration For This Novel
Opalite is inspired by my grandmother, Dorothy Giandolfi Litzan.
She was a fashion designer in the 1950s and 60s, creating cocktail dresses for Roban before eventually starting her own company, Dorsan. But long before she became a designer, she was a little girl with a father who believed in hard work.
She used to tell me that every evening, before her father came home from work, she had to have three new sketches waiting to show him. She always believed that those daily drawings, more than her natural talent, were what made her the artist she became.
Years later, after she retired, she discovered painting. As a teenager, I would sit and watch her transform a blank canvas into beautiful oil paintings. I still have several of them hanging in my home today.
When I created Dottie, I realized I wasn't just writing about an artist. I was writing about the quiet discipline behind creativity, the joy of beginning with a blank canvas, and the belief that talent grows through showing up, day after day.
In many ways, Opalite is my love letter to my grandmother. I hope a small piece of her lives on in every painting Dottie creates. Every time Dottie stands in front of a blank canvas, she's carrying a little piece of my grandmother with her.
One of My Favorite Moments
I suspect my favorite moment is still waiting to be written. I'm looking forward to watching Dottie and Levi grow together, challenge each other, and discover parts of themselves they never would have found alone.
Right now, my favorite scene is a quiet one. As Levi and Dottie stand together looking through her older paintings, he notices the way the colors seem to shift and move across each canvas. Dottie has never seen it before, even though it's been there all along. I love that moment because it marks the beginning of everything. Levi doesn't just see Dottie's art differently; he helps her see it, and herself, in a way she never has before.
I love that moment because it's the first crack in the life Dottie has so carefully built. Her father taught her that discipline and hard work create greatness. Levi doesn't challenge that lesson; he simply introduces the possibility that instinct, feeling, and even a little uncertainty belong in great art, too. In that moment, Dottie begins to see both her work and herself differently, and that's where this journey begins.
What I Love About This Story
Because Opalite is still a work in progress, what I love most is the process of discovering it. Every chapter reveals something new about Dottie and Levi, and I'm enjoying watching them slowly change each other in ways neither of them expects.
I'm fascinated by the tension at the heart of this story. Dottie has built a meaningful life through discipline, routine, and the promise she made to her father. Then Levi enters her world and quietly challenges the certainty that she's already living the fullest version of her life.
I find myself wondering the same things Dottie does. Is discipline enough to create a meaningful life, or is passion worth the disruption it brings? If you've spent your whole life creating something beautiful alone, is that enough? Or can opening your heart to someone deepen not only your life, but your art as well?
I don't know the answers yet. That's exactly what makes me so excited to keep writing.
Status Updates
Current Status: 58 pages written. I fell in love with Dottie and Levi almost immediately, but sometimes another story insists on being told first. Opalite is currently on pause while I focus on finishing Crazy Behavior. As soon as that journey is complete, I'll be back with Dottie and Levi, eager to see where their story takes me next.
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OPALITE
© 2026 Denise Ricciotti. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction.