by Tim Pratt
“Could I come in?” Melinda said. “I’ll help you find a place for the nest. Setting is just as important as the object on display, don’t you think?”
I glanced at Trey, who only just slightly raised his eyebrows, and said, “Sure, come on in.” I unlocked the door, and ushered them both inside.
“I have to admit, I’ve always wanted to see the inside of this place; Mr. Grace was very nice when it came to leasing me the cottage but he was never all that sociable, you know, and…” Her voice trailed off as she looked around the overstuffed living room, the shelves and tables overflowing with tchotchkes and souvenirs, from the kitschy to the sublime. “You know,” she said, “if I’d realized what it was like in here, I might not have brought you a useless ornamental object.”
“Ah, but you brought that sculpture just for me.” I slid the sword cane back into the umbrella stand. No need to draw blood today. “Nothing else in here feels like it’s mine, even if I inherited it all, so I’m happy to have the nest.” I went to the coffee table and pushed aside a candy dish full of colored pebbles and an ashtray that looked like it was made of volcanic glass, and put the nest down, eggs gleaming in the late afternoon sun. “Can I offer either of you…uh, water, mostly. I could manage tea, if there’s tea in the pantry.”
“Thanks, but I should get going,” Trey said. “I’m supposed to have dinner with the family tonight.”
I wondered, if Melinda hadn’t horned in, if Trey would have gone for a good-bye kiss. Another strike against Melinda. I knew I should support friendly neighbors in theory, but in practice, I mostly preferred to be left alone.
Melinda still seemed kind of awestruck by the vast quantities of stuff filling the room, and I couldn’t blame her. I’d have to do an inventory at some point, haul some of the stuff away, give it to charity, burn it in a ritual bonfire, somehow make room. If this was going to be my home, even for a year, I needed to clear a little space for my own life.
Trey mouthed, “Call me,” as I walked him out, and I bumped into his hip with mine as I opened the door, not a bit accidentally. “Thanks for showing me around.”
“Trees, and grass, and also more trees. There’s a new wonder around every corner. Bye, Melinda,” he said over my shoulder.
Melinda suddenly seemed to notice he was leaving, and she shook herself, smiled at me like someone in a toothpaste ad, and said, “Oh, I should be going, too, but thanks so much for asking me in. I’ll come visit longer another time, all right?”
I almost said, “Sure, but call first next time,” then decided that was too un-neighborly, and besides—if I said that I’d have to give her my number. If she knocked on the door, I could always hide if I didn’t want to talk to her. Or tell her I was working on my art, which ideally wouldn’t even be a lie, soon. She was an artist of some kind, so she’d understand, and wouldn’t want to pull a Person from Porlock on me and screw up my work. Maybe I’d just make a sign that said “Inspiration In Progress, Do Not Disturb” and hang it on the door. Sure, if I saw a sign like that anywhere it would make me roll my eyes so hard they’d get stuck in my sinuses, but I thought it might work on Melinda.
Once they were both shooed out, I locked the doors and took a shower. I was getting the hang of the knobs, and managed to neither freeze nor scald myself. Once I was clean and refreshed, I got dressed, went out to the car, opened the trunk and surveyed the things I’d spent so much money on that morning.
Boone had a pretty good art supply store, as I suppose college towns with art departments generally do. I’d gotten prestretched and primed canvases in a couple of sizes, brushes, thinner, gesso, tubes of oil paint in enough colors to get me started, a set of charcoal pencils, a new sketchbook, an easel, and all the other things you need to get any work done. I was replacing a lot of stuff I had already, either here or stored at my folks’ place in Chicago, but I had money now, and I liked the appeal of a fresh start with all-new materials—and mostly better quality than the stuff I’d borrowed, bartered, and begged for in college.
It’s tempting to think, with the right tools, that you can do anything. I was trying hard to embrace that sense of possibility, and banish the nagging thought that never strayed far from my brain: that when it came to making art, I was okay, but not good, and certainly not great. Technically competent, but lacking a certain spark. There was a reason my plans to get an art degree had segued into a degree in art history, with a theoretical endpoint of a career in conservation or curating. Everyone agreed I had a good eye, and a passion for the subject, but even my most sympathetic teachers could only muster up limited enthusiasm for my own work, and encourage me to paint “for my own enjoyment.”
I’d also learned to be very critical about art, which was useful in a lot of contexts, but it turns out, when you’re trying to make art, comparing your work to that of the greatest artists in history isn’t all that conducive to creative flow.
But now I had a space of my own, and time, and quiet, and the psychological advantage of a fresh start and no financial anxiety, so I was going to try again and see if I could find something within myself worthy of putting out in the world.
I carried everything back to that beautiful glass room, set up my new studio, and I was happy. I didn’t actually put charcoal or brush to paper or canvas that night, but I was thrumming with the anticipation of doing so soon. Between the prospect of painting and going out with Trey, I had a lot to look forward to.
Of course I didn’t realize the next night would involve carnivorous mirrors, and mortal wounds, and my entire understanding of the world being turned upside down, inside out, and sideways.
#
The next day, after being awakened by birdsong—or bird-scream, the jays really were noisy as hell—and feeding myself and showering, I went out to the bench by the ravine and sat and sketched for a while. I’ve never been much for landscapes, so I didn’t paint what I was looking at, though I did spend a little time pondering what combination of pigments would be required to accurately render the smoky blue haze on the mountains. That led me to thinking about my surroundings, and my new home. Being in the Grace house, so very full of things, made me wonder about painting still lifes, of the careful arrangement and depiction of carefully chosen objects, rendered in hyper-realistic van Eyck style. For me, the best still lifes have a kind of totemic power, a symbolic force, and at the moment, that sounded rather appealing.
Anyway, I drew for a while, and then it was lunchtime, so I ate grapes and cheese and a ham sandwich on the porch. A guy came out to hook up the cable and turn on the Internet, and I managed to restrain myself from kissing him right on the lips out of pure gratitude. I spent two hours applying the Internet directly to my eyeballs, so happy to have my laptop open and working again instead of trying to see the wider world through the tiny window of my smartphone. I realized I was in real danger of falling into a social-media-induced hypnagogic state, so after a frenzy of reconnection, I went outside. I wandered around the house looking for doors I could kick down…and I didn’t find any. There were a couple of windows, but they were curtained and wouldn’t open, and I wasn’t quite willing to smash them with a rock to see what was inside. There had to be a way to reach the various additions from inside the house. Grace couldn’t have been that idiosyncratic, to build rooms and then, what—just wall up the doors? Maybe that locked door in the kitchen led to a hallway, through which all things would be revealed. I’d have to get the bolt cutters.
But not right then, because I had a date. I wasn’t sure how I felt about Trey beyond “intrigued,” but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to bring my A game. If you’re going out, you might as well go all out, right?
#
It may be shallow, but when Trey walked into the bar and saw me perched on the stool, plucking a cherry out of my drink and popping it into my mouth, and he just stopped for a moment and stared at me, heedless of blocking the whole doorway—yeah, I was gratified. He’d told me it was an upscale bar, so I’d taken a chance on
being overdressed and put on a silky black top and a matching skirt, with heels dramatic enough to make an impression but not so high they made me feel like a terrible feminist. I put my hair up in a simple twist and so far it hadn’t escaped into a wild tangle. Jewelrywise I went with my old standby silver earrings—a little dangle without looking like I had wind chimes on my lobes—a matching chain, and a simple silver ring on my right hand.
I’ve mostly dated guys of the scruffy and paint-stained variety, and Trey’s dark jacket over a blue shirt and black slacks triggered a little “danger, bro alert” chime in my brain—he could have been one of the guys who worked the trading floor at the stock exchange in Chicago all day, out slumming for art-school chicks at night. Stereotypes are useful for self-defense and swift categorization sometimes, but I’d misjudged him once, so I didn’t wander down that particular mental path. Besides, Trey had an easy grin and obvious enthusiasm for seeing me in particular that overcame my fast-twitch reaction.
Also: he looked damn good.
He slid onto the barstool I’d saved for him, said hello, and then just looked at me for a moment before shaking his head. “Sorry, you’re just so—”
I braced myself. If the next word out of his mouth was “exotic” I was going to have to fake a stomach cramp and flee the scene of the crime.
“—so fucking cute,” he finished, and I laughed.
“You clean up okay yourself, counselor.”
“Ha. I’m not so much a trial lawyer. Mostly estates and taxes and property stuff, so I don’t think I count as ‘counselor.’ ”
“Sorry, everything I know about lawyers I learned from TV shows. I’m surprised you aren’t wearing a powdered wig.”
“It’s a valid fashion choice.” He caught the bartender’s eye, and she floated over. I liked her—we’d chatted a little before Trey arrived. She was a grad student at the university, studying psychology, and I think she was glad when I didn’t make the obvious joke about bartenders being therapists. We’d bonded a little in the ten minutes I’d spent waiting for Trey. To be clear: he wasn’t late; I was early. I like to be early for first dates. Otherwise you sometimes find the guy installed in the darkest corner available with groping on his mind. That’s why we were at the bar—the corner could come later.
Maybe.
He ordered a bourbon and water, though he said “bourbon and branch,” which is apparently a southern thing. He neither flirted with the bartender (she was cute) nor treated her like an indentured servant, which was another way he differed from the bro-bots who worked the trading floor.
So we had a date.
Talking to Trey was easy. He asked good questions, and paid attention to the answers, and he had a dry sense of humor and a way with understatement that appealed to me. I heard a few more stories about his childhood and told a few of my own, and after a couple of drinks we leaned closer together and started observing the human condition all around us. The bar was full of people on first dates, it seemed, most noticeably the early-twenty-something guy next to us, perched beside a birdlike blonde woman who appeared to be reevaluating all her life choices, starting with this most recent one. Her date was going on about how he’d been fired from his job as a TA because he’d used the word “fuck” in a mass e-mail and how the entire university system was fundamentally flawed and hostile to true innovation and expression, and if he was in charge…Trey and I managed not to giggle at him openly but we shared an eye roll. Eventually Trey’s hand landed on my knee but didn’t stray much farther north, and I let it stay to test his impulse control—and also because it felt nice.
When he turned away to get the bartender’s attention again, I leaned in close enough to smell him. No cologne—good, I wouldn’t have to execute him—and he smelled nice. He smelled right. Histocompatibility. If they smell wrong, there’s no point.
A while later, after making a droll observation perfectly timed to make me very nearly snort gin out of my nose, he beckoned the bartender over, then leaned across the bar so she could hear him over the crowd noise and said, “In your professional opinion, how do you think this first date’s going?”
She looked from him, to me—I was trying to decide if I was mortified or amused—and back to him before saying, “This is a first date?”
Oh, he grinned at that. And a little later, after his fingers had somehow ended up entwined in mine, he leaned in close to me and said, “In your professional opinion, how’s—”
I kissed him before he finished the sentence. Then I glanced over at the bartender, who smiled in my direction. I inclined my head toward her and said to Trey, “I bet she just upgraded her opinion of how well this first date’s going.”
“Good enough for a second date?” he said.
“A second kiss, anyway. Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
We settled up at the bar and strolled out into the streets of Blowing Rock, a more touristy and less scruffy town than neighboring Boone. We walked around chatting for a while, agreeing that it might be good to sober up a touch before the drive back along the dark mountain roads, and pausing occasionally in doorways or on corners to kiss.
“Mmm,” he said. “If I’d known there was going to be kissing, I might have chosen a different venue.”
“Oh, I’m sure we can find a nice wall somewhere. Or a tree. I’m not picky.” We ambled, hand in hand, toward a little park, the kind of place where kids played by day and college students probably made out and got high in at night. We did indeed find a likely looking tree in a welcoming puddle of shadow. I put my back against the tree and pulled him close, and he was bigger than me, and it was nice. (I hate being loomed over, most of the time, but a little consensual looming is welcome now and then.)
We made out, and his hands slid around my waist, and down my hips, and up my back, but he didn’t push much past that, which I appreciated—not so much because I have a moral objection to being fondled on a first date (indeed, I’ve had very satisfying sex on first and only dates), but because, like I said before—sometimes it’s nice to have something to look forward to. I am not entirely driven by anticipation, and I believe in the virtues of living in the moment as much as anyone, but it’s a simple truth that getting through a given day is a lot easier if you’re looking forward to what the next day might bring.
With that in mind, I put a hand on his chest, and eased him back, and said, “I’ve got an early day sitting around counting my inheritance tomorrow, so I should head home.”
“Yes. Home. Okay. Good.”
“Keep up that level of scintillating conversation and you might get that second date after all.”
He walked me back to my car, and I let him lean against the dirty door again (I really had to get that thing washed) to kiss for another minute or two, then swatted him and said, “Yes, yes, I’ll drive safe,” before he had a chance to tell me I should. I’d made the mistake of telling him I wasn’t used to twisty-ass winding roads and he was afraid I’d plunge to my drunken death on the way home. I told him he’d obviously never been drinking with me before. I’m not a large person, but when it comes to holding my liquor, I contain multitudes.
I made it back to the house without any particular trouble, though the roads were as twisty and dark as expected. I was pretty sure the headlights behind me were Trey’s. Maybe he was making sure I didn’t die, which was either really sweet or kind of stalker-y. Time would tell. Or, alternately, this was the best way to go back to Boone, too, and he was just going home, without a thought for me in his head. Either way, the lights didn’t follow once I took the turn from the highway that led me back toward Meat Camp.
Though when I got halfway down the driveway, I wished he had. There was a light on in one of the downstairs windows, in an addition on the west side, and I knew I hadn’t left a light on in there. I was vaguely terrified of the wiring in the parts of the house old Archibald had built himself, since I hadn’t exactly seen his certificate of accreditation from electrician college. I didn’t want to c
ome back to a burned-down inheritance, so I’d decided not to leave anything beyond the lights in the main core of the house turned on—or even plugged in if I could help it—while I was gone.
Now, I don’t need a man to save me, but I’ve seen enough horror movies to know better than to go into a creepy old house alone under circumstances like these. So I called Trey. “Hey. I’m inviting you over to my place, but not for sexytimes. I think there might be someone inside. There’s a light I’m pretty sure I didn’t leave on.”
“I’ll be right there. Stay in your car, and keep the engine running in case anyone comes out. If it’s anything, it’s probably just local kids who heard the place was empty, looking for something to steal or just making a mess for fun, but be careful.”
He wanted to stay on the line, but I told him I didn’t want to be responsible if he died while driving and talking, so he compromised by agreeing not to talk, if I’d leave the connection open so he could hear me if I started screaming.
“What good would hearing me scream do?” I said.
“I’d drive faster,” he said.
After that, I just sat there, looking at the house and that square of light in the window Grace had probably cut by hand with a hacksaw and framed and glassed in himself. I thought it was the room with the arrowheads in a glass case, but I wasn’t sure. The interior layout didn’t always make a lot of sense to me when I looked at the house from the outside. My kingdom for a set of blueprints.
I started to doubt myself pretty much immediately. Maybe nobody had turned the light on—maybe it was just always on. Could be some lamp that hadn’t been turned off in weeks, one I hadn’t noticed when I passed through on my earlier explorations and trips back to the studio. I hadn’t spent a lot of time walking around the house at night, so maybe I wouldn’t have noticed the glow from one little lamp. It had only been a few days. Possibly I was being stupid.