The Curiosities

by Susan Gloss

  Sloane had closed the gallery early and asked Odin if he could help her get her bike from the attic. He’d carried the bike down to the street and put air in the tires.

  “Want to join me?” she’d asked.

  But Odin had been close to finishing a sculpture he was working on at the time—a complicated piece with three different kinds of metal twisted into the form of a running horse. It was the hardest thing he’d ever worked on. Getting the metal to mimic movement was tricky, and he wanted to get it right. So he told Sloane he’d join her next time.

  Next time . . .

  Those words still haunted him.

  He remembered watching Sloane bike down the alley. How her tires sloshed through a puddle of melting snow, saturating her socks and leggings.

  He should have gone with her. He always biked behind her when they rode together. Surely he would have seen the SUV when it veered into the bike lane. Drivers in other cars had seen it happen. If Odin had been there, he could have shouted to her. Maybe he could have warned her. Maybe he could have saved her.

  What if he’d told Sloane he wanted to finish what he was working on before going up to the attic to get her bike? Even five minutes could have made a difference. The distracted driver would already have been ahead of her on the road. What if he’d taken just a little more time tuning up her bike before letting her go? He should have greased the chain and tightened the brakes, as well as put air in the tires. And—always, this thought lingered even after the “what-ifs” had washed back out to sea—why hadn’t he at least told Sloane he loved her that day, before she rode off?

  Odin sat down on the bench. From the front pocket of his flannel shirt, he pulled out a copy he’d made of a letter typed on letterhead from the Foster Gallery and signed in Sloane’s loopy handwriting. It had been attached to the application Nell gave him.

  Odin had been carrying the copy of the letter around with him, so that he could look at it when, like today, he needed a reminder. The letter, addressed to Betsy Barrett, contained the usual words of praise you’d expect from a recommendation: “talented,” “full of potential,” and so on. But it also said the following:

  As you so quickly deduced when you saw us together, Odin and I are in a relationship. You might be wondering if that is the only reason I’m submitting this recommendation on his behalf. On the contrary, I’m submitting it in spite of our relationship. On a selfish level, I want to keep him near me. But in the interest of his career, I cannot let him pass up an opportunity to focus on his work and explore directions that he might not otherwise pursue. I fear that if he stays here, I’ll be holding him back.

  The letter jarred something loose that had been keeping Odin from finishing anything he’d started, ever since Sloane died. It was the license he needed to let go of what he thought she would have wanted. Already he’d been playing with the limits of what he could create. Freed from his doubts about whether he was worthy of the residency or whether he’d only been admitted as a favor to Sloane, he dove into his work in a way he hadn’t since before she died. Or, rather, in a way he never had. Today, on the anniversary of her passing, he finished his blue heron sculpture, stretching its hammered steel wings out to the full five-foot wingspan he’d envisioned when he first saw the real bird tuck up its legs and take flight over the lake.

  As Odin stepped back to look at his work, his stomach growled, and he realized he hadn’t consumed anything but coffee since breakfast. It was nearly dinnertime now. He went inside to get something to eat, and almost ran smack into Paige in the kitchen. She had her coat and backpack on, plus a large duffel bag slung over her shoulder.

  Paige noticed him eyeing the bag and said, “I’m going to stay with a friend.”

  “That guy who was here the other night, who took off when the cops showed up?” Odin asked. He hoped the answer was no.

  Paige shook her head. “Nah, he was just someone I met at a bar. I’m going to stay with this other guy, Jay, who I met online. He’s a guitarist in a geek metal band.”

  “Geek metal?”

  “Yeah. They write songs based on, like, Star Wars and Dungeons & Dragons and stuff.”

  Odin raised his eyebrows, amused. “I didn’t know you were into that sort of thing.”

  “What, because I don’t do fan art of dragons and wizards and shit?” The strap of Paige’s bag slid down her arm and she hoisted it back onto her shoulder.

  “Well . . . yeah.”

  “Trust me. My sketchbooks from when I was a teenager are filled with, like, drows and mind flayers.”

  “What about Trent?” Odin asked. For a while there, it had seemed like he came home with Paige every night.

  “Trent and I are done.”

  Odin wasn’t about to judge how quickly somebody else moved from one relationship to the next. Before he met Sloane, he’d certainly had his share of one-night stands and casual, friends-with-benefits arrangements. But he could see in the way Paige looked away and bit her lip after she said Trent’s name, that she still had feelings for him.

  “I know it’s none of my business,” he said. “But can I ask what happened?”

  Paige shrugged. “He didn’t want to see other people, but I did. So I am.”

  “Okay,” Odin said. After a long pause, he added, “But for what it’s worth, the right relationship can actually be pretty great. Take it from someone who had one and lost it, but not by choice.”

  “Noted,” Paige said. There was an annoyed edge to her voice.

  “Sorry, it’s the anniversary of when my girlfriend died, so I guess I’m all about the unsolicited advice today.”

  Paige’s tone softened. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry about your girlfriend.”

  “Me, too.”

  Paige switched her duffel bag from one shoulder to the other.

  Even if Odin couldn’t stop Paige from running off to someone new, he did still worry about her safety, going to stay with a stranger she’d met online. “Hey, why don’t you leave Jay’s contact info, just in case?” he said. “I’m pretty sure Nell will want to know where you are. Seems like this whole thing really has her—I guess all of us—on edge.”

  Paige shrugged. “Sure.” She set down her bag and rooted around for a pen. When she found one, she scribbled something down on a scrap of paper and gave it to Odin.

  He looked at the address she’d written. “I don’t know Madison all that well, but isn’t this way out on the west side? Do you need a ride?”

  “No, he’s picking me up.” Her phone dinged and she pulled it out of the back pocket of her jeans and glanced at the screen. “This is him. I’ve gotta go.”

  She went out the side door, and, after she was gone, it occurred to Odin that if Paige, a pure original, could find people she connected with online, Odin was pretty sure he could meet people that way, too. But meeting people, even online, meant having to go through the small-talk stage. And Odin hated small talk. It was why he and Nell seemed to click so well. She didn’t hold back what was really on her mind and, in turn, neither did he.

  Odin made himself a grilled cheese and went out to eat it at his workbench. When he was done, he put on his helmet and headphones. But he’d only just started to get to work when Nell came in, ducking under the garage door. It was as if she’d read his mind and knew he’d been thinking of her.

  “Hi,” he said, pulling off his gear. He slung the headphones around his neck.

  “Hey,” she said. Odin was surprised to see that Nell was wearing sneakers and running clothes. She usually wore professional-looking attire around the Colony. He tried to keep his gaze on her face and not let it wander down to her butt in the tight leggings.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “We need to talk about the other night in the office.”

  Odin nodded.

  “Before the paramedics came,” she added.

  She didn’t need to be so specific, though. Odin knew exactly what she was referring to.

  “Sure,” he sai
d. “I figured we’d talk eventually. I thought about bringing it up, but you’ve been dealing with so much lately, I didn’t want to add to your stress level.”

  Nell took a deep breath. “I want to start by saying that I hope you know I respect you and your work,” she said. “And I enjoy your company . . . maybe almost a little too much.” She cracked a sheepish smile, and Odin returned it, which cut through a little of the uneasy tension.

  “But . . . ,” he prompted her.

  “I know nothing ended up happening between us. But it needs to stay that way.” Nell shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “I know I wasn’t clear about it the other night, but I’ve had some time to think since then. And I really need to work on my marriage right now.” Nell looked relieved after she’d gotten the words out.

  As much as he would have loved to try to convince her otherwise, Odin knew she was right. “I get it. And I wish you the best with that, I really do. You have a chance to fix things, and you should take it,” he said, thinking of how he’d give anything to have a second chance with Sloane.

  “Thanks. I figured if anyone could understand, it would be you.” Nell held out her hand and said, “So we’re friends, then? Colleagues? Some awkward combination of all of the above?”

  Odin laughed and shook her hand. “Friends,” he said.

  He was still a guy, though. Which was why he couldn’t help but sneak a glance at her backside in her running tights as she turned and went back to the house.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Paige

  PIECE: Watercolor painting of Sagrada Família church, Barcelona.

  Paige was freaking out. She was the only one of the residents who had never laid eyes on Caroline, but the sirens and the cops and the fact that someone had died had her so shaken up, she couldn’t stand the thought of sleeping at the Colony. A part of her wanted to call Trent. She knew she would find comfort if she could curl up against him and rest her head on his chest—even if it meant she had to share space with him on his friends’ couch. But pride and fear kept her from contacting him. To go to Trent in such a vulnerable state would only launch them back in the direction they’d been going, which, in Paige’s opinion, had been too serious, too fast. Paige found another escape, though, in the form of a musician named Jay whom she’d met while playing the online version of Magic: The Gathering.

  Back in high school, she’d been deep into role-playing games. She got into them after her parents figured out that the cuts on her wrists were not, as Paige claimed, “burns from taking a pizza out of the oven.”

  She hadn’t been trying to kill herself. Just trying to feel something. Because pain, even the type of physical pain that came from taking a hunting knife to her wrists, was better than the big hole of nothingness that seemed to live in her chest.

  Her parents came from the sort of stock that said things like “chin up” and “you’ll feel better in the morning.” Paige never felt better in the fucking morning. Not in those days, at least. The thought that depression could be a disease and not just an attitude problem never crossed her parents’ minds, until her high school guidance counselor told them that Paige should probably “see someone.” Paige hated that phrase. It could just as easily mean “I’m dating someone” instead of “I’m meeting with a mental health professional.” Was it, like, supposed to be polite? Because, to Paige, it just seemed shaming and secretive.

  A few things saved her from herself, and none of them was the drowsy, cliché-spouting psychologist her mother used to drive her an hour each way to see. The first was gaming. Battling fictional monsters on the board was a hell of a lot easier than battling the ones in her head. When Paige sat down for a campaign, she could block out, for a few hours anyway, how out of place she felt in every other aspect of her life. School was okay—well, the class part anyway. At least there was an art room, even if it was forever running out of supplies because of budget cuts.

  Between classes, though, Paige knew girls whispered behind her back. Called her things like “freak” and “slut.” Because apparently having no-strings-attached sex in high school made you a whore. At least if you were a girl it did. But sex, like gaming, got her out of her head. Art did, too, sometimes. But art also could backfire, and push her deeper in. And deep in her head was a very unpleasant place to be.

  Since she’d been at college, though, art had expanded to take up the time and headspace that gaming used to. With deadlines and final projects, Paige didn’t have ten hours to spend sitting at a table in some strip-mall game shop, rolling twelve- and twenty-sided dice and drinking Red Bull.

  When she and Trent split, though, a couple of weeks earlier, she’d been shaken up in a way she’d never been before. And she didn’t like it. Even though she was the one who had cut things off, the breakup made her feel out of control, emotionally. And she’d worked very, very hard so far, in these few, nascent years of adulthood, to keep her thoughts and emotions under control. So she tiptoed back into gaming because it was an excellent escape. So was sex with someone new. All the better that with Jay, she got the prospect of both in one.

  As a lover, Jay was just okay. Paige was pretty sure he hadn’t been with many girls. But he and his friends were a lot of fun to game with. That Saturday night, she stayed up with them until dawn to finish an epic D&D campaign—something Paige hadn’t done since high school.

  But after a few days, Paige grew tired of being stuck without a car on the outskirts of Madison. Jay lived on several acres of land, which made sense as soon as Paige met his bandmates. His gaming friends were harmless enough, drinking microbrews while immersing themselves in fictional battles and expeditions. His bandmates were another story. They were like nerds on steroids. Or—more accurately—nerds on some sort of strong mind-altering drugs. When they came over to practice one night, the whole house shook. And their music was awful. So loud and awful that Paige was only able to fall asleep after she put earplugs in. She’d gotten in the habit of carrying them in her backpack for when she needed to tune people out in the studio at school.

  She went into the spare bedroom so as not to be woken up when Jay eventually came to bed, and she fell asleep to the whooshing sound of the blood in her own eardrums. She woke up when she felt hands against the skin of her back, underneath the T-shirt she’d worn to bed. She swatted the hands away, still half-asleep. “Knock it off, Jay, I’m tired.”

  But he didn’t back off. Instead, he reached around to her waist and pulled her into him. Paige felt the rough texture of denim against her legs, and his hard-on jabbing into her back. Now she was pissed. She pulled out the earplugs, shoved him off, and turned around, now sitting up. “What the fuck? I said back off.”

  But the glassy-eyed, laughing face she saw wasn’t Jay’s. It was one of his stupid bandmates, reeking of booze and who knew what else. Paige got out of bed, shaking with anger, and pointed to the door. When he didn’t move, she yelled, “Go!”

  As soon as he left, Paige locked the bedroom door, grabbed her phone, and called Odin. When he picked up and said hello, it sounded as if he, too, had been asleep.

  “Hey, it’s Paige,” she said, still shaking. “Sorry to be calling so late, but could you come pick me up? I think you have the address.”

  “Yeah, sure, I’ll leave right now.”

  Paige didn’t say good-bye to Jay or his friends before she left. She waited inside the locked room, looking out the window until she saw Odin’s truck pull into the driveway. Then she slipped out the front door, unheard over the sound of screamed lyrics about wizards and rogue warriors.

  “Thanks for picking me up,” she said as she got into the passenger seat of the truck.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Odin said. “Everything okay?”

  Paige nodded. “You were right, though. It wasn’t a good idea for me to go.” As they pulled out of the driveway, she sent Jay a text: Your drummer’s an asshole. Ask him why.

  “Annie’s home,” Odin said. “They let her out on bo
nd a couple of days ago.”

  Paige felt bad that she hadn’t checked in at all while she’d been gone. She realized how much she’d been holding herself at a distance from the Colony, not just by being at Jay’s, but before that, too.

  When they got home, Paige was happy to be back in her room, with the sound of the wind whistling over the lake and the old house creaking, instead of the aggressive wail of a guitar in its death throes. Before she went to bed, though, she opened up the closet to look for the old maps she’d stashed in there after Trent stopped coming around. She pulled what she thought were the rolled-up maps from a cardboard box. When she unfurled them, though, Paige saw that they were watercolor paintings of famous sites in Europe that Paige had never been to, but still recognized—the Colosseum in Rome, London’s Tower Bridge, the Sagrada Família church in Barcelona. The paintings were yellowed at the edges, all done by different artists, and probably weren’t worth much. It made Paige smile, though, to think of Betsy buying them. Apparently the old lady’s love of art and the people who created it encompassed a range wide enough for both Georgia O’Keeffe and a sidewalk artist selling paintings on a tourist drag—and, somewhere in that range, people like Annie, Odin, and Paige, too.

  Paige finally found the maps, tucked into the bottom of the box. In putting them away, she’d done a good job of making sure she wouldn’t stumble across them and, in turn, have to think about Trent and all the time they’d spent together up here, in her room. Her tactic hadn’t worked, though. Neither had hiding at Jay’s house for a few days. Since she hadn’t succeeded in getting over Trent, either with physical distance or sex with someone else, Paige figured she’d have to try to get over him the only other way she knew how: with her art. And his fascination with old maps gave her an idea.