32. Chapter 32
Chapter thirty-two
Aras
T he house was coming together faster than expected, which meant they could take a leisurely pace. Not that they did. The front yard was basically done, and Ozzy seemed pretty close with the back yard and the patio. Robinson and Evander only had one little last minute spat about the kitchen, and now that was close to finalized. Mason’s daily meetings to go over their jobs were getting progressively shorter as they crossed more and more shit off, and Eliza was happier than Aras had seen her since they started filming all the way back in Springfield. Not that she was ever particularly unhappy, other than the couple times she’d gotten into it with Ozzy back on the Michigan job, but there was even more of a spring in her step than usual.
Aras…couldn’t say he felt the same. And it wasn’t because of the work. The job was going well enough. Better than he’d expected, really. Sometimes, new construction could be questionable. If it was done on the cheap, or by some hacky company who just wanted the quickest buck possible, fixing it up could almost be worse than working on a total shithole. At least half a dozen times, Aras had been called in to help someone with shoddy wiring in their brand new McMansion. Not the case this time, though. He had officially finished up the last bit of work on the built-ins in the display room, and now it was time for the big test.
Mason stood next to him, looking at the room full of empty shelves. “You ready?”
Aras took the remote from him. Mason was definitely the tech whiz, so when it came to connecting everything up to make this a “smart home” scenario, he’d stepped in to help Aras. Now, in theory, the entire room should be connected to the remote in his hand. Or to an app on Caroline’s phone, if she ever misplaced the remote.
One tap and, slowly, the lights faded up. Pools of pure white blossomed over every shelf, growing until they were snow bright and the polished wood gleamed. There was no overhead light, but with these, it was more than bright enough to see everything.
Still, Aras didn’t smile until he pressed the next button. The white LEDs turned off and, in their place, purple UV lights shone. It actually worked. The whole system he’d tried to come up with. He looked at the remote to make sure he was pressing the right thing, then changed half the lights to white, leaving the rest as UV. And it worked. Each individual lighting set was designed to be independent, so if Caroline wanted to display some Vaseline glass or a lime green piece anywhere, she could turn on the UV and show the fluorescence at the literal touch of a button.
The central pedestal was also working just fine. It was a wide plinth that came up to about waist high, with a large circle in the middle that emitted light through a diffuser.
“Try the colors.” Mason circled his finger around, gesturing to the whole room. “Gotta try the colors, right?”
Aras obliged. Caroline could work up different presets if she wanted, but Mason had programmed in a rainbow effect. When Aras navigated there—the remote was all numbers for different settings, so it took him a little bit to remember which one that was—the cascade began. Everything was white again, and from the left side of the door, red came to life. Then it moved ahead, leaving orange behind it, then yellow, then green. A rainbow slowly rotated around the entire room until everything was lit up. The center pedestal didn’t join the color show, but instead slowly pulsed its brightness, growing all the way to full power, then fading back to almost nothing, all in time with the rotation of the band of red.
Aras turned them all off, then set the remote down on the pedestal. “I’d say it’s pretty damn good.” But the high didn’t last long. Once the lights were off, he remembered everything about Dane. He knew Dane had a meeting with the lighting director for this other project. Aras would never tell him to do anything other than take the opportunity, but that didn’t mean it sat right in his gut. It was like he’d swallowed mayonnaise and a bottle of tequila, and it was all he could do to keep himself from throwing up everywhere.
“I’ve got the spreadsheet all set up with her collection if you want to go through. You’re the one who’d have the best idea what to put where. Unless you’ve got something pressing going on that I’ve forgotten about.”
Only thing on my schedule is worrying about my dead relationship. He nodded. “May as well make myself useful, since nothing in this house apparently needs me anymore.” He shrugged heavily. “Lead the way.”
Mason opened his mouth like he was about to say something else, but then he shut it and they headed back out into the living room. Furniture was already arriving, both the new stuff and some of the pieces that Caroline wanted to keep, but could still function without until she got all the way moved in. That made the living room much more cramped than before, so they had to wind through a bit of an obstacle course before they got back to the lone folding table that served as Mason’s base of operations. Or as their morning meeting table. Or as extra storage a lot of the time. Apparently that time was now, as someone had left boxes and paperwork all but stacked on top of the computer. Mason took it in stride, just moving stuff to make room, but Aras had to bite back a comment about the contractors or production crew or Ozzy or whoever else might have left that mess.
Because that’s not an emotional overreaction to something completely unrelated. Jesus, Aras.
“All right, all set to go.” Mason scooted his chair to the side, squeezing himself into the corner and trying to make himself smaller.
Aras gave him plenty of space when he grabbed the other chair and sat down. “I’m not allergic to you, and if I touch this damn computer, I’ll fry it six ways to Sunday.”
“Oh, BS.” But he did scoot in closer. A bit. And he took over the trackpad as he did. “Now, I don’t know dick about carnival glass, but I cataloged the data I was given. Hopefully it’s enough for you to make some educated decisions.”
Aras looked at the spreadsheet in front of him, then back to Mason. “Do you know if its possible to be so humble that you injure yourself? You might want to look into that.” He elbowed Mason in the arm. “You got pictures of every piece, plus the pattern name, the shape of the glass, and the color.” He slid his finger over the trackpad…and highlighted several complete columns. “Shit. Fuck.”
“Maybe I should navigate this for you.” Mason slid the laptop over. “I marked down whatever the weird different kinds of coating are too. The radium or satin or whatever all that is. But that’s the only other bit of info.”
“So you only managed to collect up everything anyone could possibly need. I see why you’d belittle yourself over this.” He let it drop, though. “Can you filter these out to just…purple and amethyst? Actually, just purple.”
A few clicks and some keystrokes and the spreadsheet repopulated down to a smaller, albeit still significant, selection of Caroline’s collection. Without Aras asking, Mason scrolled through it slowly, which let Aras focus on finding the right centerpiece. Most people got into carnival glass because of the deep, iridescent purples. At least in Aras’s experience.
He laid eyes on the right one. It was a piece he remembered, but he had to be certain she actually had it before he started making any concrete plans. It was a master punch set in purple, covered in a lovely geometric pattern. “Complete Memphis punch bowl set. Radium iridescence. That’s the centerpiece.”
“That’s beautiful.”
Aras whipped his head up at the sound of Dane’s voice. He strode over, one hand stuffed in his pants pocket, the other combing his hair back. His shoulders were taut, and although he smiled as he walked in behind them, Aras didn’t recognize that smile. It was clearly fake, put on for Aras’s own benefit, no doubt.
“Meeting go okay?” Aras wasn’t totally convinced he wanted the answer, but he also knew he’d burn up from the inside if he didn’t find out.
“Yeah. Thought maybe we should talk?”
Aras looked over at Mason and held his tongue, tried to get his point across.
Mason stood. “I’ll go check on the progress with Evander. You know how he is if he’s left alone too long.”
“Four different kinds of wallpaper and a disco ball hanging from the fucking ceiling.” Aras waved him away. “Save this house before it’s too late.”
And then it was just him and Dane.