Without a Net

by Kimberly Cooper Griffin

  “I could stay home and get my fill of hot chicks.”

  A blush crept up Fiona’s checks. “How’d you turn out so perfect?” The smolder from earlier was back.

  “Down girl!” Fiona’s hand kneaded her thigh, causing a stirring up higher.

  Fiona laughed. “I mean it. You’re amazing. But how is it your brother turned out the way he is and you the way you are? You had the same childhood, right?”

  “He’s irresponsible and selfish. Maybe my parents could have done a few things differently—like not helping him with his application to Cornell or fixing his mistakes all the time. CJ’s so secretive and they never tell me when he gets into scrapes, but I suspect he’s gotten at least one of his girlfriends pregnant. Mom and Dad think I don’t know. Maybe he’ll outgrow it, or even has by now. Who knows? But, despite his immaturity, he’s a very sweet guy. He’d do anything for a friend, and his heart is usually in the right place. He just needs to settle down.”

  “If he’s anything like his sister, he can’t be all bad. Is it crass for me to ask how he supports himself if he’s not working or living at home with your parents?”

  Fiona rested her head on Meg’s shoulder and she loved it. She didn’t like talking about her family’s money, though. She didn’t feel attached to it and all it did was make people act weird. She planned to build an animal sanctuary with hers when she settled down some day. “I’d wonder the same thing. I suppose he’s living off the trust we each received when we turned twenty-one. He never has to work if he manages it right. I think having access to money is part of his problem.”

  Fiona seemed to think about it. “What does he live for, if he doesn’t have a dream?”

  “Exactly. I think being a lawyer is his dream. I’m not sure, though. My mom said she had to hound him long distance to go to his study group sessions.”

  “Study group definitely helped me. Not everyone passed though, even with it. Mostly I think it was just that Mike was preoccupied with Charlie. He’d have passed if he’d been focused.”

  A knot settled in Meg’s stomach at the mention of the baby’s father, even though she didn’t know him except for the stress he was putting Fiona under. “Aren’t you glad school and tests are all behind you now?”

  Fiona nodded and the game was over. The score was a blowout, but the teams were talking and treating each other warmly, even the cleater and cleatee. Meg wished people could take the example and act civilly on and off the field.

  61

  “I need a gargoyle,” Meg announced, as she speared a piece of lettuce and lifted it to her mouth. Fiona liked the way she ate, politely, but with enthusiasm and without self-consciousness. But, then again, Fiona liked everything about Meg.

  It was Saturday afternoon and they were sitting beneath a tree in Morningside Park watching a group of teenage boys toss a frisbee. Fiona hadn’t spent much time outdoors since she’d moved to the city, and she was happy about spending more time in the park since she’d met Meg. Also, Karma and Taylor had come back from their vacation and Meg no longer needed to fill in at the coffee shop, so they had the weekend to themselves. After the pizza conversation at the soccer game, Fiona insisted on making their meals healthy ones. Meg had teased her about how they surely had to be burning off any excess calories in bed over the two weeks they’d been sleeping together, but Fiona just smiled and continued to break apart the lettuce for their lunch.

  “How random. A gargoyle?” Fiona said.

  Meg smiled and nodded her head. “You heard me right. A gargoyle.”

  “For what?”

  “My dad.” Meg’s tone implied how obvious the answer was.

  She was still confused. “Okay…” Fiona drew out the word in an invitation for Meg to expand on her answer.

  Meg laughed. “My dad’s birthday is on the twenty-fourth and I need to get him a present.” She seemed to be enjoying the bizarre conversation.

  “So, you want to get him a gargoyle,” Fiona said.

  “Yes, a gargoyle.”

  Fiona tried not to roll her eyes. “What ever happened to getting your dad a nice tie or a gift card to the Olive Garden?”

  Meg laughed.

  “My brother and I have a standing tradition of getting our father unique gifts for his birthday. Over the years, we’ve found it harder and harder to figure out a good gift for him. He wants for nothing, and when he does want something, he goes out and gets it. It’s so frustrating. He’s impossible to shop for.”

  “What about hobbies?”

  “The only hobby he has is golf, and he already has every gadget for golf ever made. One year, CJ and I began getting him gifts he had to display in his office, and thus, the tradition was born. So far, CJ has the distinction of having given him the most outrageous gift—a merman sculpture.”

  “Why is it so outrageous? I know the typical sculpture would probably be a mermaid, but with all the comic book movies out these days, it doesn’t seem too out there.”

  “It’s a full-sized merman. Seven feet tall from head to tail. Super-hunky, too. But, dad has it on display in his office. It’s quite the conversation piece, he says.”

  Fiona chuckled. “I can see how that would be hard to top!”

  “I try to keep my gifts from being too gaudy, so I’ll probably never be able to top the merman. Unusual gifts of quality are my focus—things to make a visitor to his office raise an eyebrow, but not necessarily comment on them. That’s why I need to find the perfect gargoyle.”

  Fiona knew the place to take her. “Well, I’ve got you covered. We’ll go this afternoon.”

  Meg looked surprised as she chased a walnut through the dregs of her salad dressing. As if she didn’t believe her. The best thing was, the gargoyle was probably the least interesting thing she’d be introducing her to that afternoon.

  62

  An hour later, Meg and Fiona decabbed in front of an industrial looking building near the Village. Fiona took Meg’s hand, walked her to a graffiti inscribed metal door, and pushed the buzzer. An automated lock clicked almost immediately, and Meg looked for a camera before she noticed Fiona looking up and waving. Meg followed Fiona’s gaze, but couldn’t see whoever might have been leaning out through one of the many multi-paned windows propped open above them. Fiona pulled the door open and they moved into a shallow, dimly lit lobby. The only features in the stark-white room were an elevator, a dozen or so mailboxes, and a door with a sign reading ‘Stairway’ above it. The smell of pine cleaner and musty architecture tickled Meg’s nose. Fiona approached a set of steel doors with a lever handle and yanked the lever to the side to open the heavy doors. Meg gaped when an old-fashioned elevator was revealed.

  Meg studied the contraption. She wasn’t an expert, but the lift looked at least a century old, if not older. Steel mesh enclosed the upper walls. She could see all the way up the shaft. “Whoa. I’ve only seen this kind of elevator in the movies. This is cool.”

  “I know, right? I always get a kick out of using it.”

  Fiona tugged the accordion gate open and stepped aside to let Meg in. Meg watched with interest as they rose through the skeleton frame of the eight-story building and Fiona wrestled with the lever to stop the elevator with a lurch.

  “It looks easier when Tammy does it.” Fiona let out an apologetic laugh when Meg flung her arms out to keep from falling down at the abrupt stop. The deck of the elevator was about two feet lower than the eighth-floor landing. “Let me ease this puppy up a skoosh.”

  After a few bumps and jumps trying to line the elevator up with the landing, Fiona finally gave up and opened the gate. They both laughed as they stepped up the six inches or so of gap.

  “You must have failed Bellhop 101 in undergraduate school.” Meg pretended to struggle with the step up.

  “Yeah. I looked especially good in the little cap and white gloves, too,” Fiona responded when Meg
had both feet safely on the hallway floor. As Fiona stepped across the hall and pushed the buzzer next to the enormous metal door, she looked over her shoulder at Meg with a mischievous grin. “I kept the uniform. I can put it on and we can play Mistress and the Bellhop, if you want.”

  Meg suppressed a gasp. Fiona was a fast learner. She liked it. She liked it a lot.

  A series of clanks and scrapes sounded from the other side of the massive metal door. When it finally swung open, a petite woman with arresting green eyes and blond dreadlocks stood barefoot in the doorway. Meg hardly had time to take in the dirty white cargo shorts, ancient Ani DiFranco concert tee, and tie-dyed bandana the woman wore, before she flung herself into Fiona’s arms. Laugher filled Fiona’s eyes as she returned the woman’s hug and looked over at Meg.

  “Fi! Great goddesses, woman! It’s been forever! Go on in, let me just get the gate.” The woman pulled herself away from Fiona, pushed both Fiona and Meg into her loft, and trotted over to the elevator to shut the gate. “The gate has to be shut to call the elevator. I’ve been the victim of my insensitive rat-fuck neighbors on more than a few occasions.” She screamed the ‘rat-fuck neighbors’ part down the elevator shaft as she said it. “Eight flights of stairs are a bitch to haul groceries up, let alone a three-hundred-and-forty-five-pound chunk of fucking granite.”

  “I heard that, Tammy, you putrid cunt!” A woman’s voice came floating up from the elevator shaft behind her.

  Tammy laughed and shook her head.

  “Sophia. She’s a brilliant artist, but she’s got a filthy mouth on her. She’ll probably come up in a little bit, the nosey whore. Pardon the mess, but it’s my life!” Tammy shooed them further into the loft and closed the door.

  Meg looked at Fiona with a questioning look. “Tammy from the library, Tammy?” she mouthed at her. Fiona smiled and nodded back. “Whoa!” mouthed Meg, and Fiona put a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing.

  Tammy finished securing the heavy door and joined them. The three women stood in a small circle in the center of a huge loft, and Meg realized when Tammy said “pardon the mess”, she wasn’t kidding. The place looked like a war zone with a thick coat of dust covering everything. Huge chunks of rock sat on battered handmade tables among rubble and grit. Spaced among them stood several canvas-enshrouded objects on similarly constructed low pedestals. The far-left side of the room had a roughed in area with bare drywall covering the outside. Meg assumed it was Tammy’s living area.

  “Meg, this is Tammy. Tammy, this is Meg.” Fiona introduced the two women and put her arm around Meg’s waist.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Meg.” Tammy offered her a thickly calloused hand, which she shook. “So, you’re the woman who finally won Fi’s elusive heart, huh?”

  “I’m hoping so,” Meg responded with a smile, looking at Fiona and then back at Tammy. “It’s nice to meet you, too, Tammy.”

  In a hundred years, she would have never pictured the Tammy of Fiona’s past as the bohemian woman before her.

  Tammy had an engaging smile. Meg couldn’t help smiling back. “You seem like a nice person.” Tammy’s voice was warm before she lost the smile and an edge crept out with her next words. “But you’d better treat her right. It’s the only warning you’ll get.” Tammy kept hold of her hand and she pulled her close. An edge of menace laced her gaze. Tammy may have been almost a head shorter than her, but the fierce look and impressively toned arms, presumably from hauling granite around, made Meg think Tammy could probably kick her ass. “Artists are an unstable lot, so I could easily plead insanity. With good behavior and a little dose of Jesus I’d be out in two years, probably less. A small inconvenience for my best friend.”

  Meg believed every word.

  “Oh, come on Tammy! Don’t scare her away!” Fiona laughed.

  Meg realized she’d been holding her breath when Tammy laughed. She released it in a shaky puff.

  “I’m just messing with her, Fi! Well, mostly,” she added, with a raised eyebrow in Meg’s direction. “I love this woman and I am a little protective. But I can already see she’s happier than I’ve ever seen her. You must be doing something right. She’s absolutely glowing!”

  Fiona dipped her head but didn’t say anything and Meg tightened her arm around Fiona’s waist.

  “So, you’re looking for a gargoyle, Fiona tells me.” Tammy fixed her brilliant green eyes on Meg.

  Meg swallowed. “Yep.”

  “Well, you came to the right place. Follow me.”

  Meg and Fiona followed Tammy to a row of industrial metal shelves in the far back area of the loft. As they approached the dark area, Tammy pulled a chain hanging down and several bare bulbs hanging from the open ceiling lit up the space. Crowded on the racks were hundreds of sculptures.

  “The gargoyles are over here.” Tammy walked them toward one of the shelves in the center of one of the rows.

  Meg glanced at the sculptures on some of the shelves they passed and found Tammy’s subjects ranged widely. She didn’t have a chance to study any, but she could sense a unique quality in each piece they passed. The work was detailed and beautiful.

  “You’ve sculpted all of these?” she asked.

  “These are mostly castings of the originals. It looks like a lot, but most of it is the mass-produced shit I make a living from. I’ll barf if I have to make another garden gnome, woodland fairy, or fucking angel. Here we are.”

  Meg looked around at multiple racks filled with cast metal gargoyles.

  “I went through a gothic phase a few years ago and this is the labor of that dark time.”

  Meg scanned the section and was thoroughly impressed with Tammy’s work. When she’d decided on a gargoyle, she hadn’t had a specific thing in mind other than she wanted an ugly statue to give to her dad. Something hideous he’d have to display in his office. Looking at Tammy’s work, she realized she’d minimized the artistic potential of the gift. The effect of giving him one of these wouldn’t be exactly what she’d planned. But then her eyes fell on a statue on one of the bottom shelves and knew she had found exactly what she was looking for. It was a weathered bronze monkey gargoyle, about a foot tall, holding the scales of justice from its mouth. The wings were battered and folded against its back, and it held an open book in its hands. The detail in it was impressive and it was so ugly it was beautiful. The best thing about it was, it was perfect in its artistic portrayal of evolution and the law.

  “This one is perfect!” Meg crouched before the sculpture. There were four copies behind the one she indicated, so she wouldn’t feel bad for taking the only one.

  “You found one of my personal favorites.” Tammy squatted beside her and nodded her approval.

  When Meg looked at her and began to pick it up, Tammy motioned for her to leave it and to follow her to another set of racks where the granite original perched upon the shelf.

  “Is this the original?”

  “Yep.” Tammy grabbed a card with a string attached to it from a stack at the end of the shelf and handed it to Meg, along with a pen. “I’ll have it shipped to you. Jot down the address you want it to go to on this.”

  “Do you usually sell the originals?” Meg printed her parents’ address on the card and wondered how she was going to get her mom not to peek at it before she got there. She wasn’t worried about her dad. He never picked up the mail, but she didn’t want her mom to see it before anyone else did and take away half the fun.

  “Not usually. And definitely not to Fi’s girlfriend.”

  Meg looked up from her writing, confused.

  Tammy laughed at the look on her face. “It’s a gift. From me to you.”

  “Really?” Meg and Fiona asked in unison.

  Tammy thumped Meg on the back. “Yes, really.”

  Once Tammy tied the tag to the sculpture and Meg repeated her thanks enough to be embarrassed by her own s
tammering, Tammy showed Meg and Fiona around her studio. All of her work was amazing, even her despised mass production pieces. And her current work was much larger than the shelf-sized pieces she’d shown them. Tammy was an amazing artist and her personality poured out of everything she created.

  They were peeking under another tarp when the huge metal front door banged open, and a woman who looked to be in her eighties charged in, dressed in coveralls with the top rolled down over her waist, displaying a sparkling white tank top. Her flip flops slapped her heels as she approached. She held a large glass pitcher and a stack of red plastic cups. The pitcher was filled with red liquid, ice cubes tinkling merrily against its sides.

  “Sangria, anyone? It’s hotter than a whore’s snatch in here!” It was the voice from the elevator shaft. Meg wasn’t usually surprised by colorful language, but she blushed at the woman’s words.

  “Sophia! Fuck me! I forgot to lock the door to keep your putrescent ass out of here!” Tammy raced toward the old woman and liberated the pitcher and cups from her hands. “Sophia, meet Meg and Fiona!”

  “I hope you both drink, or you’re going to have a soused old bitch on your hands!” Sophia said cheerfully, and did a hop-step over to the table where Tammy set the pitcher.

  “Her sangria is fucking awesome.” Tammy filled up four glasses. “But she’s an obnoxious drunk, so take your share or I’ll have an unwanted guest sleeping on my couch.”

  63

  “That was fun.” Meg raised an arm to call a cab as they exited Tammy’s building into the muted light of early evening. She hadn’t even lowered her arm before a yellow car pulled to a stop at the curb before them.

  Fiona steadied Meg as the sudden stopping of the car before them caused her to stumble. “Whoopsie! I have you!”

  “Came in faster than I expected. Plus, I might be a little drunk.” Meg giggled. It was the cutest thing Fiona had ever heard. In a sly game of trading cups, she and Fiona had successfully managed to make Tammy and Sophia think Fiona was enjoying the sangria, while Meg did most of the consuming.