Chapter 9
Zoey
As it turned out, Nick was up for both.
‘Sexy haircut,’ he said, when they reconvened in the Pearl district ready for the First Thursday art crawl. His dark gaze sent electricity through her. ‘Am I allowed to say that?’
She wasn’t imagining it, was she? He was definitely thinking about kissing her. In front of a clown sculpture made from pickles, which was the opposite of an aphrodisiac, and which only proved how strong the urge must actually be.
Zoey, meanwhile, was doing her best not to haul him behind one of the larger canvases and have her way with him. Talk about restraint.
‘It was hard-won,’ she said. ‘My poor hairdresser crashed out halfway through – I thought it was an allergic reaction to one of my smoothies for a minute, but it turned out to be a relationship thing. Anyway, the barber had to take over instead. I don’t think he’s actually used scissors before, but we persevered. ’
Nick raised an eyebrow, apparently impressed with her bravery. ‘I hope you sent him home with some of those kids’ safety scissors and a glue stick so that he could practise.’
‘And some sticker stars for encouragement.’ She waggled her thrifted needlework purse at him. ‘I keep some with me for when Terriffany’s worrying that she’ll never head up a company that goes to IPO.’
‘I’m all about that positive reinforcement.’
All right. It was happening. Her sense of whimsy was going to override her sense of self-preservation.
Zoey stuck a shimmery cat to his plaid shirt. ‘How’s that?’
‘I’m feeling very reinforced.’
Zoey did like a man who was confident enough in his masculinity to wear a sparkly cat to an art walk.
And who dressed up his cute dog in ever-cuter bandanas.
As Zoey smiled down at her, Alice nudged Zoey’s hand with her nose.
Zoey stooped to add a sticker to her collar, which had clumps of mud and grass stuck on it.
‘I think we need to get you a pretty collar, Alice. What do you think, girl?’
Alice sniffed something delicious in a wrapper by the kerb, which Zoey assumed meant that she was fully on board with this notion.
‘Definitely a good idea,’ said Nick. ‘I think she was rolling in someone’s laundry the other day. Well, either that or she was back there digging up graves. I had to pick bits of fabric off her tag.’
‘That funeral lace is the worst to get out,’ commiserated Zoey.
He shot her a grin. ‘Thank you for your grace during this difficult time.’
They wandered from stall to stall, musing about foot traffic, quizzing vendors about booth pricing, and daring each other to buy the worst items they could find. Once again, Zoey felt strangely relaxed and unguarded – there was something about Nick that just let her be herself.
And something about him that made Zoey wonder whether perhaps dating again wouldn’t be the end of the world.
Sure, everyone let you down. She’d learned it from an early age, when her mom had walked out.
When her dad had missed appointments, recitals, pick-ups.
When Gran had refused to visit the doctor.
There was a reason Zoey had been so fiercely committed to Maeve in the end – she’d tried so hard to show Zoey that people could be relied on.
And now there was Nick. Nick didn’t seem like the let-you-down type. He’d helped her move a fridge. He was here at an art walk, of all things. He had a dog!
‘Art casts a wide umbrella, huh.’ Nick examined some chainmail underwear. ‘How does one …’
‘I’m game if you are.’ Zoey fiddled with the visor on a metal helmet, pretending not to notice as Nick just about choked. ‘Maybe not this bit, though. I already have enough neck tension. How about that vagina oil painting?’
‘It’s a cave. They’re all caves,’ snapped a girl sitting on a giant beanbag amid a plethora of vagina oil paintings.
Though it was still warm out, she was huddled in a blanket covered in, well, caves, Zoey supposed.
‘These are the lava tubes near Mount St Helens. Those are the Sea Lion Caves. That one … all right, so that’s a self-portrait.
But the rest are caves.’ She gave Nick an up-and-down.
‘If ever you need a custom cave portrait …’
She passed him a business card, which he awkwardly tucked into his back pocket.
‘That business card definitely has a vagina on it, doesn’t it,’ whispered Zoey, as they hastily moved on to the next booth.
‘I will never look at a cave the same way again,’ whispered Nick.
‘Or a vagina,’ added Zoey.
They both laughed, squeezing through the crowds to check out the various art on display.
Weird felt puppets that owed an apology to Jim Henson.
Unicorn art spray-painted on what had been perfectly good mid-century furniture.
Jewellery made from (Zoey hoped) resin teeth and fingertips.
Terriffany’s friends were selling beaded pens and bracelets, and Zoey bought a few of each to show her support, trying not to flinch when she realised that she’d signed up for an annual subscription and, most likely, some surveillance.
‘How much of this do you think has been hauled directly from the Peculiarium down the street?’ whispered Zoey, as she marvelled at a human-sized sculpture of Audrey II drinking a cup of coffee.
‘Oh no, she’s not from the Peculiarium. She’s from the Little Coffee Shop of Terrors,’ explained the artist, who had the highly specific vibes of a food-delivery-app tech bro who had gone to IPO, sold out, done an ayahuasca retreat, and then founded an art studio that was also possibly a cult.
Nick nodded, pretending that this was news to him. ‘Well, if anything was calling out for a mashup …’
‘It’s weird to be surrounded by vendor tents and not working,’ said Zoey, as they strolled along the busy street, pausing every few steps so that people could take selfies with Alice, who was now wearing a PDX carpet-print bandana that Zoey had just purchased.
Their eyes burned from the weed in the air and the hipster cologne shop that was apparently dealing with a bit of an olfactory crisis.
‘Man, I love the great outdoors,’ muttered a college kid approvingly, inhaling deeply.
‘Goddammit, these glass bottles are weak sauce,’ muttered the shop assistant, as he fanned the front doors as another worker swept up bottles of smashed fragrance.
‘Mind yourself.’ Nick gently looped an arm around Zoey and pulled her out of harm’s way. ‘You don’t want to be smelling like a Woodsman or a Grizzly Bear Hug or something else dreamed up by the hard-working copywriters at Wieden+Kennedy.’
Zoey’s immediate instinct was to pull away – she could handle herself, after all. But Nick’s arm felt so certain, so sure against her. Perhaps she should accept the help. Just this once.
She allowed herself to sink into the strength of him, be guided down the gum-spattered street between the rainbow vendor tents and the milk-crate guitarists. So many milk-crate guitarists.
‘Do you think there’s a shop that sells both milk crates and guitars?’ suggested Nick, as he reached into his pocket for some change for the buskers.
‘There’s one next door to Reed College.’
‘Location, location. Meanwhile, I had to go to two different shops to procure my milk crate and guitar.’
‘Did you also have to walk seven miles to school?’ Zoey had to speak up to be heard over someone in a blow-up unicorn suit playing a piano accordion.
‘Trudged. I trudged seven miles to school.’
‘Same,’ said Zoey. ‘My dad wasn’t the best about getting up in time to take me.’
Nick shot her a sidelong glance, but didn’t pry further.
Zoey appreciated this: too often people refused to let the conversation move along until they’d shaken the clock of your childhood trauma to figure out precisely what made you tick.
Zoey hadn’t had a bad childhood, but it hadn’t been a great one, either.
She’d spent most of it fending for herself.
‘Still, I’d mastered the perfect mac and cheese by age six,’ she added.
‘A mac and cheese prodigy.’ Nick pretended to be awed. ‘I’m just grateful that you were allowed to have a normal childhood instead of being forced to pursue your mac and cheese PhD aged twelve.’
‘Grateful, huh? About cheese?’
‘Boo, boo,’ said Nick. ‘Terrible. I’m revoking your pun card.’
‘Speaking of cards,’ said Zoey. A mime had thrust a card at them, making a sweeping gesture that only those fluent in mime could possibly hope to guess. ‘Um. Turning people into stone with our Medusa hair? Was I close?’
The mime shot her an offended look, then stomped off.
‘He was miming a poetry-reading session, you goose,’ said Nick.
‘I know,’ admitted Zoey, with a grin. ‘I just hate mimes. I had a roommate who studied at the mime school in Paris. Absolutely insufferable. Cried silent tears when you were particularly mean to him. However, I do love awful poetry readings. Can we go? Unless there are mimes.’
‘This is why I love Powell’s,’ said Nick. ‘No awful poetry readings. Just rooms and rooms of floor-to-ceiling shelves.’
‘Which room is your favourite?’ asked Zoey curiously. ‘No wait, let me guess. Blue room, specifically the small-press section, but partly because it’s near the westerns.’
Nick chuckled. ‘It’s the plaid that’s giving it away, huh.’
And the beard. It had a small-press woodsman vibe to it that was inspiring some inappropriate thoughts. Perhaps she should run back to the hipster cologne shop and pitch Small-Press Woodsman to them. They could split the profits.
Nick shot her a thoughtful look. ‘My turn. You’re the Pearl Room, with that rare-books section all encased in wood. Although you’re mostly there for the first-edition Moomins.’
Zoey grinned. He wasn’t wrong about the Moomins. ‘And the coffee shop. Especially when it’s cold and the windows are all fogged up. Although I tend to end up at the Hawthorne location. It’s closer to my usual haunts.’
‘Hey, doggie.’ A curvy woman with a fiery red mane paused to greet Alice. ‘Wait, Zoey? Babe, you’re looking great. Love the new hair.’