A Different Blue

Chapter Fourteen





I spent as little time in the apartment as possible. It reeked of cigarettes, and although I tried to keep my door shut off from the rest of the apartment and the windows to my room open at all times, May in Las Vegas is hot, and my room was unbearable. My little storage unit at the back of the complex was just as hot, but I had fresh air and my projects to distract me. I was lost in my latest creation – filing and sanding and grinding away – when a car rolled up beyond the sliding metal door. I turned to see Wilson step from his grey Subaru and slam the door behind him. I walked out into the bright sunlight, shading my eyes as he approached.

“Your aunt said I would find you out here,” he offered by way of greeting.

“She answered the door? Wow. Wonders never cease.” She'd been asleep on the couch when I'd slipped out. I tried not to pull at my red tank top and my shredded jeans shorts. My belly had just started to round, but it wasn't noticeable in my clothing. I looked down at my flip flops and curled my painted toes. I had showered and shaved my legs, but my hair had still been wet when I had come outside, and I had pulled it up in a high ponytail to keep the wet strands off my neck. I hadn't even looked in the mirror. I didn't know what bothered me more: Wilson seeing my like this or the fact that I cared that Wilson was seeing me like this. He had stopped walking and was staring at me. I cringed and then immediately got defensive.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Wilson stood with his hands shoved in his pockets, his eyebrows lowered quizzically over his somber gaze.

“You look different.”

“Well, yeah!” I scoffed self-consciously. “I look like crap. No makeup, my hair's not done, and I'm wearing these scruddy clothes.”

“Scruddy?” Wilson's eyebrows shot up.

“Yeah, you know. Cruddy and scummy make scruddy.”

“I see,” Wilson nodded sagely. “Like scrummy, only . . . scruddy.” He tipped his head slightly. “It suits you.”

“Scruddy suits me?” I tried not to be hurt. “Why thank you, Mr. Darcy!” I said in my southern belle accent and fluttered my eyelashes. “You are as romantic as your namesake.”

“Natural suits you. You wear too much makeup,” Wilson shrugged and turned away.

“A girl can never wear too much blue eye shadow,” I quipped, trying to pretend that I didn't care what he said or what he thought. I ran my hand over my hair, feeling the rumpled strands and the off-centered ponytail.

“Tell me what you're doing.” Wilson moved to stand next to me. He reached a long finger out and followed a groove that widened into a hollow space.

“I'm never sure what I'm doing,” I answered honestly.

“Then how will you know when you've done it?” Wilson smiled.

“That's always the question. When to stop. I usually start to get a feel for the shape as I work. It rarely comes to me before. The inspiration comes through action.” I bit at my lip in concentration. “Does that make sense?”

Wilson nodded. “If I squint it almost looks like a cello that has been melted down and pulled . . . like taffy.”

I didn't tell him that I kept seeing a cello too. It seemed too personal, as if it would again introduce the feelings that had risen within me when I had first heard him play that night in the high school, the night I'd vowed to change.

“What's that?” Wilson indicated a small hole whorled into the now smooth surface of the wood.

“A worm hole.”

“Will you sand it away?”

I shook my head. “Probably not. I'll just fill it with a little putty. The problem with fixing one problem is that sometimes you uncover two.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well this is a relatively small worm hole, right?”

He nodded.

“If I start cutting it away, the hole may widen and veer off into a new direction, creating a much bigger problem or, at the very least, a much bigger hole. There is no such thing as perfect, and honestly, if the wood were perfect it wouldn't be as beautiful. I seem to recall someone telling me that 'perfect was boring' anyway.”

“You were listening!” Wilson smiled again.

“I usually am,” I replied without thinking and then worried that I might have given something away.

“How are you this morning?” Wilson's eyes were grave as he switched subjects.

I stopped filing and flexed my muscles. “Tough as nails,” I said dryly, not wanting to talk about what I knew he was referring to. I had spent about an hour feeling absolutely hideous, bent over the toilet in the apartment. But I had managed to keep down about ten crackers and the fresh air outside was doing me good. I wondered again how long I was going to be able to stay in the smokey apartment. It wasn't good for me, and it definitely wasn't good for the baby inside me. My stomach knotted up instantly, and I wondered briefly if part of my on-going, never-ending nausea was just plain old fear.

“Does your aunt know about the pregnancy?” Okay, now Wilson was being blunt.

“Nope,” I responded shortly.

“Have you been to see a doctor?”

“Not yet.” I didn't make eye contact. I didn't think my trip to Planned Parenthood counted. His silence felt like condemnation. I stepped back from my sculpture and sighed loudly. “I have an appointment with someone at Health and Human services. I should be able to get some kind of medical assistance, and they will tell me where I can go to see a doctor, okay?”

“Good,” Wilson replied shortly, nodding his head. “You know you're going to have to stop smoking too, right?”

“I don't smoke!” It was as if Wilson had heard my thoughts moments before.

Wilson lifted an eyebrow in disbelief, and smirked at me, waiting for me to come clean.

“I don't smoke, Wilson! I just live with someone who smokes like a chimney. So I smell like an ashtray all the time. I can't help it if I reek, but thank you for noticing.”

Wilson had lost his doubtful smirk, and he sighed gustily. “I'm sorry, Blue. I'm incredibly good at dropping clunkers. I don't have a big mouth, but somehow I manage to stick my foot in it quite frequently.”

I shrugged, letting it go. He watched me work for a while, but he seemed preoccupied, and I wondered why he lingered.

“Well that settles it . . .” he mumbled to himself. Then said to me, “Have you ever thought about getting a place of your own?”

“Only every second of every day,” I replied wryly, not looking up from the line that was emerging, changing my cello into a full symphony. The curve suggested sound and movement and a continuity that I couldn't put into words but that somehow was conveyed in the line of the wood. It happened like that – beauty would emerge almost by accident and I had to let it take me where it wanted me to go. So often, I felt like my hands and heart knew something I did not, and I surrendered the art to them.

“Can you take a break? I want to show you something that might interest you.”

I worried my lip, wondering if I would lose the thread of inspiration if I walked away. It was almost done; I could go. I nodded to Wilson.

“Let me run inside and change.”

“You look fine. Let's go. It won't take long.”

I tugged at my ponytail, pulling the elastic free. I ran my fingers through my hair and decided it didn't matter. In moments, my tools were put away and the unit locked up tight. I ran inside and grabbed my purse, yanking a brush through my hair while I pulled on a T-shirt that was a little less bare.

“A guy with a funny accent came looking for you,” Cheryl mumbled from the couch. “He sounded like the professor from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But he was much younger – and cute too. Moving up in the world, huh?” Cheryl had a thing for Spike on the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She owned every season and watched it obsessively whenever she was between boyfriends. It made her believe that her perfect guy was still out there – immortal, blood sucking, and strangely attractive. Comparing Wilson to any member of the cast was high praise. I left without commenting.

Wilson opened the passenger door for me me, and I managed not to say something sarcastic or tell him that he did remind me a little of a young Giles. We pulled up outside his house, and I remarked on the improved look of the exterior.

“Initially, I focused all my attention on the interior, but once the three apartments were completed, I turned my attention to the outside. In the last month she's had a new roof put on, new fascia, new windows. We reformed the steps and laid them and the sidewalk in stone. The landscapers came in and really cleaned up the yard too. The old girl has had a complete makeover, really.”

He bounded up the steps and unlocked the door. I followed more sedately. How would it be to have the money to instigate a makover like he'd given “the old girl?” Sure it was still work. It was probably still a headache to deal with contractors and construction. I couldn't imagine having the vision to put it all together. But how would it be to be able to do whatever you wanted . . . within reason? I wondered randomly if I was Wilson's new project. Maybe he would make me over.

“This is what I wanted to show you.” He led me to a door off of the foyer that I hadn't even noticed the last time I had been inside. It was partially hidden behind the sweep of the stairs.

“You see how we've divided the house into two flats upstairs, yet there's only one down? It's because when the house was built, the staircase was slightly offset to the right. That made all the rooms on this side of the house smaller. My rooms sit over the garage somewhat, so I still have plenty of space. But down here things are pretty cramped. I thought maybe at some point I would live down here and let my flat, but I can't stand up straight in the shower – you'll see why – and honestly, I like my flat upstairs. I also thought we could let it to a handyman of sorts. But that has turned out to be me, which makes it easier for me to justify staying in my flat because I'm saving money on not hiring someone else.”

As he talked we walked inside the small apartment. The space had the same wood floors as the foyer, and the walls had been freshly painted. A little entryway opened up into a small sitting room, which Wilson called a “lounge,” bordered by a galley kitchen complete with a stainless steel sink, a black fridge and stove, and a narrow slash of black countertop. It was all new and shiny and smelled like wood and paint and starting over. A bedroom and bathroom, every bit as new and every bit as small, completed the tiny apartment. I stepped into the shower and saw what Wilson had meant.

“The duct work runs through here. It was our only option. The ceiling is less than six feet right here above the shower, which won't be a problem for you unless you like to shower in those ridiculously high boots you like to wear.”

“I can't afford this place, Wilson. It's small, but it's really nice. I work at the cafe, I'm pregnant, and there's no space to carve, which means my financial situation probably isn't going to improve if I live here.”

“You can afford it, trust me. And the best part? Come on. I'll show you.” He was through the bathroom door and back in the kitchen in about ten steps.

“This door here? It isn't a pantry. It leads to the basement. I thought if this was the handyman's flat, he would need easy access, so we didn't cover the original door when we drew the floorplan. I do my laundry down there. The furnace and water heater are down there, along with all the fuse boxes, etc. There's an outside entrance too, so I can access it without traipsing through your flat. And it's huge. There's plenty of space for you to set up shop. You might get a bit cold in the winter, but we could get you a little space heater. And in the summer it will be the coolest place in the house.”

I followed him down the stairs, trying not to get excited, telling myself it was a bad idea. The basement was nothing much to see. It was concrete walls and floor, easily 2,500 square feet of mostly empty space. There were some odds and ends and an old washer and dryer pushed up against the farthest wall, but that was all. The fact that the home had a basement was notable. Basements in Las Vegas were about as scarce as brick houses. It had overhead lights though, and electricity for my power tools. It would be more than sufficient for what I needed.

“There's some old furniture that was in the house when I bought the place.” Wilson jerked tarps off of various items in the farthest corner. “You're welcome to whatever you think you can use, and that washer and dryer are all hooked up. You could come down here and do your laundry, too.”

“How much, Wilson?” I demanded, interrupting his list of amenities. “How much a month?”

He considered, tilting his head to the side as if he had to put a lot of thought into it.

“It's small, and I can't rent it to a full-grown man. He'd feel like Gulliver living with the Lilliputians. I had actually decided to just leave it empty and let my mum use it when she visited. But she's too much of a snob, so that probably won't work.”

“How much, Wilson?”

“Four hundred a month would be too much probably.” He eyed me. “But I'll throw in your utilities to make it more fair.”

Four hundred was ridiculously cheap, and he knew it. The rent on Cheryl's apartment was $900 a month and it was a smelly dive, and that only included water and sewer. Gas and power were separate. I knew because there were times when I'd had to pay the power bill out of my paycheck from the cafe.

“Why are you doing this for me?” I demanded, shoving my hands into the pockets of my raggedy shorts.

Wilson sighed. “I'm really not doing anything, Blue. The $400 is more than sufficient, really. It will be nice for Mrs. Darwin to have another female in the building, too. My new tenant is a bloke. This way if she needs help with anything . . . female . . . then you will be here. It's perfect, really.” He was grasping at straws.

“Anything female? Like what?”

“Well, I don't know. Just bits and bobs . . . uh, female stuff that I wouldn't be able to assist her with.”

“I see,” I said, trying not to laugh. Euphoria was bubbling in my chest, and I wanted to do a celebratory dance around the basement. I was going to do it. I was going to move into that perfect little apartment all by myself. No smoke, no Cheryl, no beer bottles and sweaty men to trip over and avoid. I was moving out.