My answering grin took over my entire face, and I knew the final puzzle pieces were about to fall into place.
“I have nearly everything in place and I’ve started brainstorming the first show as well. I’ve placed flyers around town and I’m already booked up for the first month. The one area I’m struggling with is finding a contact with the local art council. I would love for this to be something that benefits the island, but the only website or information I could find for the council is outdated and incorrect. You wouldn’t know someone on the council I could contact, would you?”
“Of course I do. You’re right, it’s difficult for a newcomer to get in contact with them, but I think they would love to be involved. I’ll get you a list of names and numbers before you go.”
I got up off the stool before my brain registered my heart’s intentions, and I rushed up to Marie, throwing my arms around her and getting flour all over myself in the process. She giggled and hugged me back with warmth and love.
“Thanks, Marie. I can always count on you,” I said as I disentangled myself from our embrace.
“You’re welcome, dear. Now that you look like you’ve been baking, why don’t you stick around for a bit and help me finish these?” she said as she bumped my hip with her own.
* * *
With Marie’s contacts, everything else fell into place pretty easily. A week later, classes began. Aside from a few kinks here and there that needed to be worked out, it all came together pretty well.
We spent one session a week out in nature gathering leaves, branches, shells—really, anything that reminded us of this beautiful island we called home. The parents came along on the days spent out of the studio to help wrangle the children, and sometimes I even had people volunteer to join us and teach the class about the area we were in each session, telling us about the habitat or stories of those who lived here long before us. It was fun and educational.
The studio days were a blast, and not only did I find myself enjoying all the children who passed through the door, I even made friends with some of their parents. I was becoming more a part of the community.
As one week bled into another, my lost creativity crept back in, first appearing as ideas and dreams of half-finished canvases, which led to completed artwork and a new lightness and fullness in my heart I hadn’t felt in years. On the days I wasn’t working on things for the program or with Marie spending time in her kitchen or with her book club, I was creating my pieces in the sun-filled office turned studio at the house. A few of my works were in a couple of the local galleries and one on the mainland. I’d even sold a few pieces.
I was experiencing a level of independence and self-reliance I had never known. I’d met Dan before I finished college and moved in with him right after I graduated, so I had never lived on my own before. Dan continued to try to persuade me to move back to Santa Barbara in the few conversations we had. His guilt over abandoning me in some strange place was obvious, but time and again I tried to tell him that I was enjoying being on my own for now. I was growing, becoming stronger. It unsettled him, but I couldn’t tell why, and he would never admit it.
I was happier with nearly every aspect of my life, aside from the gaping chasm between Dan and me. The handful of texts we exchanged each week and the random phone call here and there didn’t help, and I realized the distance we had hoped to breach was growing impossibly wider.
* * *
Archer and I fell into a routine similar to the one that began the night we met. The days I wasn’t home working on my own pieces, I was in the village working on the program or hanging out with Marie and the friends I made through her book club. I would come home, and after getting settled for the night, I would call out for Archer to join me. We mostly watched movies and then chatted for a little while after. We took turns choosing movies, and I was always surprised by what he would choose.
You would think a ghost this old would consistently choose silent movies or old classics. That would be far too cliché for Archer. His taste in movies was varied. One night we watched a classic noir, his next choice an old James Bond flick, followed by a more recent romantic comedy, then an indie drama. He invariably surprised and amused me.
Our conversations were mostly safe, regular topics. Most discussions were about the movies we watched, getting into debates about the themes or events within. We also listened to a lot of music. Our friendship, for lack of a better word, was simple, but it was nice. It was like I’d found a long-lost best friend, but I wasn’t sure if he felt the same way.
The electricity and tension that always hummed between us, arcing and making my heart race whenever we came close to touching? That was still the elephant in the room that neither of us had dared to acknowledge.
My loneliness began to diminish, though it never entirely went away. I attempted to bridge the growing distance between Dan and myself, but on the rare occasion he returned my calls, he sounded extremely distracted, like his mind was somewhere else altogether. I could often hear voices in the background, a younger guy and a woman with a husky, almost sultry voice. I figured these were his teammates, but couldn’t bring myself to ask more about them, especially when we barely had a chance to talk.
My heart was hurting for us and the state of our relationship, but I became resigned to the fact we were stuck in this shitty place until this project was over and we were living together again. I secretly hoped this would be the last project he took on that kept him away from home for any length of time.
I just didn’t think I could be the kind of wife who would ask him to choose between me and his career. I understood how much he loved it, just as much as I loved my art. Giving it up would be like losing a limb for me, and I couldn’t imagine it was any different for him.
Twenty-One
“Rosalind, how has your work been going? We always talk about Wild Art, but we never talk about your own projects,” Archer said as I shoved a handful of popcorn in my mouth.
We had stopped watching the movie I’d chosen a while ago, deciding to talk instead. I was curled up in a blanket on one side of the couch, while he was sitting on the opposite side of the same long couch. We’d finally realized it was easier to hold a conversation if we were sitting close together. We never touched—I made sure we never touched—but the ever-present energy between us crackled and sparked.
“Wait, haven’t you looked at the canvases in my studio?” I sat up, upending the bowl of popcorn that thankfully was almost empty. I grabbed a handful off my lap and ate it.
“No, I haven’t.”
“Hmmm.” I gave him a knowing smirk. There was no way he hadn’t snuck a peek at my work that covered every available surface of the makeshift studio.
“I just wanted to hear you talk about it. Your face lights up when you speak about things you love. You positively glow, and to me, there is no more beautiful sight.”
I gasped at his declaration as my gaze flew to his, wanting to see what truths lay in their depths, the need to decipher his feelings too intense to deny.
“You are, you know, Rosalind. You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he said with a shrug, as though what he just said was a part of our normal conversations.
While I wasn’t the most self-conscious person in the world, his words, compliments still made me uncomfortable. And all the old self-doubt came back, taking me right back to my childhood.
I was awkward and different from most of the other girls around me when I was younger. The area I grew up in wasn’t very diverse, and I was bullied a lot. While my mother was French, Argentinian, and a bit of Sioux Indian, she had dark blonde hair and green-gold eyes. At first glance, we looked nothing alike, and the kids at school weren’t old enough or aware enough to look for the nuances that made our relation apparent. What they were good at was making someone who looked different feel alienated and ostracized.
My mom helped out and volunteered at my school a lot. She was super crafty, and she shared her talent in
my classroom. Every single time she was at school, the day would end with a large group of kids in my class cornering me behind the cafeteria to hurl insults at me.
“You’re so ugly.”
“You know your mom isn’t really your mom, right?”
“You were adopted.”
“You were such an ugly baby that your parents didn’t want you.”
“Your real parents left you on your new parents’ doorstep.”
During all this they would shove at me, pulling at my backpack, grabbing onto the sleeves of my shirt and stretching it out.
There are only so many times you can be told you’re adopted and ugly before you start to question what you thought you knew to be true. At six, seven, or eight I had trouble seeing the resemblance between my mother and me. The hurt and confusion from the frequent bullying made me ask my parents on a weekly basis if I really was theirs or if they just didn’t want to tell me the truth of my adoption.
My peers only ever knew my mother, with her green eyes, her straight blonde hair, her very European look. If they had ever met my father—saw his light chestnut skin, witnessed the beautiful mix of his African-American and Italian features—they would understand my parents really were mine.
There were so many days I came home and hid in my closet, crying until I was physically spent, praying to a God I didn’t even know to change me. To make me just like everyone else. It can be so hard as a child to accept that your differences are something to value, not change.
I was never the most popular with boys in middle school and for most of high school. While I finally came into my looks, I was always different-looking, and there were times I still felt that old insecurity rise inside of me.
I had hazel-gold eyes, high cheekbones, full lips, dimples, a smattering of freckles, and long, heavy, loose, curly hair that was utterly uncontrollable. I wasn’t short, wasn’t tall, and I was fairly curvy. Over time I grew to be mostly comfortable with my self-image, but I never found a way to be comfortable with attention or compliments.
“Rosalind, are you okay? Did you hear me?” Archer’s alarmed voice in my ear broke through my memories. I opened my eyes as his hand made contact with my face and I nearly jumped from the shock of it, from the warmth and ache that curled through my body at his touch and proximity.
The energy between us sparked and nearly ignited. We had always kept things between us so safe, on my end as an attempt to deny the connection growing between us. With Archer’s body so close to mine, his hand absently caressing my cheek, my skin felt like it was about to catch fire. I realized I couldn’t deny it anymore.
“Do you feel it? The energy, this strange pull? Is it just me?” Heat crept up my neck, into my cheeks, until the tips of my ears felt like they were on fire. Archer’s eyes flared with so much emotion and tenderness it nearly made my heart stop.
“I feel it too, Rosalind. I’ve never felt anything like this.”
“Like—” I began at the same time Archer did. I let him finish his thoughts.
“It’s like I’ve known you all my life. Being dead and still present is solitary and lonely. You are the first person I’ve made any contact with, and I can’t help but believe it’s because of whatever this is pulling us together. So yes, I feel like there is something deeper here, and I hope this… friendship means as much to you as it has come to mean to me.”
He looked at me with both a boyish shyness and a hint of weariness. He’d been so forthcoming with his feelings and I owed him a full explanation about my ties to him as well.
“I already feel like you’re one of my closest friends, Archer. There are some things I need to tell you.”
I took a deep breath and a step away from him, breaking the physical connection between us. I couldn’t say what I needed to with him touching me. His touch was too distracting. It caused my pulse to skyrocket, the nerve endings in my skin to tingle at the current that arced between us.
“From the moment I stepped in this house, I began having dreams about you. I didn’t know it was you at the time. I just knew I was having dreams about a man I had a profound connection with. Then strange things I couldn’t explain began happening to me. Josie kept joking it was a ghost, but it seemed too crazy to be real or true. When I saw your picture, I started to put the pieces together, even if I still didn’t want to believe ghosts existed.”
I paused for a moment, taking a much-needed breath after the onslaught of words that just poured from my mouth. I looked down at my clasped hands, trying to buy some time to figure out exactly what I wanted to say.
“I don’t know why I’ve been dreaming about you, but I believe it’s where our bond began, for me at least. It’s strange, and none of this should be possible. But it is, so I’m just going to roll with it,” I finished and threw my arms out to my side in a gesture that showed I had laid it all out there.
He laughed, a deep, full, contagious laugh. I smiled in return, a little bewildered by his reaction.
“Rosalind, did you think I didn’t know these things already? This is all peculiar to me as well. The thought of finally having a friend, someone I can communicate with, someone I feel like I might have some common ground with, well, I don’t want to walk away from that, so to speak.”
I smiled at him, then laughed, and continued to laugh until tears streamed down my face. I looked up at Archer, and watched raptly as he leaned back on the couch, his ankle resting on the opposite knee. I glanced at his face in time to see curiosity and amusement written all over it.
My confession let loose something inside of my chest. A lightness that hadn’t been there before crept in. It was a release, one I hadn’t realized I needed. Once I stopped, wiping the tears from my eyes and clutching my stomach, which ached from the exertion, I felt a million times lighter, freer.
“Whew, sorry about that. Sometimes we all just need a good laugh, you know?” I asked him, silently begging him to understand. He scrutinized me for a moment before a wide, breathtaking grin took over his face.
“I do know what you mean, though before meeting you, I hadn’t laughed in quite a long time.”
I smiled back at him, starting to relax, feeling some of the burden of an untold truth lift off my shoulders while hiding my true feelings I wasn’t ready to acknowledge under the guise of friendship.
Twenty-Two
“Okay, favorite author, and go!” I exclaimed to Archer, grabbing the remote control from the coffee table, turning off the movie we hadn’t been watching and putting on my instrumental rock playlist.
“I like this song.”
“I do too, but you’re changing the subject.”
“Well, would you want to answer that question?” I couldn’t help but laugh at the long-suffering look on his face.
“Of course not! I could never answer it. Maybe if I had to choose a top ten list, I could, but it would take me a lot of thought and time beforehand. It just isn’t something I can come up with off the cuff.”
“Then how do you expect me to do it?”
“Could you come up with ten?”
He arched his brow at me. “What have you been reading lately?”
“I’m rereading one of my favorite series. I do it every year.”
“Tell me about it.” He didn’t even know we could be here the rest of the night if I were allowed to talk about my favorite books unchecked. Well, at this point, he probably did know.
“Okay, so I had this mild obsession with young adult fiction at one time—”
“What is young adult fiction?” He cut in before I could finish my explanation.
“They’re books written specifically for young adults. You know, older children and teenagers.”
“We just called those novels when I was alive.” Shit. Sometimes it was so easy to forget there was a century separating us.
“Well, now it’s an entire genre. Anyway, I used to devour books in this genre. I got burnt out on them, but two of my favorite series were written for this segment o
f the population.”
“Understood. What’s the name of these?”
“The first series is the Mortal Instruments series and the next one is the Infernal Devices trilogy. They both deal with a group of teens with angel blood and special abilities. I’m sure it sounds pretty silly, but I love them.”
He flashed his brilliant smile at me and it was impossible to ignore the flip in my stomach, the rush of pleasure it brought me.
“So much so you read them every year.” There was understanding written all over his face. He got it. Of course he would—we shared a love of books.
“Yes.”
“So read them to me.”
“Wait, what?” He couldn’t possibly be serious.
“You know it’s nearly impossible for me to read on my own. If I attempted it, I wouldn’t have enough energy to be here with you, and that just won’t do. If this is something you love, I want you to share it with me.”
He was serious. I was surprised. There was no way I could deny him the one thing he loved more than most others and couldn’t have. I grabbed City of Bones, the first book in the series, cracked it open, and I began to read.
* * *
I looked up what felt like a little while later, but upon looking at my phone discovered was a couple of hours later. Archer was utterly entranced, entirely lost in the story.
“How do you like it so far?”
“I love it,” he said. “It’s unlike anything I’ve ever read. So much imagination. I can see that world so vividly in my mind.” I beamed at him, his assessment bringing me more joy than it should have. “Do you need a break? You’ve been reading for a while.”
My mind was already on something else that had been bothering me. “No, I’m okay. Can I ask you a question? It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot over the last few weeks,” I said, turning to Archer.
Through the Mist Page 13
