by Karis Walsh
Bailey walked Ken to the door, promising again to give her an update when she called. She watched the small red-and-white car ease its way up the rutted driveway before she returned to the kitchen and got the meal she had prepared for a barred owlet that was living in her downstairs bathroom. She sat cross-legged on the floor and fed the hungry bird while she thought about the osprey. Most likely, she’d never hear from Ken again. Most people were relieved to pass on the burden of caring for a wounded bird. They cared enough to contact her, to find help for the bird they had found, but then they returned to their normal routines and forgot about both Bailey and the winged creature that had touched their lives momentarily. Bailey was usually happy to see them go, to be left alone with her charges again. She fed the owl another morsel of food and wondered why this time felt different.
She would never admit it to WSU’s dean, who called her daily offering the assistance of interns, but she had been happy to have help while she treated the osprey. Usually she was juggling bird, syringes, and bandages on her own. Ken’s competent and confident assistance had made the procedure much smoother and quicker, both important things when dealing with an anesthetized raptor. Ken had been respectful and gentle with the fragile osprey, watching the whole procedure as if fascinated while still following Bailey’s instructions to the letter. Bailey worried that her interns would be less likely to listen to her and follow her methods without question. They might think they knew enough to make decisions on their own. To change or ignore her routines…
The owlet squawked when Bailey paused with the tweezers held just above his head. She hurriedly dropped the food into his open mouth. Ken had proved to be the ideal assistant today, but Bailey had been intrigued by her for other reasons as well. On the surface, Ken looked like a typical successful young professional. Well dressed and well groomed, but in subtle ways. She could be dropped into any office, any profession and look like she belonged. But when she had been intently watching Bailey wrap the osprey’s wing and she’d leaned over for a closer look, Bailey had been distracted by the tantalizing edge of tattoos just visible in the slightly gaping V of her conservative button-down shirt. An ornate dragon with a ruby eye peeked over the plain white bra above her left breast, and the wing of some creature was barely discernible in the shadowed area above Ken’s navel. The unique and hidden tattoos—like the brief flashes of emotion that crossed Ken’s face—told Bailey there was more to her, just below the surface, than her conventional exterior suggested. And they told Bailey there was more to her awareness of Ken than was safe. She had nearly stabbed herself with the suturing needle while she was distracted by the delicate web of ink on Ken’s skin.
But it didn’t matter, because even if Ken actually did contact her about the osprey, Bailey would never have a chance to learn more about her hidden, protected self. Bailey watched the sated owlet burrow under his blanket before she went into the recovery room and peeked under the drapes at the osprey. He was stirring, but still sedated. Bailey willed him to wake up soon, to heal and grow strong enough to be released. For his sake, and for Ken’s. She dropped the dark cloth again and quietly left the room.
Chapter Four
Ken held herself stiffly in the Eames chair, resisting its siren call. She refused to succumb to the comfort of its well-designed aluminum frame and its too-damned-cushy white leather-covered pads. She didn’t belong here, refused to get too comfortable here, and she wanted to leave no doubt about it. She had dressed carefully in the most conservative outfit she could find in her closet, although she knew the dress code at Impetus was casual. She had opted to have all her tattoos—and all her individuality—carefully covered by a pressed cream-colored shirt and a navy blazer and slacks. All of her inner turmoil reduced to simple neutrals—as bland as the beige houses she designed.
She watched Joe Bently, CEO of Impetus, flip through the designs and blueprints in her large black leather portfolio. His expression never changed, but Ken could read his opinion of her work in the rhythm of his page turning. If he was truly impressed by anything he saw, he’d hurry through early planning stages to arrive at the finished design, or he’d pause and examine whatever caught his eye in more detail. Instead, the movement of his hand was as steady as a metronome. Boring, mass-produced houses built with the intention of fitting seamlessly and unobtrusively into boring, mass-produced developments. Every sketch had the same straight lines and predictable proportions, but even worse were the glossy photos of the finished houses. Once the skeletons she had drawn were hidden behind the palest of pastel siding—colors strictly controlled and approved by the homeowners’ associations—there was nothing to identify the houses as her own.
Ken tilted her chin slightly, even though Joe seemed unaware of her presence in the room as he continued to flip through uninspiring pages. She had no reason to be ashamed of her work. Her designs were popular and her homes were easy to inhabit. She was good at what she did, creating livable homes that appealed to a wide market. She wanted to defend herself, to point out details in the designs that often weren’t noticed until the walls were up and someone reached for a light switch or door handle. She had a knack for imagining 3-D versions of her designs in her head. She would look at simple lines on grid paper and be able to put herself in the room she had just drawn. Adjust a door frame or move a closet a few inches to the left. Minor touches, but they made a big difference in daily life.
But she kept her mouth shut. As her emotions grew more conflicted internally, she felt her expression and posture become conversely more still. No smile, no frown. No fidgeting. She wanted Joe to change his mind, tell her she wasn’t Impetus material and let her go. She could find another developer—one who would appreciate her unexceptional and reliable work and, hopefully, one who wouldn’t go bust before she got a modest home built on her property. Everything she had done so far that day, from her portfolio to the impression her style of clothing gave, was designed to help her out of this mess.
Well, almost everything. Joe’s hand paused in midair when he came to the last pages in her portfolio, and Ken snapped her head sharply as she looked away from him. She studied the photos on his office wall while he slowly went through the final designs, but she noticed in her peripheral vision as he took his time moving forward and back through her final sketches. She felt a growing sense of panic as she struggled against the desire to rip her portfolio out of his hands until her attention was caught by a series of photographs of an eagle, taking off in flight.
She had barely registered the details at first, but she forgot about Joe and her drawings as she slowed down and studied each frame. The first showed a large wooden box and a woman leaning over it. Her back was to the camera as she seemed to be unsnapping a metal latch. The sunlight brought out deep red tones in her braided auburn hair—contrasting beautifully with the vivid green grass and blue-gray water behind her. Her faded and torn jeans fit her distractingly well. Ken quickly shifted her attention to the next picture. In this one, the eagle stood, poised and calm, on a wooden platform. A brief moment of calm before the third photo, and the bird’s powerful launch into the air. The photos were exquisite, and Ken could feel the energies of confinement, suspension, and freedom pulse out of the still shots and into her.
“That’s Bailey, isn’t it?” She added inflection as if asking a question, but she would have recognized Bailey—any part of her—without hesitation. “I mean, Dr. Chase.”
“The wild bird rehabilitator, yes,” Joe said. “Do you know her?”
“Not really,” Ken said with what she hoped was an indifferent shrug. “I have a small piece of property near Sequim and I found a wounded osprey there last weekend. I took him to Dr. Chase’s sanctuary.”
“Incredible,” he said, looking at her with the same intense focus he had shown while looking through her final sketches.
Ken gestured toward the photos, waving his attention off her. “It was a beautiful bird, but nowhere near the impressive size of that eagle.”
> “It’s magnificent, isn’t it?” Joe left her portfolio lying open on his desk as he got up and walked over to the wall. He tapped his finger on a photograph of a huge glass-fronted A-frame. “I designed this house in Poulsbo for some friends of mine, the Selberts. Gave them a lovely view of Puget Sound, but unfortunately an eagle flew smack into the center of an upper story window. Nearly killed him, but Dr. Chase fixed him up. Vonda took these pictures of his release and sent them to me. I think she blamed me for the damned bird getting hurt.”
Ken wasn’t sure how to respond, so she stayed silent and looked through the pictures once more. Bailey. She had been on Ken’s mind since they had met, and she was partly to blame for Ken’s discomfort right now. Ken had been thinking how much one of her old architectural drawings would have suited Bailey, and she had dug the series of sketches out of a box in her closet. And then she had stuck them in her portfolio on a whim. Yes, this was Bailey’s fault.
Joe came around to the front of his desk and propped himself on its edge. “You should see the house now. She has stickers and dangly crap covering every window, so no birds will fly into the glass. Looks like shit, but it makes her happy. That’s architecture, isn’t it? We design a house, but the owner turns it into a home. What they choose to hang in the windows is out of our hands.”
Ken struggled to come up with a suitable response. Fortunately, Joe seemed to have his own agenda and didn’t expect her to make conversation.
“I have questions about you, Ken,” Joe said, before she had time to formulate a comment about the Selberts and their house. “Maybe you can answer this one. Were you underutilized at your last job?”
Ken frowned. She didn’t want to raise questions in anyone’s mind. She wanted to be clear about what she wanted and who she was and where she was going, but she didn’t seem to be doing a good job of providing forceful explanations for any of those—to Joe or to herself.
“I was one of the senior architects at the firm. I designed the three top-selling floor plans, and I made modifications for every new development—”
Joe held up a hand. “I didn’t mean underutilized in terms of time, but in talent. I’ve seen how many new housing communities have been built in the last decade, and I know there’s been no shortage of work for someone with your skill. You create well-thought-out plans, and I can imagine people living happily in the houses you’ve designed.”
He reached back and slid two sheets of paper out of their protective covers, setting them side by side on the desk in front of her. One was a plain and boxy two-story she had designed a year ago. The other was one of the series she had added to her portfolio this morning. Nine whimsical sketches she had made in junior high, when she had first begun to study architectural drawing in earnest. One house for each of the classical muses. The one he had chosen was for Urania, muse of astronomy. Ken still didn’t fully understand why she had added them. She had been stubbornly set on defying the climate and identity of Impetus by showing only her monochromatic work, but instead she had slipped the nine drawings and detailed plans into the back of her book. Was it pride? A need to prove she really could design more than a box? Her self-control seemed to fail every time she had a strong urge to assert her individuality—the very times she needed to remain strong and silent, her actions shouted out how different she really was.
Ken stared at the two drawings without speaking. If she hadn’t been the one holding the drafting pencil, she wouldn’t believe they were the work of the same hand. Urania’s house was her favorite of the group, and she felt perversely glad that Joe had picked it out of the series. Where most houses seemed to be rooted in the ground, her structure pushed heavenward. Three overlapping isosceles triangles in harmonious accord, reaching toward the sky. She was relieved he hadn’t chosen Euterpe’s house instead, with its large indoor atrium. Ken had originally designed it with Sappho in mind, but now she could only see Bailey living there. She wouldn’t have been able to remain so composed if Joe had been holding that one in front of her.
“These nine sketches are brilliant,” Joe said. “They’re striking and unique to look at, but anyone with artistic talent could draw a pretty building. The trick is making something unusual from the outside, yet structurally sound and functional for the person living inside. You’ve done that, with a level of skill I’ve rarely encountered. But I can see you were a novice when you made these. They were dreams—well-executed dreams, but not ready to be made in reality. My question stands. Were you underutilized at this place?” Joe picked up her two-story and waved it before tossing it back on the desk with a flick of his wrist. It slid across his computer keyboard and onto the floor. He picked up Urania’s house and held it by the two upper corners. “Or were these early drawings just flukes? Beginner’s luck? Which is the real you?”
Ken reached out and gently took the paper from him. Had she deserted her muses, or had they deserted her? She understood the question, but she didn’t have an answer. She knew what had happened in her life between the fantastical sketches and the mundane, but she wasn’t certain what had been her choice and what had been forced on her by necessity.
“I don’t know,” she said. She felt defeated by her own drawings. Why had she given Joe any reason to expect something special from her?
“I don’t, either,” he said. He took the drawing back, just as gently as she had taken it from him. “But I’m willing to give us both time to find out. When you’re ready.”
“Okay,” Ken said. Thank you might have been more appropriate, but she wasn’t feeling grateful. She was angry because she had opened herself up to the vulnerability her Muse houses represented and confused because she had just passively fought for a job she didn’t even want. No, not grateful at all. She pushed out of the enfolding arms of the white chair and picked up her fallen floor plan. She put it back in the portfolio—not bothering to slide it in its plastic sleeve—and reached out her hand for the other drawing.
“Can I keep this for a few days?” he asked. “My daughter Lydia is an astronomy buff and she’d love to see it. She’ll be after me to build a triangular extension onto her room so she can have a telescope viewing area like the one on the south face of this house.”
“Go ahead and keep it,” Ken said. She folded the leather cover over her portfolio and snapped it in place. “I don’t have any use for it.”
“You might, someday, so I’ll take good care of it and bring it back to you.”
“Thanks,” Ken said, her shoulder rising and falling in a reflexive shrug even though she felt relieved with the assurance that she’d get her drawing back.
“Don’t mention it. If Lydia manages to talk me into building her an observatory, I’ll have you design it.” He returned to his desk chair and sat down, pulling a stack of papers in front of him and looking as distant now as he had seemed fatherly and caring only moments before. “We have a new project starting next week, and it’ll be managed by your old school friend, Douglas. It’ll be a good fit for you, and an easy way for you to learn the Impetus methods. In the meantime, Jessica has agreed to let you tag along with her this week. She’s working on the finishing touches for a major renovation we’re doing for one of our top clients. She’s my senior architect, has been with me for years, and you can learn a lot from her. Take advantage of the opportunity.”
“Yes…sir,” Ken said, hesitating over what to call her new boss.
“Joe,” he said, without looking up.
Ken shut the door behind her and leaned against it. She felt too many different emotions to be able to clearly identify or manage any of them. He thought he was easing her transition into the company by putting her to work with Dougie—on whose recommendation she’d been given this job in the first place—but he was one of the main reasons Ken didn’t want to be here. Being with him would bring up too many painful memories, but Ken had already started the journey back in time by bringing her Muse drawings today. Ken wanted to go back to her safe life, back to Ginny and the Seattle
apartment and her comfortable old job, but if she was being honest, a tiny rebellious part of her was excited about being at Impetus. She longed to have a pencil in hand and feel the ideas flowing from mere suggestions and hints until they solidified into three-dimensional homes and buildings in her mind. She pushed away from the doorframe and went in search of Jessica.
Chapter Five
Bailey adjusted her hold on the bulky wooden crate she carried, wrapping one arm protectively around it while reaching for a drooping cedar bough with the other. The fallen tree in front of her—at least three feet in diameter—blocked the barely defined deer track she was following through the dense woods. She stepped her left foot onto the decaying trunk, using the cedar limb for balance as she hoisted herself and her precious cargo onto the log. She felt her sneaker slip on the thick coating of moss, and her grip tightened on both the crate and the bough as she teetered on the arced surface. The branch she held was too slender to give solid support, but luckily it didn’t snap off in her hand. She hovered on top of the trunk for a moment, leaning back beyond her balance point, before she was able to right herself. Instead of risking another close call on the way down, she bent her knees until she was sitting on the damp moss that covered the trunk. The springy cushion underneath her triggered memories of mossy trunks and rocks she had sat on as a kid. They had been her thrones and her reading chairs, more comfortable than anything she found in her own home.
Bailey dropped off the log and shifted the crate again, clenching her fingers around the handle on its lid. She pushed through a stand of Indian plum, weaving among the thin, spaced limbs of the shrub. The long, soft leaves brushed against her face and hands with a gentle touch, as if welcoming her back to the woods. She was miles away from the forests around Bremerton that had been her sanctuary in childhood, but the smells and cool forest air were as familiar as her old haunts. The air was draped with fog, the trees with moss and lacy lichen. Ethereal and otherworldly. When she was a young girl, Bailey had been a fairy queen in the forest, shutting out the loneliness and pain of the human world as she fit seamlessly into the forest realm. Now, as an adult, Bailey knew her respite from the troubling and intrusive civilized world was only temporary, but she appreciated it just as much.