Chapter 13
Alyssa met with the expectant couple at eight the next morning. They loved her design and were thrilled that she’d tucked a little bookcase under the slant of the eve. Because of the ceiling line, she’d gone with a circus motif—the architecture itself suggested a tent. Adding circus animals and striped curtains completed the look. They left by nine, holding hands, and she was able to pick Nick up at nine thirty, as promised.
She double-parked in front of his building and scanned the street quickly, wondering if she could get away with just texting to let him know she was here so she wouldn’t have to find a parking space. Before she could even open her texting app, he came bounding down the steps, wearing a cream Irish fisherman’s sweater under his jacket. He pulled the passenger door open. “Hey!” he said, settling himself into the seat and buckling up. At once, the car felt different—alive and energetic.
“Hi,” she said, and knew her smile was too big. “Are you ready?”
“You bet! Hope you don’t mind me just coming down. My coffeemaker didn’t want to see you.”
“Is it sulking because of the other day?”
“Yeah. You hurt its feelings.”
She laughed, then concentrated as she edged into traffic. “So tell me about yourself,” Nick said. “What are your qualifications to be my designer? Specifically, are you a Red Wheels fan?”
She glanced over, amused. “Is that the main requirement?”
“Pretty much.”
“Well, my stepdad and brother are.”
“Good start. Your mom?”
“She doesn’t like sweating and visible effort, so no sports. She doesn’t mind if it’s on, though. So that’s something?”
“Hmm. We’re gonna have to work on your mom.”
Good luck with that.Alyssa parked at the Detroit Institute of Arts, and they walked up the long, shallow steps to the Woodward Avenue entrance. The museum was white, with three tall arches for entry. Nick took a deep breath. “The anticipation is great, isn’t it?” he said, turning to her. He pulled the door open for her, they walked in, and he paid for them. They lingered in the lobby, breathing in the smell of a public space. He stood beside her, tall and hard-bodied, but he wasn’t what she had anticipated. She hadn’t thought he was this layered, but there was a lot to this man.
“I love it here,” she murmured.
He smiled at her, then stuck his hands in his front pockets and rocked back on his heels. “I guess I could walk around with you instead of just sitting at the snack bar. But since I’m here against my will, you take the lead.”
“Against your will?”
“I said no, and you made me come anyway. You basically kidnapped me.”
Her eyebrows shot up at that. “I am known for my brutality. I mean, right now I’m taking a guy with an art degree through an art museum.” She patted his shoulder. “You hang in there, cupcake.”
Nick grinned. “Ouch.”
Alyssa led him into the Native American art gallery on the first floor. They walked slowly, stopping in front of several exhibits, chatting occasionally about an artifact. Alyssa held a small notebook loosely by her side, not writing anything down at first so that Nick would get used to it and feel less stalked. Eventually she started jotting things down—objects he’d stopped to admire, fragments of his conversation.
They moved through the gallery. “Look at that eye,” he said, nodding toward a bust. “That’s three thousand years old and it’s still better than I can do.”
“You’re a sculptor?” Alyssa asked.
He shook his head. “I painted, but …” He shrugged.
“But not eyes?”
He laughed. “No, I can paint eyes. They’re hard. Teeth are too. The brushstroke is especially important with teeth.”
“Is that so?” She rocked back on her heels to look at him. They were standing closer than she’d realized, just a breath between their arms, even though the gallery was nearly deserted at mid-morning on a weekday. Their proximity wasn’t intentional—they’d both been drawn in to look at the head of a young Greek woman who’d lived and died millennia ago. But Alyssa was suddenly aware of the bulk of him, the heat from his body in this cool space. That she had to tip her head up to look at him. “What makes you like a sculpture?” Tell me what to put in your space.
“I like movement in paintings, but I kind of want sculpture to balance that.”
She looked at the young woman’s marble face. “To bring a sense of serenity.”
He turned to face her. “Yes. That exactly. And a … timelessness.”
“You like modern painting but more classical sculpture?”
“Yes!” He walked on. “It’s nice to have someone to go to the museum with.”
“Sammy didn’t go with you?” she asked. She felt awkward saying his name, as though it was too personal somehow.
“Oh no, not his thing.”
“What was he like?”
Nick looked at her and then was quiet so long she thought he wasn’t going to answer. Finally he said, “He was fun. Most of the trouble we got into was his doing.”
“He was the Minister of Hijinks?”
“Exactly. Like Dragan believed in paranormal stuff—all sorts of crazy shit. That’s the guy who was going to propose. When our plane went down.”
She nodded. “Unusual name.”
“He was Croatian. We made lots of ‘Dragan breath’ comments, because we’re culturally sensitive.”
She laughed.
“So one day we’re at his place, and Sammy uses his bathroom and gets this idea, right? He noticed that the bathroom vented up onto the roof. When we got home, Sammy pointed out that meant it also vented down from the roof.” Alyssa gave him squint eyes, not sure where this was going.
“Sammy played the flute in school. He was never that into it, but he still had the flute. And we told Luka that we’d both heard a ghost in Dragan’s bathroom.” Nick shook his head. “Luka was so gullible. He just believed the best of everyone, you know? Never saw ulterior motives. So I told Dragan I wanted to watch a game at his house because Sammy wanted our apartment for a date. That seemed realistic.”
“Sure,” Alyssa said.
“But instead, Sammy and I went together, and I parked behind the neighbor’s trees. I threw a ladder up against Dragan’s house, and Sammy climbed onto the roof. Then I hid the ladder in the bushes. If Dragan had looked out right then, we’d have been busted, but he didn’t. Then I walked back to the car and drove up. Luka arrived right when I did—I told him to come over too. When we went in, Sammy was sitting up there by the vent pipe with his flute, grinning like a cheerful gargoyle.”
They stopped by a collection of figurines in a case. Alyssa only glanced at them. She wanted to hear the end of the story.
“After about half an hour, Sammy began to play a little. First just a note or two, then real spooky woo-woo stuff. Luka heard it first, and once he told Dragan, he just flipped. I mean, he knew Luka wouldn’t prank him. He just didn’t have it in him. So Dragan went in the bathroom and came out just white.” Nick ran his hand past his face, illustrating. “He was talking about calling a priest. I was trying not to laugh because the two of them were getting each other cranked tighter and tighter. And then it started to rain.”
“Oh no! Poor Sammy.”
“Eh, Sammy had it coming. Of course, I did too, but I was snug inside.”
“How did you get him down?” Alyssa asked.
“Oh, I didn’t! I left him sitting up there while I watched the rest of the game.”
“You’re horrible!”
“Yep. And after a while he started playing ‘Up on the Rooftop,’ but Luka and Dragan were too busy running searches on exorcisms to notice. When the game was over, I drove off …” Alyssa gasped. “Dragan was standing there waving. What was I supposed to do? I came back around with the ladder a few minutes later. Sammy tried to be mad, but he was laughing too hard at my imitation of Luka and Dragan. And it was all worthwhile because Dragan told everybody his bathroom was haunted. He started showering at his girlfriend’s—like his morning shower. And he’d run errands just so he could pee somewhere else.” He shook his head at the memory.
“Was Dragan mad when he found out?”
“No, he laughed his ass off. He was still plotting his revenge when … you know.” They walked on. “What about you?” he said, bringing the conversation back to art. “You never said what you look for in a work.” His phone buzzed and he ignored it.
She thought about it as they entered the Egyptian room. “You’re going to laugh.”
“I wouldn’t laugh at a fellow artist.”
“I’m not an artist. I’m a decorator.”
“That’s obviously the same thing. Space is your canvas. Duh.” He bumped her with his shoulder, very gently.
She blushed. “I like things that are … pretty.”
He smiled faintly. “Nothing wrong with the pursuit of beauty.” He kept looking at her. Her face was hot, and she wished he’d look away, and also she wanted him never to take his eyes from hers. Finally he said, “I don’t want anything Egyptian in the apartment.”
She blinked. “Okay. Any reason?”
“It reminds me of Scooby-Doo.”
She gave him a look of mock outrage. “You have something against Scooby-Doo?”
He grinned. “Not really. But I think we’re more likely to find our color inspiration somewhere else.”
They worked through the African gallery. He stopped at a number of places, putting his hands in his pockets and tilting his head. Alyssa surreptitiously jotted down the exhibits so she could find commonalities—even come back later if she needed to. His phone buzzed, then again and again. It was on vibrate but it went off five times, six, seven in quick succession. He grabbed for it with fumble-free hands—an athlete’s hands—and as a guard gave him a dirty look, he tapped it off. Then he checked the screen and blanched. “Excuse me,” he said. “I need to make a call.”
He stepped out into the promenade and tapped to reply, then held the phone to his ear. In the lofty space the sound echoed, and Alyssa didn’t have to sidle too close to the exhibit’s exit in order to eavesdrop. “I’m sorry,” he was saying. “No, I … no. I didn’t … I get that. I understand. No. Damn it, fine me whatever you want, it was an accident.” She moved to the edge of the exit so she could see him. He was standing with his back to her, thirty yards away, bent slightly forward as though that gave him more privacy. “I’m saying,” he said, voice clipped, “I completely forgot.” He was silent for a moment. “I’m at the art museum.” Silence. “No, I’m not kidding.”
Nick turned and saw her. He motioned her over, and she hurried to him, her flats clicking on the floor. “I’m in trouble,” he whispered. “I was supposed to be somewhere. Can you say hi to the team trainer for a second?”
She raised her eyebrows and stared at his phone. He mouthed, “Please?” She took the phone. “Hello?”
There was silence for a moment, then a man’s voice said, “Miss, can you tell me where you are right now?”
“I’m at the Detroit Institute of Arts.” He was silent for a moment, then said, “Could you please put Nick back on?” She wordlessly handed him the phone. He murmured another apology and got off.
“So that went well,” he said, raking his hand through his hair. “Sorry. We were … going somewhere.”
“If you need to go …”
He shook his head. “Too late.” He ran his hand over his jaw, making a soft scraping noise. “Coach is making me see a therapist. I told him I’m getting the mattress off the floor, but that wasn’t good enough for him.” He looked at her ruefully. “I was supposed to go there this morning.”
“Oh, I am so sorry!” Alyssa said. “I didn’t realize—”
“Not your fault,” Nick said quickly. “I’ll pay for it later. Let’s just enjoy ourselves now.”
She gave him a sympathetic look and said, “Let’s hit the European painting exhibit, then.”
They walked into the gallery, and Nick stalked through the first room, fists in his pocket, the muscles in his back tense. His jaw was fixed. That thing needed a plastic guard like the one on the wickedly sharp chef’s knife she kept in a kitchen drawer. Six landscapes in, he began to relax a little, stopping here and there to point out line work he thought was particularly good, or to ask what she thought about the way the sun burst through a cloud in a field in Provence two centuries ago.
He stopped once in front of a J.M.W. Turner. “Do you like it?” He stepped back to get out of her peripheral vision and let her concentrate on the painting. It was a soft swirl of mist over the sea—everything mixed and edgeless and a little … dull. Would she sound like a provincial hick if she said that? Yes, yes she would.
“Not a lot,” she finally admitted. “I appreciate the technique involved …”
He waved his hand dismissively, as if to say she didn’t need to apologize for her feelings. “What don’t you like about it?”
“Well …” She hesitated, biting her lip, and he stepped back toward her, which did not actually help her concentrate on sorting it out. “There’s nothing … appealing about it.”
“It’s not pretty?” He smiled faintly.
“No, it’s not.” He nodded. “That’s what you think too?”
“No, I like lots of things that aren’t pretty—I mean, Michelangelo is more about power, right? Physicality. And who doesn’t love Michelangelo? Turner is too indistinct for me. I need the lines. Nothing makes sense without them.” He shrugged and they moved on.
He paused several times. She tried to let him dictate their flow through the gallery. His stops and starts told her things—the way he rocked back on his heels and tilted his head, the way his eye lingered on the sun filtering through a tree in an English meadow. She didn’t want her own rhythms to interrupt what she was learning. She stopped only once for herself, in front of a floral painting with lush pink peonies, and white roses tucked in among them. She could almost smell the heavy fragrance. She tried to memorize the bouquet so she could revisit it in her mind later. It was a way she had of giving herself a tiny secret vacation—to sit in a meeting with Stacey Herself but see a windswept seashore or a path through a meadow carpeted with yellow flowers.
When they exited the gallery, they walked silently to the stairs and then descended. The architecture was magnificent. The space had a loftiness that lifted the spirits. They were halfway down when Nick said contritely, “I’m sorry I couldn’t give you any color direction.” He twisted up the corner of his mouth, trying to smile. “I wasn’t trying to be difficult.”
“Oh, it’s no problem,” Alyssa said. I’ve got you, sucker. You may not know what color you were rolling in, but I do.