by Megan Bryce
“We really need to get moving. We’ve been gone a long time. My boss will be wondering where we disappeared to.”
Gia flung out her hand, then stood too. “See, you keep calling her your boss.”
“She is my boss.”
“Sister-boss?”
He made a face. “I’m not calling her that.”
Grandmother and Mother Abelli watched them walk down the hallway and both shook their heads at each other.
“No, don’t call her that.”
Gia led him down the hallway, saying, “Now, see, we’ve got pictures hanging on the wall and it’s painted. This proclaims that someone actually lives here.”
Mac stopped to look—old family pictures, young children, wedding photos—and said, “I don’t have pictures but my walls are painted.”
“If they’re white, it doesn’t count.”
“I’ll let Glidden know.” He pointed at a young girl surrounded by three tall teenage boys. “Is this you?”
She nodded. “Right before I went to boarding school.”
He turned his head to look at her. “I’m sorry?”
“I’m not. It was great. But, alas, all good things come with a price. Thus why I share a wall with my grandmother.” She opened the door across from the pictures. “At least my parents are on the other side of the house. Now, this is my bathroom.”
Anything Mac was about to say was forgotten. The bathroom was filled, filled, FILLED with figurines. On the walls, the back of the toilet, toppling off the backsplash around the sink.
He took a step closer and saw that, yes, they were penguins. They were all penguins.
He said, “You have penguins on your towels. And your shower curtain.”
“Don’t forget the toilet roll holder.”
He gulped. “This is decorating?”
“No, this is personality. Decorating is for other people to admire what you like. This bathroom is for me to admire what I like. And I like penguins.”
Mac said, “It’s hard to miss.”
“Well, they’re so awkward looking. Waddling around on the ice like one of those wind-up toys, and then they get in the water and zoom. So fast and beautiful. I had to put some in the bathroom so they could be close to the water.”
He backed out of the room slowly and they walked down the hallway to the next door, Mac clearing his throat and pulling at his tie.
She opened the door to her bedroom and he whimpered.
There was not a single spec of wall without something on it. Posters. Tiny little ornamental boxes with tiny little things inside them.
A large packing crate with ice-skating penguins arranged in the bottom held up a small glass tabletop next to her bed.
Mac unbuttoned the top button of his shirt and rolled his neck.
He whispered, “What color is the wall?”
“Teal. You like that? I’m surprised, I didn’t think you’d like bright colors. But you can see so little of it with all my collectibles on it, that I needed something that would grab your attention.”
He couldn’t seem to keep from staring at the chaos and the stuff. So much stuff.
He picked up two fat little piggie figurines for inspection. One wearing a white bow-tie and one wearing black.
He said, “Are these salt and pepper shakers?”
She nodded. “Aren’t they cute?”
He thought they were horrifying so went with a non-answer.
“Um. You can really tell a lot about a girl by her salt and pepper shakers.”
Gia sniffed. “It was a gift.”
“By someone who liked you?”
“By a boyfriend, if you must know. He thought I would like them because they were cute.”
“Why didn’t he get you penguins?” Mac stopped, thinking for a long minute and then saying, “Do you think they make penguin salt and pepper shakers?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. They make pigs, why wouldn’t they make penguins?”
“They finally realized they’d gone one step too far?”
“There is no one step too far,” she said, and Mac snorted at what must be her personal motto. “And this was before the penguins, otherwise I’m sure he would have.”
“Before the penguins,” Mac said, knowing there would now forever be a before and after the penguins.
She sighed as she took the piggies from him and put them back on their shelf.
“It was a long time ago. He was my first boyfriend.”
“When you say first boyfriend, do you mean first in Florida?”
She gave him a look. “Has anyone punched you before?”
He shook his head. “No. Never.”
“Well, then, keep going. You’re not too old to enjoy a first-time experience.”
He looked around the room, shaking his head and making the colors swirl a little too fast.
“I am way too old to be enjoying first-time experiences,” he said, stumbling and catching himself before he hit the wall and caused the destruction of an entire species.
He mumbled, “Endangered.”
The colors swirled, the floor twirled.
Gia said, “What’s that sound?”
Mac didn’t answer, couldn’t answer, just stared at the spinning walls.
The horror.
Oh, the horror.
Gia said, “Hello? Hello?”
And then Mac fainted over dead.
Megan BryceThe Tie’s The Limit
Ten
Gia watched Mac topple over, the high-pitched squeal stopping as he hit the carpet.
She blew out a breath, flapping her lips with gusto and looking around the room.
“It’s not that bad,” she said to the passed-out man on her floor. “You don’t need to be so dramatic.”
He didn’t wake up to disagree with her so she knelt down and felt for a pulse.
It was there, thumping solidly under her fingers.
“I was right, you don’t like the teal,” she said and lay down on her side next to him.
She pushed his hair off his face and waved her hand quickly trying to create a breeze. She sniffed appreciatively as a light scent hit her.
He might not care what he looked like but at least he smelled good.
Mac stirred, moaning, “Noo.”
“Mac?”
“Gia?”
“Are you okay?”
“No. Where am I?”
“On the floor in my room. You fainted.”
He shifted on the carpet, his eyes still closed. “The walls. They were screaming at me.”
“It’s just my collections.”
“They covered every inch. Literally. Every. Inch.”
“I like collections.”
His mouth opened. His mouth closed.
He said, “But why are there so many?”
She looked around the room and said again, “I like collections. Are you just going to lie here with your eyes closed?”
“Only for as long as your walls are cluttered.”
“It’s not cluttered. It’s dense. Densely populated. It’s the New York City of wall decorations.”
He cracked open an eye, then moaned and squeezed them shut tight.
“Oh, I can’t. I can’t.”
Gia watched him, his chest rising and falling faster and faster.
She said, “You look like you’re hyperventilating. Are you going to faint again?”
“Yes.”
She hopped to her feet, running out the door to the hallway closet and grabbing a thick towel. She ran back, closing the door softly so not to spook him anymore than he already was and draped the towel over his face and chest gently.
“Big breath in, big breath out,” she sing-songed. “One arm up, one arm down. One foot pointed, one foot flexed.”
Gia paused, cocking her head. “I just did this for my friend. But she was falling in love not overreacting to wall decorations, so it was a little more understandable.”
She watched his chest rise and f
all for a few minutes, it eventually slowing to a less alarming rate. She lay back down next to him, propping her elbow up and saying conversationally, “I don’t know if you’re color-blind or not but you’re definitely visually hypersensitive. That’s good to know.”
A muffled grunt answered her and he finally said weakly, “I’ll have you know that I’ve never fainted over décor before. Of the two people in this room, I am not the one with the problem.”
She laughed because he was lying on her floor with a towel over his head.
She tugged on one edge of the towel and he said quickly, “Please don’t take it off.”
She grinned but let go of the towel.
“So, what I’m hearing over here, from the person with the problem, is that I get to decorate your condo after I’m done decorating you.”
His voice came out strong and certain this time.
“There is no. Way. In. Hell.”
“I wouldn’t decorate it like me. I’d decorate it like you, if you had a personality.”
Mac folded his arms, and Gia laughed silently there on the floor next to him. He must have felt her because he shifted a little and humphed.
She said, “Your outrage loses a little something when you’re lying flat on the carpet and you still won’t open your eyes.”
“You don’t know if they’re open or not under this towel.”
“Are they?”
“No, I don’t want to know what color your towels are.”
She looked at the cream-colored towel—yeah, it was her mother’s—and said, “It’s royal purple edged in silver thread.”
“That’s what I was afraid of. I’m just going to keep my eyes closed until I am out of this hellhole.”
“I’d take offense except I’m pretty sure you’d think the Louvre was a hellhole since they gasp! have art on the walls.”
“Not every inch of it.”
“How do you know? Maybe they do.”
“I’ve been. They don’t.”
Gia narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know how to feel about you going to the Louvre.”
“I went because I was in Paris. Seemed like the thing to do.”
“Did you go to the Eiffel Tower?”
“Yes. Not to the top though. First floor up felt high enough to me.”
Gia sighed, rolling to her back and staring at the ceiling.
“I want to go to Paris.”
“You should. Now. Right now.”
“I could probably afford a quick trip if I decorated some guy’s condo—”
“No.”
“You know, it’s going to be tricky to get out of here without my help. Let’s see… You can hire me to decorate your condo,” she said, continuing to talk over the strangled sound he was making. “You can agree to wear the next thing I buy every month for the rest of your life. Or you can admit that you secretly love my penguins and my oodles of personality.”
Mac didn’t skip a beat, didn’t pause to consider the pros or cons, just said, “I love your penguins. There are just too many of them for my…delicate…sensibilities.”
“And my oodles of personality?”
“Love it. Never met anybody like you before and hope to never again.”
“Because I’m just too much for you?”
He waved at the towel on his face. “It would seem so.”
Gia hopped to her feet, liking being too much for anyone, and said, “Okay. Now I’ll help you out like you’re a poor, pathetic, traumatized animal that I have to keep in the dark so you don’t injure yourself.”
He pushed himself slowly to a sitting position, one hand keeping the towel firmly to his face.
“I am traumatized, so thank you.”
She tried to help him get to his feet but he was too heavy.
“I’ll hold the towel, you push yourself up.”
“Don’t let it fall.”
“No,” she said. “I’ll squeeze it real tight, right here around your neck.”
When Mac was back on his feet, his hands gripping the towel like it was all that stood between him and the monsters of hell, Gia took his arm and pulled him to the door.
She opened it slowly and Nonnie stepped back with a guilty look.
“Your mother was worried because the door was shut… Why is there a towel on his head?”
Gia looked down the hall for her parent and said loudly, “It’s a new sex move. All the twenty-seven-year-old adults are doing it.”
Mac jerked in her hands and Nonnie looked interested. “Really?”
“No. He fainted from my collections.”
“Oh. Yes, I keep the door closed when you’re not here so I don’t have to see them.”
Mac mumbled, “And I’m the one with the problem.”
“You’re still the one with the towel,” Gia said, and Nonnie took his other arm to help him down the hall.
They pushed him into a soft armchair, Gia’s mother coming out of the kitchen to say slowly, “Do I want to know?”
Before Gia could say anything, Nonnie said to her, “Mia creatura, if you tell them about your sex life, they may tell you about theirs.”
Loretta’s eyes popped out of her head and Gia quickly shook away the possibility of anybody’s sex life.
“It was just the penguins. He has delicate sensibilities.”
Loretta said, “Oh. Yes, I tried to get your father to throw them out of the back of the truck in South Carolina.”
Mac snorted and Gia pulled the towel off unceremoniously.
He grabbed for it but missed, his eyes shut tight.
Ge leaned toward him, blowing gently into his face, and his eyes opened a slit.
She grinned at him.
“Now, wasn’t that an adventure?”
Megan BryceThe Tie’s The Limit
Eleven
The next day Gia opened the door to Mac’s office right before lunch and said, “So, today I get to see your condo.”
After yesterday’s humiliation, he had given her directions back to the office. She hadn’t realized they weren’t headed to his home until they were nearly there.
She looked like she wasn’t taking no for an answer today, which was unfortunate because that’s all he was giving.
Mac turned off his computer screen and gave her his full attention.
“No,” he said. “I have too much to do. I wasted too much time with you yesterday.”
Gia gave him a look, then left, closing the door softly behind her.
Mac sat there for a long minute waiting for her to come back, then finally congratulated himself at figuring out how to deal with at least one problem in his day and turned his computer screen back on.
He sighed when his door was opened back up ten minutes later and he said to life in general, “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”
She stayed near the door, waving at him like a cop directing traffic.
“Let’s go. I just checked with your sister and she wanted me to remind you that this is your job.”
He stood up. “You tattled to my sister?”
“Otherwise known as your boss? Yes, I did. I thought about trying to bodily lift you from your chair but this seemed like it would require less physical exertion.”
He couldn’t—
She’d tattled—
What the—
She interpreted his incredulous expression correctly and said, “I’ve got a job to do and I’m not letting you stand in the way.”
“I am your job.”
“Exactly. Let’s go. I need to see something that is yours, that tells me something about you.”
“You need something?”
“Anything.”
“Okay.” He adjusted the tie. “I really do not have time today to go to the condo. But I’ll show you something.”
Gia folded her arms, the suspicion clear on her face. “I reserve the right to reject your something.”
Mac nodded, leading her out to the parking lot without another word. He stopped at his car and p
atted it gently.
“Here’s your something.”
“This car?”
He nodded.
She said, “This old hot rod?”
He nodded. Then shook his head.
“It’s not a hot rod. But it is mine.”
“This bright orange Camaro is your car? What year is it?”
“1969,” he said, taking out his keys and unlocking the driver’s side door.
Gia gasped, taking a step back to view the entire car in one long glance.
“There is no way this is your car.”
Mac lovingly stroked the side of the Camaro and Gia’s mouth fell open.
“You do have a personality.”
“Just because I like old cars?”
“Uh, yes. Liking something is how we express our personality in our shallow and materialistic society.”
She walked around the car slowly, stopping to peak inside the open driver’s door.
“And it’s immaculate! I got that part right.”
“Almost completely restored. I’ve been working on her for about a year.”
She hit her head on the roof of the car and Mac’s irritation at being tattled on evaporated when he saw her expression of incredulous disbelief.
“You’ve been working on her? Oh, you mean you’ve paid to restore it.”
“No. I lease a small storage space and work on it there.”
“And you do it yourself? Let me see your hands.”
She grabbed for his hands, inspecting them carefully, and Mac’s stomach tightened at the contact.
“I don’t believe you. These look like office hands.”
“I’m afraid to ask but what are office hands?”
“No oil under the nails. Clean.”
She felt for callouses, finding quite a few. Mac took a deep breath, grateful when she finally let go.
Gia said, “Maybe you do the work yourself after all. I’ve just never seen anyone’s hands so clean who actually uses them. Do you get manicures?”
“No. I just like my hands clean.”
She made a face. “Yeah, I’ve seen your office. But this!” She turned to stand next to him and stared at the car. “This surprises me. It looks great, inside and out.”
Mac took a deep breath again, not entirely sure how he felt about surprising her.
She said, “Which means you obviously can care about how things look, you just don’t.”
