“What?” He shook his head. “You mean, upstairs?”
“Yeah, you were living with them.”
“Lived, as in past. I haven’t lived with them for a while.”
I never claimed to be a good friend-slash-acquaintance, so I didn’t know why he was so surprised.
“Where are you then?” I asked, pouring the coffee over my sugar and stirring.
“I live with my girlfriend.”
“You have a girlfriend?” I took a sip. Too hot. My tongue would now be sore for a few days. Fuck.
“Uh, yeah. Three years now.”
I shrugged. “We don’t exactly catch up for drinks, Jacob.”
“Yeah, because we’re both addicts.” This was the one place in town where that wasn’t a dirty word. People acknowledged it the way they acknowledged the weather, easily and—to be honest—as if it was boring. “But we could meet on occasion.” He tucked his hands into his balloon pants and lifted his shoulders. “Coffee, or something.”
I blew across my coffee, scrutinizing him. “Or something?” Already, I was feeling better being in a place filled with strangers. Without Brooke watching my every move and making sure Griffin didn’t try to eat a table or something.
“Come on, Mira. I got a girl now. I’m not talking about that kind of something.”
“Neither was I.” I took a more careful sip, pleased that it didn’t make me want to spit it back out. “Anyone new in the back?”
“A few stragglers. Kind of dead this time of year, as you know. A few Ukrainians, oddly enough.”
I followed him down the narrow hallway, to the back where people were selling their stuff or working on a piece in progress. It often reminded me of like an adult science fair, where kids waited by their booths for someone to take notice. I usually didn’t give more than a cursory glance before moving on if something wasn’t my style. But when we reached a booth on the corner, I looked sideways at Jacob, equally annoyed and pleased. It was hard to decide which one to lead with.
Jacob was trying to figure out my reaction too, but he spoke first anyway. “You left your stuff here, and I took a chance that you might be coming back.”
“Yeah, six months ago.”
He shrugged, causing his coat to slip off his shoulder. “Your paintings are so good, Mira. I didn’t want to store them.”
Pursing my lips, I stepped into the booth and looked at each painting individually. “There are a couple missing.”
“Yeah.” He scratched his neck. “My dad bought a few of the watercolors you did—the floral ones.”
The flowers had been a one-off project once, when I’d thought about the Henry I’d buried under the purple flowers in Six’s courtyard. A series of square paintings that were more experimental than anything. “How much did he pay?”
“Well…” He shifted his weight back and forth on his feet. “That’s the other thing. I didn’t know what to ask for. He put them up in his office and wanted to negotiate a price.”
“That’s awfully presumptuous of him, to assume they were even for sale.”
“Well…” Jacob dipped his head to the side and held up his hands. “That’s kind of why people bring their art here. Do you want to see them?” At my hesitation, he continued, “I doubt he’s awake, but at the very least, you can see them and figure out a price.”
I licked my lips. The prospect of money when I was running on so little until my first check came through was tempting. “I mean, sure,” I said, trying to sound resigned. “Let’s go.”
I followed Jacob out of the basement and outside, walking around the gate to the one near the end.
“Are your folks going to be cool with you coming in at such a late hour?”
“Uh, yeah, it’ll be fine.” But Jacob acted and sounded shifty.
“Are you high or something?”
“No, definitely not.”
“Then why are you acting so fucking sketchy right now?” I asked, raising an eyebrow when he dropped his keys.
“I’m not, I’m acting normal.”
I put my hands on my hips. “Look, I might be a little bit crazy, but even I know when you’re acting weird and you, sir, are acting like you’re trying to diffuse a bomb right now for how nervous and twitchy you seem.”
The door eased open, bringing with it the sound of a television.
“Wait. Are your parents awake?”
Jacob gave me an awkward not-quite-a-smile smile and eased into the house. “Come on,” he said, not answering me. “My dad’s office is on the main floor.”
Tentatively, I followed him past the back sitting room, past the staircase, and into a larger sitting room that was attached to a glass-doored office, where I could make out enough cherry wood to fill a forest. But it wasn’t the office that took my attention, it was the man who was sitting on the sofa in the waiting room, his feet propped up on the coffee table—right on top of an entertainment magazine. When he noticed Jacob in his periphery, he turned.
“Oh, hey kiddo.” His eyes met mine and he stood.
Fuck. This was why Jacob was being shifty. Because I’d have to meet his shrink dad.
“And you are?”
“This is Mira,” Jacob interjected and stepped aside, allowing the shrink to take me in. Already, I felt like I was a frog to him, splayed out for dissection.
“Ah, Mira. The artist.”
I looked at Jacob with murder in my eyes and his Adam’s apple bobbed helplessly in his throat. “Yeah.” I confirmed, willing myself not to itch my wrists or tuck my hair behind my ears—keeping my body completely still as to not allow him to figure me out based on a couple nervous ticks.
The man stood, straightening his perfectly pleated slacks and slipping his glasses from the front pocket of his sweater vest. He looked like a movie dad—albeit an older one. His white beard was trimmed short, his salt and pepper hair perfectly coiffed. His belt and his shoes were Italian leather and as he came closer, I inhaled his cologne. Equally expensive.
“I suppose you’re here to negotiate a price,” he said, and stepped toward the French doors that separated his office from the general waiting room. He pushed them open and—after another murderous look at Jacob—I followed his dad into the office. A name badge sat on the desk. Dr. Brewer. There was a fancy letter opener sitting just on the edge of the surface and I quickly debated swiping it. But Jacob was hovering at the entrance to the office and his dad was looking at me expectantly by the only wall that wasn’t covered in book cases.
“What do you think?” he asked, standing in front of my pastel, purple and pink and blue watercolor flower series. The wall they were on display against was a dark gray, bordering on a navy blue, and I hated how much the color made the paintings pop. They’d been a one-off. Just something to try with the new paint tubes I’d picked up. I’d brought them to the Dry Run mostly to show my range, but not necessarily with the intention to sell. Because I didn’t think anyone would want to buy practice paintings. But this guy looked at them with a soft smile on his face and I almost believed that he saw something in them that I couldn’t.
“You really want these?” I asked, wanting to make the deal and run. The longer I was in his office, the itchier I felt. I wanted to get the fuck out. I could probably pick a fifty off of the guy for the four paintings.
“I do. There’s so much texture to them. You can see where you used your fingers to smear it just so, to get the fold of that petal there.” He pointed to the purple flowers. “Your fingerprint even remains. It’s subtle, but there. Like a signature.”
Whatever, I thought. I hadn’t put nearly half the depth of thought into it that he had.
“I’m assuming, since you’re selling at the Dry Run, you don’t have an agent to broker deals for you?”
I raised an eyebrow. Was he for real. “Uh, yeah no,” I deadpanned.
“Okay. Well, I’m not sure what you were thinking, but I was looking at around a hundred, for each?”
My jaw fell.
/> “I’m no art critic, though,” he said holding his hands up. “I’m willing to negotiate a higher price. I’m basing that on the size—since these are on the small scale—and the fact that they’re unsigned.”
“So,” Jacob said, interjecting. “If she signed them, you’d pay more.”
Jacob and his dad exchanged a look. “Two hundred each, if she signs them.” His dad acted like we were at an auction house and didn’t balk at the price.
“What the fuck?” I blurted. “Are you for real right now?”
“He’s for real,” Jacob said, and leaned over the desk for a black marker. “Here, sign them.”
I looked between Jacob and his dad for a minute like they were fucking batshit, but I wasn’t going to turn down eight hundred bucks for the four of them. I’d never signed my paintings before, so I didn’t know if I was signing too big or too small, but neither of them said anything.
Jacob’s dad—Travis Brewer, according to the documents on the wall—pulled a checkbook out of his desk and signed away eight hundred bucks like it was nothing. As he handed me the check, he said, “Have you ever thought of a showing before? Like, at a gallery?”
I stared at the check, still in disbelief. “I’ve sold my paintings for a couple bucks, here and there, so no—I never thought the few crumpled bills I received for my paintings warranted them to be on display in a legitimate place.”
“There are all kinds of galleries. Even co-op ones. Jacob knows those ones.”
“Co-ops?”
“Yeah,” Jacob said, interjecting. “You pay a membership and take a shift as part of your participation.”
“Is it some high-brow shit?”
Jacob laughed. “No, it’s like the Dry Run but in a regular business.”
It had an appeal, I supposed. But I was too far away from something like that being a possibility. “I just don’t see it happening,” I said to them both.
“If you ever change your mind, I could get you in somewhere. You have talent, Mira. There were other pieces I liked, but these suited this space the best. Anyway.” He snapped the drawer closed. “If you reconsider, let me know.”
Jacob looked almost sheepish as I followed him out of his dad’s office and down the hallway, back out the door we came from.
“That was…” I began, looking down at the check again, “interesting.”
“Yeah. I guess I just thought it’d be worth getting some cash out of them and besides, he stayed in your booth for a solid ten minutes when he visited it. He liked your stuff a lot. He might be a therapist, but he’s not a bullshitter. If he hated your stuff, he wouldn’t lie about it. And he certainly wouldn’t have put them up in his office if he didn’t like them.” He kicked a rock out of our path and said, “He hasn’t even put up any of mine.”
Oh, shit. “Well,” I started, before realizing I couldn’t come up with anything to say. Jacob had daddy issues like I had mommy issues, but at least his dad wasn’t mentally checked the fuck out.
“Yeah. Well.” He opened the back gate to the Dry Run yard and gestured for me to go first. “Objectively, I can say he’s a good therapist. So, if you ever change your mind about shrinks, he’d be a good one to go on a trial run with.”
“A few shrinks have tried to save my life before. Not interested.”
“No one saves us but ourselves,” Jacob said. “But ‘shrinks’ can help you figure out how to do that.”
“No one saves us but ourselves,” I echoed.
“Buddha said that.”
No one saves us but ourselves, I repeated it in my head, like a mantra. Like a prayer, a chant. Six had tried to save me, and he’d helped me—no doubt about it. But I’d been the one to grab the lifesaver, to pull myself out.
I didn’t anticipate changing my mind about seeing a shrink, but the carrot his dad had dangled in front of me had appealed to me the longer time passed away from his house. I knew Six had liked my art, and a few people had bought enough paintings for me to contribute a tiny bit when I lived with Six, but it was something else for a stranger to take a liking to them, enough to pay me nearly a grand for them.
I scratched my wrist, trying to figure out what the fuck I was doing, when my phone rang.
“Brooke,” I said into the phone.
“We have to go to work in a few hours. Are you going to be home soon or…” her voice drifted off.
I folded the check and tucked it into my pants. “Yep. Leaving now. See you in ten.” It wasn’t until I was off the phone with Brooke that I realized she’d called it home, as in mine. At least for the time-being.
It was a new season of Mira, and—at least for the moment—things looked like they’d be okay.
5
November 2013
Three years later
Loss is a phantom limb, an acknowledgement that something is absent from you but somehow still aches—a constant misery, reminding you of what you've lost. It's a sensation felt when you see the gait of a particular walk, when you hear the sound of a voice that brings forth a memory, when a taste on your tongue reminds you of a moment that exists only in the past.
An amputee could walk around with a physical reminder to those around him of what he's lost, but an emotional absence is silent, lonely, deeply private–a loss mourned alone.
Every night I ran in the dark, physically unhindered; breathing the night air in through my nose, watching the fog leave my mouth with each exhale. To those around me, I was sure I looked capable, strong, undeterred by any obstacles in my path. To the voices in my head, I was weak, emotionally-crippled, one manic episode away from falling into my old habits.
My feet thundered up the steps. My body shook. My lungs heaved in my chest.
I was high. A feeling I knew. A feeling I coveted.
Running up the hill, sneakers pounding the cracked concrete, I counted my breaths. I tuned out all the noise around me, slid between throngs of people, tamped down the throbbing desire to rest.
When my heart leapt in my chest, a grin split my lips in exultation. Nothing compared to this; nothing could beat this feeling. Even when I would lay my head on marble countertops after snorting white powder, the stone cold under fevered skin, I never felt this high.
I pushed myself harder, farther, down the sidewalk, into the street, and when the sidewalks showed no easy way through the people whose cigarette smoke I blew through. I closed my eyes for just a second, allowing myself a brief taste of the smoke on my tongue as the voices in my head made themselves known.
When the next crosswalk came into view, I didn't look both ways, but sprinted with a stride longer than my own height, across the asphalt, in front of a car that slammed on its brakes. Only when I reached the sidewalk did I bend over to catch my breath.
My ponytail, damp with sweat, hung next to my cheek, slapping my face gently with its wet tips. I lifted my head and looked around but kept my hands firmly on my knees. The adrenaline pumping through my system silenced the voices in my head, the ones that wanted to hurt.
“Stop,” I whispered to myself. The voices quieted but didn't leave. They never did.
Pulling one hand off my knee, I looked at my watch. 8:30 p.m. The sky was dark, and the street lamps lit, casting reflections on the small puddles that pooled in the cracks of the sidewalks from the late afternoon rain.
I sucked air through my nostrils, taking in the scent of rainwater on concrete.
Standing straight, I raised my arms to the sky, stretching my overworked limbs. I still had a couple hours to go, but I needed water.
I turned around, searching for a place I knew I could walk into easily without causing some kind of commotion in my sweat-soaked clothes.
The building so gold it reeked of first class was probably not that place. The awning in front sheltered its guests from the drizzle beginning to once again fall from the sky. Through the tall glass front window, I could see a man pushing a coffee cart toward the elevator doors. That was the only invitation I needed.
&nb
sp; A few people sat on the concrete border, but I walked past them briskly, through the revolving door, and into warmth.
The lobby was full of furnishings and people, but I ignored them, making a beeline to the cart with coffee and ice water laid out temptingly. I ignored the hotel worker who hovered nearby and picked up the steel pitcher and poured a cup of water, drinking it in one gulp.
“Excuse me, Miss! Are you a guest?” the uniformed man asked.
I swallowed hard and closed my eyes briefly. My fingers clenched on the plastic cup before I turned to him. “No.”
“Well, th-th-the refreshments are for guests,” he stammered. I fingered the hem of my shirt, drawing his attention away.
I gave him a smile that probably bordered on too-friendly when I said, “If you don't want me to faint right here in your lobby and cause a commotion, you'll let me drink the goddamned glass of water.”
He huffed but let me be, for the moment. I knew I didn't have long.
Tucking a piece of ice into the inside of my cheek, I poured another, hoping to get a few cups in before I was asked to leave.
My skin was cooling now that my heart rate was subsiding, and the heat from the vents washed over my overheated skin, causing a sweat to prickle across my forehead.
I downed the second cup and quickly filled my third, chewing on the ice cube. I moved away from the cart and looked out across the handfuls of people talking in hushed voices in the lobby as I raised the refilled glass to my lips.
Déjà vu hit me with the power of a freight train.
Across the room, my eyes locked with a vibrant green pair belonging to a ghost. An absence my body would not forget. My heart skidded in its rhythm, sliding down inside its cage as I clenched my fingers tighter on the cup.
Fuck me.
He saw me. And I don't mean he acknowledged my presence.
No. When he saw me, he saw through me. My body sighed as his gaze pierced my corneas and rapped against my skull, plunging beneath the surface of the skin I wore. I imagined myself suspended over the lobby, observing the exchange of two souls meeting again for the first time in three years.
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