Claire Decker Bundle

by Claire Decker

  “Some people might find that more intimidating than relaxing.”

  “I suppose.”

  “I had my doubts about beans and pasta,” Kelly told Regina after she took her first tentative bite, “but this is delicious.”

  “Why thank you, ma’am,” Regina replied with a simper and a batting of her eyelashes. Kelly blushed, something she seemed to do fairly easily. Then again, with that red hair and fair, freckled skin, maybe Regina shouldn’t be surprised.

  “Where’d you learn to cook like this?”

  “This? This was just throwing ingredients together. If you want a really good Italian meal, you’ll have to talk to my mother. Born and raised in the Italian Alps. She didn’t move to the States until she was in her twenties.”

  “Wow. You have family in Italy then? Do you ever get the chance to visit?”

  They talked the sun the rest of the way down and the moon high in the sky, talked about anything and everything. Regina felt comfortable with Kelly in a way she hadn’t since she’d broken up with her boyfriend from college. David was still a good friend. Regina thought maybe he knew she preferred women to men before she did.

  Where Regina was an only child with a few million aunts and uncles and enough cousins to populate the state of Rhode Island, Kelly only had her brother Jack. Their parents had been killed when she was a child, but her big brother was old enough and responsible enough when it happened that he was able to file for – and win – custody.

  Where Kelly had never been in a serious relationship, too wrapped up in her imagination to let many people in, Regina had had several, though none serious enough to end in marriage – or rather marriage followed by divorce, given that she was single.

  Although she probably should have, Regina didn’t mention the fact that she was hiding from a stalker.

  Regina reached for the bottle of wine to top off her glass, but it was empty. She stood, bottle in hand, and started to ask Kelly if she wanted to open another bottle when Kelly’s voice stopped her.

  “Could I paint you?” There was a force behind the words that made them sound as though something pulled them from Kelly’s throat, that she hadn’t meant to say them aloud at all.

  Regina sat back down, looking at Kelly. Silver limned the copper of her hair. Her eyes glittered like water in the moonlight. “Do you mean like a portrait?”

  Kelly nodded and leaned forward in her chair. This time, rather than pulled from her throat, the words escaped as though in a rush to be the first ones said, as though if she didn’t say them, they’d fade away before they even came to be.

  “Just a few quick sketches. You don’t have to sit for hours and do nothing while I stare at you.” A flash of white teeth as she grinned, but then it disappeared just as quickly. “There’s something about you that I need to… to…” She made a frustrated sound. “Capture isn’t really the right word. It’s not like I want to steal your soul or something.” Regina laughed at that and after a breath, Kelly joined in. “I could help you rehearse your lines in return.”

  “No one’s ever done a portrait of me before. Deal.” She held out her hand across the little table and Kelly took it, smiling once more. Her hand was cool in Regina’s. “But I have to warn you…” Her voice dropped a little lower. “Most of the scenes I really need to rehearse are romantic.”

  For a heartbeat Regina thought Kelly might change her mind, but then she said softly, “That won’t be a problem.”

  Chapter 11

  The next day, Regina fully intended to do some more work, but it didn’t work out the way she’d planned. Instead of more research and pulling her notes into something resembling a backstory for her character, she ended up spending the day with Kelly.

  They talked about books and movies, concerts they’d been to, vacations they’d taken, childhood pets – Regina had never had one; Kelly had never spent a day without a dog or a cat around – and while they talked, Kelly sketched.

  She never asked Regina to move or to change or stop what she was doing in any way, but at odd moments in their ongoing conversation, she would suddenly become more intense, distracted.

  During those moments, she would flip open her sketchbook, always to the same page, and dash off a few lines with her pencils, smudging them with a fingertip to give the sketch a bit of depth.

  It didn’t matter if they were talking in the kitchen over coffee or walking along the beach late in the afternoon. If the lighting or the angle of Regina’s face or body struck Kelly’s imagination, she whipped out that sketchbook and pencil.

  After an early dinner, while they watched The Guardians of the Galaxy on DVD with another bottle of wine, Regina even caught Kelly sketching her as she sat with her back to the arm of the couch and her knees tented in front of her, the heels of her bare feet resting on the edge of the cushion.

  By the time the end credits rolled, Kelly abruptly stood and drained off the last of her wine. “This was the best day I’ve had in a long time, Gina.” Regina blinked at the shortened name, but didn’t protest. “But I’ve got to strike while the iron’s hot, as they say.” Ever since Regina had told her about the script, she had made cowboy puns and references whenever she could work them in.

  “It’s almost ten o’clock,” Regina said. “You’re going to paint now?”

  “I won’t be able to sleep until I get at least the preliminaries done.” She smiled and shrugged. “I need to get this out of my head before it drives me insane.” With that, Kelly spun around and headed to the other end of the villa.

  Restless herself, unsure what had just happened, whether the day she and Kelly had just spent might count as a first date – it felt like one to Regina – or whether it was simpler than that, the beginnings of a lasting friendship, Regina tried to read through her lines again, tried to commit them to memory this time, but nothing stuck. She kept seeing copper pony tails and eyes as blue as the Caribbean, kept hearing a raucous laugh.

  Since the memorization wasn’t working, she doodled instead. Knights and sea monsters formed in the margins of the script alongside her character notes. Dragons flew over the tops of pages and twined sinuous tails around page numbers.

  After a time, Regina noticed that most of her knights in shining armor bore a passing resemblance to Kelly Nordstrom, albeit passing resemblances in mostly stick form.

  “Who am I kidding?” she asked herself, her voice barely above a whisper. Setting aside her script, Regina pushed up from the couch. She thought about going to bed, but there were too many thoughts and emotions buzzing around inside her head.

  Instead, she poured the last of the bottle of wine – a light Chablis – into her glass and went out on the patio. The stars were a glittering field of diamonds on inky black velvet, not the short, stiff velvet of black light paintings and 70s head shops, but rather the plush, lush black velvet one might find in a high-end boutique.

  Regina laughed, the sound loud in the otherwise still night. She took a sip of her wine. She found Kelly Nordstrom fascinating and had since that very first day, when she’d laughed with her whole being, but now she had to admit to herself the fascination had turned into infatuation. And she had no idea if the attraction went both ways.

  Sometimes it seemed mutual, but even that could all be in her head.

  Who knew I’d meet the woman of my dreams while hiding from a stalker?

  Chapter 12

  The sand was cool under Regina’s bare feet, but the water that rushed up the beach, covering them to her ankles, was warm. The waves pulled the sand from under her toes as is pulled away from land, returning to the sea once more only to come rushing back in again with the next wave.

  Seaweed wrapped itself around her ankle for a moment, making her jump back from the water; the jump dislodged it and the retreating wave carried it back out to sea. A gull wheeled and dove toward the water, pulling up at the last second to land on the undulating surface.

  Regina walked out into the water a little way, stopping when it reac
hed her calves. The water was as restless as she still was after a mostly sleepless night spent tossing and turning, caught between a pair of sweet blue eye and a poison pen. She’d finally given up on sleep.

  It was still dark out when she got the coffee going. Her second cup was gone by the time the sun started to break the horizon and she’d gone down to the beach to watch as it slowly turned the clouds to pink and gold, deepening for a span to something more like crimson.

  That had been maybe an hour ago. It was still a beautiful morning, but the blue skies were disappearing above a layer of steel-gray clouds.

  She recalled an old saying she’d found while researching another role a few years back: Red sky at night, sailor’s delight; red sky at morning, sailor take warning. A storm was rolling in. She smelled the rain over the salt.

  It was noticeably cooler when she started back toward the villa. Kelly should be up, she thought, but then realized maybe not. Maybe she was still asleep after a long night of painting. Or maybe she had never gone to bed at all.

  She had been pretty wired when she left Regina the night before. Regina wasn’t sure whether she should avoid her or not. She was obviously distracting her from the commissioned work she was here to create, but that very distraction was what made Regina think that maybe the attraction wasn’t one-sided after all.

  As she reached the top of the stairs and stepped between the bougainvilleas, it began to drizzle. Regina stepped up her pace, reaching the overhang that sheltered part of the patio before the skies opened up. She stood for a moment watching it before heading into the kitchen.

  Putting on another pot of coffee, she started clearing away the dishes from the night before. Once the dishes were in the dishwasher and the coffee brewing, she started poking around in the cupboards and the refrigerator, looking at the possibilities for lunch. It was hearty soup kind of day.

  “Oh, good,” Kelly said from the doorway. “I thought maybe I’d missed the coffee.” She looked like she hadn’t slept, blue shadows under her eyes, her skin paler than usual so that her freckles popped, but for all that, she didn’t look tired.

  “Did you work all night?” Regina asked as she pulled a second mug from the cupboard.

  “I did.” Kelly took a bottle of creamer from the refrigerator and joined Regina at the coffee pot. “It’s nowhere near finished yet, but at least I can go back to working on what I’m supposed to be working on.” She poured creamer and coffee into her cup, but then looked up at Regina. “Wait. Isn’t it a little late for coffee? For you, I mean.”

  “I had some earlier, but the rain’s made it chilly, so I made more.” She grinned at Kelly and raised her cup in salute. “You’re welcome.”

  “Ha! Thanks.” She took a sip and headed into the living room. Regina followed.

  Regina’s heavily decorated script lay on the table where she’d left it the night before; Kelly set down her coffee and pulled the script toward her as she sat on the couch.

  Her eyes darted from knight to sea monster to dragon to different knight, stopping for a moment here and there, reading the notes in the margins. Regina hoped she hadn’t doodled anything like their initials surrounded by a heart, but she couldn’t remember.

  Kelly’s gaze met Regina’s. “These are adorable.” She cocked her head to one side. “I didn’t realize illustrations were part of acting,” she deadpanned and Regina laughed.

  “I couldn’t concentrate on my lines, so I jotted down some ideas for a children’s book I might write.”

  “Boy knights and girl knights battling sea monsters and fire-breathing dragons?” Kelly asked, delight in both her voice and her expression.

  Regina reached for the script, pulling it toward her. “Something like that.” There wasn’t anything too embarrassing on the page Kelly had read, but she didn’t want to take any chances. “I doubt I’ll ever write it though.”

  “Why not?” She laughed, sending a shiver down Regina’s spine. “We collaborate. You write it and I’ll illustrate it.” She, in turn, pulled the script back for a better look. Running a fingertip over a doodle that depicted a pair of knights bathed in dragon fire. “Although these are great, so maybe you illustrate and I’ll paint a kick-ass cover for it.”

  “I’ve never written a children’s book before. I wouldn’t know where to begin. I don’t even know how to tell a story.”

  “Are you kidding me? Of course you do! Just think of the story structure of all those scripts you have to read, the movies you’re a part of. It’s the same thing.”

  They talked about Regina’s story ideas for a few minutes while sipping coffee; enough of Kelly’s suggestions and the ideas they sparked in Regina were compelling enough that she got up to get her laptop to start documenting it all.

  By the time she returned, even the caffeine she’d consumed couldn’t fight the fatigue when it finally caught up with Kelly. Her feet propped up on the coffee table, her hands crossed over her stomach, and her head resting on the back of the couch, she was sound asleep.

  Chapter 13

  Regina was deep into an article on women in cattle ranching, including an interview with a woman who was a perfect model for her role, when she heard Kelly calling her name in a sing-song voice.

  She saved the article to her bookmarks with the label “need contact info” and turned around to see her leaning against the doorjamb of her bedroom. It was only then that Regina realized she’d been hearing her sing-songy name repeated over and over again for the last few minutes.

  “There she is,” Kelly laughed. “Welcome back to earth.”

  Lifting a hand to rub at the back of her neck, Regina smiled and said, “I guess I was kind of in a zone.”

  Kelly pushed away from the doorway. “Definitely zoned out, at least a little.” She glanced at the laptop on the writing desk in the corner of the master bedroom. “More research for your role?”

  “Yes. I’m working on a backstory for my character so I can better know how she’d react to certain things.”

  “Cool.” Nodding, Kelly reached for Regina’s hand and drew her up from her chair. “C’mon, Gina. I made lunch while you were in your zone. And you should bring your script with you so you can rehearse after lunch.”

  Her energy and enthusiasm levels were back to what Regina, in her limited experience with her, thought of as normal. A good night’s sleep had worked wonders. “That way I don’t have to feel so guilty about dragging you away from your work.” Scooping up the script from the end of her bed, Regina laughed and allowed Kelly to lead her from the room.

  Lunch consisted of chicken salad sandwiches, potato chips, and a bottle of sweet white wine down on the beach. The sun shone hot. The sky was clear, not a cloud in sight. A couple of seagulls thought seriously about joining the two women on the old blanket Kelly had thrown down to keep the sand out of their clothes and their food, but only one of them was bold enough to approach.

  As soon as came near enough to almost touch the corner of the blanket, Kelly lightly lobbed a small rock at it, chasing it away. Regina saw that she had a dozen or so of similar size arranged in a sprawling pyramid structure.

  Pleasantly buzzed from the wine, relaxed from the food and the sun and the company, Regina handed Kelly her script, open to the first scene she needed to rehearse. Glancing one last time at the start of the scene and the notes she’d written there a couple of days before, Regina took a step back.

  “I’m Camille. You’ll be reading all the other parts, but particularly Michael.” Regina watched her as Kelly read through the first page.

  As the afternoon wore on and with occasional breaks to splash in the water for a bit to cool off, Regina and Kelly went through Regina’s scenes. Kelly read while Regina recalled.

  For the most part, she had her lines down pretty well, but she would still have to go over them several more times before she had them truly committed to memory. Eventually, they reached the scene that Regina both dreaded and anticipated. She saw one of Kelly’s eyebrows go u
p as she read the scene direction: CENTER – CLOSE UP – CAMILLE AND MICHAEL – SPARKS FLY.

  “We can skip this one, if you want,” Regina offered, but Kelly shook her head and grinned.

  “We’re both adults. Besides, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with two women kissing.”

  When they reached the point that Camille – Regina – stepped into Michael’s – Kelly’s – personal space, Regina was completely in character.

  It was an emotionally charged scene. There was no space between Regina and Kelly.

  Regina looked up at Kelly, met and held her gaze a heartbeat before Kelly, taller than Regina and also caught up in the moment, lowered her head and kissed her. It was meant to be a simulation. It was never meant to be real.

  Regina opened her mouth under Kelly’s, and all the meant-to-bes, supposed-to-bes, should-have-beens exploded between them. Their tongues met, stroked one another as Regina brought her body in flush with Kelly’s.