AllFreeNovel
Share Us
chapter 1
ARTIST UNKNOWN
Lisa, my housemate, bestie, and pre-ordained escape plan, was MIA: last seen skipping to her fiancé’s car for a supposed beer run. Maybe, I thought, downing my third glass of wine, maybe I didn’t need Lisa’s “accidental” interruption. Maggie was an understanding woman. She’d forgive me for kicking her sensitive soul of a son to the curb. What did I stand to lose?
She was only a front row participant in the hot yoga class Lisa and I taught at the YMCA.
All she did was my taxes.
And held the fate of my summer arts program in her manicured nails.
And could sink those two inch claws into the ear of the Director of Conservation and Collections Management to ensure my brush never touched a significant painting again.
Of course, tonight’s meltdown could have been avoided had I merely torn the check and stormed out of Maggie’s office in disgust. One week later, cozied up in the privacy of my living room, her son’s hand creeping along my thigh, was a little late to develop a backbone.
Nevertheless, I’d politely discouraged Keith’s interest: picked my braid into a frizz, chewed crusts with the dignity of a starving hound; hell, I'd even slipped into the kitchen to crunch a garlic clove. But neither this nor incessant chatter about his mom’s flexibility for downward dog had changed the course of the evening.
So, since wishing Lisa was back wouldn’t make beer appear in our empty fridge, I’d uncorked a bottle of zinfandel strong enough to loosen my tongue and had unleashed the graceless declaration, "I'm going to change into something more comfortable." What I’d meant was, ‘Rags used to wipe a subway car smell fresher than the smock I’m about to pull on.’ Focused on the subtle persuasions of stench, I paid no mind to the loose buttons or fabric, which had been worn to a thin sheer, so much so that it was easy to see I'd been wearing a cute bra (in case the date had progressed more along the lines of the something something Maggie implied).
Keith and I had been watching The Two Towers when at the start of the battle of Helm’s Deep he’d announced he was bored.
“My favorite fantasies are the kind you can reach out and touch,” he explained, curling a strand of my brown hair.
Having run out of room, time, and reasonable excuses, I scooted to the end of the couch. “What are you, a lunatic? This is the best part.”
He moved onto my cushion. “It’s about to be.”
“Hate to break it to you, but I’m not doing anything until the horn of Helm Hammerhand sounds in the—”
Keith leaned in.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched a mouse trigger the deck’s finicky motion detector, launching my cats into a chattering, scratching frenzy at the base of the glass slider. I ducked out of kissing range with a feigned, “Oh, my God! What was that?”
“Relax, Marcy.” Keith’s hand on my knee kept me locked beside him. “Whatever’s crawling around in the dark isn’t going to come inside.”
“This is an old house; that’s exactly what’s going to happen.” I lifted his hand with an emphatic sigh. “I’d better pull the have-a-heart trap out of the basement.”
“Later.” No matter how far I’d leaned, he was there reeling me in. “Stay in the moment. Close your eyes. Imagine yourself kissing the Prince of the Woodland Realm.”
“So, listen,” I'd replied, squishing the popcorn tub between myself and the guy I had come to view as the human incarnation of soggy lint (and not because I was more of an Aragorn groupie). “I’m not feeling particularly imaginative tonight.”
He stroked my check. “What’s wrong?”
Yeah, what was wrong with me? If Maggie’s son left unhappy, Maggie’s checkbook would snap shut in my face. No money meant no summer arts program to oversee, which was all I had to look forward to after a promptly postmarked “thank you, but no” had arrived in regard to my latest application for a conservator’s apprenticeship.
I refreshed my drink with another glug of wine, then lifted the glass to my lips to buffer the distance between my mouth and his.
“Lisa’s due back any minute,” I continued, frowning at the hall clock. Lisa had been due back forty minutes ago.
“You’ve got a big house. I’m sure we could find somewhere to hide.” He winked.
With large brown eyes, an upturned nose, and lips fuller than his mother’s serpentine smile, Keith wasn’t bad looking, but he was the tamest wealthy donor’s son I’d ever met. He worked as a CPA, spent the occasional weeknight filling in for a radio host on a classical music FM station, and attended whatever events his mother asked of him. All his stories were secondhand tales about other people’s adventurous exploits.
Overall, he seemed a good, upstanding young man who loved his mom, knew how to manage his money, and enjoyed a little roleplay.
He didn’t deserve a false date any more than he deserved the embarrassment of learning our encounter had been sponsored by his mother.
Debating how much to tell him, I took his hand. “Look, you’re a nice guy and all, but there’s—”
