Brick by Brick

by Maryn Blackburn

  “Still working on it.” Small eyes announced an Asian or perhaps a Native American in the family tree, the fit harmonious. Mentally I retouched, subtracting years, trimming and gelling hair, exchanging the sleek suit for khakis and a button-down shirt.

  No, wrong. More hair, and messy, with worn jeans and a T-shirt, a wider smile, a graceless exuberance.

  I laughed aloud when I got it. “Tommy the Rocket.” At James’s blank look I elaborated. “From Airspace? You saw that.”

  “I did?” He took my champagne again.

  Why didn’t he just get his own? “Try Faking Love and, what’s that lawyer movie? Point of Order.”

  The actor tilted his glass to his lips. Empty. He looked in our direction. I made a too-bad face and smiled. He pouted in return, then grinned.

  James raised the champagne glass in a silent toast. “Poor son of a bitch. Which one was Point of Order?”

  The handsome man licked his lips, then smiled for the camera in somebody’s cell phone. He flinched when another camera’s flash went off too near his face.

  “He gets the child molester off, only once they have a baby he wishes he hadn’t, so when he gets this murder case, he makes the deal that if he gets an acquittal, instead of a fee he—”

  “Hires a hit. What’s his name again?”

  “Um…Gage Strickland. What’s he doing here?” The artistically long hair seemed at odds with the severe European suit, far too sophisticated for Tucson.

  “Maybe he knows Doug and Cynthia from New York.” James paused. “Good-looking guy, even in person.”

  James has always been attuned to the lens. Before we met, he did a little modeling and acting, and befriended the guys behind the camera by asking intelligent questions. Why this angle? Why the light placed there? My Aunt Donna, who brags that she gave up a photography career for love, adores him, since he’s the only person she has to talk to about how studio skills turned an ordinary person attractive or made an attractive one stunning.

  “I remember his picture in the ‘Beautiful People’ issue.” I took my champagne back while there was still any left. “Aunt Donna’d be gushing about his bones.” The angular face with sharp cheekbones tapered to a girlish chin saved by a generous mouth beneath a small straight nose.

  If I weren’t with James, I might join the gaggle just wanting to be near him, to touch the creamy skin of that face, to be touched, even if only by those hooded eyes so dark the pupils disappeared.

  “He deserved it. I can tell you think so too.”

  “Yes, but I already have a good-looking guy, Jamie. Take me home, and I’ll show you how good-looking.”

  He smiled at my use of his “bedroom name.” “I bet he wishes he was an ugly nobody right now. I’m going to rescue the bastard.”

  James moved through the throng, touching shoulders, murmuring in ears, and once kissing a cheek.

  Gage Strickland’s pleasure at James’s arrival was obvious; with a handsome smile he flung an arm across my husband’s shoulders. “I didn’t know you’d be here,” the actor said. The group made disappointed sounds as James led Gage away.

  “Thanks,” he said to James as they reached me. “I’ve never been so happy to see another guy in my life, even if I had to fake knowing him. I love women, but one at a time.”

  “Me too, if it’s the right one,” James said and squeezed my hand twice. He led us into a windowed corridor. Through the glass I admired the herringbone walkway gracefully following the lines of the cactus garden’s low retaining walls, then dropping away in flowing steps that led to the desert floor.

  “Funny, women love men, but we’re pretty sure two at a time would be better.” I kept my eyes on the panes.

  James stopped, took my arm, and turned away from Gage to scowl at me. For more than a year we’d talked about adding another man to our sex life. We agreed we didn’t know anyone suitable and couldn’t imagine broaching the subject if we did. The desire was only fantasy talk and, until now, private.

  Gage’s laughter cut through James’s chagrin. “Well, you ladies manage to keep it a secret.”

  “It’s hard finding one man who’s good enough, much less two.”

  “I bet. When are you holding auditions? I’m a quick study.”

  James grabbed Gage’s hand for a testosterone-laced shake that made Gage wince. “I’m James Bedwell, and this is my wife, Natalie.”

  “Gage Strickland. Did you say ‘Bedwell’?”

  “Don’t do it,” I said. “He heard every possible joke about his name before I ever met him.”

  “I’m sure he has, probably before he finished middle school. Pleased to meet you. You’ll have to excuse me; I’ve got to move. Incoming.” Gage gestured toward the big room and the knot of excited women, one pointing, hurrying our way.

  “There’s a door at the end, just past the turn,” James told him, speed-walking toward it.

  I tripped along in my heels and smiled my gratitude when Gage Strickland took my arm. We stepped outside, into a cold breeze beneath thousands of stars. He kept going until we all stood in the bricked driveway, well beyond the warm yellow light spilling from the house. My nipples stood up, so I crossed my arms over them.

  “Here.” James slipped off his suit coat and wrapped me in his warmth and scent. He turned to Strickland. “If you didn’t get a space out front, I can show you the brick path to the side.”

  “‘Follow the yellow brick road?’” He did a decent munchkin voice.

  “It’s Milwaukee Cream City brick,” I said, “from a flour mill built in 1860-something.”

  “Parts of it blew up in 1877,” James added. “There’s some Old Chicago brick in there too. That’s more yellow.”

  “He designed the brickwork, and his masonry firm did the installation. Which way is your car?”

  Gage Strickland pulled a slim cell phone from his jacket but didn’t turn it on. “Ah, north? I get turned around when I can’t see the mountains. It’s sitting at Euroworks, waiting for a part. I’ll call a cab, wait out by the street. Maybe walk down a couple houses, for just in case.” He glanced back at the house.

  “You’ll freeze before a cab gets way out here,” I said.

  “We’ll drive you,” James said, squeezing my arm.

  “Only if you’ll let me buy you a drink, to thank you for saving me. If you don’t mind stopping, I’ll buy something nice—Bordeaux?—and we’ll take it to my hotel. Public places can be a nuisance. People don’t mean any harm, but still…”

  “Lucky you,” I said. I promised myself I’d treat him like anybody else. “Want to come to our house instead? It’s clean enough. I hope.”

  “I’m sure it is—I’m not hard to please. So yeah, I’d like that.”

  While James made good-byes to our hosts, I led Strickland to the car and out of sight, insisting he take the front seat and its leg room. Thank goodness we hadn’t brought James’s truck. We talked about the stars and how I’d never seen Kitt Peak Observatory.

  “Cynthia wanted to be sure she can get you on the landline where she gets me,” James said, climbing in.

  “We’re going out for coffee sometime soon. I’ve got half the same books.”

  “I thought you’d like her. Where are we going?”

  Strickland directed us to a store that had what he called “an impressive selection.” The clerk didn’t recognize him, leaving him free to examine wine labels the way I do back covers. Minutes later he took three bottles to the counter and paid with two hundreds. He didn’t get a lot of change.

  “Are you sure it’s no bother, going to your house? We’re pretty close to the hotel. That’s why I know about this liquor store.”

  “Is that what you’d rather do?” James asked.

  “No, I just don’t want to be pushy is all.”

  “Our place it is.”

  Chapter Four

  The silence in the car was normal for me and James, awkward with a passenger. Twice Strickland twisted in his seat to catch my eye
and smile, but he didn’t say anything.

  I went inside the house ahead of the men, flipping on lights and stacking magazines, the Citizen, and my book on the coffee table instead of the sofa. I kicked James’s work boots behind the old recliner, my slippers under the sofa.

  Strickland followed James into the kitchen. I wished my husband had played host and urged him to sit down so he would not see our dinner dishes, pots and pans soaking, and debris cluttering the counters.

  I tidied a little more, listening to them talking, to drawers and cabinets opening, to a cork squeaking out. James carried glasses and our corkscrew into the living room, Gage Strickland two bottles, one uncorked. He poured three smallish portions and settled on the sofa as if he were a frequent guest.

  James landed in the recliner he’d had before I met him, and I took the opposite end of the sofa. I had a hard time wrapping my head around sitting on the couch with someone I’d seen in movies.

  “My hotel’s nice, but there’s something about people’s houses. You never feel at home in a hotel. Thanks.”

  “Mi casa, blah blah blah,” James said. “Meaning, kick off your shoes before you put your feet on the coffee table, but don’t be afraid to get comfortable.”

  “Thanks. Does the fireplace work, or are the logs for show?”

  “It works. Natalie and I built it ourselves.”

  “Some of the rocks are from our honeymoon. Cape Cod. Should we have a fire?”

  “You shouldn’t go to the trouble. It’s not that cold.”

  “You’ve got a jacket and a long-sleeved shirt, pants, and shoes,” I said. “I’d like a fire.” I basked in the warmth of Gage’s gratitude, or perhaps just his eyes on my bare cleavage, arms, and legs, while James lit the kindling beneath the logs.

  Red wines usually taste and smell like rosin and wet leaves to me, so I’d intended to sip at my wine politely, nothing more. This one slipped down easily. “I thought I didn’t like Bordeaux. Wrong.”

  “You like it? Eighty-six Lafite-Rothschild. The eighty-eight is supposed to be better, but I’ve never had it. It’s kind of a show-off wine, because people have heard of it, and it’s expensive.” He shrugged.

  “Fame and money don’t impress you?” I sipped again, appreciating the superb red wine money could buy.

  “Not since I met so many rich and famous people.”

  “I think it’s expensive because it’s good.” James held it to the light, then put his nose in the glass a bit and inhaled, like he’d seen his brother Daniel do.

  “Yeah, isn’t it? Although I like the eighty-seven pretty well, and it costs a lot less.” Gage sipped, closed his eyes as he moved the wine around in his mouth, then opened them and smiled. “I was afraid Tucson was going to be a beer town because of the heat.”

  “Thank the snowbirds,” I said. “Three or four months a year, there’s tourist money flowing, so we cater to tourist tastes, including the rich ones who retire here or buy a second home.”

  “Yeah, this realtor told me housing prices are way up and it’s too bad I didn’t buy five years ago.”

  “You’re buying a house here?” He wouldn’t be the first celebrity to have a desert palace he rarely visited.

  “Maybe. Probably just a condo, so there’s nothing to take care of when I’m gone.”

  “Are you from here?” It felt nosy, prying into a celebrity’s private life, but I’d asked Cynthia the same question. Why treat Gage Strickland any differently?

  “No. I got arrested here.” He grinned. “For real. Speeding, late at night on an empty stretch of highway just past—Marana, is it? I would have just gotten a ticket, but I did something stupid.”

  “You argue?” James had received a few late-night calls from the jail after police had stopped some of the hotheads from his work crew.

  “Worse. I showed my license with a couple of folded hundreds sticking out behind it. In LA, that gets you a warning, unless you’re drunk or disrespectful.”

  “Really? I thought that was only in books and movies.” That was the wine talking, I realized immediately. What did I know about how corrupt the police were in a city I’d never been to? I hid my face by getting up to rearrange the logs, brightening the flame.

  “Art imitating life imitating art. I got handcuffed and everything. I used my one call on my lawyer in LA, and he’d gone to Stanford Law with Doug.”

  “That’s handy,” James said.

  “If he hadn’t known anybody, he’d have gotten some local attorney, but he figured someone he knows is better. Doug doesn’t do that kind of law, but he got out of bed and bailed me out, and wouldn’t take me to a hotel, because he heard the cops say something about TV crews waiting outside. We used a side door, and he brought me to his house.”

  “When was this?” James raised his eyebrows and lifted the bottle, asking permission.

  Gage Strickland nodded his consent. “Last spring.”

  James poured himself a little more wine, then added some to Gage’s glass too. I shook my head no when he turned toward me.

  “They’d only just moved in, like two weeks before, and there were still boxes and stuff, but they had a guest room. Next day, Cynthia drove me around, in town and out in the desert. I liked it. Liked her and Doug too. I could have gone back, but I stayed in town until the hearing. Not at their house, of course.”

  “The Arizona Inn?” I guessed the most centrally located of the luxury hotels in town.

  “What? No, just the Sheraton. Paid my fine, apologized, swore I’d never do it again. And I haven’t. So far.” He drank, again closing his dark eyes before swirling the wine in his mouth. His eyes opened slowly, as if from a dream. “Damn, this is good. Anyway, that’s why I’m here. How is it you live here, James?”

  “My grandparents retired here from Minnesota. They loved the heat. When Grandma Lundgren had a stroke, Grandpa couldn’t take care of her. Mom packed up the station wagon and all of us kids—I’ve got three brothers and a sister—and moved us into their three-bedroom house.”

  “Crowded,” Gage said.

  “Yeah. My dad went nuts, but Mom wasn’t putting her mother in a nursing home, period. So he quit his job and came after us. He was totally pissed.”

  “I can see his point.”

  “He embraced pissed as a lifestyle,” James said, “and didn’t mellow until the boys were all out of the house. My baby sister can do no wrong. We were only just starting to get along.”

  “He died last year,” I said

  “Oh. Sorry to have brought it up. How about you, Natalie? Are you a Tucson native?”

  “No, I grew up in Phoenix with my mom and an older sister.”

  “Her dad died when she was a baby.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I don’t remember him. I’m in Tucson because I picked the University of Arizona so I wouldn’t have to live at home in Phoenix while I went to Arizona State.”

  “So you’re not close to your family?”

  “My sister and I see each other a few times a year, always on her turf.”

  “Phoenix is okay. Smoggy,” Gage said, “but not as bad as LA.”

  “She lives in Casa Grande now. That’s between Phoenix and Tucson, but she won’t go to either one. She and Mom were baptized at this church that deemed them both godless cities.”

  “Then your mom must’ve left Phoenix.”

  “She left everything. She had MS and decided to deliver herself to the Lord.” Why was I telling him this? If the wine had been worse, I’d have drunk less and held my tongue.

  “You mean she—” Gage looked to my husband for help.

  “Pills,” he said. “If you’ve got any dead parents, now’s the time to trot them out.”

  Gage’s eyes widened. He inhaled and started to speak. Nothing came out but a bray of laughter that continued until he’d used up his breath. He dabbed his eyes and caught his breath, started to say something, and lost his composure again, laughing helplessly.

  When he recovered a
t last, he said, “Don’t know my dad. Mom’s still living. Let’s talk about something else before I wet my pants laughing. So, you like Tucson?”

  I volunteered. “I stayed after college, doing office work. Boy, I was sure glad I’d studied something as practical as philosophy.”

  Gage laughed. “What about you, James? You studied, ah, masonry?”

  “No college—Natalie’s the brains. I worked for my Uncle Olin in St. Cloud every summer in high school, mainly to get out from under my dad’s thumb, and moved up there when I graduated. He had me running a crew at nineteen. I was twenty-two when I sent him and Aunt Lottie on their first summertime vacation ever, and when they got back, we had that serious talk about doing something with your life. The one your father’s supposed to have with you.”

  James’s candor surprised me. The wine must be getting to him too. We’d dated for months before I knew there’d been so much father-son tension, and that they considered the antagonism I’d already seen a big improvement.

  “Is that why you came back here, because of your dad?” Gage topped our glasses. The bottle was emptying fast.

  “No. That’s why I almost stayed away.”

  “I shouldn’t be asking all these personal questions. You follow any sports?”

  James didn’t play along. “The Twins. I came back because I didn’t want to compete with Uncle Olin when I started my own company. What if I was better?”

  Gage laughed. “Are you?”

  “Hell, yeah. Now, anyway. Here, you can lay brick all year long if you can take the heat. The trick is to beat out the guys who hire illegals who’ve been laying brick since they were thirteen and are glad to get paid cash under the table. So I started doing as much custom design work as I could. Taught myself to do things Uncle Olin’s never even seen.” He gestured toward the flames. “The fireplace was to learn to set stone. I see things I’d do different.”

  “Don’t tell me,” I said, “or I’ll never see it as just fine again.”

  “So you do anything the owner or builder can think of?”