Beauty Read online

  “Yes,” I said with a full and obviously unamused sigh.

  “Then you should come with me. I think there’s something you need to see.”

  I rose from my desk, saving the few words in my document that I’d managed to eek out in the past three hours and followed Ray into the other room.

  Going through the laundry list of what could be wrong in the house as I followed in his footsteps, I mentally ticked off all the work I’d done in the home since we bought it three weeks ago.

  Walls not original to the house had been brought down, showing us two beautiful fireplaces that had been closed up, as well as a couple of closets. The first parlor was nearly finished as well as the master bedroom. The master bath hadn’t been started and the smell was the bane of my existence when I showered each morning. Still, the progress was way beyond what I’d expected to get done in three weeks. Each time I couldn’t write, I found myself turning off the computer and getting dirty. Park Ave was starting to look like a home Ray and I could build a future around. A place where we could get married, raise a family and grow old together.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, following him down the winding staircase from the second floor.

  “Just wait,” he called up to me with a smile. “You’re not going to believe this.”

  A chill went through my body as I made it to the first floor and I could see my breath. Tightening the sweater around my neck as I shuddered at the cold, I called to him, “Ray, we’ve got to have that old boiler checked. It’s going to be winter soon and I don’t want to freeze to death.”

  He didn’t answer and I followed the sound of his footsteps to the back of the house towards the kitchen. “Ray, did you hear me?” I said again before bringing my voice down. “No, you don’t hear me. You’re not listening to me. You’re going to go off to your big art show in New York leaving me here where they’ll find me frozen at my computer. The headline will read: Writer dies at desk, leaving behind a century-old, half renovated home and twelve hundred words.”

  “Lizzie?” Ray called to me from the kitchen. “C’mon.”

  “I’m coming.”

  Walking into the kitchen, Ray stood by the door that led to the courtyard. “I want to show you something.”

  “Is it a dead animal? If you brought me down here just to show me that we have rats, or something far worse, I might have to kill you and I’m not joking.”

  Ray twisted his face and grimaced. “What in the hell goes on inside that head of yours? Can you just come and enjoy something for once?”

  “Fine,” I droned. “Show me.”

  Taking me by the hand, Ray led me past the sawhorses and extra lumber shoved behind the house and into what was once the flower garden. “Close your eyes.”

  Not wanting to fight him any more than I already had, I obliged him and shut my eyes tightly as a crisp fall wind blew through my clothes, causing me to shudder once again.

  “Okay, open them.”

  In front of me stood four tangled rose bushes. When we moved in, they were nothing more than a twisted web of thorns and weeds, but Ray had done his best in the last couple of days to clear out some of the overgrown brush to find what was really growing back there. “Bushes,” I said trying to match his enthusiasm.

  “Four rose bushes. But that’s not the best part, Liz. Look.” Ray pointed to the bush farthest away from the house and I smiled at his unabashed excitement.

  “What is that?” I asked moving in closer. “Is that a rose?”

  “It sure as hell is. A red one.”

  I walked closer to get a better look, my feet sliding over the broken bricks and slimy leaves that covered the entire courtyard. I realized there was so much to do to Park Ave it would be years before I could actually take a breath and relax. I approached the bloom slowly. The last thing I wanted was to slip and fall into a tangled, thorny mess and make my already bad day worse. Leaning in, I examined it closely. It was indeed a tight bud of a deep red rose. I closed my eyes, placed my nose as close to the bloom as possible and breathed in the lovely fragrance.

  I exhaled and found myself verbally approving of the one beautiful thing in our contorted garden. “Mmmm… Ray,” I said, not turning to look at him, “thank you for making me take a moment to appreciate this little miracle.”

  I leaned in once more and felt Ray’s hand on my butt. “Really? I’m just telling you now. I’m not having sex outside in the garden, no matter what your plan is to christen the house.”

  Another caress rounded my bottom as I surveyed the roots of the bush, making sure the bud had come from the base and not grown wild. A deep pinch of my butt cheek caused me to squeal before I felt the forceful shove from behind.

  Flying face first into the briars and entwined labyrinth of contorted thorns, I screamed as my cheek hit the twisted branches before the weight of my body mashed the unyielding spikes into my flesh.

  “Ray!” I screamed. “What the hell are you doing to me? Ray!”

  Lifting myself as best I could, I plunged more thorns into the palms of my hands as I tried to right myself and stand. “Ray!”

  “What the hell happened?” He shouted at me from the other side of the garden.

  “You pushed me. That’s what happened. Oh God, it hurts. Get me out of here,” I cried as I lifted my hand in the air for him to take. “Pull, for God’s sake.”

  In one fluid motion, Ray got me back onto my feet, turning me around to assess the damage. “How in the world did you fall into the bush?” he asked.

  “You dick. You came up behind me and fondled my ass. I told you I wouldn’t have sex with you in the garden and then you pushed me into the roses.”

  “Honey, I left you here alone. Didn’t you hear my phone ring in the house? I told you I’d be right back.”

  “That’s bullshit and you know it,” I yelled as I began to pick the thorns from my arm. Brushing the dirt from my shirt, I noticed a red cord stuck to the arm of my sweater. The perfect size for my wrist, I slipped it over my right, hand settling it in against the various leather, fabric and rope bands with charms and trinkets from my past.

  “Lizzie,” he begged as he brushed the hair from my face, pulling a thorn delicately from my cheek. “Baby, I would never want to hurt you. I love grabbing your ass for sure—it’s a great ass—but I would never hurt you. Not in a million years.”

  Taking me by the arm he rushed us back into the house, sitting me at the kitchen table.

  Grabbing a dishtowel, he turned on the faucet and made a cold compress while I gingerly pulled the old sweater from my arms and shoulders. “Just out of curiosity, why would you think I pushed you?”

  “Because Ray,” I said fueled with disgust, “I could feel your hands on my ass—like on my butt and all around it. There was a hard pinch and then came the shove.”

  Ray stared in my face. I could tell by the look he was giving me that he didn’t believe me. “What? You think I just fell into the bushes and I’m blaming you?”

  Ray sat back in his chair and handed me the wet towel. “Let’s just say it wouldn’t be the first time you blamed me for something just so you wouldn’t have to shoulder the responsibility.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked as I held the compress to my face, now burning from where the thorns tore my skin.

  “You know what I mean. You’ve not been able to write so it’s my fault. I’m making too much noise in my studio. My music bothers you, the construction workers who you hired by the way and set their hours, are too loud—too distracting.”

  I just stared at him. I knew he was right. I had blamed him for just about everything that was going wrong in my life, but this time I really couldn’t take the blame. I dropped my head, breaking down in the tears that I’d held back for a month. “I’m sorry. I know I’m a royal bitch. I don’t mean to be. Well,” I said with a pause. “I do mean to be sometimes. It’s just this house, and my book, and you’re doing so well and I’m over here just hanging on by a threa
d.”

  Nodding, he took my bloody hand into his. “Look, I know the past month hasn’t been easy for you. Truly, it hasn’t been easy for me either, regardless of what you think.”

  “But you’ve been so productive and I’ve just been in the next room twiddling my thumbs and looking at fabric samples for custom curtains that we can’t afford,” I said breaking into a full-on weep.”

  “Aw, c’mon now, Lizzie. Why don’t I take you upstairs and start the water in the teeniest, tiniest shower known to mankind. I’ll pour you a glass of wine and we can discuss where we should go for dinner.”

  I looked up at him as the tears streamed down my face. “I can’t go out looking like this.”

  “Then we’ll decide where to order our take-out from. How does that sound?”

  I nodded and hiccupped through my tears. “My hands and face are stinging.”

  Placing his arms around my waist, he lifted me from the kitchen chair and held me at his side, walking me at a snail’s pace to the foyer and up the stairs. “I’ll start the water and by the time you get undressed—it will be hot and you can wash all of this away.”

  Walking into the master bedroom, Ray turned on the light. We’d managed to refinish the floors in our room as well as strip the endless layers of paint from the old plaster walls. Since we hadn’t decided on a color yet, the cool yellow and white tones leftover from hours of scraping in our masks had rid the room of its ugly red color as well as all of the lead-based paint. We did manage to hang a crystal chandelier we’d found in a closet. It was missing some of its pendalogues, but Ray had found a handful that matched closely at a local antique dealer and managed to clean it up before hanging it. The Austrian crystal made the room sparkle with magic. It was already one of my favorite things about the house.

  I sat on the modern bed we’d brought with us from New York. It didn’t go with the room or the lighting fixture, but Ray and I had decided we would choose the furniture carefully for the house. We didn’t want to rush into buying anything on a whim just to fill a room. That, and everything we wanted was out of our price range.

  “Let me start the water,” said Ray. “You can undress, or if you’d like, wait and I will undress you. You know how I love that.”

  I managed a smile in his general direction and brushed the last tear from my cheek. I rolled my shoulders, working the old navy sweater from my body. Unhooking my bra beneath my t-shirt, I pulled at the straps through my armholes and quickly slipped it off and onto the floor.

  “Water’s going,” Ray said as he came back into the bedroom. “How’s it going in here?”

  I shrugged, afraid if I opened my mouth again the water works I’d just turned off would reappear.

  “Ooo,” he said with a smirk. “I love it when the girls are roaming free under your tight t-shirt. You are straight up dead sexy, baby.”

  “You are so wrong.”

  “I’m so right and you know it,” he said coming in close and pushing my black yoga pants over my hips and down to the floor. “How’s your face feeling?” he asked, giving me the once over while I stood in front of him wearing nothing but a t-shirt.

  “It’s okay.”

  Turning my shoulders toward the bathroom with his hands, he walked me to the door as if I might get lost along the way. “Really, I’m fine.”

  Steam began to roll out of the old fiberglass shower. It was one of the things about the house I couldn’t wait to get rid of. I could barely turn around in it myself, and Ray cursed every morning as he banged his elbows on the walls while trying to wash his hair. “It’s all ready for you. Now, let me slip that shirt over your head and I will inspect you thoroughly.”

  “Yeah, I bet.”

  Ray pulled the shirt over my head and gave me a kiss on the forehead. “If that shower wasn’t so damn small, I’d climb in with you and check you for thorns.”

  “It’s fine.”

  I turned to open the shower door when Ray grabbed me by the arm as if I was walking into something dangerous. “Wait.”

  “What?”

  “Lizzie, you have a huge bruise on your ass.”

  “Where?” I asked as I twisted my back, trying to catch a glimpse.

  “Right here,” he said as he smoothed his fingers over my right cheek.

  Turning into his body I saw the astonished look on his face. “Ray,” I began. “You really didn’t push me? Did you?”

  He didn’t say a word, but shook his head deliberately. No. “What in the hell is going on, Liz?”

  6

  ELIZA

  I picked up my phone and checked the time. Wow. How had four in the afternoon crept up on me so quickly? I’d been lost the past two weeks in my writing and subsequently I’d been uncommonly prolific. Squeezing out forty thousand words in my murder mystery, I was feeling good about the next few thousand words to come. It was as if I was channeling something greater than myself—something willing me to write. The characters spoke to me in ways that no other book had before.

  The old windowpane next to me rattled as the crisp wind blew autumn into full force. The huge oak trees that graced our back courtyard like elders watching over the house, reluctantly dropped their bright yellow and orange leaves everywhere. I looked out my office window and decided it was fitting that there was so much to clean up outside—there was even more to do inside.

  My fingers moved into the familiar command S on the keyboard and I saved my story. It was something I did a lot lately. I’d lost the first draft of the book when a power surge moved through our old house like a lightning bolt. The guy on the pole in front of Park Ave apologized, of course, but it didn’t matter. What was lost was lost.

  I’d cried only for a few minutes and I realized the damn book wasn’t going to write itself and the words I’d lost weren’t coming back. I was determined to make the new ones even better. I did. I was on a roll. I was in the zone. The problem was, the house was just sitting around me not being renovated. It seemed that I could only focus on one thing. Either the characters in my manuscript could escape death or the wall on the third floor could come down.

  Ray was getting a little frustrated with me. He’d left just this morning for New York City—his latest collection gaining a showing in a tony gallery below Fourteenth Street. I wanted to be at his side for the opening, but we both agreed I needed to stay at Park Ave and write while it was coming fast and furious.

  I was full of anxiety about not finishing the book on time and I was full of anxiety about not working on the house. I was basically a screwed white girl in a drafty home big enough for ten people—by myself—systematically killing off folks in my manuscript. Ray was happy to go away for a few days and leave me alone to deal with my own disquieted angst, as he called it.

  I gazed out the window at the gray skies. The shorter days were noticeable to me and I suddenly felt bum-rushed by the end of the year. Leaning back in my chair, I took a deep breath and exhaled. The past few days of prolific words had caused me to fall in step with my original writing schedule and it felt good for once to breathe.

  A chill was coming on in the air and I thought it would be a nice night to start a fire in the main parlor. I’d paid the chimney sweep plenty of money to clean and inspect the main fireplace for a night just like this. I couldn’t be too hard on myself while trying to pull Park Ave back to its former glory. It was going to take some time. I needed to be pleased with the small victories as well as the big ones. The house was starting to take shape. All the floors on the first and second floor had been refinished and any weird walls or extra doorways that the former owners had put up to make the apartments had been taken down. The wiring had been inspected and everything that absolutely had to be redone, was. Anything that was iffy or could wait another year or two was left alone. Ray and I weren’t made of money. We were mostly made of sarcasm and carnal desire. That meant fights were merciless, but the make up sex was fantastic.

  Turning out the light on my desk, I closed the door to my o
ffice behind me. In order to save on heating we’d gone to a zone system in the house. If I left my office, I would turn down the heat to that area. It was a modern solution to an age-old problem—how to stay warm in the Northeast during winter without going broke. It was our most expensive upgrade to date, but one we knew would save us money in the long run.

  Turning on the hall lights, my path was illuminated by the candelabra wall sconces that lined the old plaster like soldiers at attention. The curl of the staircase was one of my favorite architectural aspects of Park Ave and I ran my hands along the ornately carved wood with appreciation each time I descended. All I needed was a long dress, a mink stole and a martini to make it even grander. When I told Ray, he laughed and said that I should do it someday. He even promised to photograph it for posterity’s sake.

  At the bottom of the staircase, I flipped the switch to brighten my path into the main parlor only to trip over a bucket of dirty water. I fell to the floor with a thud, landing on top of a soaking wet mop.

  “Damn you,” I yelled. I hated it when the workers left their stuff out and didn’t clean up after themselves.

  Parking it all in a corner, I refused the clean their mess. I made a mental note to talk with them about it first thing in the morning.

  I shivered as a chill raced down my spine and rain began to tap on the glass panes. The dark clouds had turned into a storm on the edge of breaking free.

  I pulled the collar of my old navy sweater around my neck. “Dear Lord,” I said as I watched the mist from my warm breath form in front of my face. “How’d it get so damn cold in here? What zone did Ray shut off this morning?”

  I pulled a long match from the mantel and struck it against the rough stone hearth, illuminating my face. Ray had left the fireplace ready to go for me with three huge logs and kindling scraps ready to catch fire. The old firewood we’d found in the courtyard was ancient and I was thankful he’d left me a few logs on the hearth. I knew from the first crack, the firewood was dry as a chip.