Collision Course

by C. P. Rowlands

  “No,” George said as he popped the cap on a bottle of beer and handed it to her. “Would you like a glass?” She shook her head and took the beer as they sat across from her.

  George looked at Patrick. “Damn, it isn’t our place to talk about this.”

  Jordan grinned at them. “I’m thirty-six, almost thirty-seven. What could you tell me that I haven’t heard, seen, or even done? And, Patrick, you know about Pete. What I did after he died.”

  “It was Niki that cooked,” Patrick said. “They owned this house and lived together for thirteen years.” He continued, explaining the relationship, and then, the shooting. “Brie has lived here alone for a little over two years.”

  So many things were swirling through Jordan’s mind that all she could say was simply, “That’s a shame.”

  Patrick looked at his watch. “We have to go,” he said. “Is there anything you need? George, look what we did, and now we’re leaving her.” They stood, both of them unsmiling, looking at Brie.

  Jordan gave them a look. Men! “My children are with my mother, so I’m good to go here. Brie’s fine with me. I’ll stay until she’s awake. She’ll be okay. What’s wrong with the refrigerator?”

  “We teased Niki about that refrigerator because she always had it crammed with food. Now it’s almost empty.”

  “Niki cooked with me, part time, when I owned the catering business,” George added.

  “Go on, you two. I’ll be fine.”

  The minute they left, she went to the refrigerator. “Good Lord, almost bare.” The fridge held only beer, juice, bread, and cold cuts. There were cheese and apples in the crisper. And skim milk. Skim milk? She pondered that, thinking of how slender Brie was. Shaking her head, she shut the door and looked around the kitchen again, letting her fingers run down the cupboards. Lovingly made, each of them. Not a crack or an open corner in the group, and the wood was solid. There was no veneer in this kitchen. Whoever had done this work was very good. She wondered if the rest of the house was this interesting. She moved down the hallway, turning on the lights. The first room was an office and she flipped the switch, starting to move inside, but then stopped. This wasn’t her house. Still, she’d wanted to see it for years, and it was Brie’s house. She’d just take a quick look.

  First, she saw books and a beautiful desk. The desk looked like real wood. Walnut? She touched it but it felt funny and she looked at her fingers. They were covered with dust. A drawing board with a triangle hanging on the side stood in the corner. All those books, she thought. This must be Brie’s office, but the dust? She took two more steps for a better look at the photo on the desk. It was a younger Brie, wearing a swimsuit, and her hair was longer. Jordan looked at the luscious figure. This was the lover’s office. Niki?

  The wall directly in front of her had four framed professional photos, all of Brie. She seemed to be modeling clothing. They definitely were posed shots. Jordan frowned. Brie was a model? She had said she was a professor.

  She flipped the light off and went on down the hallway. There was a bedroom off to the left and a huge bathroom to the right, complete with spa tub and separate shower with room for two. A double sink took up an entire wall, but only one side of the sink and counter was in use. The delicate light peach color and beige tile with small characters glistened and she looked closer at the tile. Tiny faeries danced over each square, and they looked hand painted. Moving nearer, she discovered that each tiny figure was indeed hand painted and beautifully done.

  She thought she heard a noise in the living room and went back down the hallway, but Brie was still sleeping peacefully. Jordan leaned over the couch, absently running her fingers through the thick blond hair, pushing it off Brie’s face. It never would have occurred to her that Brie was a lesbian, nor did she care. The murdered lover was the information that had jolted her. No wonder Brie was thin. She should have recognized the expression in the eyes. She’d seen it in her own mirror enough after Pete was killed.

  “Dummy,” she said, thinking of their conversation. Most of her softball team was gay, and she’d been in their bars with them without thinking twice about it.

  Brie moved restlessly. Jordan leaned over again, looking at her face, wondering how old she was. She had laugh lines around her eyes, something Jordan always liked, and long, dark lashes. They were probably around the same age, she decided as she straightened. One thing was certain. Brie was one of the most genuinely beautiful women she’d ever seen. She’d been right about one thing. Men probably did fall over looking at her. And drool. And reach. She smiled. “Sorry, boys, this one’s not available.”

  There were photographs on the mantel and she wandered toward them, looking at the people. The first obviously was Brie’s family, three little blond girls with a tall man and woman standing behind them. Probably Mom and Dad with kids, she thought, looking for Brie as a child. She spotted the wide quirky grin with dimples on the tallest child. Brie looked like the woman standing behind her. The next was of another family. A dark-haired man stood behind a slender woman with dark curly hair. A young boy and a little girl with the woman’s curly hair stood in front of them. The people got older in each picture and, finally, there was a photo of a younger Brie and a cute woman with curly black hair, sitting at a table beside some sort of water with sailboats in the background.

  “We were in Italy,” a sleepy voice said behind her. A very rumpled Brie sat up on the couch wrapped in the soft blue blanket. Her hair stood straight up and she looked impossibly young.

  “Your hair.” Jordan broke into laughter.

  “Shut up.” Brie smiled sweetly. “I’m starving. Did I dream it or were you talking about pizza? The pizza menu is beside the phone on the kitchen counter.”

  Jordan got the menu and ordered pizza, but Brie was gone when she came back. Finally she reappeared, barefoot, in faded sweats and a short top. She flopped down on the chair next to Jordan. Her cropped T-shirt revealed an interesting tattoo around her navel and Jordan squinted hard to see it better. Was that a naked lady?

  Brie pushed the hair out of her eyes. “I’m sorry, Jordan.”

  “For what?”

  “Didn’t you say something about your kids when we came home?”

  “The kids are taken care of and pizza should be here in about ten minutes,” Jordan said. “How do you feel?”

  “Still buzzed. Christ, what the hell did I do?”

  “Patrick and George—” Jordan began but Brie held up her hand.

  “Classes begin next week and I was finishing grad interviews. They brought wine and talked about…” She trailed off, looking at Jordan.

  “Niki,” Jordan finished for her, looking into the tired eyes that momentarily flashed with misery.

  “They told you?”

  Jordan nodded with a little shrug.

  “I should have told you at the restaurant.”

  “It doesn’t make any difference, but I’m sorry about Niki.”

  “I didn’t tell you because I forgot. For the first time in over two years, I forgot.”

  “You forgot?”

  “I forgot Niki.”

  The doorbell rang as the pizza arrived. Brie got up fast, too fast, steadying herself on Jordan’s shoulder. “The least I can do is pay,” she said, starting toward the door and then looked around. “Where the hell are my things?”

  Jordan pointed at an end table in the living room. As Brie turned, Jordan saw the big bruise on her side and her heart skipped. I did that, she thought.

  “Want another beer?” Brie asked after she brought in the pizza.

  “No, I’m good,” Jordan said. Brie set a cloth napkin in front of Jordan and a gallon of milk with a big glass in front of herself. Both silent, they dug into the pizza hungrily.

  Finally Jordan said, “Milk? And pizza?”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Just strange,” Jordan deadpanned, trying to make Brie smile. “Maybe it’s a lesbian thing?”

  “Shit,” Brie
said. “You’re going to make my life miserable over this, aren’t you?”

  “Wouldn’t you? Beautiful woman lures unsuspecting straight woman into her home…”

  “Stop it.” Brie narrowed her eyes at her.

  “I’m going to blackmail you. I’ll put up flyers around campus advertising a certain professor’s tattoo. Maybe we could do a contest, the best naked lady tattoo.” She pointed at Brie’s stomach and the woman curled around her navel.

  “That’s enough. Where are George and Patrick?”

  “The restaurant sprung a leak and I said I’d stay.”

  “Dumb shits,” Brie said under her breath.

  “The boys told me that you swear a lot when you drink too much.”

  “The boys…who haven’t even bothered in almost half a year,” Brie said, standing and swaying dangerously. Jordan quickly half stood, righting her and seeing she was far from sober.

  “Did you and Niki find this house together?”

  “Of course,” Brie said, lurching a little. Body tensed, Jordan watched her carefully, afraid Brie was about to fall.

  “I love your house. I’ve looked at it from the outside every time we’ve been to the park.”

  “Thank you.” Brie navigated into her chair, bracing herself on Jordan’s arm. “I forgot where I was going,” she said with a crooked grin. “I need to finish my pizza.”

  Jordan took another slice for herself. “Do you feel okay?”

  “No, I feel drunk and picked on.” Brie finished the last of the pizza and the milk. “We bought this house from Niki’s parents. The kitchen and living room were finished, but we had to do the rest ourselves. C’mon, meanie, I’ll show you the rest.” She grabbed Jordan’s hand. Off balance, she pulled them both hard, knocking her chair over. It felt like slow motion to Jordan as she saw Brie begin to fall. She gave a hard push with her legs, somehow twisting in midair, ending up underneath Brie with a loud thump, knocking the breath out of herself. Brie peered down at her with a confused expression. “We’re always knocking each other over.”

  Jordan struggled for breath and, without thinking, put both hands firmly on Brie’s butt just as a knee settled between her legs. Warm breath mixed with a light pizza scent flooded her face. She looked up into unreadable eyes and felt Brie’s fingers run through her hair, down her cheek.

  “You have beautiful eyes. Did anyone remember to tell you that?” Brie said softly.

  Jordan took a quick breath as the knee pushed harder between her legs and her body began to wake up. Brie was staring at her mouth. Is she going to… Jordan spoke quickly. “Brie, are you okay, the fall…?”

  “I’m okay. I’m always okay,” Brie said and rolled carefully off Jordan and onto her back.

  Jordan scrambled up and righted the chair. She held out a trembling hand, heart racing and body ready. She helped Brie stand and they moved to the dusty office. Jordan confessed she’d looked in there earlier.

  “I don’t have the heart to move anything,” Brie said quietly. “I dusted about six months ago but couldn’t get any further.”

  “Those photos?” Jordan said and pointed at the posed photos she had looked at earlier.

  “I modeled for money, to get through school,” Brie said. “Nothing major, just a catalog house. My mom and dad couldn’t afford all of us in school.” She dismissed it and flipped the lights off. Jordan followed her down the hallway as Brie touched the walls for balance, pointing out where they’d knocked walls out to reconfigure the rooms. Jordan touched the expert workmanship on the door frames and the coving along the floor. “Who did the work, the finishing?” she asked. “This is real plaster, not drywall.”

  “We did, and the real plaster was because Niki wanted to keep as much of the original materials as possible in the house.”

  “Just the two of you?”

  “Yes, just us. Who did you think…?”

  “When we’re on a job, we usually have quite a few people doing work like this.”

  “Oh, I forgot. You’re a carpenter, of course you’d wonder,” Brie said. “Niki’s dad did the walls for us, but all the rest is ours. I’ve got all of it on her computer. She was an artist, among other things, but her dad was Grant Willis. We bought this house from him. It originally belonged to his foundation.”

  “The architect?” Jordan stopped. “No wonder that picture on the mantel is familiar. Good Lord, I’ve been wandering around your house, looking at the craftsmanship. That explains it.” Jordan thought of that morning. The Willis Foundation. “Brie, this is crazy. The house my company is building belongs to Thomas Teller.”

  “You’re kidding. You’re building Thomas’s house?”

  Jordan nodded. “This is a strange coincidence.” She was thinking, trying to remember what her uncle had said about Grant Willis. “Wasn’t that family killed in a plane crash?”

  “Yes. Everyone but Niki died. Here, follow me.”

  They entered Brie’s office and she turned on the desk lamps. “We were in the planning stages of this room when all of that happened. Look at the shape of that wall.” She pointed behind Jordan. The wall was concave, loaded with books and a flat screen TV in the middle. Speakers were scattered through the books. Closets on either side squared the room.

  Jordan turned slowly. Like the kitchen, it was a large room designed for work. The inlaid shelves were beautiful. The desk was enormous. A state-of-the-art computer was to the side with open books and a legal pad. A long table stretched along the back wall with books and papers scattered over it. Brie turned on the track lighting that ran above the table. An office chair was half turned in front of it as if someone had just gotten up.

  Brie stood quietly, gripping the desk. “Niki did this for me. She did so much, left so many things everywhere. She was a small woman, about five foot five, but had more energy than anyone I’ve ever known. It was like living with a high-performance engine. When I’m in here…” Brie went quiet and began to move things on the desk.

  Jordan walked to the big table in the back and looked at the books. They looked like history books, research books. Several legal pads were scattered about. The one in the front had written across it, in bold, black block letters: “It should have been me. Not her.” Jordan froze and read the words again. The paper was almost ripped as if someone had written with a fist. She turned to look at Brie, still gripping the desk and staring at the book to her right.

  “Brie,” Jordan said, talking before she knew what she was going to say, “would you come over and have dinner with us tomorrow evening?”

  Brie turned back to her, smiling. “That would be nice. Thank you.”

  “I never thought. Maybe we shouldn’t go through the house right now.”

  “I live here. Come with me.”

  They went to the master bedroom and Brie showed her the other fireplace with the special tile. “That picture, on the mantel? We were in Italy getting the tile for this and the bathroom.”

  Jordan examined the tile. It was dun colored with large accents of green and blue.

  “The colors in the living room are the colors of water. So is this sand and water?” Jordan said.

  Brie nodded. “You’ll see a lot of that in this house. We both loved water, tried to be close to it whenever possible. That’s exactly what we had in mind in the living room. Here.” She pointed at the blue quilt on her bed. The green and gray threaded through it looked like waves. Her brows wrinkled. “You’re sensitive to colors.”

  “I’m a wood carver,” Jordan said. She didn’t want to talk about her carving right now. Or lack of carving. Or Pete.

  Brie immediately looked interested. “You carve? Can I see your work sometime?”

  “Of course,” Jordan said and turned to look at the rest of the room. One entire wall was a closet and Jordan stared at it for a moment. “This house is a work of art. Honestly, I have to tell you, this will probably be famous someday.”

  “I never think of it that way. I’m so close to it.” Brie liste
d into Jordan’s body, hand around her waist with a bit of a sigh. She pulled Jordan toward the patio doors.

  They stood on the deck, Brie’s arm still around her. Jordan took a breath of the warm September air mixed with a wonderful flowery scent. The lights revealed an enormous backyard, but it was the flower garden that stopped her. “How beautiful,” she said. Moths beat against the large deck lights.

  “They’re weeds, wildflowers. Niki loved to pilfer the woods. She’d sneak out because it’s illegal. Did you know that?”

  Jordan shook her head. She’d never even thought of it. “They’re the same flowers that you have in your house, in the blue glass jars.”

  “We’d be out in the woods in the middle of the night, digging up something. She loved any adventure.” Brie laughed and Jordan turned to her. The laugh was so musical and genuine. “We both loved this time of year, and Niki searched until she found a flower that bloomed only in autumn. She planned it this way but she never got to see the first bloom. You should see this at dusk. The color of the fieldstone they used to build this cottage is odd. It almost melts into the air at dusk. Niki always tried to photograph it but never quite caught it.”

  Jordan heard her talking through tears. Brie cleared her throat and moved away. A slight breeze brushed across them with a hint of apples and dry leaves followed by a thin, plaintive note. Jordan straightened, looking around. “What is that?”

  More mournful cries followed and Brie looked back at the garage. “It’s Charlie,” she said.

  “That’s the saddest sound I’ve ever heard. Who’s Charlie?”

  “Our screech owl that lives in our garage. Niki built him a little place at the top and he’s lived there for quite a while. Did you know they mate for life, and I think he’s had his girl up there for a long time. Charlie was our only pet.”

  Jordan bent, looking past Brie at the garage with a little shiver. The owl’s cry was creepy. “You did say dinner tomorrow night, didn’t you? Are we talking raspberry torte?” Brie smiled mischievously, dimples showing for the first time. “Or TV dinners?”

  “Neither. I’m not a horrible cook, but I’m not Rachael Ray either,” Jordan said, grinning at the tease. “Before I go, could we walk in the yard?” She helped Brie down the steps. They walked slowly across the thick grass and Jordan put a steadying arm around Brie, mindful of the bruise. The moon peeked over the trees and Jordan took a breath of the sweet air.