Wicked Muse

by Lexi Whitlow

  “I own the god damned building,” he snarls, looking me up and down. “I don’t remember you ever signing up for space or giving me any money. Who the fuck are you and what are you doing here?”

  “Okay…” I say, trying to get my bearings. “I’m friends with Kerry. This is her space. I’m just crashing for a couple days. I was going to come see you about renting…”

  “Oh, fuck that!” he bellows. “Absolutely no squatting. Get your shit together and get the hell out of here. And tell Kerry I said she’s on notice. If I ever see you in here again, I’m calling the cops. You’re trespassing.”

  “But—” I can’t find words.

  “Look sweetheart,” he says, leering. “There’s one way you can make this work. I’ll bend the rules for just a couple of days if you really don’t have anywhere else to go. But you’ll have to return the favor.”

  His expression is dark, threatening, but he’s smiling; his smile is chilling. I feel the hairs on the back of my neck raise up. He takes a step forward.

  This guy isn’t just posturing or being a douche. He means it. He also outweighs me by at least a hundred and fifty pounds. He’s standing between me and the door, between me and my clothes, between me and my bag, between me and my phone.

  I take a deep breath, trying hard to clear my head.

  “I’m leaving,” I hear myself say calmly. “Be a gentleman and give me a few minutes to get dressed and I’ll go. I’m sorry that I didn’t know the rules.”

  He cocks his head to the side, still leering.

  “Your call,” he says shrugging. “You ain’t really my type anyway. Five minutes. Be gone.”

  Miraculously, he leaves and as I hear his footsteps receding on the concrete floor beyond, I grab my phone, kill my alarm, and text Paul.

  SOS! If I don’t text you back in ten minutes, call 911 - to 320 Hull Street Manchester. ASAP.

  Then I scramble, shoving my sleeping bag into a paper sack, pulling on my jeans, grabbing what of my groceries will fit in my backpack, leaving the rest because I just can’t carry it all.

  I drop my key on Kerry’s desk, bolting, hitting the street at the fastest clip I can manage with all this stuff hanging off me. I keep going for a couple blocks, eventually finding a little tree-shaded area on a main thoroughfare where I can rest. I dial for a Lyft, then text Paul that I’m okay. Paul’s not awake yet. I’m certain of that. No one would have come to save me if that guy had decided to do something.

  No one at all.

  It’s seven thirty in the morning. I’m still half-asleep, I need coffee and I need to brush my teeth.

  Shit. I left my toothbrush on the sink in Kerry’s studio.

  When my Lyft driver arrives, he’s not amused. He’s driving a tiny little Smart Car. My stuff fills every inch of space inside, and then some. He doesn’t bother to make casual chit chat on the way to campus. Instead he rolls down his window and leans away from me, as if I smell.

  I might. I’m going on three days without a shower and after my shift at the bar last night, I probably smell like a gone-off guacamole with sour milk on the side.

  The driver turns onto West Franklin and stops in front of the Art History building, a block away from where I need to be.

  “I don’t have permit stickers to go into the campus lots. This is as far as I go.”

  Why bother to argue? This day started off bad and I know it’s going to stay bad. I just need to accept it and roll with whatever comes my way.

  He dumps my stuff on the sidewalk. Without a word he drives off, leaving me with a sleeping bag spilling out of a split paper sack, and two heavy bags to manage by myself. I have class in two hours, and I can expect Scott to call by three to see what I’ve accomplished.

  I know if I tell Scott what happened, he’ll be on the next flight from New York. That’s just who he is; he’s as good as his word. I hate the idea of it. I don’t want him and Danny to have to bail me out of this mess.

  I sit down on the grass in front of my random stuff piled on the sidewalk and I try to think. My head is about to explode. I’m at my wits end, feeling wretchedly sorry for myself.

  In true form, I decide to do the one thing guaranteed to make me feel even worse. Sitting there in the grass, contemplating my truly fucked-up situation, I rationalize that with the two grand Danny and Scott are sending, with another thousand I can put down a deposit and pay a month’s rent on a decent place, get some roommates, and make a go of it before the next month’s rent is due. It’s a long shot, but it’s not entirely out of the question.

  In the ultimate Hail Mary move, I dial my mother.

  As the phone rings, it occurs to me that it’s just after eight in the morning and the odds of finding her conscious are slim to none. When she finally picks up, it surprises me.

  “What?” she growls, her voice groggy, edged with a cranky vibe.

  “Hey, Tess. It’s Chloe. You got a minute?

  A long pause while things rattle in the background.

  “Good lord, it’s so early. I need coffee, Chloe. Can this wait?”

  “It really can’t. Talk to me while you make coffee.”

  “What is it?”

  Her tone is impatient, racked with fatigue. I can tell by the thick curl in her diction that she’s hungover.

  “I need a thousand dollars to put down a deposit and rent something,” I say. “It’s not much, and it’ll keep me from wandering around with a sleeping bag.”

  “A thousand dollars?” she repeats. “That’s a shitload of money.”

  “It’s not that much, Tess. You’ve got access to a lot more than that. It should be in my college fund.”

  “Your college fund was bullshit, Chloe. That shit evaporated. And his estate isn’t all liquid assets like you think. He tied that shit up so you could never get at it. It’s just there for lawyers to suck at the tit of. He was a control freak in life and now he’s the same from the grave. I don’t have a thousand dollars to give you, Chloe. Maybe Mark can think of something. He said he needed you to sign some papers. I’ll call him once I wake up.”

  “Please don’t call Mark,” I ask her.

  Mark is her boyfriend, as well as the attorney who orchestrated this whole criminal conspiracy to rob me of my future and destroy Guy Harvey’s legacy. The very first thing he did after my father died was fly to New York and clean out his apartment, selling or auctioning off every single stick of furniture and personal possession in the house, including his art work and library, which was supposed to be mine according to the will.

  After that he reclaimed all my father’s work from the gallery in Chelsea that had represented him for twenty-five years. He organized an auction and began strategically selling off my father’s prints and originals in batches. That’s a work in progress, still going on. Every six months or so I hear of a new auction featuring my father’s precious work. Of course, the work is bringing far more at auction now that he’s dead than it ever would have in the gallery, all proceeds going to the Estate.

  Which Mark controls.

  “You hate Mark and that’s fine,” my mother’s roughened voice drones. “But he’s taking care of things for you. And he’s taking care of me.”

  Yeah. Sure he is.

  “And like I said, he’s got some papers for you to look at. He can get the trust fixed so you don’t have to wait. All you need to do is sign the papers and he say’s you’ll get a ton of money. You’re such a bitch about him, but he can put money in your hands today if you just cooperate for once in your life and do what you’re told. Mark is a very bright lawyer. He knows what he’s doing better than you do. You’re just a silly kid calling for money. Do you think money grows on trees? Falls out of the sky? No. You have to earn it.”

  God, she must be high, or drunk, or both. She and Mark are getting their money the old-fashioned way, they’re stealing it!

  “I’m not signing anything, Tess.”

  “God, you’re such an ungrateful little bitch.”

&nb
sp; I feel tears welling behind my eyes. My throat tightens. Daddy didn’t want it to be like this.

  I end the call without saying good-bye. I won’t give her the satisfaction of hearing me fall apart. She revels in that shit and she has since I was five years old. She enjoys making me feel smaller than she feels. She likes seeing me broken. She’s been trying to break me since I was born. She’s almost succeeded a few times.

  I put my head down on my knees and I let the tears flow. Long pent-up sobs build and roll out.

  There’s no one here to see me. No one to care. No one to stop me. I just need to let it go and feel the angst pass through me. When it’s done, I know I’ll find some thread to cling on to, some way to pull myself back together. But for now, I just need to fall to pieces, sitting in the grass in the morning dew, by myself.

  Always by myself.

  I cry longer than is entirely sensible. I haven’t cried like this since Daddy died. That was just over years ago, near the end of my senior year in high school.

  I miss him so much.

  “Hey.”

  I snap. Someone. Who? Can’t see me crying. Pull your shit together. Clean your face. Wipe your eyes. I scramble.

  “What are you doing here?” he asks.

  Hayes. His voice behind me.

  I don’t turn around. I gather myself, pulling my knees up close to my chest.

  “Just hanging out,” I say. “Beautiful morning. Watching traffic go by.”

  He settles beside me, cross-legged in the grass, leaning forward, trying to get a look at me.

  “Right,” he says.

  He surveys the pile of stuff tumbling on the sidewalk, but instead of saying anything, he holds his peace.

  We sit together for what seems too long, the silence growing, making me itch.

  “You must have a class or a meeting to get to,” I say. “You’ll be late.”

  He shrugs. “Faculty meeting. I can blow it off. There’ll be another one just like it tomorrow, and next week. My first class isn’t until ten thirty. I have time. It is a beautiful morning.”

  Jesus.

  He nods in the direction of my sleeping bag, laying sprawled across the cement.

  “That’s nice. Made for arctic temps. I bet it gets a little hot in this southern climate.”

  He’s not wrong. But in the wintertime, it’s the only way to survive a long cold night in an apartment that the winter wind quite literally cuts through like a sharp knife.

  “It’s okay.”

  “Yeah. But seeing it here on the sidewalk, it does beg the question, where did you sleep last night? And, more to the point, how about tonight?”

  I shrug. “Last night was a mistake, and tonight’s a mystery.”

  He almost laughs, shaking his head, watching the traffic as it passes us by. “You’re one impossibly stubborn girl, Chloe Harvey.”

  He draws his knees up, wrapping strong arms around them. He begins speaking in measured phrases.

  “I have a studio apartment over what my colleagues and neighbors inform me is not a garage, but instead, a carriage house. It’s got a full kitchen, newly redone, a nice, somewhat small bathroom with stone tile shower. It’s kind of furnished with a couch, a couple of chairs, and a queen-sized bed. There’s a television, with cable and Wi-Fi, no extra charge.

  “I’m asking four hundred a month, with the solid understanding that the renter handles mowing the lawn. There’s a mower in the garage, but I don’t know what the hell to do with that thing. I don’t even know how to start it. And—when I travel—I need someone to keep an eye on things.”

  I swallow hard. This would solve a lot of problems quickly.

  “Come see the apartment after Type class today. We both have a break between noon and two. I’ll drive you over and drive you back.”

  “Okay,” I hear myself saying without really meaning to. “Your mower probably just needs fresh plugs and a fuel line flush.”

  Hayes rolls his eyes. “Whatever.”

  He nods again to my stuff piled on the sidewalk. “Let’s load all this in my car, and we’ll take it to your place after class.”

  Your place. Like it’s done.

  It is done unless I want Scott Brandt and Danny Usher showing up, waving Amex cards around, planting me in some soulless student housing situation on Broad Street, along with the rest of the rabble.

  This is better. It’s problematic, but still better.

  Hayes collects my sleeping bag and backpack, tossing them into the boot of his Audi.

  “I’m going to cook you dinner tonight, too,” he states. “You look like you could use a real meal. I’m not a bad cook.”

  Hayes opens the passenger door for me, holding it while I process what’s happening. He’s patient, and polite, unaccountably kind, yet high-handed in his interventions. All that, and his car is sex on wheels.

  I climb in, sinking into the leather wrapped bucket seats which snug my body like a well fitted glove. I’ve never been in a car this nice. Hayes drops into the driver’s seat, his long legs stretched out, his knee brushing mine in the tight quarters of the sports car cockpit.

  “Nice car,” I say, lacking anything else to fill the mildly charged air between us.

  “Thanks.” He turns the key. “Put your seat belt on. I didn’t learn to drive until just a couple years ago. Even odds I’ll launch us into a tree before making it to the faculty parking lot.”

  I can’t help but laugh as I reach for the harness, snapping it in place.

  What kind of guy admits such a thing? He’s a puzzle. A puzzle who smells of lightly scented aftershave, who’s sitting so close I can feel the warmth of his shoulder near mine. A puzzle who makes me nervous.

  “I talked to Scott Brandt,” Hayes says. “He and Dan were disappointed you didn’t reach out to them.”

  “You shouldn’t have called them. My problems aren’t their problems. They have plenty problems of their own.”

  Hayes draws in a deep sigh, slowly letting it out. “You know, Chloe. I think you underestimate yourself. You’re not a problem to Dan and Scott. You’re a friend. That’s a completely different thing.”

  He edges the Audi into the faculty lot, pulling into a space, killing the engine.

  “I envy you,” he states, astonishing me.

  Why would he envy me? He has everything, and I’ve got nothing at all.

  “I’ve never had many friends. Your dad—he was probably the first and best one I ever had. You were a friend for a while, until our paths went separate ways. Since then, not too many opportunities to make real friendships.”

  His confession confounds me.

  “Anyway,” he says, “you should let your friends help you. Your father helped me immensely with no other reason except he and my mother were close and she asked. That’s what people do. That’s how it works. People think I’m some kind of savant. I’m not. I was just fortunate to grow up surrounded by talented people who wanted to see me do well, and who helped me any way they could. No one gets there all by themselves. Not even you.”

  Okay.

  “Now, you’ve got an hour to get ready for Type class. Make use of it. I’ll meet you back here at noon.”

  I nod. I don’t know what to say to him. He’s probably right about almost all of this, but asking for help—accepting help—it’s incredibly hard for me to do. I’m terrified that assistance comes with strings attached; like my mother’s boyfriend offering me money in exchange for a signature on legal documents I can’t understand.

  I know Danny and Scott aren’t like Mark or my mother, but I’m hard-wired to distrust everyone, mostly myself.

  Shrugging my laptop bag over my shoulder, I watch Hayes walk across the lot toward the building. He seems decent enough and genuine—or at least now, in spite of how our first meeting went. I know my father thought the world of him. But it’s hard to trust, and I honestly don’t know how he’ll measure up.

  He’s a puzzle I haven’t put together yet.

  Cha
pter 6

  Hayes

  Before I can get fifteen feet inside the front door, I hear a familiar voice calling my name from down the hallway. Liza. I’ve managed to dodge her since we had breakfast at the faculty club, but it hasn’t been easy. She’s persistent. She texts me daily with chit-chatty nonsense more appropriate to a teenager than a tenured professor and chair of the department. I hoped she would take the hint, but she’s not a quick study.

  “Where were you this morning?” she chirps, stepping in line beside me while I keep moving toward my office. “You missed you at the faculty briefing.”

  “Student in crisis,” I reply. “Took a little extra time, hand-holding.”

  I see her face tighten. She disapproves. “Don’t let them manipulate you,” she says. “These kids, they’ll play you like a fiddle if you give them half a chance. I’ve heard every sob story in the book. It’s a bottomless pit. They’ll suck you into it.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure.” Her burned-out callousness is its own sort of bottomless pit.

  “Anyway,” she continues, “I took your raincheck for lunch last week, but I’m calling it in today. I want to hear how things are going and run over some ideas I’ve had for next year’s batch of incoming sophomores.”

  “Liza, I can’t today. I have an appointment I can’t break or reschedule. I’m sorry, but it’s just been a really busy week.”

  She stops walking, halting in the middle of the corridor half way between the junior studios and my office. Out of courtesy I halt too, turning in time to see her cross her arms over her chest impatiently, an annoyed frown scarring her over-made face.

  She’s one protruding lip away from a full-bore pout.

  “I’m sorry,” I repeat. I take a step toward her, trying to ease her off her high horse. “Look, I’m renting out the carriage house apartment behind my place. I scheduled to show the prospective tenant the apartment today during my break. It’s a big deal. I need to get the right person in there, and this one looks like a good fit.”

  She considers digging in, then she relaxes. “Alright,” she sighs, ticking her head to the side. “I guess I understand. New job. New town. New house. You’ve got a lot of acclimating to do and a lot going on.” She steps up to me, closer than is altogether appropriate. “How about when your schedule eases up a bit, you ask me to lunch.” She smiles coolly. “Don’t make me wait too long.”