by Huss, JA
I look back over at Spencer. “You’re going to destroy this room.” I pause, because it’s painful to even picture it. But then I look up at the tree and imagine how many years his gran must’ve cared for it to be so big. “How old is it?”
“As old as me,” he replies as he looks around at the room. Maybe trying to come to terms with the fact that he has to tear it down to save this one life. “The crews are coming in next week to take everything away. I’ve sold all the plants.” He points to the big buckeye. “Except that one, of course. It gets to stay forever. My gran lost herself in here. She never recovered when my gramps died before I was born. She really did dedicate her life to plants. When she died and left me this place I expected to have instructions, ya know?” He draws his gaze away from his tree and looks down at me now, his blue-gray eyes a little turned down with sadness. “But there was nothing in the will about the greenhouse.” He shrugs. “I was sorta lost over it. I didn’t know what to do, so I just kept paying her two gardeners and pretended everything was fine. The tree really needed to be set free a long time ago, but I guess she couldn’t bring herself to destroy the room to save it.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m not sure what I’m sorry about, really. Maybe that you are the one who has to make the decision. Or maybe just because it’s a sad story and it deserves an apology.”
He inhales deeply and then lets it out slowly. “Yeah, but that’s not really why I brought you here.”
“No? Not to see the tree?”
He shakes his head. “No. I have a request and I’m hoping that you’ll say yes, even if it sounds a little weird.”
I just stare at him, waiting for it.
“Let me paint your body.”
“Excuse me,” I laugh. “What the what?”
He walks over to the office and pulls out a cart, then drags it through the grass, bending the perfect green blades and leaving tracks in the carpet of green. The cart is filled with painting supplies.
“You’re serious? My body?”
He holds up a finger and walks back to the office and comes out with a portfolio. “Please, Veronica, have a seat.” I think it’s the formal use of my name that makes me obey, but I have to admit, I’m curious. I sit down in the thick grass.
Spencer lies down next to me, propping himself up on his elbow, and opens the black portfolio. “This,” he says as he looks up at me with the most serious expression I’ve ever seen him wear, “is what I do, Ronnie. Besides build bikes and major in business in college, of course. This”—he pokes the clear plastic that covers the first photograph in the collection—“this is what I do. I paint naked girls.”
I take the portfolio from him and look closely at the images. They are beautiful, but they’re naked. “You want to paint my naked body?” I ask, as I look back up to him.
“Yes,” he says, holding my gaze. And then he breaks it and turns back to the page. “This was my model in France. I studied as an apprentice there a couple summers ago and that’s where I created this portfolio. But I’ve been busy.” He looks up at me sheepishly now, maybe embarrassed about all the trouble he’s been in. “And to be honest, I’m a little picky about my models. They have to be perfect. Not like, perfect bodies, just… perfect for me.” He stares at me. “You know?”
I look back at the book on my lap. These girls look like they are wearing clothes, but it’s an illusion created with liquid color. Put the shadows in just the right places and things take on depth. Curve a line that should be straight, and suddenly it pops out of the canvas.
Spencer Shrike seems to be a genius at manipulating perspective with paint.
“You really are an artist? You weren’t in my class just to pose naked for me?”
He laughs big now. “Well, yeah, Bomb. The whole reason I asked to join the class was to get close to you, that’s true. But I am an artist. And next week I’ll stop being a model and start being a student again. But what I want to know right now is will you let me paint you up in here and take some pictures so I can have them framed and shit?”
“You want to frame me? Naked?”
He nods. “I really do.”
“Like… make me your art?”
“Yeah,” he says, jumping to his feet, grabbing my hand and pulling me with him. His palms go to my waist and hold me tight, they pull me into his solid chest. One hand slips behind my ass and the other tips my chin up so I have to look him in the eyes. “Let me take you somewhere else today, Veronica. Be my canvas, be my fantasy. Come into my imagination for a little while, explore with me, let me take you somewhere magical. And when I’m done, I promise I’ll bring you back.”
“What if I don’t want to come back?” I say, totally one hundred percent serious. “What if I like that journey? What if I want to stay gone with you forever?”
He doesn’t answer, instead he leans in and kisses me. Not the hard crushing way he kissed me that first time. Not the sexy seductive way he does when he’s fucking me.
But some totally different way that I’m not sure I can describe. I just know it’s… different.
I come up from the kiss gasping for air. “When do we leave?”
“Right now, Bombshell.”
“When do we come back?”
“When it’s over.”
“So you really didn’t bring me out here to make love to me?”
“No, baby.” He must read my disappointment, because he tips my chin up again. “But my paintbrush will.”
I shudder.
And this is when I realize. I’m caught in his fantasy.
Spencer walked into my life, tipped me upside down, and shook the love right out of me.
My love spills out all over the place.
My love piles up at his feet.
Chapter Seven - Veronica
“I’ve never seen this costume before,” Rook says as she points to the framed picture on Spencer’s large walnut desk. It’s the magical one of me in the atrium.
I open my mouth to respond, but I stop before she realizes. It feels like a secret. Like that’s a special place that only Spencer and I even know exists. The entire day was like a dream. A fantastical dream. That was the best day of my life. And even though I understood back then that it was gonna rank up there as far as memories go, three years later it is so much more.
I have no idea if Spencer ever brought another girl to his gran’s atrium, but I doubt it. And just knowing that makes me feel special and sick at the same time. Like—why? How? How did we go from those perfect days during senior year to this?
My chest heaves with a sob and I turn and walk out before Rook catches on to my grief. The light flicks off as she exits behind me, and then I gather myself and wait for her at the top of the basement stairs.
She’s got a pouty face on when she catches up with me. “You’re sad?”
All I can do is nod, because if I speak right now, I’m gonna lose it and cry like a baby. Rook nods at me as she scoots past, then I follow her downstairs. When she opens the door, I brush past her hurriedly and flop down on her couch. We spent a lot of time together down here in her farm apartment. After she outed all those assholes involved in a human trafficking ring back in Chicago she was relentlessly followed by the media. And the weirdos. Like those awful people who picket the homes of dead soldiers. They marched around town with giant signs, declaring her a slave-trading whore.
And yeah, Rook was involved in some pretty insane shit back in Chicago. But she was just a kid who got caught up with an abusive man. He beat the shit out of her for years. You can hardly blame a homeless sixteen-year-old for being susceptible to a ring of powerful and abusive slave traders.
“OK, Ronnie,” Rook says as she plops down on the couch next to me. “Spill, bitch. What’s going on with you?”
I think it over for a few seconds, trying to find a good place to start. “You know how you said—” I stop, because it’s unfair to drag her down into my wallowing bog of pity.
“Said what? Com
e on, just talk.”
I take a deep breath. “All that stuff about Ashleigh. About being sorta jealous. Well… I feel like that too. About you and her. Because you guys both have what I want.”
I feel terrible for admitting that, but it’s true.
“Ronnie, I have nothing but Ronin. And I know this sounds flippant because believe me, I understand what it’s like to have no money. But that money means nothing to me. It’s just… there. I know I’ll never be homeless and I’m not gonna starve. And if I wanted to run away again, I could. But that’s all that money means to me. I have nothing but Ronin.”
I look up at her and frown. “I don’t even have Spencer to make it all OK. I’m just so lonely without him. I feel like fate is telling me to give up. Just let him go, because he’ll never change. He’s not the guy I thought he was. He’s this… this… stranger. He’s not the guy I fell in love with. I love that guy I met back in college. This guy he is now, I don’t get it. And what makes it worse is that every once in a while, that other guy comes through.”
I’m thinking about Spencer that night he was in my apartment. When he said he was guilty. He said, ‘I am this guy,’ meaning that guy who committed those crimes he was accused of.
But he didn’t wait around for me to tell him what I thought of his confession. Because it was a huge relief.
That criminal who got kicked out of school, who got off a murder charge on a technicality—that’s the guy I fell in love with.
This guy today? This one who’s all cold and distant and leaves me hanging in a back alley and treats me like trash? I don’t like that guy. I’ll take the killer over that guy any day.
Rook and I stare at each other for a few seconds and then she shakes her head and breaks away. “Shit, Ronnie, we are a couple of whiners, you know that?”
I nod. “I know that. I do. It’s wrong to have so much and be so unappreciative. It’s wrong, I get it. But I can’t help it, Rook, I’m not fulfilled. I’m… unsatisfied.”
“Holy fuck, that’s the perfect word.” Her eyes get wide and she puffs up her cheeks with air. “That’s the perfect way to describe it. Time out from your pity party, I’m throwing one too. So last week when I was spending some time with Ashleigh before we did that—” She stops, like she caught herself saying something she shouldn’t.
And this is when I realize that Rook is part of it. She’s part of that shit the guys do. I let my head sink in my hands, totally defeated.
“Well… I was gonna take care of Kate for a few hours last week, so I went over to their house to meet her properly. She and Ford just got back the day before, so even though I saw her that night for the party—” Rook winces this time, realizing this mistake was even more damaging than the last.
God, that hurts. Because I wasn’t invited to the Welcome Home Ford and Family Party.
“—and I was in their living room, looking around. Apparently that Pam is a whiz, because Ford and Ash’s house looked like it came out of a magazine. Anyway.” Rook shakes herself out of that thought and continues. “I’m sitting there just making chit-chat, right? Just, you know, feeling her out, getting to know her. So she tells me she was in grad school, like she’s just about done with her master’s degree in psychology, right? She’s one research paper away from graduation. She’s done all her studies, wrote like two hundred pages of notes, and it’s some fancy-sounding topic—brainwave patterns of emotionally compromised children or some shit like that. Way, way over my head. So I ask her, ‘You gonna go back and finish? Get that piece of paper?’ And she’s all… just as casually as you can imagine… ‘No, probably not.’”
“Really?” I ask. “Master’s degree—that’s like a shitload of school.”
“Yeah,” Rook replies. “That’s what I said. I’m all, ‘Isn’t it a waste of time and money to not finish when you’re so close?’ and she’s all, ‘Yeah, probably. But I’m satisfied. So I’m not going back.’ And I tell you what, Ronnie Vaughn, I was so filled with jealousy for this woman, I could barely function for like thirty minutes. I mean, she’s not really that pretty. She’s cute, she’s got a curvy body, her hair and skin are beautiful. And she’s got big eyes and full pouty lips. So yeah, she’s easy on the eyes. But she’s not stunning, ya know? Not like the pets I’ve seen Ford with every once in a while before he got rid of them. Ashleigh never wears makeup, and her wardrobe—I’m sorry if this sounds catty, I’m just making an observation—but her wardrobe reminds me of my homeless days.”
I laugh, I can’t help it. It’s all true. Ashleigh walks around this town with her mean-ass dogs, pushing a stroller, wearing t-shirts and leggings, with bright pink running shoes on her feet like she owns the fucking place. She could care less what people think about her. Like at all.
“And I’m seriously not saying this to be a bitch, OK? I like her, I love that baby. But she makes me feel so fucking inadequate.”
I’m stunned, because in my mind, Rook—she’s perfect. In just about every way. “Why?”
“Because she has everything I want.”
“Aww,” I say, leaning in to hug her. “I’m sorry, Gidget.” That makes her chuckle but I know she’s crying now. “Finish your thought, Rook, just get it out, bitch.”
Rook sniffs and laughs again. “And it’s not Ford, OK? I do love him as a friend. I still talk to him like four times a week on the phone and we’ve run the Poudre River trail a bunch of times since he’s been back from New Zealand. I’m jealous because she’s on the cusp of everything, ya know? Like, if she wanted to be a career mom, it’s like six months of work, a licensing exam, and bam, she’s a counselor. But she wants to stay home and be a mother instead. And my whole life I’ve watched girls get stuck at home with kids they couldn’t afford and maybe even didn’t want. They got left behind by the men who helped create that situation. So I spent all my teenage years pushing that away. And when I got pregnant with Jon, I was not happy. Not for a long time. But then the idea that I could relax and be a mother sorta grew on me.”
I lean in and rub her back. Because what happened to her sucks. You should not have to lose a child like that when you’re barely eighteen years old.
“And now I’m thinking I was wrong, Ronnie. Because Ash said something else after that. She said, ‘I can go back any time I want. But I’m never gonna be this person again. Every day the baby grows bigger, my love for Ford changes in small subtle ways, my life gets better or worse, or more chaotic or less stressful. Nothing stays the same and I can’t stop that. So I’m gonna enjoy what I have right now and not worry about tomorrow.’”
“Is that why you’re taking your implant out today?”
Rook nods. “Yeah. Because you know what? Ronin rocks my fucking world. He’s everything to me. And I guess it took me seeing it from another perspective to realize it. Because you know, Ford might be weird and a total dick to almost everyone. But he’s a very black-and-white guy. He married Ashleigh and there’s nothing in this world that will tear them apart from his point of view. Nothing but death. Because when Ford goes in, he goes all in.
“And I think all three of these guys are like that. I think Ronin’s all in too. I just never noticed it or never accepted it before. And last year I had all these doubts about him. Who is he? Is he good? Is he bad? Will he hurt me? Will he leave me? But if I were Ronin, I’d be asking myself all those questions about me. Because I’ve been pushing him away since we met.”
She stops and looks hard at me.
“And I’m so stupid to never have recognized it before. So I think from now on, I’m gonna pull him towards me instead. I’m gonna finish out this semester. Then I’ll have a year of college under me and no one can ever take that away. So if I want to go back, I can. But I’m gonna stop thinking about what’s next. I’m gonna stop and be satisfied with what I have for a while.”
And now it’s my turn to be jealous. I slump back against the couch cushions and pull my knees up to my chest. “I wish I was anyone but me right now, Rook. Spencer�
��s not like Ford and Ronin. He doesn’t seem to want any of the same things as me. Like, at all. And who the fuck, ya know? Who the fuck would’ve thought that Ford Aston would be married with kids before me?”
“Spencer loves you, Bomb.”
I laugh at the nickname. I can’t help it. It’s so derogatory and sexist. But it makes me so happy to hear it. To know that’s what he calls me, and only me.
“He loves you, it’s just… he can’t be with you right now.”
I sit up immediately. “Why, Rook? Tell me why? You know something, I know you do. I want to know this. Rook, I need to know this. Why can’t he be with me?”
She shakes her head. “I can’t say, Ronnie.”
“So much for hoes before bros.”
“Ron, come on. It’s about the trials, you know I can’t say anything. It’s too dangerous. I have to testify next week. And once that’s over, things will be different.”
Will they? I don’t say it out loud, though. They all believe it will be different. Even Spencer said as much. So did Ford when he brought me here on Christmas Eve to show me Spencer’s office. But different doesn’t imply better.
“He told me he was guilty,” I add quickly to see if she’ll take the bait.
But she just shrugs. “I have no idea what that might even mean, Ronnie. Sorry.”
I stand up. “Fine,” I say amicably, but really I’m sorta pissed. I mean we are like BFF’s. Sure, she says Ford is her real BFF, but you can’t be BFF’s with a dude like you can with your bitches. She should trust me. They should all trust me. I’m not a liability. I’m strong. I can fight. I can shoot. I’m a tattoo artist for fuck’s sake. I’m sorta badass. Plus, I’ve been around for years. Ashleigh and Rook are brand new to this shit. I watched it all happen in real time.