Chapter 3
Elle
Little known fact about me. I can’t stand chaos. Don’t get me wrong, it’s in abundance when I’m lost in a painting or a sculpture, but it’s of my own making. My brothers used to give me shit about how Tiny, with his messy room, went into the military, but it should have been me. I’d have been a Drill Sargent with how anal I was over my things and life. Lists, color coordinated closet. Everything has a place and everything is in its place at all times. The last few weeks have been nothing but chaos for me. I think it’s why I like this little town so much. It’s quiet. The chaos of the city—the number of people yelling, the sirens, the car horns. None of them exist here.
My brother moved out super-fast when he and Lottie returned from Diamond Cove last week. He wasn’t waiting any longer than he absolutely had to, so when I returned home tonight, I could unpack my things and make the apartment mine. He even left his big, oversized king size bed. It wouldn’t fit in Lottie’s bedroom. I’m hanging up clothes when there’s a knock on the door.
Opening it, I’m only a little surprised to see Ginny on the other side.
“I’m bored,” she pouts, her lips trying not to pull up in a smile. “But I brought pizza and beer?”
“Get your ass in here.” I smile at her.
It wasn’t until I’d been here for a couple of weeks that I realized Ginny lived in the building across the street. While mine has been refurbished into cute one bedroom and studio apartments in an old Victorian house, Ginny lives in a row of townhomes that reminds me of the old brownstones in New York.
She steps through the door and looks around. The only decorations Tiny had were a few older paintings that I gave him as presents when I first started. It warms my heart a little that he took them with him to Lottie’s. The first thing I did was hang a few new paintings I brought with me. I’ll have to send for a few more.
“Oh, wow,” she breathes out, walking toward one of my favorites, “this is beautiful, Elle. One of yours?”
“Yeah. I call that one Night Dreams.”
This painting has a woman lying in the grass looking at her reflection of the start of who she wishes she were.
“Looks a little like you, doesn’t it?” Ginny raises a brow my way, and I feel my cheeks heat under her assessment.
“How about that pizza?” I ask, changing the subject. I don’t want to talk about my art right now.
“Sure,” she willingly gives in. “How did everyone take you coming back so soon?”
“Mom doesn’t understand why I need out of the city. Dad’s pissed that I didn’t let him buy me a house, and the brothers are, well, the brothers. Overbearing, overprotective, overgrown toddlers. They wanted to hook me up with a tracker on my Jeep and in my bags. All the bags. And maybe my shoes.” I laugh, Ginny joining in.
“Nothing like big brothers,” she says, raising her beer in my direction. “Davis used to take me everywhere so he could watch over me. When I got into boys, shew, that was bad.”
Ginny’s smiling, but there’s something about her posture that doesn’t seem right, like she’s subconsciously defending herself.
“Let’s not talk about overbearing big brothers tonight. Let’s talk about something fun.” I give her an evil grin. “Tell me all the things about this Ranger guy and why you all like him so much when he’s such a fucking tool.”
Ginny laughs, and it’s contagious. The way her face lights up when she starts to giggle-snort is nothing short of gorgeous. I’d love to paint her just like this so that maybe she’d see herself as everyone else does. Effortlessly beautiful.
“I wondered how long it would take you to ask about him,” she eventually gets out between her giggles.
“Yeah, yeah, yuk it up, bitch. He was nothing but an ass tonight. Is he always like that?”
“No!” she exclaims, laughing again. “He’s never like that. Matter of fact, that might be the most emotion I’ve ever seen from him. Between him and Joker, I’m not sure who is usually the most stoic and quiet.”
“So, what was the deal tonight?”
“Wish I knew.” She shrugs her shoulders. “If I had to guess, I’d say you embarrassed him when you called him out in front of all of us, but you only did that because he was being a jerk.”
“Exactly!” I point at her to emphasize my feeling. “I didn’t do anything to that man other than breathe, and he judged me and found me lacking immediately. Why?”
“Maybe he likes you and doesn’t like that he likes you.” She waggles her brows. “Maybe he wants to see you naked.”
“No way. That man does not want to see me naked.”
“Never know. Maybe he wants to see what other ink you have on your skin. Make sure it’s up to par.”
“Have you seen any of his work?”
“Sure. I have a tattoo that he did for me.”
“Really? Where? Lemme see!”
Ginny looks off for a minute, like she’s trying to decide if she can show it to me.
“If it’s private, I don’t need to see it, Gin. You only have to show me if you want.” I grip her hand and make sure she sees the truth in my eyes. I understand some things need to stay private. Maybe more than most.
“It’s not you,” she assures me. “This is all on me. Only two people have seen it, and only one cared enough to ask the why behind it.”
“Ginny, you never have to tell me anything you aren’t comfortable talking about. Please know, I might ask, but I’ll never turn into a bitch if you tell me no.”
“Seems like you have your own stories you want to stay secret, don’t you?”
“I have a past that I try not to think about, yeah, but it’s mainly because I feel like a fool most of the time when I do.”
“Me, too.” She gives me a sad smile. “Unfortunately, my mistake cost me so much more than my pride. It cost me my future.”
“Are you dying?”
“No,” she chuckles, “but I could have died. I walked away with my life, but I lost the ability to create it.”
With that bomb dropped, Ginny stands from the couch and lowers the waistband of her pants to show me a dandelion on the right side of her lower belly. The flower head is floating across her lower abdomen like someone blew on it. It’s beautiful, but there’s something about it that’s off. It takes me a minute to realize it’s the stem of the flower. It’s crooked? Jagged?
“Is that…?” I trail off, my hand reaching out to touch the tattoo. “A scar?” I raise my eyes to meet hers, my hand hovering over her skin, but not touching it.
She nods her head while pulling up her sweatpants and sitting back on the couch, pulling her beer with her and taking a big swig.
“Did you have surgery?” I do the mental gymnastics trying to remember where the appendix is. The spleen. What other body parts can you live without?
“You could say that,” she replies, avoiding eye contact with me.
“Want to talk about something else?”
“Would love to.” She nods, blowing out a breath. “We can talk about why you left Diamond Cove.”
“Or we could just sit here in awkward silence and eat our pizza and get drunk?” I ask, hopeful.
“Oh, we’re getting drunk. I never realized how comfortable Tiny’s couch is, or how big. I’m totally sleeping on it tonight. But, let’s delve into the mystery surrounding you.”
I stand, putting down my beer. “Gonna need something stronger than this if I’m talking about me.”
“I promise to repay the favor one day and tell you all of my gory details?”
“I’m going to hold you to that!” I call over my shoulder as I walk into the kitchen, where I know the good stuff is. “Mixer or shots?”
“Shots! Gets you numb quicker!”
“Shots it is,” I mumble to myself, pulling the bottle of vanilla vodka off the shelf. “Hey, where’s Keith tonight?”
“Out of town.” She rolls her eyes at me when I sit back on the couch with the glasses and bottle. “Another conference, I guess.”
“You guess?”
Pour the shot. Take the drink.
“Wow, that’s good.” She licks her lips. “He’s always going somewhere for something. Says it’s important Vice Principal stuff. I quit asking when he started acting annoyed.”
Red flags start going off in my head, but I don’t say anything. I’ve tried to put all the drama that is my life on the back burner with everything that’s been going on with my brother and his crazy situation, but I think my time is up. I also knew the first time I met Ginny, Lottie, and Trish they wouldn’t let me go forever without getting all my dirty details. It kind of feels like tonight, with just Ginny, would be a really good time to start talking.
Pour the shot. Take the drink.
“Fuck, that is good.” I smile at her.
“Start talking, sister.” She grins, holding her glass up again.
Pour the shot. Take the drink.
“You want what drove me here this time, or what turned me into the person I currently am?”
“Yes,” she giggles.
Three shots of vodka in five minutes after consuming beer. This is more alcohol than I’ve had combined in almost a year. We’re going to be sick tomorrow but that’s a problem for future Elle and Ginny.
Poor the shot. Take the drink.
“When I was twenty-two, I got married in Vegas to someone I thought was my best friend.”
Ginny stops with a piece of pizza midway to her mouth and stares at me, her jaw hitting the floor. She closes her mouth and opens it again, like she has something to say, but changes her mind and clamps her jaw shut. She rolls her hand in a ‘go on’ motion, so I do.
“His name was—are you ready for this? Bartholomew Jefferson Fuchs the Forth.”
She blinks her eyes, the liquor playing with her brain. “Wait. His name was BJ Fucks?”
We both break out in laughter, and huh, maybe telling this story drunk is the way to go.
“Yes, it was. But we called him Barty then.”
“Barty Fucks.” Ginny cackles at her own joke, and it takes a few minutes for us to calm down so I can continue.
“Anyway,” I start once we’ve caught our breath, “I went on a friends’ trip to Vegas and we got married.”
“Were you dating him?”
“Not so much dating?”
“Ahh, he was a benefited friend.”
“Yup.” I pop the ‘P.’
“Does your brother know?” she whispers like Tiny’s in the room with us.
Poor the shot. Take the drink.
“Not Tiny. Bash does, though. He helped when it finally became too much.”
“What became too much?”
“We decided the next morning, after our hangovers, to stick it out and try to stay married.”
“Really? I mean, that’s kinda cool, right?”
“Would have been if he hadn’t started acting like a completely different person, maybe.”
“What happened?”
“He started having to go away on business trips a lot. I mean, he had that kind of job, but it went from once a month to almost every weekend.” I pause to let that sink into Ginny’s vodka soaked head.
“Hmm,” is all I get.
“Then he started treating me like I should be grateful to be with him because he was such a catch and I was…me. The poor, starving artist who couldn’t get a show.”
“Umm, aren’t you like super rich, though?”
“I have my own money, yes.” I giggle. Vodka’s hitting me good, too. “But I had just graduated, and I had shows when I was in school. I wasn’t applying for shows because I knew I wanted to open my own studio, and he thought that was stupid, too.”
“Kinda like Keith thinks opening a music school would be a waste of money. Or playing with an orchestra. ‘Fanciful dreams for the youth,’ he says.”
You know the drill now, right? Poor the shot. Take the drink.
“Well, he decided the best way to teach me a lesson was to fuck everything in sight. And I do mean everything.”
“Bastard,” she slurs.
I nod in agreement, but this story gets so much worse. “Right. But when I was meeting with a developer on locations and designs, he just got mean. This wasn’t a new plan. I’d known him for ten years at that point, and this was always my goal. I double majored in school to achieve it.”
“Wow. That’s impressive. You know that, right?”
“Thanks, but he became an asshole about it. Kept talking about how I was wasting money doing this and when I was broke, he wasn’t gonna take care of me. Things like that. And then I found out he was cheating on me.”
Ginny’s eyes flash to mine, a look of panic or self-loathing on her face. Not really sure—the vodka might be making my eyesight blurry. “Oh.”
“When I confronted him, he smacked me and told me to mind my own business.”
“He hit you?”
“Just once. I got the fuck out of there and called Bash. Made him swear he wouldn’t tell the others. Tiny, in particular. He was across the world fighting in an actual war. I didn’t need him to worry about me.”
“You know he’d have dropped everything to be there for you.”
“I know. But it was my mess, and I needed to clean it up. Bash found him stealing money from me and threatened him with losing his dick if he didn’t sign the divorce agreement and walk away. It lasted six months.”
“Is he back? Bothering you again? Is that why you’re here?”
“No. He moved to Baltimore as soon as he could to get away from my family’s influence. I heard he died a few years back, but I didn’t look into it much. I’m here because of Stefon.”
“What is it with you and guys with horrible names?” Ginny cracks up again, allowing me the tension break that I need to get through everything.
“It really should be a red flag, right?”
“Maybe?”
“I met Stefon at the studio. He was an art buyer and was in quite a bit. He asked me out a few times before I said yes. I don’t date. Haven’t really dated since Barty. I have needs I take care of, but my focus has been on my art and the studio. But he was cute and polite. Very gentlemanly.”
“Until he wasn’t?”
“Until he wasn’t. But it wasn’t like before. He just gave me this vibe, and then he started showing up places I was. Places he shouldn’t know I would be at. The grocery store on a random Tuesday. My doctor’s appointment that I never told anyone about. Family dinner. Outside the studio at all hours of the day and night. It became too much, and I broke it off with him.”
“That sounds super clingy. Did he not take it well?”
“I thought he took it fine. Said he’d see me at a meeting a customer had set up with him as the buyer in a couple of weeks. But I started noticing things.”
Ginny sits forward, lowering her voice. “What kinds of things?”
“It started with my easels. They were moved, but I couldn’t prove it.”
“How so?”
“They had been adjusted to the left or right, just enough to make me think I knocked into them, maybe. But not enough that anyone else would notice, you know?”
She nods her head, asking me to continue.
“Then I noticed my paints were put up in the wrong order. Like the blue was put next to the beige. Or the red was gone completely. Or my brushes were dirty when I would come to the studio in the mornings.”
“And you don’t leave dirty brushes? Ever?” She looks skeptical, and I don’t blame her.
“Never. They are the worst. Might as well throw them out and get new ones.”
“Dirty brushes bad. Got it.” She nods, wobbling a little with the movement.
“I know you probably think I’m crazy. Hell, I thought I was losing my fucking mind.”
“What else happened?”
“I started seeing rose petals everywhere.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah. I know. Not helping with the not being crazy, is it? I’m serious, though. I left the studio one night and there was a trail of rose petals from the back door to my car. I purchased the Jeep after that. And another night they were outside my apartment. But it was like the same bunch of petals. Same color, except the second time they were wilted. And the third time the petals looked old, dried up and turning black on the edges.”
“Okay, that’s creepy.”
“And then I started catching glimpses of Stefon outside the studio during the day. Not uncommon, he often met with people he was working with there. But then I saw him outside my place. For a week. I decided I needed to get out for a while and came here.”
“That’s stalking.”
“Nah,” I brush it off. “I think he was just lonely.”
“Elle. Fuck that. You broke up with him, and he kept showing up? That’s stalking. And you think he might have been the one fucking with you? That psycho stalking.”
“Yeah, well, I saw him last weekend at the benefit. We exchanged words. I had him escorted out by security, and I packed up as much as I could and came back here.”
“Does he know you’re here?”
“I don’t think so. We never talked about Tiny, so I’m not even sure he knows he exists. He had a hard-on for Nolan and what he did with the company. That was the only family member we ever really talked about.”
“Be careful. And call me if you need help, okay?”
“Thanks. Now, tell me more about Ranger’s building and this perfect place for an art studio.”
We stay up the rest of the night, talking about the studio and watching eighties John Hughes’ movies. We’ve just finished The Breakfast Club when the texts start coming in. Still a little drunk, I can’t help but poke some fun at Ranger when his grumpiness comes through even over text. Ginny laughs when Joker also shows his grumpy side, and then we pass out on the giant couch. Ginny was right. This thing is massive and almost as comfortable as the bed. He might not get this baby back.