The heat shimmers off the pallet of shingles in the midday sun, the sharp tar smells oddly pleasant when mixed with the scent of freshly sawn lumber. Mikolaj wears his tool belt like a knight’s scabbard, hair escaping his loose ponytail and sweat staining his ill-chosen black t-shirt. He disappears back into the outbuilding and Jen hears the saw wind up like a turbine, reaching a squealing pitch. It’s only supposed to be 90 degrees out but it feels like 110, and the only thing saving Jen from the overwhelming urge to nap right now is the gin and tonic Alby has kindly conjured for Jen while Alby sips iced chai tea on the patio. Chris is asleep inside the cool confines of the house while Alby and Jen let the heat settle over them like a wet, warm blanket.
They’re both enjoying watching Mikolaj work, perhaps more than either of them should. Alby is now five months pregnant and two weeks away from marrying George. The wedding is being held at the house, and all manner of vendor has been by for pre-flight meetings this morning. The only conspicuous absence from the full press wedding court in recent days has been the groom.
“Maybe I should just cancel the tent,” Alby muses. “Mikolaj thinks he’ll be finished the studio by next weekend. It would be so cool to just put the reception in there and have the dancing under the stars…”
“Unless it rains,” Jen says, “Besides, the studio is really not large enough. Maybe put the bar area in there if he’s done, but it’s just too much pressure to count on it. What if he finds rotten wood under the shingles? That’ll slow him down.”.
In part, Jen is the one who doesn’t want the deadline because she’d hate to ruin the wedding or cause any stress. She’d volunteered to paint the interior and help Mikolaj lay the floor tile, which was the least she felt she could do since the studio is for all intents and purposes, hers. Alby was dead serious about putting Jen back to work, and she loved the idea of having Chris right nearby and getting her hands in the clay again. Jen hasn’t felt this much excitement since before she had Chris.
Right now, Mikolaj is finishing up a long work counter on the west wall, but in truth, Jen knows she could be starting to prime the opposite wall already since he’s sanded the drywall super smooth. But the heat is paralyzing her at the moment, that and dread of discussion of her next “amends” assignment.
“I don’t know, I just have a bad vibe about the tent for some reason,” Alby says, pensively twirling a strand of her jet black hair that has somehow stayed glossy despite the alien depleting her vitamin stores. Normally, Alby’s bad vibes are dead on, witch that she is. But ditching the tent at the 11th hour sounds crazy to Jen.
“I wish I’d thought this through better. All the prep people are going to be underfoot when we’re getting ready,” she sighs and looks off to the distant fields of late corn, now full height, that border her property to the east. To the west is Mikolaj’s house, land dotted with prim white bee keeps. South of Alby’s generous yard is a beautiful woodlot. The yard itself is home to her labor of love, an intricate collection of perennial beds, climbing roses and oriental shrubs, with an ornamental dogwood and magnolia trees. In the far west corner is a small pond and manmade rock waterfall, visible from the vantage of the patio, but directly behind the studio, which now has a back slider door to access a seating area beside the pond. It’s a gorgeous setting for a wedding, though perhaps the tent is not ideal for her lawn. Jen doesn’t think the tent is what’s bothering Alby.
“Okay, so, don’t get upset with me, but is there any chance you’re getting cold feet, just a little?” Jen ventures.
“No, but as you can imagine, George is. I don’t really view the wedding as changing much and I’m not really expecting a transformation to a conventional relationship. He’s always been a free agent and always will be, and I’m usually too busy to notice,” she grins. “In his mind, however, he’s making a blood sacrifice to the great gods!”
“But you never really wanted to live together before,” Jen says, treading gently. Alby is one of the most generous women she knows, in every respect, and Jen’s worried. But she also knows that hormones can make you emotionally frail.
“Well that’s still true, but we’ve gone on this way for years now. Sooner or later you just have to bite the bullet. If I can’t learn to live with George, would I really learn to live with anyone? It just seems it will be better for the baby,” she says, consciously or unconsciously rubbing her stomach in a circular motion.
Jen holds her tongue, but something deep inside her fears it will NOT be better for the baby. She and Jace have had a rough go this last year, but George makes Jace look like a saint and their troubles minor. Alby, however, has been loyal to George for more than a decade, despite his serious issues with alcohol, bar fights, bosses, and authority. Jen has never been able to figure out what’s in it for her. Alby always just says the heart wants what the heart wants.
“Okay, just checkin. It still all seems a little unreal to me,” Jen says.
“Me too!” Alby laughs. “And speaking of unreal, what’s your next amends project? Or am I allowed to know?”
“The master thinks it’s time I have a heart to heart with Saint, right after I burn her journal,” Jen says, feeling slightly uncomfortable.
“Do you feel better from doing all this, or is it just a placebo effect? Or do you just like spending time with Mikolaj, not that I’d blame you,” Alby wants to know.
“Something’s shifting, and yes,” Jen says, sotto, not wanting to be overheard. Mikolaj has reemerged from the studio to get the shop vac off the truck bed. “But since I don’t want to have to make amends with Jace too, I’m behaving,” she whispers and winks.
“No fun,” Alby mouths.
It’s true, but not likely entirely by choice. Somehow Mikolaj has telegraphed that their friendship is to be on the up and up. That he’ll have no part in any drama. Which of course, makes him all the more attractive to Jen. Somehow he has telegraphed this to Jace too because Jen’s gotten no flack about his constant picking her up and dropping her off every day this last week to work on the studio, dead ringer for Marty or not. Jace barely seems to notice her comings and goings, which in itself is odd. Either everything’s out-of-kilter right now, or Jen’s perspective has shifted. But as Mikolaj says, she has to just let it unfold.
“So, are you going to do it?” Alby asks, taking a sip of her tea.
“Perhaps,” Jen says. She doesn’t really know if she’s ready for Saint. It’s one thing to talk to Robert, and apologize to her mom and friends about her suicide attempt, and chew on the things Mikolaj would have her do to be pure of heart and mind. It’s another when it comes to reconciling with Saint. She feels too manipulated, and the sense of injustice is somehow still raw. Mikolaj says this just gives Saint power, and that if Jen looks closely, she’ll see that she was “100 percent responsible.” In his world, there are no victims; only what you choose to allow in your life. Jen sees the sense in it and has seen first-hand how liberating this idea can be. No fuss, no muss, accept your responsibility and move on. Make the life you want. Live the life you want. Get down to it. She likes the matter-of-factness about it and can see that in the past, every single time instead of making the simple choice, she’s instead walked her own monster and allowed intrigue through the door. Which is the second part of why she will not be sleeping with Mikolaj. It takes 25 days to break a habit. Jen is on day 10.
“I didn’t take Mikolaj for someone who took ‘perhaps’ for an answer,” Alby giggles.
“You’ve got that right,” Jen says. “Fortunately, we’ve kept him sufficiently busy to not notice I am not one with the path on the Saint front.”
Jen can still hear the shop vac in the distance, a signal that pretty soon she needs to get off her duff and get some painting done. It feels so good to be purposeful that for once she doesn’t procrastinate. She drains her drink and stands up, putting my hands on Alby’s shoulders and leaning forward to give her a hug.
“Thank you so much for the drink, m’am. However, it’s time I go change my clothes and earn my keep around here with my mad paint prowess. You sure you’re good with Chris when he wakes?”
“Positive. I actually might go join him for a nap,” she says, stretching languidly, then slowly rising from her deck chair. Jen thinks she may have misjudged how well Alby will adjust to staying at home with a newborn. She seems pretty relaxed and hasn’t even looked at her cell or email all day. Her new manager at the gallery seems utterly more competent than the last, who would hound her all day.
Mikolaj walks out of the studio again, shop vac in hand, and throws it back up onto the truck bed.
“It’s all yours, Jen, have at!” he calls, walking toward them, smiling despite his dishevelment. He’s sweaty but is using a small hand towel to mop his brow. Little bits of sawdust cling to strands of his hair, which have gone wavy with the damp of sweat. Even his eyebrows are dotted with sawdust.
“I’m just going to go change my clothes,” Jen says. “Are you going to keep me company after you take a break?”
“Nope, I am going to drink a lemonade and climb that wicked hot roof to scrape off those rotten shingles so we can get the dumpster outta here before the wedding,” he says. “And when this is all done, you’re going to design a really interesting and highly valuable sculpture for my great room, gratis,” he says, snapping his towel toward Jen’s retreating butt.
“What will the subject be?” she turns to ask.
“Redemption,” he grins.
Painting alone is both a blessing and a curse, Jen thinks. On one hand, it can distract you from your woes; you can just be absorbed in the cut lines and the roller strokes, lost in the smell that spells “new” and the act of transformation when you stand back to inspect your work. Hours melt away, and the look Jen’s going for is beginning to emerge in the studio. Weeping Willow, they call the mid-tone green she’s spreading. She is aiming for that Zen feeling of light, air, water, reed when you look through the windows, and it seemed the walls should match the fresh feeling of the yard. The sounds of Mikolaj scraping the roof above her take on a rhythm of their own.
The curse of painting alone is much like the blessing. In Jen’s case, she is slow without help; lost in the process. When she is painting with someone else, she’s fast, efficient, eager to get the job done and get sociable. So for her, the real danger of painting solo is that after a few hours of quiet concentration, she feels lost in space, like she’ll never emerge and talk to another human again; or worse, never want to. It is an effort almost beyond her to speak. She is the same way with the clay. Which is likely why it was so easy to walk away when she married Jace. She could just never shift back from art mode to wife mode. She still doesn’t know if she knows how, but she has to learn.