I had an idea—an idea that had been working on me since I was twelve. I’d stood in front of the windows, the natural light pouring in as I’d pretended to paint one of the big landscapes. Holding an imaginary brush, I’d pretended to feather in different colors, maybe make a different choice in the shading of that tree, or the shape of that hill. I saw my own painting laid over the actual, and in my mind’s eye I was in my own art studio.
I wasn’t quite ready to share that thought out loud, though.
If I was really going to consider working in this space, I’d have to get some heating and cooling up here. And install screens in the windows so they could be opened. “It’s getting a little stuffy up here; let’s head back down and get something to drink.”
“Are you sure? I feel like I didn’t help you at all, we just played,” she said, adjusting the top hat she was wearing.
“I kind of want to keep it like this for a while. So much of this house isn’t at all like I remembered it,” I said, running my fingertips across one of the paintings. “It’s nice to have something be exactly the same.”
She went down the stairs ahead of me and I paused at the top, looking back over the attic. There was another reason I was reluctant to disturb everything up here. I kind of wanted Clark to see it, as is.
I flicked off the light and followed Jessica downstairs.
We kept at the cleaning every day. Even Jessica’s boyfriend, John, had been drafted when we realized how heavy the Legless Knight was. He and Clark lifted him, reunited his torso with his better half, and took him down to the antiques store that had taken some of the other things.
“Don’t you think he should stay in the house?” Clark had asked, patting the knight on the head.
“No, he’s too weird. And speaking of weird, the dolls are next on my hit list.”
I laughed as he tried to spook me with stories of how, if I got rid of them, they’d plot their revenge.
What did not need a ton of work—cue surprise face here—was the Bel Air. Clark found the car keys in a mayonnaise jar in the pantry with all kinds of odds and ends. Spying a Buffalo nickel at the bottom of the jar, he upended the entire thing all over the kitchen table. And as he combed through the stuff, I saw a key chain with two very bright and shiny keys. Biting back a squeal in case they turned out to be the wrong ones, I snatched them up, ran out to the garage, and slid behind the wheel before Clark even knew I was gone. I’d planned only to slip the keys into the ignition to see if they fit, but when they did, I couldn’t resist.
With a cough and a chortle, the engine purred to life. Clark ran outside, visions of a Bel Air–shaped hole in the garage no doubt in his head, and stood in front of the hood with a bemused expression on his face. I revved her up once, which made him sidle to the side a bit.
“It sounds pretty good!” I yelled over the engine, and he walked to the window.
“Let’s not tempt fate, shall we? I’ll have one of the guys from Brady’s Auto come over while you’re gone and make sure it’s drivable. How ’bout that?”
Eager as I was to tootle about town in it, I realized that it wouldn’t do me any good to get stranded on the side of the road. So I turned it off and reluctantly handed over the keys to Clark.
“Just so we’re clear, you don’t get to drive it first. Even if the guy says everything is great, you wait for me. Got it?” I said, poking him in the chest. He nodded, pocketing the keys. He’d better have listened to me . . .
Clark was around most days now. Cleaning and culling was uncovering some other necessary repairs to the house, which of course he needed to be consulted on. I didn’t mind. I’d gotten used to him being here. Now that the bandage was gone and the bruises had faded, I didn’t mind looking at him so much.
And when you got past the briefcase and the tie, the elbow patches and the dusty eyeglasses, he was a pretty funny guy. He made me laugh; he made me think. He also made me furious. But he was quickly becoming a good friend.
And I’d been right about letting him see the attic as is. He loved it. He went bananas over the old yearbooks, especially since most of them were from the local high school. As he pored over old letters and receipts from stores long since shuttered, I studied the light as it shone in. Where the shadows were, where the light was the strongest. I began to mentally carve out a space that was becoming my studio.
“Can I help you with that?” Clark asked as I struggled to pull a trunk away from the wall.
“No no, I’ve got it,” I insisted, pulling hard enough to make my eyes cross a bit. “What in the world is in here?” I mumbled, giving one more good tug and sending it, and me, sliding across the floor. I sat down hard, biting my tongue in the process. “Sonofa— Ow!”
“Impossible woman,” he muttered, but was at my side a moment later. “You need to let people help you.”
“What do you think I’m doing, with all this free labor cleaning out my house?” I said, wincing as I felt around the inside of my mouth. The piercing in my tongue clicked against the back of my teeth like it always did, and the sound made Clark look closer.
“You didn’t lose your piercing, did you?” he asked, crouching down next to me and offering me his handkerchief. God bless him, he carried a hankie.
“No, it’d take a lot for this sucker to come out,” I said, accepting what he offered and pressing it to the tip of my tongue where I’d bitten it.