by Alice Archer
I squeezed the arms of the chair with my spread hands. I needed to focus.
The man might be a talented artist, but he was also an entitled prick who considered it fun to play puppet master. The sooner I added shower access to my side of our twisted ledger, the sooner I’d be able to strategize about putting a roof over my head before the cold rain of autumn settled in.
Oliver frowned down at me.
I ignored my own orders to keep it simple and asked, “What’s up with you and that workshop?”
“Hello?” Oliver’s frown deepened. He took a step back.
I waved my hand to indicate the odd crap Oliver had to live with every day. “You’re artsy and strange, but not a total slob indoors. Except for the workshop. Why is that?”
“It’s a toolshed. And it’s none of your damn business.”
“Fine,” I said. “You have unresolved issues around the toolshed. Who cares? Not me. I’m only here to tell you I did all the stuff you demanded, so get on with bestowing my shower.”
The freak crossed his arms and nodded. I took that as a request for information.
“Trip to town, check,” I recited. “Daily journal entries, check. I’ll show you a photo of my self-portrait, check. And I cut the bushes out front. Final check.”
With a sharp adjustment to the knot of hair at the back of his head, Oliver turned and strode away.
“Congratulatory head pat optional,” I raised my voice to say.
I’d never met anyone who exasperated me as much as Oliver. His combination of withdrawn and confident made me suspicious of his motives. On top of that, his coppery beauty emptied my brain.
Oliver goddamn Rossi. A guy like an onion unwilling to give up its outer layer, the reluctant skin coming away in thin strips. A poke into the juicier layers would only provoke a sharp sting.
Reluctant skin. I lifted my head from the back of the chair. Oliver stood at the dining table, bent over a sketchbook, hand flying with a pencil. All I could see of his freckled skin was the back of his bare neck under the sloppy topknot. To shift my train of thought, I looked past him, caught sight of the dartboard on the back door, and blinked.
“Jesus. What did you do?” I fought my way out of the obnoxious chair. “That’s my self-portrait.” He’d pinned my stick figure painting to the dartboard and thrown darts at it. One stuck out of my forehead. Another pierced my crotch.
“It looks like a spider,” Oliver said with a shrug.
I torched the back of Oliver’s head with my death rays and waited for an apology—or at least a better explanation—for why he’d defaced my self-portrait, but I got nothing.
Oliver glanced up at me. “Why did your marriage end?” His pencil scratched noise from the paper as he drew.
“What?” I felt like I’d landed in one of those sadistic plays Laura used to take me to, where everyone thought they were so clever but nothing made sense.
“Was it her fault or yours?” Oliver asked. “I mean, in your opinion.”
“This is the most useless non-conversation I’ve ever had. You know what? Never mind. Since you’re busy with your leisure activities, I’ll try again later to address my basic necessities.”
“Keep your hair on.” Oliver lifted his head. “Hey, would you mind sitting at the dining table and glaring at me for a few minutes? I just want to—”
A rage rose up inside me. “I’m an inch from falling off the edge of the earth, and all you do is push.” I couldn’t stay in the room with him one more second.
My footsteps across the lawn took up the cadence of Oliver’s final words, lobbed at me from the porch. “Grant, you need to let go.”
Let go. Let go. Let go.
Chapter 35
Oliver
One by one, I removed the darts from Grant’s self-portrait.
I’d relished the release of those throws, the thwack as the darts punched into the board through the image Grant had painted, like I could kill his harsh opinion of himself if I landed enough direct hits. The vigor of those throws had bled off some of my discomfort around my sex fantasy about Freddie in the Crown Vic that had gone off the rails.
I opened a few more windows, to rid the house of Grant’s surly vibe.
He’d walked in with a defensive squint, stinking up my house with body odor and bad attitude, then run out again before I could switch gears from focusing on the mural.
I studied Grant’s punctured self-portrait for clues. He showed unwavering patience with the kids, then badgered me to the point of war. Compared to Grant’s demands on my time and attention, Freddie’s easygoing nature felt like a vacation.
Grant’s final words, his parting shot about me pushing him off the edge, told me how cruel I must seem to him.
At the dining table, I flipped his self-portrait to write him a note on the back. I began with I’m sorry, fished an eraser out of a drawer, and scrubbed the words away. I wasn’t sorry. Grant needed a push. Maybe no one had cared enough to give him one, or to push in the right direction—out over the edge of the known into flight. I wasn’t going to apologize for being the one to do it.
It took me a while, and more scrubs with the eraser, but I got it in the end.
Grant— Thank you for your help this week. I’ll consider the first week of assignments to be in order if you show me your self-portrait. You’re welcome to use the courtyard shower for the remainder of your time here. You don’t need to check with me before you use it. I put towels and shower basics out there for you. Please keep in mind that the freshwater supply on the island is iffy, especially in summer. When you’re ready, we’ll talk about week two. —Oliver
I rooted through the linen closet, emerged with an armful of dark green towels and washcloths, a new bar of soap, and bottles of shampoo and conditioner. Peace offerings, to show Grant I considered his first week a success. The fact that he’d done the assignments at all meant he was willing to change—that was all I’d wanted from his first week.
I turned on the water supply to the courtyard, then went out to set my offerings on the bench that ran along one side of the shower stall. Note in pocket, I set off to look for Grant’s campsite and check on him. He didn’t seem desperate enough to resort to self-harm, but I didn’t know him well.
I followed the path Penelope took from the side yard and found Grant’s campsite right where I expected it to be, on the spur of land Dad had bought when I was twelve. I remembered the discussion Dad and Granddad had for thirty seconds when it came up for sale. “View of Mount Rainer,” Granddad said. “Longish walk from the house,” Dad countered. They’d grinned at each other, shrugged, and we’d all taken a ride to the real estate office.
Grant was not in residence at his campsite, which looked pitiful. Beyond pitiful.
A camp stove balanced on a log. Metal cups. Fork. Spoon. Battered pot. A bungee cord secured the lid of the ice chest. I peeked inside. No ice. Five family-size cans of beef stew, cheap peanut butter, a bag of apples, half a loaf of reduced-price bread.
Fuck. I stared into the cooler. Grant had been skinny when I’d found him in the ditch—skinnier than I’d thought he should be. If that was all he was living on, he wouldn’t put on weight anytime soon. No wonder he’d scarfed half a dozen muffins in five seconds that first day.
Grant was obviously trying to make camping work, but there was no getting around the fact that if the campsite was his current home, he was an inch away from the edge.
I felt ashamed of myself suddenly. I had been toying with Grant’s life, and I had no business doing so, not really, not if he was as destitute as he seemed to be. I remembered the day he’d shown up on my porch to propose a trade of labor for basic amenities. That must have required a fuck-ton of courage. I looked around the campsite again, to divert myself from the shame of sending Grant away that day without even an offer of a drink of water.
Th
e open window flap of the small tent caught my attention. I put my face against the mesh, hoping I wouldn’t discover Grant sleeping inside, because wouldn’t that be awkward. But the only things in the tent were his backpack and a grubby sleeping bag on a thin pad. The bit of space the pack didn’t take up seemed too cramped for Grant to be able to lie flat.
An outer mesh pocket of the backpack held a cell phone and charging cord. I took the note out of my pocket to add a P.S. to tell Grant he could use the electrical outlet in the courtyard, and to give him my phone number, but I didn’t have anything to write with.
On second thought, I realized I didn’t want to leave the note at the campsite. I felt sure if Grant knew I’d been there without an invitation, he’d consider it a breach of trust. I hoped he’d risk a trip back to the house sooner than later, so he’d know about the shower and the electrical outlet. And to get his poor, abused self-portrait.
The neatness of Grant’s campsite didn’t cancel the tragedy.
I felt horrible as I trudged back to my beautiful home, where I’d been blessed to live all my life. I’d known Grant’s life wasn’t good, but seeing his campsite gave me a visceral ache, made his desperation palpable to the point I sort of hated myself for worrying about Grant’s emotional well-being when I should have addressed his physical status first.
I wondered what had befallen Grant to bring him to a state of desperation in my woods. If Kai was Grant’s nephew, Mitch was family of some kind. Why wasn’t Mitch helping Grant? And what was Grant running from?
At home, I added the P.S. to the note and taped it to the front door.
I tried to work on the mural after that, but the walls closed in on me. The careful motion of my hand as I pulled the brush along the faint lines of the transferred drawing jarred with my mood. My shame about Grant required bigger, louder, messier.
I excavated my overalls from the clothes hamper in my bathroom and pulled them on, laced my heavy boots on the back porch, and headed out to the toolshed.
I would face a tragedy of my own when I finished the throne. I’d miss the therapy of it, the physical effort and the simplicity. Tap chisel with mallet. Move chisel. Tilt chisel. Check placement. Thwack. Move. Tilt. Check. Thwack.
I would make it up to Grant.
I promise.
A revised plan for week two formed as I littered the ground with rejected wood and pretended I could make a difference in Grant’s life. The penalty for my hubris would be to give Grant food without the fanfare of manipulating his psyche—though I reserved the right to do that later. For a week, I’d take a break from being a petty tyrant.
I’d try, anyway.
It was possible I’d forget in Grant’s actual presence. His presence that filled the air around him, filled up my house. I was glad the location of the outdoor shower made it unlikely I would hear the water fall over Grant’s naked body.
A long pause followed that thought, during which I tried to erase it.
With my mind’s eye, I studied the image of naked Grant in the courtyard shower.
He smells of days of rough living in the woods, of fear and anger and raw energy. I can smell him from my side of the campground shower partition, where I stand frozen, all attention on his moans and the steam rising above him into the sunlight. When I can’t wait any longer, when I need details, I step around the divider.
Hands up, he rinses his black hair, flattens it, sleek and shiny, against his head.
I clear my throat.
He opens his eyes, his hard scowl a strike, and I tense, poised to run, but he lowers his hands slowly from his hair, like he doesn’t want to move too fast and scare me off. He watches me watch him. Runs his hands down his neck inch by steady inch, over his chest, across his stomach, down.
What? No.
I could not go there again. Not when Freddie was due back from Whidbey. I had a plan, a solid, good plan for a life and maybe a family with Freddie. We’d been headed in that direction for years. Freddie hadn’t, in fact, brought home a Japanese man. He still came home to me.
“Ouvre la porte,” sang Les Charbonniers. Open the door.
Chapter 36
Grant
In the morning on Tuesday, the day after I fled Oliver’s in a huff about the shower, I decided to try again to collect my reward. I found his note on the door and jogged around to the courtyard, grateful he’d softened toward me, hoping it would last.
The first blast of hot water hit my back, and I closed my eyes to savor it, the sound of water hitting the flagstones around my feet the sweetest music I’d ever heard. Respectful of the water supply, I luxuriated efficiently. A few minutes had to be enough, and so it was.
By the time I’d toweled off in the fresh summer air, I felt like my body could breathe again. My brain turned over and restarted.
In my clean clothes, I gave myself a tour. The courtyard was about fifteen feet wide by twelve feet deep, enclosed on three sides by the house. The fourth side consisted of a stone wall with an arched entrance. Vines, overarching trees, and a profusion of plants around the archway and inside courtyard created a lush private garden.
Across the courtyard from the shower stall, a row of louvered windows lurked behind a wild rose on a trellis, the only windows looking onto the courtyard. The span of tall panels on the back wall seemed to be folding doors, but they were locked.
A honeysuckle bush cascaded over a picnic table, or maybe had grown around it.
From the state of Oliver’s property—overgrown hedges, neglected workshop, mothballed courtyard—he’d stopped caring at some point.
I sat on the end of the picnic table bench to tie up my boots, ready for a walk around the house to see what else I might have overlooked, to explore for clues about Oliver’s life.
I almost missed the painting behind a row of ornamental fruit trees outside the kitchen windows. A sheet of plywood bolted onto the blue siding of the house had been treated with some type of white background and then painted on. Dotted lines marked the adventures of a red-haired boy and his pals on an illustrated map. The accompanying images, detailed in some places, rough in others, included spots of sheer brilliance. I smiled as I followed the gang’s route around Vashon Island—through town, along the cliffs, out to sea and back to shore. At the end of their journey, a treasure chest with an open lid revealed Oliver’s signature and a date. If my guess about his age was correct, he’d been about ten.
Ten years old. Jesus. The man’s artistry blew my mind.
I continued around to the front door to ask Oliver about the painting I’d found and to thank him for the shower, but he didn’t seem to be home. The van and bicycle were parked under the carport. I knocked on the back door. When I stood still and listened, I heard nothing but the rustle of leaves.
I set off across the yard to the path to the stump chair, but he wasn’t there either.
My tour around the stump to admire Oliver’s recent work was cut short when I stepped on a chisel. Which lay beside a mallet. When I found the tool belt on the seat with a set of earbuds, I collected everything and took the liberty of ferrying it all to the workshop.
When I’d gone inside to find hedge clippers, I’d see the jumble of tools clustered on the concrete floor inside the door, like a deposit made by a receding flash flood. I added Oliver’s things I’d brought from the stump to the pile, then felt around on the wall for the light switch and flicked it on.
Oliver’s workshop was bigger than the house I’d grown up in with six people. Built-in worktables ringed most of the perimeter and two long tables dominated the central area. Closed cabinets, open shelving, and pegboard covered much of the wall space above and below the outer worktables. A clear plastic sheet covered a very nice table saw in the near left corner.
At some point in its past, I felt certain, the workshop had been a hive of activity.
I noted the dust and c
obwebs, and reluctantly turned off the light, leaned into the heavy door to slide it closed, making sure the latch engaged securely.
I was dozing on the back porch, basking in the freshly showered feeling, when I heard footsteps. Oliver, at last.
I stood and lifted a hand to wave.
Oliver scanned me from head to toe. “You look clean and rosy. You got my note?”
I nodded, distracted by the tight furrow of worry between Oliver’s eyes. “You okay? I found your tools out by the stump.”
“I’m fine. Give me a minute to clean up, then we can talk about week two and you can show me your self-portrait from last week.”
I followed him inside and wandered to the living area.
Oliver paused at the bedroom door. “Thanks for putting away the tools.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Soon after Oliver disappeared behind the bedroom door, I heard a shower go on, which meant he had a private bathroom.
I wedged myself into a corner of the orange couch to wait for him and lined up my questions. If I used my full set of conversational skills, maybe I could peel away more of Oliver’s outer protective layer without inciting an argument. Nice and easy.
By the time Oliver emerged in shorts and a T-shirt, hair up in a loose bun, damp tendrils framing the strain on the sharp features of his face, I’d worked myself into an almost meditative state of readiness.
Oliver nodded at me and made a sharp right turn into the kitchen area, where he bustled about for a few minutes. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” he said. “I’ll be right there.”
“It’s okay.” I’d miraculously found a comfortable position in Oliver’s living room. Calm, clean, and cushioned, I could barely keep my eyes open.
“Here we go.” Oliver set a large tray on top of the magazines, sketchbooks, and colored pencils that covered the coffee table. “I haven’t had lunch. You’re welcome to join me.”
