James leaned his bicycle against the side of the garage, dropped his backpack and listened for Alice. No sound of work outside, and no sign of any heavy equipment or giant rocks.
Maybe she’s sick, he thought.
He called for her and heard nothing back but wind and waves and the bell on the channel buoy. He walked to the back of the garage, the water side where Daniel had wanted some brush cleared. The sling blade leaned against the garage wall where James left it. “Lucky,” he told himself. He could get some money made before dark.
He scraped and chopped the salal but pulled the scotch broom out by the roots because that’s how his grandfather said to do it. He worked shirtless now that the weather had cleared, even though the breeze off the water was cold. Lucy’s heavy silver cross banged his chest with each swing of the blade. He thought she was right, it did look hip-hop. He hoped for cool. He piled the brush to the side of the driveway, away from trees, in case the owners wanted it burned.
James finished the back of the property from the house to the edge of the bluff in about two hours. He retrieved a bottle of water from his backpack and slugged down half of it, took a couple of breaths and downed the rest. He dropped the backpack beside his bike, slung his shirt over his shoulder, walked around to the front door and rang the bell.
A female voice, faint, called from upstairs, “Come in! It’s open!”
James stepped into the dark and hesitated. His eyes weren’t adjusted yet, so he couldn’t see anything but the crack of sunlight from the door.
“Hello?” he asked.
Diana called from upstairs, “Please close the door! I’m deathly allergic to sun.” She clicked a switch and a dim, reddish light washed the room.
“Sorry,” James called back, and slammed it shut behind him. “I forgot.”
Diana appeared to float down the stairs in her long-sleeved, curve-hugging, cleavage-clinging blue dress. James knew staring was impolite, but he stared anyway. She knew her effect on him and enjoyed playing it out.
“I’ve finished the work Mr. Daniel had for me yesterday. Alice said today I could start on your walking trails, but I guess she’s not here.”
Diana stepped closer, enjoying his attention to her figure. She was still woozy and a little slow from Alice and was saving him for later.
“I don’t have to start home for another hour,” he said. “Maybe you or Mr. Daniel need something done?”
“Daniel is his first name,” she said. “Mr. Daniel is his professional name. I don’t know why. Do you remember me? I remember you, James.”
His blush was even visible in the dim red light. “Diana.” His voice cracked, so he cleared his throat and repeated, “Diana. Has Alice called or anything?”
She moved closer, nearly touching him. He took a step back.
“James, may I get you something. Soda? I mean, ‘pop’?”
He was perspiring more heavily, not just from the work. His nervous hands clenched and unclenched.
“No … no thank you,” he said. “I just had some water. Is Mr. … is Daniel here?”
She ignored his question and said, “You’d like to be paid, of course.” She rested a hand on James’s bare shoulder. He didn’t know what to do about it, so he froze.
“Well, yes, ma’am. But Alice said she’d—”
“Diana, please. I’m not ma’am.” She faked a sorrowful look. “Do I look that old?”
James said, “No, ma … Diana. No, you don’t look old at all.”
She squeezed his shoulder. “What do I look like?”
Her other hand picked up the cross from his chest. She bent down to bite the cross and her breasts nearly spilled from her dress. She placed the cross carefully back on his chest, gave it a pat. “Genuine silver,” she said. She stepped back and assumed a modeling pose.
“Wow,” James said. His voice cracked again. “You look good. Totally. Really.”
“You seem eager to get back to work,” she said. “I won’t keep you this time. Daniel’s in his workshop. Through the kitchen, down the hall, through the laundry room. Careful of the fresh paint. I hope I’ll see you again soon.”
“Thanks, Miss … thanks, Diana.”
She’d already started up the stairs.
James entered the kitchen and realized he’d been clutching his cross. He glanced back at the living room, but she was gone. He lifted the cross, bit it where Diana bit it, then shook his head and smiled.
In the workshop, Daniel filled a shipping crate with packing material around one of his grotesque sculptures. He was preparing the lid when James walked in, slightly shaken by his encounter with Diana. The workshop was cold in spite of all the new insulation in the walls and ceiling, so he pulled on his sweatshirt. One LED worklight hung over Daniel and the crate, and a huge black tarp covered the inside of the garage door.
“Hello, James,” Daniel said, and waved. “I’ll be right with you. How did it go out back? All cleared up?”
“Yes, sir,” James said. “All done. Did Alice call? She was supposed to be here.” He stepped up to the shipping crate and said, “Wow! What’s that?”
Daniel laughed. “Sculpture. Like it?”
James reached out and touched the ghastly face. The material looked jagged but the surface was smooth. “It’s awesome scary.” He sniffed at the giant eye-holes in the face. “Whew! It stinks!”
Daniel laughed again. “That’s the best review I’ve ever received, thanks. It’ll cure for another day or two, then I spray a resin inside that smells like fresh cedar.” He turned back to the crate and said, “No, no one called today. Maybe she had other jobs to finish up.”
James let Daniel finish nailing the lid on the crate and looked around the shop. Much better than the shop at school, he thought. Full metal and woodshop, arc welder, lathe, drill press. The ceramics kiln in the corner was larger than his school’s. Another sculpture stood next to its crate, ready for shipping. He examined that one through its eye-holes and saw the welded framework under the ceramic-like finish. It didn’t look easy.
“These things are cool! And you make these?”
“I do,” Daniel said, and bowed. “There’s a big demand for grotesque these days. A by-product of our politics, I believe.”
“Who buys these?” James asked. “What do you call them?”
“I call them ‘dirt sculptures,’” Daniel said. “Galleries call them ‘Primitive Earthenware.’ The main ingredient is local clay and a cement-like sand that brings out the rough yet fragile quality that I like. People think plastic, but it’s simpler and cheaper.”
Daniel dusted himself off and joined James in front of Bill.
James asked, “Do you get a lot of money for them? Am I not supposed to ask that?”
Daniel maneuvered them so that James’s back was to Bill’s pickup. Peeking out from under the tarp, the bottom of a bicycle wheel and reflector hung from the back.
“No secret,” he said. “This one’s going to a new gallery in Seattle. If it sells for what they’re asking, my share will be fifteen thousand.”
“Dollars?”
Daniel laughed again and slapped James on the shoulder. “Dollars. Are you interested in art? Or in money? If money, the sure thing’s banking.”
James felt excited, like he’d just got a good grade on a test, or something.
“I’m pretty good in art class,” he said. “But all we do is like draw or paint. Nothing 3-D, except for a vase for Mom. School’s kiln could fit inside yours. I’m like saving for Art Camp.”
He felt comfortable with Daniel, and Daniel seemed comfortable with him.
“I went to several art schools when I was young,” Daniel said. “Good art schools, too. But I learned my most valuable skills in cabinet and metal shops.”
“What do you mean?”
Daniel indicated his equipment, waved a hand at the toolboxes and other tools hanging on the wall. “Once you learn what all those tools are supposed to do, you get an idea of what they can do. Artists are notorious for using the wrong tool for the wrong job to get the right effect.”
James scuffed his shoe through some sawdust. “Would you teach me how to do this stuff?”
Daniel feigned indignation. “What! And give away my professional secrets?”
He glanced toward the door that led to the laundry room, thinking he heard something, then back to James, who looked disappointed.
“Just kidding!” Daniel said. “Look, I’m just starting a project that Jean thinks will sell to the boat crowd. There’ll be some welding and metalwork that you could start on.”
James bounced on his feet and blurted, “That would be so cool! Welding!”
Daniel cocked his head slightly, listening again at the laundry door. He patted James on the shoulder and led him to the side door. He took Odd-Job Bill’s wallet out of his pocket.
“I have some computer work to do,” he said. “I don’t have chores for you right now. You did two hours today, right? Will this do?”
He pulled a twenty and a ten out of Bill’s wallet and handed the money to James.
“Well … thanks!” James said. “This is great! But I thought Alice was supposed to pay me.”
“I asked to borrow you for that strip in the back,” he said. “She’ll be fine with it. Now, you’ll have to slip out fast—you know about our sun allergy, right? That’s why everything’s sealed up in here. Took me a couple of days to get it right.”
Daniel picked up his carpenter’s apron, threw it over his head and shoulders, then turned his back. “Okay, go!”
“Thanks again!” James said, then opened the door as little as possible and rushed through.
Daniel unclenched his teeth and listened for the sounds of James getting on his bike. He stared for a long time at the laundry door across the shop. He rubbed his itching face with both hands, took in a huge breath and slowly let it go. He checked his watch.
The problem of the pickup and the bike, he thought. He’d pulled the battery from Alice’s phone and tossed the phone off the bluff. He’d crisped her backpack with her iPad in the kiln after pulling that battery, too.
Never waste a good battery.
He crossed to the pickup and yanked the tarp to the floor. He placed a few pieces of lumber on the truck and re-draped the tarp so that nothing showed except tarp and concrete. He rolled his table saw against it for insurance. He wheeled Bill to the other side of the shop. Anyone who came in would focus on the Bill piece and wouldn’t notice the truck. He checked his watch again, shook his head and went into the house.
Daniel hurried into the kitchen and washed his hands. He scooped a fistful of his goo out of the refrigerator and plopped it into his appliance. Again his hands trembled. Human food for days weakened him to near-fainting in the workshop. His glass filled, and Diana strolled in.
“We have a problem,” he said, “and we’ve got to work it out now.”
“You mean your girlfriend?” Diana said.
“I mean your appetite.” He picked up his glass with both hands so he wouldn’t slosh anything out. He drank down half and set it back under the spout to fill again and continued. “Killing for survival, that’s one thing. But this is something else. It has to stop.”
Diana shook off her sleepy-looking demeanor and took up her panther-like pacing.
“What about your precious Jean?” Her voice shook with anger. “She’s a problem. She’s around here too much. I don’t like her in my house.”
“Our house!” He chugged down the rest of his drink.
Diana stopped pacing to level her darkest gaze at him. She spoke in a furious whisper.
“If you want to keep her warm and full, you carry on your little dalliance at her place.”
Daniel, too, rose to temper. He shoved his face right up to hers, as a dribble of blood slipped the corner of his lip.
“Don’t threaten me, Sister. You, too, could be a sculpture in my new catalogue.”
Her eyebrows shot up in astonishment. “You would stake me like my little pets? I think not, Brother Dear.”
They hard-stared in silence for a heartbeat, two, close enough for a kiss. Diana reached a finger to his lip, caught the drop of blood and licked it from her finger. Daniel stepped back. Diana’s expression softened.
“You don’t get it,” Daniel said. “You don’t understand their new tools. Everybody’s tracked. Even the homeless are missed. We can’t have your … infections … hunting our territory, creating their own … whatever we are.”
Diana stopped him with a finger to his lips. He resisted the urge to bite it off.
“Please,” Diana said. “I might get bored, but I love what I am. Maybe you’re a ‘whatever,’ but I’m an awesome creature, nearly impossible to kill.”
Daniel thought, Only nearly. He sighed and mumbled, “And we’re trapped in the dark.” He checked his watch.
Diana snatched up his glass and licked it clean.
“I’ll resupply tonight,” he said. “My way is the only long-term answer. It’s a new world. I believe it’s a virus and I can beat it, eventually.”
Diana made a wry face and handed back his glass. “Your pitiful drippings are survival, not satisfaction.” Her voice was calm and a little slurred from her feeding. She sat at the table and leaned on an elbow, fist under her chin. She stared at the blacked-out window. “Almost dark, can you feel it?” She shifted to look him in the eye. “I hunt the old way, and that’s that. You can stake them like the others, or not. I don’t want to be cured, virus or not.”
Daniel rinsed his glass, placed it on the drainboard, wiped his hands with a dishtowel as he tried once more for patience. Whatever came next would require calm, deliberation, a plan.
“I’ll only be a couple of hours in town,” he said. “If Jean comes out, don’t touch her, and don’t cause trouble. You and I have a lot more to discuss. Neither of us can afford to do anything stupid.”
Diana turned back to the blacked-out window and said, “Exactly.”