Keeper of the Keys

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  “He mentioned he wasn’t happy. I told him to talk to you again. That you were quite reasonable. I know you’ve been doing some sketching this morning. I’d like to see what you’re coming up with while we’re sitting on the hill. Helps me visualize and wax poetic for the client.”

  “Okay. Two o’clock? I’ll meet you there. I have a few things to do before then.”

  After lunch, late for reaching Laguna Beach in good time, Ray hit gridlock and frustration. Still, in his car alone he could listen to music, zone out, stay calm. Sitting next to Martin for the nearly two-hour drive would have driven him nuts.

  He had been there before so had no trouble finding the site, a steep, forbidding-looking scrub-covered hillside with an earthshaking view of the ocean on Sleepy Hollow Lane, a half-mile up the hill from the beach. He parked on the street, then hiked down, avoiding the ubiquitous poison oak.

  Martin sat in the shade of a eucalyptus tree, legs propped on a granite boulder, putting his feet between himself and Ray.

  Ray clambered down the dusty hill, then sat on a small rock opposite, not saying a word. He did not want to give his partner easy satisfaction.

  “You hate that I’m Antoniou’s man,” Martin said.

  Ray shook his head. “You’re personally invested in this project. It’s natural. You’re his buddy. Hope he doesn’t know how little weight you give that word.”

  “You want to know more about me and Leigh? Because I have the urge to tell you a few things.”

  “Let’s not get distracted.” Ray swept sweat from his forehead with his hand, eyes roaming over the vista, the huge, churning ocean below, the unstable land beneath both of them.

  Martin took a deep breath. “You know, I used to admire your relationship. You seemed perfect together.”

  “Oh?” Well, what else could he say, with this womanizing jackass asserting such an intensely personal connection. Ray loved Leigh, whatever she had done, and he now loathed his former friend Martin down to dust, down to their most insignificant moments eating suspiciously brown cold-cut sandwiches from crummy neighborhood grocery stores together. They used to confide in each other, he remembered, and the thought made his skin hot, like a bad sunburn.

  “You’ve changed a lot,” Martin said.

  Ray adjusted himself, moving one leg over the other, pulling his sunglasses over his eyes. In the afternoon, the breeze off the ocean could be redefined as wind. No need to shiver. This wind blew hot, like the deadly Santa Anas that had wiped out much of this town in 1993.

  “I’m not saying she didn’t love you,” Martin continued. “But your detachment made her vulnerable, buddy.”

  “Shut up, Martin, or I’ll have to kill you.”

  “We’ve been friends for a long time.”

  “Martin, working with you at all right now is a strain. Now let’s get down to the issues about this project and leave Leigh out of it.”

  “I was interviewed by a police detective yesterday. I didn’t say anything that would hurt you. I mean, I don’t know anything about Leigh, really, or your personal affairs. Actually, he was looking at me and asking me questions that I didn’t like at all. As if I might somehow be responsible for Leigh’s disappearance, because we-you know, broke up.”

  The words hung heavily in the air, while Ray thought to himself, It can’t be. He examined his partner, sitting in the pressed tan slacks that his wife picked up from the cleaners for him, the three-hundred-dollar sunglasses that Martin insisted were the cheapest way to look like a mover for the clients, by concealing his eyes.

  “Maybe they know something I ought to know,” Ray said to Martin.

  Who spread his hands and said shakily, “I swear to you, I have not seen her since last Wednesday.”

  “You could swear from now until the end of the world and nobody would believe you at this point, Martin.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re the one who did it, if anyone did anything.”

  “Maybe it was your wife.”

  “My wife?”

  “I heard,” he lied meanly, “somebody called her about Suzanne. Maybe someone called her about Leigh.”

  Martin looked stricken. “No. They wouldn’t dare.”

  “But as you say,” Ray said, “we have a home to design. Shall we get back on topic?”

  Martin’s face blackened. He walked out to the bluff and his pants whipped in the wind as he took out a cigar and tried to light it. Ray followed him with the plans and set them on a flat rock with a stone to keep them down. “I need to get back,” he said. “Say what you want to say.”

  “Have you talked to Antoniou about these ideas you sketched out and threw at me this morning?”

  “No.”

  “Did you even consider what he wanted before you spent hours spinning these webs?”

  “I heard what you both had to say about what he wants. Denise and I came up with these preliminary ideas. About what he needs.”

  “There isn’t a fucking white column in sight on those sketches,” Martin said. “I would describe this, Ray, as Tokyo postindustrial crossed with Italian Futuristic. What makes you dream, or suspect, or imagine in your most outrageous fantasy, you might convince this client to build this crazy shit? Because, Ray, he’s an old, conservative Greek dude with strong opinions.”

  “He signed. He paid. He’ll love it. I’m the architect.”

  Martin’s fingers drummed the rock that held Ray’s plans. A breeze picked them up. His hand came down to hold them in place momentarily, then released them to the wind. They blew away, toward the edge. Ray went after them.

  “He signed because I talked him into it, Ray, and we’re giving the man what he wants. Might as well toss that dreamy crap you’ve drawn here because these look to me like plans for someone else’s dream house. Oh, it’ll make a lovely spread in some magazine. I know that means something to you. Unfortunately, your design bears no resemblance whatsoever to a home for a family.”

  Ray plunked down a few rocks to weight his plans down, then peered at them, putting his hands in his pockets. The new sketches were changed very little from the old sketches. In his mind, fully realized, sat a fabulous, innovative three-story building that traveled beyond Herzog & de Meuron and Fong & Chan. Featuring a tower encased in steel mesh, it made boxiness sexy, and was a unique home ideally suited to this client and his family. “I wouldn’t expect you to recognize-”

  “What? Your genius?” Martin laughed, then shook his head. “We meet, we discuss, then you go do whatever the hell you want.” He pulled out a folder full of cuttings from architectural and travel magazines from a briefcase he had propped behind him. “Antoniou specifically mentioned Santorini, correct? Where his parents had a villa. Where he grew up.”

  “You of all people know clients have ideas that are fetal, unformed. They ask for columns. They request turrets. They despise the modern. They rail against all kinds of things in advance, but your job is to believe in your vision for their very special, unusual, inimitable home, so you must convince them to let you build. Then they comprehend your design and love what you’ve done.”

  “We’re not talking about stucco walls versus sheetrock or walnut paneling.” Martin pointed at one plan. “We’re talking radical contemporary architecture that someone has to live with for many, many years. Immutable, unless you’ve got millions more to burn through in renovations.”

  Ray tried not to show his impatience. “He’s a wealthy man, and not stupid. I promise you, he’ll see the virtue in this design ultimately.” He held up a hand. “Wait. Let’s calm down. Martin, here’s why I agreed to meet you here today. I’m asking you a favor. This is a last-ditch effort on my part to salvage our professional relationship, okay?”

  “What favor?”

  “I want you to put aside your”-he longed to say cowardice but didn’t want to alienate him further-“doubts about my ability. I want you to be a real partner in every sense of the word and back me up on this project. We can do something great here, or we can
give him what he thinks he wants and settle for mediocre.”

  “I took one look at that first set, ‘A.’ You call for a ‘Flying Carpet’ roof.”

  “It’s a proven design. This one would suggest the one at Lo Scrigno. It softens the-”

  “Yeah, I bet that’s a huge hit in Italy, but first of all that’s an art gallery, not someone’s home.”

  “Private. Family owned.”

  “Nobody lives there. Secondly, it’s the opposite of a simple white structure overlooking the sea. It’s an expensive indulgence.”

  “You know what I hate?” Ray said. “I hate artists who analyze their own work. I hate writers who explicate their own poems. I loathe musicians who attempt to describe their music. Martin, listen. Put our differences aside for one second and understand that there’s an ineffable quality to design, and that’s what makes it rise above what’s out there doing the basic job. And you like what I do. We’ve done some good things in the past.”

  Martin stared at him as if observing a meteor landing in a field. “When we started out, we were such good friends. I wanted you to be brilliant. I supported your brilliance.”

  “We’re still in business,” Ray pointed out. “We’ve had good press.”

  “This man’s my friend, too. I want him happy.”

  “He will be happy. He’ll adjust. Give him time. Give him the opportunity to look at these designs, and put your own heart behind them.”

  “You mean, let him pour another million bucks into a design he hates?”

  “Talk him into it, Martin, like you’ve talked people into things they didn’t want to do your whole life!”

  “I see now why Leigh ran, if that’s what she did,” Martin said. “Talking to you is like talking to a rock.”

  “Damn you, Martin.”

  Martin sighed and took one more flip through the plans. “Antoniou wants a family gathering space, curving, welcoming spaces. Light in spirit, but warm and friendly. Rooms to remind him of his past, of a white house hanging over the Mediterranean Sea, with soft seating where his immense family can drink retsina and recall warmer days.”

  Ray pointed at the ocean. A wave, suitably dramatic, rushed up the shoreline and flew through the rock-sculpted air. They both watched and listened, waiting for it to quiet. “What about the plush sofas, wall-hangings, curving half-walls? Are you looking at the whole thing? And please. This isn’t the Mediterranean. We’re talking the Pacific Ocean at Laguna,” Ray said. “What’s grand in architecture is how an old story gets told a new way, in a new language. I can promise him a warm home, a showplace, a gathering place for his family.”

  “You loved Kahn for a while, Wright, then I. M. Pei. That house in Agoura? You channeled Neutra, building all in glass. Those people ended up having to put mini blinds on all the windows. I mean, come on. They had neighbors twenty feet away on each side.”

  “Martin, my ideas have changed over time. I was a young kid, and overstepped sometimes. I finally know what I’m doing. Why can’t you trust me?”

  “Why can’t we give Antoniou what he wants? A California dream? A home for his family that recalls his roots?”

  Ray thought about that. “ Los Angeles has a shallow past. Most of the people living here, and that includes Achilles Antoniou, have no ownership over the land, the climate, nothing. They don’t know what fits their new neighborhood because there is no neighborhood. Everyone around here arrived five minutes ago. Our job is to give the client a home that’s right for this setting. Something with roots they can’t possibly feel, a place that goes beyond their dead past.”

  “Minimalism with fresh horseshit scattered around to gussy it up,” Martin said. He grabbed the plans, rolled them up, and stuck a thick rubber band around them. “Don’t show these to Antoniou.”

  “I guess that means you won’t be watching my back, Martin.”

  “Get us plans that meet our client’s requirements. And oh, when that happens, run them by me.”

  Ray thought, he’s sitting on such unstable ground there, on that rock that shifts when he moves suddenly. He could easily go over the edge, die, topple over in a tragic accident.

  He experienced the event in his mind. Martin, beaky nose buried in the plans, hand reaching toward his briefcase, unnerved by something Ray had said or done, rising, stumbling, tumbling.

  He imagined Martin falling way the hell down, dashing his head against the boulders in the ocean cove below.

  Ray, shocked, would stand, then run for his car up above where he had left his mobile phone.

  Well, okay, he had his mobile phone in his pocket, but nobody else knew that. He would climb up the hill, maybe even intentionally step into the poison oak he knew well to avoid. Distraught, he would say after, explaining the inflamed rash on his legs and arms. Too distraught to worry about such an unimportant outcome. Then he had trouble finding his keys. Who wouldn’t under the circumstances, his oldest friend lying still, bloodied, upon the rocks so far below?

  Martin spoke, interrupting Ray’s latest homicidal fantasy. “In fact,” Martin said slowly, “given that Antoniou was my client to start with, and I brought him to you, I insist that I see another set of plans based on our discussion today before either one of us speaks to our client again.”

  “I always appreciate your input, Martin, you jackass.” Ray stood up and dusted off his pants.

  Martin snorted. “Sure. Just so we’re clear that what I say goes.” He stuffed Ray’s plans into his briefcase in a last-ditch effort to show who was in charge and started up the hill.

  Ray followed. Martin seemed to know the best route, where the sand didn’t shift too much, and the rocks stayed lodged in the hillside. He kept looking behind him as if he could read Ray’s mind.

  16

  B ack in his office, Ray worked on sketches he had made of Achilles Antoniou’s secret playroom. Go medieval in that basement. Underground, seen by a select few, the big, exotic room would not affect the exterior or core design at all, so Ray didn’t feel any kind of call for a design aesthetic. The fruit cellar on Bright Street flashed through his mind, the single bulb that dangled in its center. He pondered lighting-spooky uplights?

  Bare bulbs, like Picasso’s Guernica . What was Antoniou going to do down there, put in a purple bed or a rack?

  Denise came into Ray’s office, youthfully enthusiastic, wanting to talk color and furniture. She had tortured her short hair with rubber bands and she wore a leather vest; in the cold office, she could. She looked out the glass walls toward the reception area. “One thing. I’ve been thinking. You need a backup plan.”

  “Too late for that. I’m committed.”

  “It would be no trouble to quickie-revise some existing drawings that would satisfy him for the moment. Let things calm down between you and Martin.”

  She let that notion twist for a moment, then said, “Pretend to go along, then whittle away at Martin and Mr. Antoniou.”

  “Finally, a tempting suggestion.” He opened and closed a few drawers. “Now where do I keep that big sharp Exacto of mine? Good for whittling when all else fails.”

  “Ha, ha,” she said. “You work them, together and separately, until the client’s ready to take that extra step forward. You’ve done it before.”

  He sighed.

  “Nowhere is it written that good architects must be uncompromising.”

  “Et tu, Denise?”

  “I’m on your side, Ray.” She gave him a half smile, then frowned, gazing beyond him out into the hall. “Uh-oh.”

  “What is it?”

  “He’s here.”

  In the conference room, the streaked rosewood surface of the table cold to the touch, Ray sat, plans spread out in front of him. At the head of the long table, Antoniou reposed, no other word for it. His big eyelids had sunk over his brown eyes, like windows with shady awnings pulled down over the bright parts. Martin sat directly across from Ray.

  “We’ve been talking these last few minutes,” Martin said, with
out preamble.

  Ray nodded, looking toward Antoniou, whose sunken head sunk lower.

  Not a good sign.

  “Achilles has already told you that your basic design, while no doubt brilliant, is not really what he has in mind.”

  Ray wondered about the basement, but another peek at Antoniou told him the truth. The client’s hooded eyes rose to meet his momentarily, blazing. He was reminding Ray to protect his secrets.

  Did that mean he might still go with Ray’s ideas? Was there wiggle room? Or had Martin bent his ear?

  Martin pulled out a sheaf of photographs of the inspirational Greek island. “As per our earlier conversation,” and he went on for quite a while, the gist of the lecture being: here’s Santorini; ain’t it beautiful, and this is what Antoniou insists upon.

  “Simple blocks, stacked. Curved, plastered. Bright white.”

  Ray felt his pulse beating in his neck. He wondered if they could see it. He struggled to control an impulse to leap up, grab Martin by his neck, and strangle him until his pasty face turned black.

  Antoniou, looking at Martin, nodded. Anyone this guy hired could come up with an adequate basement for Antoniou’s purposes. Antoniou didn’t need Ray. He didn’t need this firm. He had the money.

  But Ray could let it be known. Around town. Dungeons and Dragons at the Antoniou palace.

  He pressed his mechanical pencil against a blank page in front of him. The tip broke off. He realized he had been clicking it while Martin spoke. It lay in a gray line, like a fallen cigarette ash.

  This beautiful design was the one good thing he had going in his life now. Without Leigh. Without the belief in himself as a good man.

  Going, going-

  To gain time, Ray repeated, “Santorini.” Should he reproduce another ancient place with soul in a new place where it wouldn’t belong, where it would look like a hangnail on a beautiful hillside, swollen, burning white, ugly, obtrusive?

  “We need a new set of plans, Ray, ones that reflect Antoniou’s original concept. And we need them soon. Joey Zaremski promises he can help.”