A Thing of Beauty

by Lisa Samson

  That wasn’t very nice, was it?

  Five

  I wake up the next morning to another dreary March day in Baltimore. I slide up and out of my bed, the quilt covered in clothing I justify by a low heating bill. No need to dress for the day since I never took off my jeans and sweater.

  I jam my feet into a pair of slippers I found at a yard sale for a dollar—much too big, but the socks keep them on—and head down to the kitchen and the instant coffee awaiting me. It doesn’t taste very good, but it’s so much more straightforward in the preparation than having to fool around with one of the coffeemakers.

  The digital clock on the plugged-in microwave, as opposed to the two that aren’t, says 10:00 a.m.

  I can’t believe I slept this late.

  On the kitchen table at which I eat, my bowl, plate, knife, fork, and spoon await. The other table, a sort of desk for collecting mail and small appliances, is shoved into the corner in front of a surprisingly empty built-in corner cabinet. I turn on the faucet, water drumming against the bottom of an old aluminum pot I took off Randi’s hands when she got her new set. I turn the dial on the only burner that works on my gas range, the only burner because what kind of repairman wants to come into a place like this? A decent person wouldn’t even allow a repairman to come into a place like this, God forbid the hot water heater ever goes out. The Baltimore Gas and Electric man might never get out of the basement.

  But I know that when inspiration hits, it hits, and every single thing in here has an idea attached to it. I only have to remember it, write it down, and use it someday, and it will all make sense. I can never seem to find a pen, though.

  After my coffee is sufficiently distributed in the boiling water, I take a seat at the table. I love my 1970s captain chairs. They spin. They roll. They make one’s meal a more dynamic affair. I can view the room 360 degrees and never remove my derriere from the nubby fabric striped with autumn’s hues.

  In a copper bowl, breakfast awaits in a choice of packaged rectangles. Granola bars, cookie bars, rice cereal treats. I tear open a pack of Nutty Bars and pull the chocolate-covered waffled goodness from the cellophane wrap. My teeth close over the first inch, and I snap the bar down and away from my mouth. Little Debbie never grows old. The woman knows how to keep it going on. And she hasn’t had one stitch of plastic surgery as far as I know.

  By noon the room is halfway cleared.

  I could have been further along, but I found a large deli salad container filled with a ball of fabric and lace that, upon its unfurling, revealed itself for an antique christening gown. I have no idea when I bought this or how it ended up in the native habitat of potato salad, but it’s been at least six years since I stopped going on crazy buying binges worthy of an ex-child star. I can only imagine myself in some antique shop, buying willy-nilly whatever took my fancy. Funny how the rings of supplies reflect my investment account. Snuggled to the walls lies the good stuff; in the middle ring, basic thrift store; yard sales next; then closest to the door, street discards.

  The fabric of the gown feels softer than it should, the fine cotton lawn flowing between my fingers. Who was this baby? Boy or girl? Is the child old now, or even dead? Somebody cared, obviously. Enough to have the child baptized. I mean, is that what caring parents do? I don’t know.

  I giggle, imagining Jessica and Brandon standing up front in a cavernous stone church, statues lit under the chin by winking candles in red cups. They only took me to church when the drama of it all would appeal. Jessica would make sure to wear a lace mantilla for funerals, Brandon a tasteful gray suit or a blue blazer with freshly pressed khakis, a white shirt, and a school tie for baptisms or weddings.

  It’s time to get a little lunch and interact with that one requisite person a day so that I’m not completely alone in my white stucco world, held in by the brick of the walls and cut off by the Ionic pillars of the front porch. The balustrade up on the roof and the urns at the corners want to hold me underneath their watch, but as long as I go to the Bizarre, Subway, or my grandfather’s, they cannot imprison me.

  I hold my hand out the back door, happy when the highly local weather report says, “The sweater is all you need.” So I flip off my slippers, shove my feet into my red biker boots, promise myself I will take a shower in the evening and not sleep in these clothes, then proceed to the marble front hall where my bicycle leans against the handrail of the left leg of the double staircase leading up to the gallery above.

  The staircase is what sold me on the house, the curves mirroring each other like the harp motif on a brass music stand. The dust has collected between the finely turned posts and the soft white paint is chipped, but the risers still glow at their centers, polished by my feet every time I head to bed and come down the next day to face the world.

  I figure I’ll take my feet today. The Schwinn looks extra bedraggled after our big day yesterday, and I’m glad for the exercise. When I left California, I was fit and strong. Pricey rehab will do that for you. Now, well, I don’t care so much. But who wants to become decrepit? Not me.

  Soon I’m sitting in a yellow Subway booth eating a meatball marinara, double sauce and white American cheese, and if you throw a couple of extra meatballs on there I won’t say a word. Pat always winks and adds two more. But no more than two.

  A message comes in on my phone from Jack, one of my regulars off The List, a place for an escort to catalog her services.

  I provide entertainment, still. Just of a different sort. I let men pretend they own a part of me with their fees, but they don’t because I don’t let them go all the way. Close. But not all the way. That’s why I’m under the list headed Barely Platonic.

  Jack lives in a rehabbed rowhouse in Fells Point. Even though he’s a structural engineer and travels half the time, an artistic eye and a knowledge of furniture design have enabled him to make an eclectic apartment from mostly thrift stores and Goodwill. I tell him he should have been a designer and he laughs, but the smile that lingers is pleased.

  Jack is different from the other dates I get off The List. I’d want to be his friend if our arrangement didn’t need to exist. But it does. So that’s that.

  How soon can you be here, Fia? he asks by text. Jack recognized me the first time we met up, and I didn’t deny it like usual. He truly didn’t seem bowled over by that fact, and I knew this could be a regular thing. He was educated and kind, and while maybe not Hollywood rich, he was doing fine by the standards of the real people of this world. More than fine.

  I picture him sitting on his rooftop deck, watching the business of Baltimore below him: bicycle commuters, old ladies stiff-legging it up the sidewalk wearing rain bonnets and car coats, people parking along the street to run into the church across the corner, and occasionally, mourners piling into limousines at the funeral home across the street. His blondish hair is probably still wet from his shower, and the rest of the water that sluiced down over him and clung to his golden skin in a bathroom the size of a linen closet has been soaked up by the luscious bathrobe he always orders from the same catalog company in Portland, and always in the same color. Ivory.

  “Why not white?” I asked him three years ago when we first entered into our arrangement.

  “It’s too dicey,” he replied. “I hate anything that collects dirt.”

  So you know right away he’s never been up at the old homestead on Mount Vernon Place.

  I check the time in response to his question. Forty-five minutes.

  Fine. I’m not heading out of town until tomorrow. I’m taking the day semi-off.

  I’ll have to shower at your place.

  No prob.

  So I head home, hop on the Schwinn, and pedal through the remaining lunchtime traffic pulsing down St. Paul Street, then whiz by the Harbor Place Pratt Street pavilion, past the Power Plant and all the people making their way in and out of B&N and the Hard Rock Café, two establishments I’ve yet to enter. B&N because I have a little book shop in my neighborhood with a great ar
t section, the Hard Rock Café because I avoid anything that smacks of Hollywood. Do they have to take over the world? Is millions of dollars a picture not enough?

  Once past the major piers—one leading to the aquarium, another to a tented music venue—I continue on toward Jack’s. I finally stand before his door. Number 1117.

  All right, then.

  I knock and ten seconds later he answers. Jack is a prompt person who, when something needs doing, does it right away. For this reason, his spare time is free and light because his mind is clear. His attraction to me can be explained by the old adage that tells us opposites go together.

  He sweeps his arm inside and I follow it. “Want some lemonade?” he asks.

  “And a game of spades?”

  “Let’s do it, Fi. I’ll be right back.”

  And he will be. Jack always does what he says he’ll do.

  My studio in the basement calls. Why I chose this spot when I had sixteen rooms filled with light and beauty, why I felt the need to put it down here, I still can’t say. Judging by how well I’ve done as an artist, I might deserve even less, but then that would banish me out to the old well house. The spiders there might not welcome that.

  Instead of remaining in the dungeon of creative pursuits, I walk out into my backyard. It had been a beautiful backyard when I bought the house, a bit of magic and fancy with its brick patio and stone path meandering through lush flora and cherry trees. It’s hard to even imagine now what that garden looked like, really looked like. And I know I can never go back.

  One of the cherry trees has died and the rest have stopped blooming.

  Even if I took the time to pull out all the growth, most of the plants in the border gardens would be dead. It would be a different garden in the same place.

  But the earth remains, and I can take comfort in the making of a new garden someday, a garden completely my own. I would have flowers in a rainbow of colors only heaven has beheld. And butterflies would gather and crickets would scrape out their tunes. That is what I would do.

  I don’t apologize for it either.

  The breeze of early spring shuffles across my shoulders as overhead the sun is busy in the middle of setting. I hold my arms against my rib cage and will myself to remember that garden. Remember it, Fia.

  Because spring is here, you see. And while the house is overwhelming me, perhaps I can tackle this square of earth I’ve borrowed until my time here is finished.

  The night comes on again, and I know that I could pull out my cell phone and rustle up a date online, but I’ve had enough social interaction for one day. In the final box from the maid’s room, I found a treasure box of children’s books, most of which I remembered from my own childhood.

  One of the only redeeming qualities in a childhood home/ homes run by two movie stars is that both of them loved to hear themselves talk. It took Jessica three times as long as the average parent (two words never uttered together on behalf of Brandon and Jessica) to tell a simple story, like how at least three of the gas pumps at the Shell had red baggies covering the nozzles, or what it was like to have dinner with Frank, Mia, Elizabeth, and Richard at some club in Las Vegas.

  Brandon, however, made reading aloud a grand performance. I’d snuggle up against him in our fabulous living room in Vail, tucked up against his side, sipping on a chocolate milkshake because we loved chocolate milkshakes, a fireplace glowing with a blaze that would see three Eskimo families through a winter, and his voice with the tones of a warm bowl of your favorite soup reading the words of Dr. Seuss or Richard Scarry. From his lips to my ears, each word drew my tender heart toward him.

  After eating a packet of Nutty Bars, I mentally cast about for a suitable reading spot, then lay the books aside.

  Six

  Today Josia arrives. He didn’t ask to sign a lease and I didn’t offer, so at least we can be free to change the arrangement if and when it’s necessary. I asked him about it when he called to make sure it was still a go from his end.

  “Indeed, yes, Fia. I would never want you to have me around if you didn’t want me to be there.”

  “So if it doesn’t work, you’d move on?”

  “I would.”

  “What if you want to move on?”

  He laughed. “Hasn’t happened so far since I’ve been living out in the big world, but I suppose there’s a first time for everything. However, I don’t foresee a problem. I’m happy to stay within your parameters.”

  “Okay. Good.”

  “It’ll be all right. You’ll see.”

  Josia, I can tell already, has a way of helping you realize that what he says makes perfect sense. I can’t imagine him being the type of father who guilt-tripped his kids. If he even has any kids. I hadn’t thought to ask, but hopefully I’ll remember at some point.

  Mug of instant coffee in hand, I inspect what I’ve done over the past week. The bedroom looks good. As good as it can at this point. It needs a coat of paint to cover years of scuff marks on the wall, and some of the woodwork has been damaged and needs replacing. But I scrubbed away any grime I could.

  The bathroom, however, needs an overhaul. At least the plumbing works, but the fixtures were installed in a redo back in the fifties. The tile walls are cracked, some of the white rectangles missing altogether, and the flooring, with its octagonal tiles, is half gone, the rough subfloor exposed. The only window, which matches the one in the bedroom, is cracked as well, but how do you fix a mullioned window? Thankfully, it isn’t broken out.

  But at least it’s as clean as I can make it.

  I should probably charge him less. But I’m willing to wait to see his reaction before offering. Who knows what his little place was like? Sounds like little more than a glorified shed. What would a blacksmith know about building? I don’t know these things, but I imagine there are not a lot of overlaps between a carpenter and a blacksmith.

  Eleven a.m. and a knock thumps on the front door, proving that at least the house is still solid.

  I yank open the heavy door, the light from a perfect spring morning and the clear, mellow air of the same entering before Josia does. “Come on in.”

  “You sure?”

  He’s an easy sight this afternoon in jeans, which are now relaxing after surviving the stiffer years of youth, and a red flannel shirt that looks fresh out of a package. He smells good, the steam of a recent shower still clinging to his skin. His hair seems even whiter out there in the sunlight.

  “Yes. Really. Come in before I change my mind.”

  He steps onto the white marble floor and sets down the only thing he is carrying, a large frame backpack with a bedroll and pillow crowning the armature.

  “Wow.” He looks around. “This is beautiful.”

  “It was.”

  “Well. I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

  “It’s so junky.” Why does everything that once was good eventually go bad?

  He waves a hand. “Oh, that. That’s nothing.”

  Nothing?

  “Really. It’s all about what it was made to look like in the first place. And this place was made to be beautiful. It was beautiful at one time. Nothing wrong with it that I can see.”

  “Okay . . .”

  He points to plasterwork of water lilies on the wall painted over many times since it was done years ago. “A local artist did that,” he said. “He employed bright colors, made the walls happy with his work. But, as you can see, it doesn’t remember that. It’s just a white wall now with some floral relief. Not that it isn’t pretty, you see. But . . .” He shrugs.

  “Just not how it was made to be.”

  “Yep. It’s a beauty, though. One of the prettier homes.” He looks up the left staircase to the gallery above. Portraits really ought to hang there. “Is my room upstairs?”

  I shake my head. “Back down the hallway there to the left.”

  “Should we go there now?”

  I hug my own arms. “Might as well get it over with. Follow me.�
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  My house is deep. Going down the hallway, we pass the living room, then the large formal dining room to the left. On the right are several closed doors. The first leads to a library, the second to the small hall bathroom with the crumbling floor, the third to Josia’s room.

  “What are all these cribs for?” he asks as we pass them.

  “I wanted to do an art project with them. I tossed almost everything else, but some of this wood is good stuff.”

  “I’ll say. Walnut right there, and cherry. Birch too.”

  “Yes.”

  “What were your plans for them?” He runs a sensitive hand over the carving on the walnut crib. “So pretty.”

  “It’s been so long. I don’t even remember, Josia.”

  We enter the room. He looks around, hands now in his pockets. “Good. It’s small. When I saw the house and how grand it was, I was hoping I wouldn’t be in one of the family bedrooms. Maid’s room?”

  “Yes.” I point to the bathroom door. “Private bath in there, although it isn’t much.”

  He enters. “Nice tile!” he calls. “You mind if I replace the broken ones? Free of charge, of course.”

  “Do whatever you’d like.” I follow him in. “I scrubbed the tub, but I know it doesn’t look like it.”

  He runs a hand over the lip of the clawfoot tub. “I know how this stuff works. You can scrub and scrub and scrub, but sometimes you just have to forget about the stains and cover it up with some fresh porcelain.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Yes. You just have to get off as much of the grime as you can and then go from there. Some stuff is just never coming off, but it’s really okay to seal it in if you’re okay with knowing it’s there.”