True Colors

by Judith Arnold

  Chapter Five

   

  Emma had been to the Faulk Street Tavern only a handful of times since moving to Brogan’s Point. She knew it was a landmark—although why, she couldn’t say. It was kind of scruffy, just this side of drab. The drinks were inexpensive, but given her finances, she couldn’t even afford inexpensive. Why go out for drinks when she could buy a cheap six-pack at the supermarket for not much more than a single drink at this bar? The wait staff at the Faulk Street Tavern was soft-spoken and mellow, but most people in Brogan’s Point were soft-spoken and mellow, especially compared to the barmaids Emma had encountered in Brooklyn. The décor was pedestrian. The only special thing about the Faulk Street Tavern was the funky antique jukebox standing against one wall.

  But when Monica had phoned her, told her to put on some decent—by which she meant not paint-spattered—clothing and haul her ass over to the place at six o’clock, Emma didn’t argue. Apparently, Mad Max had tracked Monica down at the Ocean Bluff Inn and conveyed that he was not happy with his tenants. Or, more accurately, his tenant and Emma, whom he regarded not as a tenant but as some sort of toxic intruder.

  A cockroach? A bedbug? A lethal dose of radon? Just because she and Monica had stretched the terms of the lease—no, they’d merely interpreted it differently from him—didn’t mean she posed a threat to his precious house.

  To be safe, however, she’d obeyed Monica’s edict and dressed in a long brown skirt, a tunic in an interesting weave of brown, tan and moss green, and her most expensive shoes, a pair of tooled leather boots that Claudio had bought for her when things had been going well between them and that, obviously, she couldn’t return to him once things had stopped going well. Before dressing, she’d taken a shower and washed her hair, just to make sure there were no flecks of paint or glue in her long, unmanageable mane.

  She understood the importance of making a good second impression on Mad Max, even if her first impression had flunked the test. This meeting needed to go well. It was bad enough that he seemed inclined to evict her and Monica because they’d breached—no, misinterpreted—the lease. What if he sued them for damages?

  She’d have to pawn her boots, for starters.

  “We’re going to make nice,” Monica had explained when she’d phoned. “We’re not going to be stubborn or sarcastic. Are we,” she added for emphasis.

  “Who, me? Stubborn and sarcastic?”

  “Like that. Behave, Emma. Keep your mouth shut and let me do the talking. I’m better at this kind of thing than you are.”

  Anyone in the world had to be better at it than Emma.

  But she’d washed her hair and donned her boots. And she’d arrived at the Faulk Street Tavern only five minutes late, even though she’d had to walk all the way down the hill into town from the house, a hike of nearly three miles. She couldn’t afford a car. Living in New York City, she hadn’t needed one. In Brogan’s Point, she’d gotten used to walking.

  Fortunately, the boots were extraordinarily comfortable.

  Monica and Max were already seated in one of the booths when Emma entered the bar. The place wasn’t that crowded; it was a weeknight, and still a bit early for pub crawlers. She strolled past the tables and across the scuffed wood dance floor at the center of the room to the booth her housemate and her nemesis occupied. Max courteously stood as she neared the table.

  God, she’d love to paint his portrait. She’d remembered that his eyes were beautiful, but she hadn’t remembered exactly how beautiful they were. Like precision-cut amethysts, surrounded by those dense black lashes.

  She slid into the booth next to Monica, facing Max. “Hi,” she said. She assumed she was allowed to say that much.

  Max nodded and resumed his seat. Monica beamed a thousand-watt smile his way. “Let’s order some drinks,” she suggested, beckoning a waitress with a wave. “Max? What would you like?”

  He eyed her warily, then slid his gaze to Emma and looked every more wary. “What do you have on tap?” he asked the waitress.

  She rattled off a list of beers. He ordered a Sam Adams, and Emma requested one, as well. Monica opted for a dirty martini. “Can you bring a bowl of nuts or something?” she added. “What does Gus have that we can munch on?”

  “Want me to get a menu?”

  “No.” Monica aimed her blinding smile back at Max. “I’m sure you’d like to save your appetite for dinner at the inn. Only one of our dining rooms is open for dinner during the off-season, but the chef is fabulous.”

  Max pressed his lips together in a grim line. Clearly, he was not buying what Monica was selling.

  Emma tried not to fidget. The nape of her neck felt damp; blow-drying her thick hair usually took forever, and she hadn’t had forever that evening. She’d hoped her walk down the hill in the brisk spring air would have finished what the blow-dryer had begun, but apparently it hadn’t.

  Or maybe the chill at the nape of her neck was caused not by her shower but by dread. This time tomorrow, she might be homeless.

  “Mr. Tarkoff,” she began.

  “Tarloff,” he corrected her as Monica kicked her under the table.

  “I’m sorry. I mean, call me Emma and I’ll call you Max. Would that be okay?”

  “Emma, let’s wait until our drinks get here,” Monica said pointedly.

  “I’ll let you do all the talking,” Emma promised, then turned back to Max. “I just want to say that I’m petrified about winding up homeless. I’ve taken really good care of your house, and I have nowhere else to live, so I’m really up the creek if I get kicked out. That’s all. If you two want to debate the terms of the lease, I’ll stay out of your way.”

  Max’s gaze narrowed on Emma. Evidently, he hadn’t expected her to be so blunt, to express her fear so honestly. She hadn’t expected to express it so honestly, either. But she’d hoped that if she gave voice to her panic, she’d win a few points for candor.

  “I don’t want to make you homeless,” Max said. Maybe he had a conscience, after all. Maybe she could guilt him into letting her stay at the house until she found a new residence. And some space to run her classes and Dream Portraits, because she’d need the income to pay for the new residence.

  She started to thank him for his compassion, but he cut her off before she could speak. “The thing is, you can’t run a business from a private house without getting a zoning variance.”

  “This is Brogan’s Point,” Monica reminded him gently. “Everyone knows everyone here in town. We aren’t sticklers for those kinds of things.”

  “What if one of Emma’s students tripped and fell in my house? As the owner, I’d be liable.”

  “There’s nothing in the lease that says I can’t have guests in the house,” Monica pointed out. “Let’s say I had a guest and she tripped and fell. You’d still be liable.”

  “I’ve got insurance for that. I don’t have insurance for a student paying to participate in a commercial venture in my house.”

  The waitress arrived with their drinks and a heaping bowl of mixed nuts. “Gus said to tell you if you want something more substantial, the wings are good tonight,” the waitress informed them.

  “Do you want wings?” Monica asked Max.

  He shook his head.

  Once the waitress departed, Monica took over. “The lease runs through the end of June. If you don’t sell the house July 1st, you may as well let us stay there month-to-month until you do sell—or at least until we can make alternate living arrangements. No sense having the house stand empty if you can be earning some money with it.”

  Emma experienced a surge of gratitude. She knew Monica was saying this on her behalf. Monica already had alternate living arrangements.

  “Money isn’t the issue,” Max argued.

  Before he could clarify what the issue was, a man approached their table. He had a blandly handsome face topped by light brown hair, with sideburns that crawled just a little too far down his cheeks. He wore a cheap suit, his tie loosened. Emma supp
ressed a grimace. Monica did nothing to suppress her grin. “Jimmy! I didn’t know you were going to be here.”

  “Hey, babe!” Jimmy leaned across Emma to kiss Monica’s cheek. “Yeah, a few of the guys decided to do a little TGIF action after work.” He gestured toward a clot of young men, all dressed much like Jimmy. He was a car salesman. Emma assumed his buddies were, too.

  “It’s not Friday,” Monica pointed out.

  “That never stopped us. Hi, Emma,” Jimmy said belatedly, and rather coolly. She suspected that his opinion of her matched her opinion of him. He shot Max a quizzical look, then turned back to Monica. “Who’s this? Emma’s new squeeze?”

  Monica sent him a warning glance. “This is Max Tarloff, our landlord.”

  “Oh.” Jimmy held up his hands in mock surrender. “My bad. I keep telling you, Monica, move in with me and you won’t have to deal with a landlord.”

  “She’d have to deal with you,” Emma muttered. Someone must have stuffed some money into the jukebox, because it suddenly began blasting an old Rolling Stones song, drowning out Emma’s words. Just as well. She didn’t need Jimmy joining Mad Max in the Let’s-Give-Emma-Shit club.

  “Jimmy.” Monica’s tone grew steely, even though she was still smiling. “Can we talk for a minute?”

  Emma slid out of the booth without being asked. Monica followed her out of the booth, apologized to Max, clamped her hand around Jimmy’s elbow and hustled him away from the table.

  Emma resumed her seat. Max gazed after Monica for a moment, then shook his head. “I tried to talk to her in her office this afternoon, but her phone kept ringing.”

  “She’s a busy lady,” Emma said. “Always in demand.”

  Max regarded Emma in silence for a moment. “That’s an old song,” he finally said. “Microsoft used it in an ad for one of its operating systems a few years back.”

  “That jukebox is full of old songs. And nobody knows what they are, according to Monica.”

  “What do you mean? Aren’t they listed on the front of the jukebox?”

  “Nope. You put a quarter in—the price is as ancient as the music—and you never know what songs will come out. It’s supposed to be haunted, or magical, or something.”

  A faint smile whispered across Max’s lips. “I don’t believe in magic.”

  “I do,” Emma said, meeting his gaze.

  His smile widened. “Really?”

  “I don’t believe you can say abracadabra and wave a magic wand and make things happen. But I do believe you can take a bunch of paint and spread it across a canvas in such a way that it changes the world. It’s just colors and shapes, but those colors and shapes can reveal the artist’s soul—and the subject’s soul, too­­—and it can move people to tears. How can that not be magic?”

  “Lots of things move people to tears. It isn’t magic. It’s a matter of brain chemistry, reflexes, psychological issues. If you fall and scrape your knee, you might cry. That’s not magic. It’s the body’s neurological reaction to pain.”

  Emma hadn’t expected to venture into a scientific discussion with him, let alone a philosophical one. She considered pointing out that if he evicted her from his house, she’d probably wind up weeping hysterically, and that wouldn’t be because she’d scraped her knee. That would be much more akin to magic. Black magic. Bad magic.

  But she was too intrigued by the analytical turn he’d taken. “Are you a scientist?” she asked. “I thought maybe you were a lawyer, given how hung up you are on liability insurance and clauses and all that.” She realized she knew nothing about Max, other than that he lived in California and he was her landlord. And that he was a hell of a lot younger than she’d expected. And that if he’d been responsible for the décor of his house, he had no taste.

  And that he had beautiful eyes. A beautiful mouth, too. His lips were thin but distinct, anchored by his sharp nose above and his strong chin below.

  “I work in the high-tech industry,” he said.

  “High-tech is science. It’s magic, too, if you ask me.”

  Another smile flickered across his face. His mouth was even more beautiful when he was smiling.

  “How did you wind up with a house in Brogan’s Point?” she asked. “Especially that house. It’s so atypical for this area. Most houses around here are very New-England style. Colonials, Cape Cods, saltboxes…and you own this amazing modern house with walls of glass.”

  His smile vanished. “Why I bought the house is irrelevant,” he said dryly. “All that matters is that I plan to sell it, as soon as possible.”

  “Right. But I think Monica made a good point about letting us stay in the house until you sell it.”

  He shook his head, then lifted his glass and sipped his beer. “When I was a kid, my family rented an apartment. Ugly little place. One bedroom. I slept on the couch in the living room. There was a big water stain on the kitchen ceiling. But it was in a gentrifying neighborhood, and the landlord decided to take the building co-op. He said we could stay in the apartment until it sold. Every time he brought in a potential buyer, one of my parents or I would be sure to stare up at the kitchen ceiling. The buyer would look up, notice the water stain, and leave. We wound up living in that apartment an extra two years until the landlord finally fixed the leak and repainted the ceiling.”

  She tried to imagine a pint-size version of Max, all tousled dark curls and attitude, his piercing blue eyes aimed at a water stain. “Your house doesn’t have any leaks,” she noted. “Your ceilings look fine.”

  “I’m just saying, it wouldn’t be hard for you to delay a potential sale. You’re smart. You’d find a way.”

  She shouldn’t have been so pleased that he considered her smart. But she was smart—smart enough to change the subject. “So, you’re in high tech. What are you, a computer scientist?”

  He mulled over his reply. She didn’t think she’d asked such a difficult question, but he seemed to feel he had to weigh his answer carefully. Finally, he said, “My work isn’t that interesting.”

  His evasiveness made it interesting. “Let me guess,” she said. “You developed some amazing new app and became a billionaire.”

  Another tenuous smile. “You found me out,” he confessed.

  At least he had a sense of humor. A begrudging one, but it made him seem a bit more human to her. She visualized the Dream Portrait she’d do of him—his angular features, his dazzling eyes, the thick, dark waves of his hair, and a background of computers, code, tablets, graphics, gadgets and gizmos. If he were a billionaire, he could certainly afford one of her paintings. He could afford millions of them.

  She smiled back at him. Hell, she’d offer him a discounted price on his portrait. She would have such a good time painting it.

  The Rolling Stones song ended and the jukebox pumped out a new song. An old song, really, but Emma recognized it. It was one of the many songs her mother used to sing when she was gardening or puttering around the house. Emma’s mother had an awful voice; if she occasionally hit the right note, it was purely by luck. She also had a habit of mangling the words. Yet those classic rock and pop songs her mother used to torture had embedded themselves in Emma’s memory.

  I see your true colors, shining through…

  When someone with a good voice sang it, it was a beautiful ballad. Emma felt a lush warmth fill her as the singer’s voice curled around the words, sweet and searing. It vanquished the chill of her damp hair and the fear of homelessness hanging over her. She felt enveloped in the song.

  Her gaze met Max’s across the table, and she felt even warmer. He stared at her as if suddenly transfixed. By the song? By Emma?

  She heard nothing but the music. The din of conversation, the clink of glasses, the rhythm of footsteps and scrapes of chairs against the floor—all the noise faded. Nothing entered her but the song, and the sight of Max Tarloff watching her intently, intensely.

  The bar disappeared. The other patrons. The waitress. The tall, square-jawed, tawny-haired
bartender. The beers on the table, and the bowl of munchies. The entire universe evaporated, leaving behind only a song.

  A song, and the man facing Emma.

  When the song ended, silence.

  And then Monica’s voice, shattering the odd spell the song had spun around Emma. “Hello? Slide over, Emma, so I can sit.”

  Emma gave her head a sharp shake. She noticed Max doing the same. Embarrassed that she’d zoned out so completely, she shifted on the banquette, moving herself and her beer toward the wall so Monica could join her and Max at the table. “I’m so sorry,” Monica said to Max, apparently unaware of whatever had happened in the cozy booth while she’d been away.

  What had happened? Emma had no idea. She felt as she’d been in the grip of a fever, and now it had broken and she was healthy again, but altered. The song was still inside her, tattooed onto her soul.

  “That was a friend of mine,” Monica explained to Max, gesturing toward Jimmy, who had gathered with his buddies at the bar. “He can be clueless sometimes.”

  Ordinarily, Emma would have cracked that Monica was correct on the “clueless” part of that claim, but underestimating sorely on the “sometimes” part of it. But she didn’t trust herself to speak. Her mouth felt the way it did after dental work, before the Novocain wore off.

  Max flexed his lips, and once again Emma wondered if he was recovering from the same weird symptoms that had overtaken her. He took a sip of beer, cleared his throat and said, “That’s all right.”

  “I feel bad about the insurance thing,” Monica said. “If you want Emma and me to pay the additional premium so your liability is covered, we can do that.”

  Emma wanted to slam her foot into Monica’s shin—not only because she owed Monica an under-the-table kick but because Emma couldn’t afford to pay an additional premium. Monica didn’t earn much, but she received a steady salary, paid weekly, and if she had to, she could ask her parents for help. They were big on urging their daughter to be self-reliant, but in a pinch, they’d come through for her.

  Emma’s parents were big on self-reliance, too. In a pinch, she believed they would want to help her out, too. But like her, they had no money to spare.

  “It doesn’t seem worth it, since the lease is up in a couple of months. And there’s the zoning issue,” Max said. His brain-fog must have dissipated more quickly than Emma’s, if he could discuss lease dates and zoning laws. He turned to look at her, and she was once again stricken by the color of his eyes. So very blue. True blue, she thought, the song shimmering inside her. She saw his true colors—or at least the true blue of his irises.

  “How about if I help you find a place outside my house where you can teach your art class?” he said.

  Emma gaped, as startled by his offer as by the cool beauty of his eyes. “That would be great,” she managed.

  “All right.” He slugged down the rest of his beer. “Let’s see what we can scare up.” Abruptly, he scooted out of the booth and stood. “I’ll be in touch,” he said, then strode across the tavern to the exit and out.

  Scowling, Monica turned to Emma. “What the hell just happened?”

  Good question. “I—he left,” she stammered. “And stuck us with the bill for the drinks.”

  “I invited him here,” Monica assured Emma. “He knew I was treating. Is he serious? Is he going to find you studio space?”

  “I don’t see how he can. It’s not like he knows this town.” The last traces of mist floated out of Emma’s brain and reality settled onto her, cold and heavy. “Any studio space he finds is going to be too expensive for me, anyway. And I’m still going to wind up homeless—unless he finds a studio that has a bed in it.”

  “We’ve got a couple of months,” Monica reminded her.

  “He could kick us out tomorrow,” Emma shot back. “We’re in breach of the lease, aren’t we?”

  Monica gazed toward the door through which he’d vanished, then swiveled back to Emma. “I don’t think he’s going to,” she said. “If he’s going to help you find studio space, he’s not going to kick us out. He’s a good guy.”

  Emma wouldn’t go that far. She wasn’t sure what kind of guy he was.

  All she knew was that the song had walloped him the way it had walloped her. And he’d been as shaken by it as she was.