by Sarah Title
“That’s one word,” said Katie.
“His friend talked enough for him,” said MB. “That’s what Jake told me.”
“That guy was pretty great,” Helen said. “He really knew his art. For a while I had a bet going with one of the art professors that Myron was really the artist, and Walker was just some kind of hot, grumpy front for the operation.”
Myron. So Myron went with Walker to art openings? And talked for him? Knowing Myron, that was no surprise.
“Why would they do that?” asked Billie.
“I don’t know, to cultivate some mystery? You have to admit, Walker Smith gets people talking.”
Billie shrugged. Lindsey wanted to shake her. What do you know about Walker that has you not talking?
“Oh, do you know him well?” Lindsey asked over her wine glass, totally nonchalant and not at all clinging to her composure by her fingernails.
“Nope,” said Billie. “Too old for me. But I think he went to high school with Jake, right?”
“For a little while, but Jake barely knows him,” said Grace. “I asked. I mean, how can you go to a school as small as Willow Springs High and not know a guy in your class?”
“I guess he was in and out of school a lot. I know his dad moved around. For work, I think. Although I’m not really sure what he did. All I know is that Walker came back here a few years ago, bought this house, and he’s been renting out this half ever since.”
“And mysteriously making art in his secret garage lair,” Lindsey said, then took a dramatic gulp of wine.
“That’s his studio?” Helen asked. “What’s he working on?”
“I have no idea. He sure doesn’t talk to me about it, but then, he doesn’t talk to me about anything. Or, really, talk at all. Anyway, I’m not allowed in the garage. And he keeps it locked.”
Everyone took a disappointed sip of wine.
“Oh my gosh, you tried to break in,” Katie said suddenly.
“What kind of tenant are you?” Mary Beth shouted, sloshing a little wine onto her lap. “Breaking and entering!”
“Hey, it was only attempted breaking and entering!” She explained to them about the couch, and the boxers, and her attempts to apologize that culminated in her peeking into the garage, and, when she couldn’t see in, trying the door handle. Just so she could apologize! Not at all so she could catch a glimpse of his art and, if the stars were aligned, his naked back!
MB snorted her wine, and they all dissolved into shrieks of laughter.
He wanted to follow the big one into the garage, but the lady was still out there, watching. She’d been digging around in his garden again. He didn’t understand what she was doing. She was digging, but she wasn’t eating anything. She would just pull up some plants (the ones that tasted the worst, so he was grateful), then put them in a pile. Then, when he wasn’t looking, the pile would disappear. That was probably good, because even though those plants did not agree with his belly, they smelled really good and they were all there in a pile and it was very difficult for him to avoid sticking his whole head into the pile and eating his way out. That would be so much fun. Maybe she would make a pile of the good stuff. Or he could make a pile of the good stuff.
By the time he had his pile of good stuff planned out, the man was gone, behind that locked door again. And the lady was gone, too. He could start his pile now. Or, he could see where that rabbit was going. Or that squirrel. What were all these creatures doing in his yard? This was going to call for some stealth . . .
They were never going to leave. Walker was never going to be able to use his front porch again. His front porch or the front door. All because Mother Teresa was never going to kick out the gaggle of women playing Sex and the City on her porch. Wine. Who drank wine in Kentucky?
Fine, so a lot of other people drank wine around here. But he still didn’t like it. He didn’t like that they were making so much noise on his porch. Or at least right next to his porch. What if he wanted to sleep? Fine, so it was barely ten o’clock on a Saturday night, and he had already established with Lindsey that he had pretty weird sleep patterns, so she probably wasn’t torturing him on purpose.
Mostly he was just mad because he suspected that Mother Teresa was out there with that million-dollar smile and he was inside the garage, making a stupid metal tree that reflected the beauty and tragedy of nature.
He was jealous that she was making friends.
Because, what? He wanted her to himself?
No, because if she made friends, then she would make more noise and he would never sleep again.
Disgusted, he disentangled himself from the sheets and threw on his old jeans. If he wasn’t going to sleep, he was going to work. And by work, he meant stare at a big honking pile of metal in his garage.
As he stalked out to the garage, he heard a yip and a rustle in the side yard. He paused, but there was nothing else. Just his heavy breathing and more laughter carrying over from the front porch of the house. He unlocked the garage and shut the door behind him. Despite the open space inside, he felt closed in. Fine. He would keep the door open, even if that meant hearing shouts and laughter. He swore he could hear them pouring more wine out there.
Well, if they were going to keep him up, he was going to keep them up. He scrolled around on his phone until he found a playlist that was both angry and nostalgic, then plugged it into the dock on the shelf over his workbench. He set the list to shuffle, and gave a small inner headbang as the intro guitar wailed. Then he got to work.
Walker didn’t know how much time had passed, and he was barely aware of how much progress he’d made, when he was interrupted by a banging on the garage door. He instinctively looked toward the door that was open to the yard—nobody there. But something was definitely banging. He looked at the time on his phone—two AM. Who could that be at this hour?
Armed with a ballpeen hammer and a small tube of industrial-strength epoxy, he pushed the button on the garage door opener and stepped back. As the door slowly creaked and squeaked its way up, Walker was faced with black boots, jeans, a holstered weapon, and, eventually, a really pissed off looking Chief Will Brakefield.
Walker saw Brakefield’s arm go for his hip, so he put the hammer down. Then the glue. Hands up, he asked, “Can I help you?” Brakefield pointed to his ears.
“What?” Walker shouted.
“Music,” Brakefield shouted back.
Oh. Walker moved quickly to the workbench and turned it off. The sudden quiet felt oddly heavy, until it was broken by the barking of neighborhood dogs.
Walker turned back to Chief Brakefield, who was stepping into the garage.
“I got a few calls about the noise,” he said.
“Oh,” said Walker, thinking about Lindsey and her laughing fun party. She couldn’t just come knock on the garage and ask him to shut up? She had to call the police?
“This isn’t the first time I’ve had a call about you making a racket all night,” Brakefield continued. “But it’s been a while.”
Back before Myron took him in hand, Walker used to lose track of the noise he made when he was lost in a project. But when he was conscious of an old man across the yard, he learned to work in a more tenant-friendly environment. Also, he bought headphones.
He forgot about the other neighbors.
Walker usually tried to be as unobtrusive as possible. His preferred state of existence was for no one to know he was there. That sometimes conflicted with his need for an occasional metal-fest (musical and otherwise). But he truly had not been aware how loud the music sounded outside, or how late-into-the-night turned into early-in-the-morning.
So much for flying under the radar.
He could try to spin it so this was Lindsey’s fault—she’d called the cops, so she was the one bringing attention down on him. And he wouldn’t have been blasting hair metal if she hadn’t been having such loud fun.
Because of course Red Smith’s son would be completely blameless.
Ma
n, that tasted bitter.
“Hey, man, you okay?”
Walker had totally forgotten about Chief Brakefield, standing there while he gave his conscience a workout.
“Sure,” Walker responded curtly.
“You’re working pretty late.”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“Hmm. Not on a deadline or anything?”
Walker shook his head, suddenly aware that someone was in his garage with his unfinished artwork. Chief Brakefield had always been decent to him, but it still made him nervous.
“You take anything to help you stay up?”
Walker wrinkled his forehead in confusion. He didn’t take anything except for an unhealthy interest in his neighbor.
Why would he take something to help him stay up? Wasn’t that counterproductive for someone with insomnia?
Ah, he thought, suddenly realizing that Chief Brakefield was a cop who would probably be interested if someone was doing something illegal. Like, for example, drugs.
Fortunately, Walker’s artistic madness came to him stone cold sober.
“No,” he said, looking right at Brakefield. “I don’t need drugs to stay up.” He had his own crazy head to help him with that.
Brakefield looked at him for a minute, then, apparently satisfied with his sobriety, nodded. “Keep the noise down, will you? I don’t like to leave my wife and child in the middle of the night unless it’s an actual emergency. I don’t need you giving Mrs. Stringer an excuse to call and complain.”
“Oh.” So it wasn’t Lindsey. It was Mrs. Stringer, known busybody and world champion complainer. “Okay.”
“Thanks. And . . . Iron Maiden? Seriously?” Without waiting for Walker to explain himself, Chief Brakefield got into his car and drove away.
Walker watched the reflection of the taillights move along the fences down the street, then he flipped the garage door opener and turned back to his work. Suddenly his eyes stung and he realized he was exhausted. As soon as he thought it, his limbs felt like they weighed a ton. He considered just curling up at the base of his tree, but a concrete floor and metal shavings were not very appealing when he had a king-sized pillow top waiting for him inside. There was nothing for it but to drag himself through the yard and into the house.
He had his hand on the doorknob when Lindsey’s door opened. She put one foot out onto the back porch. It was far enough to see that she was wearing a tank top and shorts, and her hair was performing amazing, gravity-defying feats.
“Are you okay?” she asked, her voice groggy. “I saw the lights.”
Great. Not only had he not succeeded in keeping her up with his loud music, but he had also set himself up as a potential felon.
“It’s fine,” he said.
“Were you out there working?” she asked through a yawn.
He nodded.
“Do you only work with music in the middle of the night?” She smiled, pleased with her teasing.
“Only when I need to drown out the noise on my own damn front porch.” When he saw Lindsey’s startled expression, he almost took it back.
“Oh. Okay. Good night.” He heard her call as he let the screen door slam behind him.
That was close. He liked people, he really did. But last time he got caught, it didn’t turn out so great. He shook his whole body, then did a lap around the fence to remind himself that he wasn’t stuck in a cage anymore. That he was free!
And that he was hungry. There was a lot that smelled really good in the yard, but there was one spot where it smelled the best. And that was the spot where the ground was nice and soft and was just begging for his attention. But he’d better do it fast, before the people came out again.
He had a lot of work to do.
Chapter 10
Wine. That was Lindsey’s first thought when she woke up. The next was that the sun was way too bright. She had gone to bed without closing the blinds, and her gauzy curtains were doing nothing to keep the room dark. She wanted it dark. She was off today, and she wanted to stay in a cocoon until next spring.
But when she sat up, she realized that her headache was really not so bad. And if she just wore her sunglasses around the house for a little bit, she was sure she’d get back to normal.
That was her professional opinion, anyway.
That and aspirin. And a soda.
And probably a greasy egg sandwich from the diner. It was obviously a nice day. She should walk.
Ugh, exercise.
First, aspirin, then coffee. Too early for soda. Then shower. Then, instead of walking, she could drive to the diner and afterward burn the greasy egg sandwich calories in the garden. She had great plans for the tomato vines, and there were still so many weeds that she was pretty sure pulling them would count as squats.
She settled for coffee and a shower, and then, on account of the nice day, some time in the garden. She couldn’t wait for the summer, when she could just step outside and pick herself some dinner. Tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant—the possibilities had her throwing on some shorts and heading out the back door.
But when she got there, she nearly dropped her coffee mug.
Her garden.
Her garden had been completely destroyed.
She had never seen so many roots in her life, probably because she was getting used to them being underground. And her vegetables. They had only just started growing, but they were large enough for her to recognize the remnants of a zucchini plant, a chewed-up squash blossom, her Little Eggplant That Could, torn up into little pieces. And her tomatoes! It was bad enough that the fruit was ripped from the plants, but the plants were torn out of the ground, too.
How had this happened? Who would do such a thing?
Then she thought of the police lights and the loud music and the grumpy guy next door. But he was just grumpy, not mean. Surely he wouldn’t . . .
Maybe he would. He had been pretty upset about last night. But he didn’t seem to need quiet, and hadn’t asked her to keep it down.
Maybe he didn’t want her quiet. Maybe he wanted her gone.
If he wanted to get rid of her, he would have to do a lot more than pull up her garden. The garden that she had pinned so many hopes and dreams on. He probably wouldn’t have to do too much more, she thought with a sigh. She was pretty devastated.
She could cry, or she could get revenge.
As she took a slow turn around the yard, she stopped at the door to the garage, and noticed it was open a crack.
She chose revenge.
She pushed the door open, her anger mixing with guilt and fear and anticipation. She really, really didn’t want to be surprised with a meth lab. But Walker didn’t have that desperate, starving meth look. And he had all of his teeth.
If those were his real teeth.
Shaking her head, she felt along the wall for a light switch. She flicked it up. And her heart stopped.
Because of the windows, she had assumed there was an empty apartment above the garage, but there was no second floor. The high, high ceiling and the concrete floor gave the space the look of a warehouse. There was a small space heater in the corner, and Lindsey thought there was no way that could warm the place in the winter. She imagined Walker in here, blowing on his hands, determined to get back to work.
In the middle of the cold, concrete floor, there was a tree.
It was tall. Lindsey thought it was twice as tall as she was, but that wasn’t saying much. She stepped closer so she was standing near the trunk, under some of the branches. Most of the tree looked like it was just a frame, metal pipes welded together to give them shape. But at the bottom, tiny squares of metal were covering the roots and moving up the trunk. Would the whole tree be covered? She looked up through the branches and squinted into the overhead light. It was amazing. Cold and hard and beautiful.
“What are you doing?”
Lindsey spun around, guilt immediately heating her face. Walker stood in the doorway, his hand on the light switch, or maybe he was reaching for
one of the metal bars leaning against the wall. She must have woken him up. His hair was a disheveled mess and his boots were untied, but he had managed to throw on his uniform of jeans and ratty T-shirt.
“I didn’t touch anything,” she said, throwing up her hands.
He didn’t look mad, exactly. But he didn’t look pleased.
“I’m sorry, I—I wanted to make sure you weren’t cooking meth.”
He cocked his eyebrow at her.
“Meth is very dangerous,” she pointed out.
He shook his head. “I’m not cooking meth.”
“No, I see that,” she said, turning toward the tree. She had so many questions for him. How much of this did he plan before he started welding? How did he capture that look of bark with something so completely un-bark-y? How did he make something so . . . moving?
But her brain jumbled the questions, and she was a little intimidated by his skill, and maybe a little embarrassed that she had underestimated him. The only question she could get out was, “How will you get this out of here?”
“It comes apart,” he said. “And then I’ll solder the pieces back together when I install it.”
“Walker, it’s . . . I had no idea.”
“No idea of what?”
Lindsey jumped and turned to find Walker right behind her, crowding her into the tree. “No idea what you were doing in here. That you were so talented. Walker, this is . . . incredible.” The last word came out on a whisper as his eyes darkened and his head tipped closer to hers. She didn’t think about the potential weirdness, she just thought about how much she wanted it. She stood up on her toes and leaned a hand against his chest and he leaned down to close the gap between their mouths and he was kissing her.
Nobody came into his garage when he was working. That was a hard and fast rule. Even Myron stayed out until he was invited.
