by Anton Strout
“That’s healthy,” Marshall added in a whisper, giving her a thumbs-up. “Good work, Rory.”
“It’s not her fault,” I said. “It’s all me. Hell, I don’t even have the right to be angry at them for their lack of sincerity. Who am I to judge them? I’m the person who wanted to kill him myself the night he actually passed away. I was so furious at him for messing up my stupid art project…which just sounds petty now.”
“Hold on,” Rory said. “Never forget. Your brother was an asshole, Lexi. Not to piss on the dead.”
My heart hurt, but Rory was right. Still…“He was my asshole,” I said, as if claiming some sort of ownership of him could somehow fix the conflicting feelings I was having over his passing.
The service going on closer to the tomb itself ended and the crowd began to break up. Men and women in expensive suits and dresses whom I didn’t know started offering me their condolences, and all I could do was shake their hands and nod politely as I offered them a solemn thank-you. Eventually, my mother, my father, and the spiritual leader of his church would make their way over to me and my friends, but I didn’t plan on being around for that. I wasn’t sure I could take the churchier side of things an occasion like this was sure to bring out of my father.
“Let’s go lower,” I said to my friends after shaking hands with a particularly mothbally-smelling woman. I spun and headed off into the rest of the crypt far away from the ocean of businessmen and -women. “If I have to shake another hand, I’m going to start crying again.”
I led Rory and Marshall back through the catacombs, the sound of the funeral fading off into the distance until it was no more than a faraway echo. Toward the rear of the upper floor of the catacombs a long, sloping staircase came into view and I brought us down it into an older section.
“I’ve never been to a funeral like this,” Marshall said, looking around the space. “Like, ever. Then again, most of my friends don’t have their own family crypt.”
Rory laughed, but there was hesitance in it. “How come the older we get, the creepier this place gets? We used to tear through here playing. Then we got all teen and moody and started listening to the Cure down here. Now I just wish it were a regular basement.”
“I miss my basement,” Marshall added. “You don’t really get them here in the city much.”
I gave him a weak smile. “You miss it? Why? What was in your basement?”
“Most of my old gaming stuff,” he said. “Rule books, miniatures, maps…”
“Wow,” Rory said, slapping a hand over Marshall’s mouth as we continued walking. “Just…wow.”
“Yep,” Marshall said with a mix of pride and shame once he pried her hand away. “I’m a poster child for alpha geeks everywhere.”
“Alpha?” Rory asked. “Really? You’re ranking yourself that high, are you, now?”
“I have to,” he said, nodding. “Otherwise, I was just an only child playing Dungeons and Dragons alone down there, and that’s just sad.”
Rory went to speak, but then she stopped herself and the crypt went quiet once again. I really wished she had continued on, though. Their lightness made my heart less heavy.
“Not to be morose,” Marshall said, turning to me, “but doesn’t this place creep you out a little?”
“Why?” I said. “Sometimes I come down here for a little inspiration in my art.”
“What’s so inspirational?” Marshall asked, looking around with nervous eyes. “All it inspires in me is a healthy fear of zombies and bloodsuckers. No offense to Clan Belarus.”
I waved it off. “None taken.
“Strange as it may sound,” I said, “this place is comforting to me. This crypt is original to the building. Which means my great-great-grandfather planned this place out at the same time. It makes me feel very connected to it. With all his artistry and architecture sprinkled throughout Manhattan, it’s just amazing to have some that’s—I don’t know—just ours.”
“He’s buried here, too?” Marshall asked.
Rory gave him a look of disapproval through her veil.
“What?” he asked. “I’ve never been down here. We always hang out up in the art studio and library.”
“His library,” Rory said. “Everything about this place is his, so yeah, he’s buried here.”
“Generations of us are,” I said, moving off into the dim lights farther back among the older tombs. I came upon the marker farthest back on this lower level, that of Alexander Belarus, my namesake. The carving of the figure on top of the sarcophagus was exquisite, a likeness I could only imagine was close to the way he actually looked when alive, covered in carved stonework with adornments all over it. Seeing the gemstone sigil set into the stone at the center of the figure had my fingers going to the similar one I wore around my neck.
“Uncanny,” Marshall said, looking from the figure carved on the tomb to me. “I see the resemblance. Although, truth be told, I like your hair more. The black, wavy shoulder length looks better on you.”
“Less stony, too,” Rory added.
I laughed out loud, finding the sound refreshing in the empty echoes down here in the family crypt.
“Thanks, guys,” I said, leaning against one of the pillars, wrapping my arms around myself. “You somehow made this all a bit more bearable.”
“Absolutely,” Rory said, coming over and hugging me close. “It’s the least a best friend could do.”
Marshall came over and hugged me as awkwardly as only he could. “I know I’m relatively new to your guys’ life and all, but I’m glad to be here, too.”
After the hug lingered on for a bit, Rory finally put a hand on both our shoulders, pushing the three of us apart. “No hitting on the grieving,” she said. “Got it?”
Marshall’s face went beet red. “I—I wasn’t. I mean…I’d never—”
“There you are,” my father’s voice called out from somewhere farther forward in the crypt, the hint of his Slavic accent in his words, even though he was third generation and born here. “I thought I might find you down here.” He approached us, his balding head sweating. He dabbed it with a handkerchief held in one of his meaty hands, then gave a nod to Marshall and a firm smile to Rory. “Aurora, thank you for coming. God bless and keep you.”
Despite the solemn occasion, Marshall couldn’t help but snicker at the use of her proper name.
“Marsh!” Rory snipped. “What are the rules?”
He fought back his smile by coughing into his hand. “No laughing at your full name,” he said. “Aurora. Sorry. Rory.” Composed once again, he turned to my father. “Sorry, Mr. Belarus. I don’t mean any disrespect. I just get nervous laughter when it’s most inappropriate.”
There was a sadness in my father’s eyes, but he managed a kind smile. “Dark times could use a little lightness,” he said, then turned to Rory. “Aurora is a fine name.” He clapped her on both shoulders. “Your boyfriend should call you that more often.”
Rory’s face went pale. “Marshall’s not my boyfriend.”
My father turned to me, his eyes narrowing. “Hey! He’s not my boyfriend, either,” I said, quick as I could. “I’ve only known him as long as Rory’s been going to the Manhattan Conservatory of Dance!”
“No, no,” Marshall said, feigning disinterest. “Please don’t all jump at a chance to date me at once, ladies. My dance card is pretty full.”
This seemed good enough to satisfy my father that Marshall was no threat, and he turned back to Rory. “Again, thank you so very much for coming,” he said, softer once again, “but I must steal my daughter away from you.”
I stiffened. “You need me now?” I asked. “Don’t you have, like, a million people up there who want to talk to you?”
“Yes,” he said, all pleasantries falling from his voice as he turned to me, somber. “That is why I need you, Alexandra. There are people you must come meet.”
My stomach clenched up at the underlying implications of it all—that now that Devon was go
ne, I would have to take his place. “Dad, I’m really not feeling it. You know I’d do anything for you. But are you sure it’s the best time for a meet-and-greet right now?”
“Alexandra,” he snapped, his voice raised. Marshall jumped. My name echoed over and over through the silence of the lower catacombs. “It is not a request. Come.”
His words struck my soul. I looked to my friends, but they were too stunned. My father turned and walked off without another word, not bothering to excuse himself from Rory and Marshall’s presence.
A chill ran down my spine. I thought it must have been my father’s words and his tone, but it felt like more than just that. The catacombs seemed alive despite the heavy air of death that permeated it. The carved faces on the tombs seemed to follow me with their stares, as well as those of the blank-eyed gargoyles lining the tops of the support columns. The occasion itself and my father’s sudden harshness put such a creeped-out mood over me that I found myself startled, swearing I saw a movement among the gargoyles. Not wanting to come off crazy to my friends, I told myself it was all an illusion caused by the stress of the day.
Despite rationalizing it to myself, I stopped looking up or around and fell in behind my father, trading my creepy-crawly sensation for hating the idea of what was coming instead. He wanted me to meet his suits, his businesspeople. I had thought burying my brother would be the worst of it today, but between being dragged before my father’s colleagues and my guilt over the last words Devon and I had exchanged, I didn’t think there was much of a chance of any part of my day improving. At least my father hadn’t brought his spiritual adviser down here with him. That was a small comfort in an otherwise uncomfortable day.
Four
Alexandra
“Rules, Miss Belarus,” the Tribeca Y’s artist-in-residence said from behind his oversized and over-cluttered desk at the front of the large, open art space. “You must learn to use rules if you are ever going to pretend to create art here. Others would have gladly paid for the privilege of attending this series of events. Do you realize this?”
My ears burned at his words. Even though it had been four months since I had done a damn thing artistic—since Devon’s death, really—I wasn’t new to art, either, even if the shitty sketch on my easel suggested otherwise. It was a mystery how this supposedly legendary sixties artiste had already reached the same level of persistent annoyance of me that had taken the dearly departed Devon Belarus decades to cultivate, but there it was all the same.
I stared at my charcoal sketch on the easel before me. Lines, squiggles, nothing coherent yet, but after four months of not a lick of artwork produced by me, it was something, wasn’t it? Before Devon died, I was working as a part-time barista at this creepy-cool coffee shop in the East Village called the Lovecraft Café, planning to save enough self-earned money to move to my own apartment. Now that he was gone, my mother was so fragile, I felt I couldn’t leave…and my father was insistent that I learn the real estate business. My creativity had dried up, and Rory had sweetly signed me up for this art night class to try to get it flowing again.
The fact I was being called out on “not doing art right” only filled me with a growing frustration. I tossed my half of a charcoal stick down into the easel’s tray with some force. “But,” I countered. “I’m experimenting, going free-form, letting my heart go with it. Isn’t art about expression of emotions, playing off the heart? Doesn’t the concept of rules fight directly against the very soul of that?”
“No.” He sighed, not even looking up from his art portfolio, which he was packing up. “It does not. Rules are the manacle by which art stretches on its chain to greatness.”
I wasn’t sure I bought that line of bull. I looked around the art space, where the mix of artsy devotees and bored Real Housewives looking for a hobby were all focusing on our discussion. “But—”
“The argument is pointless, Miss Belarus,” he said with some bite to it, closing his portfolio and picking it up. “Art is not folly. Art is commitment, and that means establishing boundaries, meaning rules. I trust that is why you paid good money for this series of seminars. To learn something, yes?”
“I didn’t pay for them,” I said. “They were a gift.”
“Then perhaps you should at least do the gifter the courtesy of showing up on time for them instead of fifteen minutes late,” he said, and walked out of the studio, leaving the handful of students finishing up their own work with only me to stare at. I turned back to my easel. The disdain in his words cut deep and to the quick, but the artist in me—the one who wanted to commit the time—couldn’t argue with him. I had been late, though I had worked very hard during the rest of the class. I hated the fact that yet another meeting to check over one of our family’s renovation sites had been the cause of me rushing into the art seminar late tonight.
I couldn’t let my anger go. Whether it was with myself or the professor, I really wasn’t sure. Well, that wasn’t true, now, was it? I was both tired and pissed at being dressed down by him. I wanted to kick him in the teeth with my purple Docs—my only remaining nod to my own fashion style—but I worried too much about the possibility of ruining the expensive dark gray suit I wore with them. I let my mind wander off onto that dark, gory tangent. Maybe the long white smock covering most of my jacket and skirt would catch the blood—
Jesus. Perhaps Rory had been right in giving me this gift. Maybe the real estate-ing day job was stressing me out more than just a little bit.
I pushed the artist-in-residence out of my thoughts and stared at my sketch on the easel before me. The rest of the Y’s art studio faded into the distance as I concentrated on the mismatch of charcoal lines before me. I stared at them, hoping they would resolve into something meaningful, but the longer I stared, the less sense there seemed to be in them. I swore under my breath, running my hands through my long, dark curls of hair, not caring about the charcoal that coated the tips of my fingers. They had left gray smudges all over the Y-logoed smock, but I wasn’t worried about my hair so much as I was my sketch.
Fighting against my own artistic instincts, I gave up, relaxed, and tried to focus on applying his damned rules. Letting creativity be harnessed felt so counterintuitive to me when my heart screamed that it had to be free-form, but for now I forced myself to let go of that mentality.
I snatched up another stick of charcoal in my hand and began adding strokes, focusing on the rules of perspective, all lines leading off into one distant point on the horizon. My mind opened as pieces of the world within the sketch began to form. I smiled when I recognized what was unfolding—a picture I must have remembered from one of my great-great-grandfather’s architectural sketchbooks up in the family library.
Over time, the image resolved in front of me, the arch of a church rooftop fading into the background as I continued. In the foreground, I added a figure, the new lines forming a twisted face and muscular body, all in stone, terrifying bat wings rising up behind it. A gargoyle, like the one on top of our very building, just one of many of the architectural details Alexander had been known for. My heart raced as the elements of it all came together, becoming clearer with each stroke. It was all starting to make some kind of sense, even though I was loath to admit that perhaps a little application of rules had been the right call. I was so lost in the drawing that I hadn’t realized class was officially over.
“Hey, Lexi!” a familiar voice called out. I jumped, losing my concentration on my work and looking over to find Rory standing at the art studio’s door, her short sometimes-blond hair now dyed Cookie Monster blue. Her striking eyes of a lighter version of that color were partly hidden behind her black-rimmed cat’s-eye glasses, but they showed concern. At her side stood Marshall in all his tallness and sporting an Avengers T-shirt, black scruffy hair and a similar look of concern in his brown, gentle eyes.
“Hey, guys,” I said.
Rory started over, her five-inch Frankenstein boots clopping loudly across the art studio floor, before
stopping and looking me up and down.
“Nice suit,” she said. “The white coat makes you look a bit Muppet Labs, though, and I’d peg you as Beaker, judging by your twitchiness.” Her eyes met mine. “You okay, doll?”
“Yeah,” I said with a slim smile, and pointed to the easel. “Was having a little bit of a breakthrough, actually. Well, first a fight with the teacher, then everyone staring at me, but then a bit of a breakthrough.”
Rory looked around the art space. To my delight, the other remaining students were all busy working on their own stuff, and thankfully no one seemed to be taking any notice of me. “Glad to see that my birthday gift to you is really helping you make friends,” Rory said, giving me a thumbs-up. “No fighting, though, okay? The idea was to help you relax from the day job, remember? Now, let’s get you out of that lab coat and jet.”
“It’s a smock,” I corrected. “It’s for the doing of the art, and the saving of the grown-up clothes. Duh.”
Marshall clapped me on the shoulder with a light touch. “Your bosses would be so proud,” he said, mock sniffling.
“Parents,” I reminded him. “Humping real estate on behalf of my family from one group of people to another is not my idea of my dream job, okay?” I turned to Rory. “And while I appreciate the gift, Ror, nothing is going to help me relax from the day job. I know I decided not to abandon them, and I don’t think my mom could take it right now. But it doesn’t mean I have to like it. “
“I don’t get it,” she said. “HGTV makes real estate look so easy.”
“It probably is,” I countered, “but most people probably don’t answer to their parents as their bosses in that profession, do they?”
“Fair point,” she said.
“They grow up so fast,” Marshall said, continuing with his melodramatic crying. He put his hand on my back and started rubbing between my shoulders.