Chapter 15
Lucy
Is there time to make some lamps ahead of my party? The boxes sit and stare at me. It will make a mess. Bart and I had a five-car garage – enough space for my lamp workbench and all of my shabby chic furniture in all stages of renovation.
I sigh. I need to get the Lucy’s Lamps business going again, making my lamps and marketing them.
I gained quite a following before my life was turned upside down, with custom orders and a steady stream of buyers.
I love my work with Donna, but it’s just a way of paying the bills.
My lamps are a passion. Everyone needs more light in their life, and a bit more fun. A quirky lamp cheers up everyone.
Who knows how long it will take for the settlement to come through.
Besides, I want to make Mrs B’s orange lamp, and the elegant ones for Jill.
She needs one in the back corner near the changing rooms. I’ve designed it already in my mind – a feminine little shade in a shiny mid-blue, with silver tassels, on a black stand.
I make an easy meal of baked beans on toast and a cup of tea, then find the materials and spread them out on the kitchen bench.
Nothing to it, really, though the glue smell is not ideal with the simple dinner.
.. I take it into the living room to enjoy, then fish out more materials and make five more lampshades before midnight, all in different colors.
The orange one with lime green pompoms is so eye-catching, I decide to make another in reverse colors, to go with it. I must keep an eye out for some more black bases.
Next day, I go hunting for stray bases in thrift stores and pick up some bargains, nabbing some gardening gloves and new clippers while I’m at it.
That evening, I make a couple of adjustments to the pompoms on one of Mrs B’s shades, then plug in all my new lamps to take a photo for Instagram – but there’s a “phut” and all my lights go out.
I stumble to my door, grasp for the key on its hook, and stare out into a pitch black stairwell. All around me, neighbors’ doors open. I wish I’d thought to bring a flashlight. I know exactly where to find them back at ... I almost said “home” but Brighton Court is my home now.
“So sorry,” I call out into the stairwell. “My fault. I think.”
“Lucy?” It’s Dirk.
“Yes.”
“Are you alright?”
“Is Davey there?” It’s a voice I don’t recognise, soft, with an Irish lilt to it.
“Who’s that?”
“Amaryllis. Ask Davey. He fixed the fuses last time.”
“I’m trying to study!” It’s another voice, a young woman.
“What about my lesson plans?” says another stranger.
“We’ve got visitors for dinner and the oven’s going cold.” It’s an older woman. She doesn’t sound happy.
“Sorry!” I sing out again. “I’ll phone an electrician. Any recommendations?”
“S’okay. Davey here. I’m onto it.”
“While you’re all here, I’m Lucy in number Forty One and you’re all invited to drinks on Saturday night from six o’clock. Did you get your invitations? Spread the word. Everyone at Brighton Court is welcome, with Plus Ones.”
“Hmmph.”
“Thanks.”
At least some of the voices are warm.
“Do I bring something?” It’s the woman with the accent again.
“Just yourselves.”
I’m about to close the door when a flashlight illuminates the stairwell above me, as if we’re on the set of a television crime series.
“Lucy?”
It’s Dirk. “Need one of these?”
“I do, actually. Thank you so much.” He gives me one of his flashlights, warm from his hand, then leans in close, so deliciously close my heart jolts. Will he kiss me in this darkness? I’m ready. I lean in and tilt my face to his.
“There’s orange fluff on the side of your nose,” he says.
I step back, blush and rub it off. Yes. A bit of pompom.
“Oh. I’ve been making Lucy’s Lamps. I was testing them. Stupid. I must have overloaded the circuits or something.”
“Happened to me, too, two days after I moved in. It’s Brighton Court, not you. This is an old building.”
“Who is Davey, Dirk? What’s he doing? I guess I’d better come and learn how to fix the lights if they go out this often.”
“Good idea.”
I follow Dirk down the stairs, as if we’re children in an Enid Blyton adventure, down and down below the entrance level, down to where it’s spooky, with clanking pipes and mysterious old panels of switches.
I creep closer to Dirk, close enough to smell his aftershave and a trace of moth repellent in his suit coat, close enough for a cuddle, but all the lights blink back on again, and all the magic evaporates.
I introduce myself to Davey, apologise, and go to hand the flashlight back to Dirk, but he presses it back into my hand and closes his fingers around mine.
“Keep it,” he says, his voice so low and close it’s my heart that lights up.
Davey shows us a switchboard and points at the place that shows the problem started at Forty One.
“Did you use a power board?” he says.
“A big one. It’s my business. Cottage industry. Lucy’s Lamps.”
Suddenly, we’re plunged back into darkness.
“That’ll be one of your lamps. Short circuit. Get a few boards with trip switches, will you? Can you go and unplug them all now?”
Dirk accompanies me up the stairs.
“Need a hand?”
“You’re so kind, Dirk. I know, you’d ‘do it for anyone’ but it doesn’t mean I’m not grateful.”
He laughs and stays silent, but he smiles down at me and I’m sure of it. There’s a buzz between us, a little spark, an excellent development. Dirk is almost flirting.
When the lights flicker back on again, and stay on, he comments on my handiwork, my lamps, my hobby-come-business that made me a reasonable income after Bart insisted I stop working for the network – so I could work exclusively for him, as it turned out.
Until he found someone better; someone even more compliant.
“Quite unusual lamps,” says Dirk.
“Are you being rude about them?”
“They’re quirky. I like them.”
“This one’s for Jill. Would you like one, too? Swap you one for the flashlight.”
“They’re a bit ...”
“Creative? Unique? Interesting? Gorgeous? They’re works of art, Dirk. They’re quite popular. They sell quite well. What’s your favorite color? I custom make them in all colors, shapes and sizes. Show me your place and we’ll come up with something you love.”
“Now?”
“Why not?”
“Not now. Another time, maybe.”
“Okay. But you’ll still join me for drinks this weekend?”
“That’s the plan.”
On Saturday evening, I twist my hair into a chignon and pin it in place with a simple mother-of-pearl clasp with three diamantes. My new cream silk blouse and dark pencil skirt stare back at me in the full-length oval mirror – demure, perfect good taste.
There’s that little patter of nerves I always get before hosting a party. All is cleaned and ready. Will anyone turn up?
My mother’s carriage clock strikes six, then a quarter past, and ticks on in the silence.
I rotate the gin and whisky bottles around and around on the shelves, adjust the champagne glasses for the fourteenth time, sigh and stare out the window.
Nobody has RSVPd. How rude. I invited Dirk in person, and left the little notes under his and everyone else’s doors.
Jill at least declined on the spot. Donna is upstate for a dog show.
How could thirty two households be so uniformly inconsiderate?
I know some of the neighbors are home. As I prepared the finger food, the appetizers and cheese plate, I heard gentle creaks, their feet in the corridors, snatches of conversation, muted radio and television broadcasts, someone practicing a violin, out of tune, repetitive.
It brought back memories of my own childhood resisting piano scales, of my Phoebe with her shiny, squeaky clarinet.
Phoebe didn’t even acknowledge the invitation I sent her by phone.
Perhaps she’s changed her number, dropped me forever.
Was I so dreadful a mother? I’m so ready to find out, to apologize, to see it all from my daughter’s point of view.
We’d been so close, flesh of my flesh, the weight of her in my arms and on my lap, her tiny hand in mine, so keen to cuddle and learn from me, then the sharing of clothes and handbags, even teaching her to drive.
We got through all of that. I thought we’d be best friends forever, my dream baby, a model child and a teen without too many tantrums. So what did I do wrong?