Chicago Stories: West of Western (27 page)

Put your other foot in it, moron. Girls.

“‘Girls?’ I'm not one of your ‘girls.’”

She had her chair back from the table and was on her feet before she realized they had an audience. A couple of the nearest men were grinning. Even Betty was staring. Nice going, Pelligrini. Make a fool of yourself. Her cheeks burned.

“I have to get to work. Thanks for the breakfast.” She shoved one arm into her jacket.

“Jesus H. Christ, Pelligrini, don't be so touchy.” George cocked his head and looked down his nose. “I'm too damned tired to try to figure you out and I've got the car.” He got up and reached for the check, shaking his head as he followed her out.

In the car, Seraphy didn't speak, too busy chewing herself out to try to make nice. Over the top, Pelligrini. George was a decent guy. What was her problem? George drove as fast as the morning traffic allowed. She slipped out of the car before it had come to a full stop.

“I'm sorry, George,” she said, leaning in the window. “I guess I'm just not settled yet after yesterday.”

“Whatever.” His tires screeched as he sped off up the street.

Once inside with the door closed, she slumped on the stairs, suddenly exhausted, trying to figure out what just happened. Shit. Look at the good side. At least she wouldn't have to worry about George having any romantic aspirations.

Chapter 24

At Nika's after
work that afternoon, Seraphy and Nika were in the attic, a large open space measuring forty-five by twenty feet square, eighteen feet from floor to peak, with neither insulation nor a heating system. Although the attic wasn't in use, in the winter heat leaked from the house below to warm the space on its way through the roof. Seraphy shuddered at the thought of Nika's heating bills. The only thing they'd have to work around was the chimney that slanted up through the center of the space.

“Where do we start?” Nika danced around, too excited to stand still. Even this late in the afternoon, when most mortals were shifting into survival mode, Nika's eyes sparkled. “I can't believe I'm actually going to have a real studio that's not in the basement or garage. Light! Air!” Head back and arms out, she pirouetted the length of the attic.

“We start with basic questions.” Seraphy frowned. If her client didn't settle down, this was going to be a long afternoon. She caught Nika's eye. “Sit down and take a minute to think before you answer, then tell me how you see yourself using the space. It's easier if you visualize your day—act it out for me. Don't assume I know anything.”

“I never thought about that before,” Nika stopped moving to consider her studio routine. “I can't do this in the abstract, I'm an instinctive worker and too much gets lost. Bear with me; I think I need to act it out.” Forty minutes of fast-forward pantomime of her working day left Nika looking at the architect with new respect. “You're making me see things I never thought about before. I feel like I'm at my therapist's.”

And I'm going to need one, thought Seraphy, if you don't stop flitting around and settle down somewhere. Preferably somewhere else. Maybe Peter had reason to exile his wife to the garage.

“Well,” she said, looking over her notes. “An artist's studio is basically an externalization of her mind. You're showing me how your personal space works so I can design the studio to fit, to make it feel natural to you, a tangible expression of your inner self.” Which at the moment looked more like a kaleidoscope than an artist's vision. Nika needed a studio in which she could channel restlessness into finished work.

She was up again, dancing the length of the attic, anxiety tightening her eyes, tiny frown lines sprouting between them. “That's a little frightening, knowing you can see all that. It's too much. How does anyone ever let you in the door? I'll never look at anybody's house the same way again. You're making me see things I never thought about before and I'm not sure I like it.”

“You saw my place first.” Seraphy looked up, laughing. “Not to worry. I like your house, a lot, so if you're a few peas short of a pod, so am I. Remember the First Commandment: Form Follows Function.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Nika surveyed the attic, muttering to herself. “Form Follows Function. Louis Sullivan, right?”

Three hours later Seraphy had a notebook filled with building measurements and Nika's habits, wants, needs, and dreams. Ever since they'd seen Seraphy's restored iron staircase, Nika and Peter had cruised the internet, salvage yards, and antique shops in search of another like it. Now Seraphy gave Nika very specific requirements to satisfy, knowing that finding a staircase the right size would be nearly impossible and hoping the search would keep them both busy and out of her hair.

“I had no idea architecture was so tiring. Time for a break?” Nika led the way down to the kitchen, where she snagged a bottle of wine from the pantry.”I bet you came over after work without dinner. I know I didn't eat. Try this Medoc and let me know what you think.”

“To be honest, I'm so tired that what I'll probably think is, it's wine and alcoholic and therefore perfect.” Seraphy had fallen onto a convenient bar stool at the counter. When Nika handed her a glass, Seraphy buried her nose in it. “Smells heavenly. Bless you.”

“Gracious living, our answer to the cocktail hour.” Nika tossed box of Keebler crackers and a hefty wedge of crumbly cheddar on the table. She cut a chunk and ripped open a packet of crackers. “Sorry,” she said, pushing both across to her architect. “You want a plate?”

“Too late. Hand me that knife?”

“Why am I so tired? All we did is talk.”

“Right, but it was intense. Introspection is work. And it's late, you had a full day before we started.” Seraphy stuffed cheese and crackers in her mouth and wetted them down with the wine. “God, this is good.”

“Mmm.” Nika was silent long enough to swallow. “I saw on the Discovery Channel that your brain uses twenty percent of your energy, and now I believe it,” She poured refills, sighed and stretched. “I think mine's more like sixty percent and I'm down to the last forty and fading fast.”

“This is the most tedious part, all the measuring and planning and so on. I like knowing my client and visualizing on the spot,” said Seraphy as she cut off another chunk of cheese and made a sandwich with crackers, washing it down with the wine. “I don't usually get fed so well, though.”

“Let me fill that.” Nika topped up their old-fashioned glasses and tossed the empty bottle in the trash. “Peter's going to have to drink water tonight. That's what he gets for coming home late.” She shook her head slowly, “I have to admit I'm a bit confused. You're not what I expected, not much like other architects I know. My cousin went to IIT and he says you build your ideal building and the client will accommodate himself to it.”

“’Less is More,’ I know. Architect as God. Buildings as machines for living and all that. But to me, often Less is Less. Were you ever in any of those buildings? Mies van der Rohe has a lot to answer for.” She reached for the cheese again. “Most contemporary stuff is like that, but I'm old school. You know my mantra: form follows function. That means the space has to fit its user, not the other way around.” Seraphy grinned and chomped another cheese and cracker sandwich. “I'm a throwback to the Chicago School in some ways, Louis Sullivan and the boys. Burnham and Root, even a bit of Wright. God, Nika, I've been scarfing like a cavewoman.”

“Me too. It's okay, nobody can see us. Your place sure seems to fit you.”

“It does. But I looked at more than a hundred listings and drove a bunch of real estate agents up the wall before I found it. She was perfect as she was and I kept the bones of the original building. All I've done, really, was to strip out the bad rehab and clean her up.”

“Well, all our bones in the attic are already hanging out. Now what?”

Seraphy pushed the remaining crackers and cheese out of reach. “Now I go away and get this all drawn up so you can see what it'll actually look like and we make any changes you need. Then we get permits and contractors and so on, and you live in contractor hell for a while until it's done, at which time you move on to live in poverty.” She finished her wine.

“Cool.” Nika toyed with her glass, visualizing her studio, her face that of a mother gazing at her child. Seraphy could see the moment inspiration came to her.

“I just got a flash,” Nika said. “I bet you're curious about the schoolhouse condos next door, right? I can't take you in the church, Diego and Rex are gone for a few days to get their tans topped up. But I think Dominic's home.”

Dominic was, in fact, home, and happy to have company. His condo took up half the second floor of the old schoolhouse.

“Two thousand square feet, sixteen-foot ceilings, ten-foot windows, original maple floors, perfect, no?” he asked Seraphy as she stood enchanted in the doorway. The painter was in his fifties, short and round and dark as her Italian uncles, a solid mass of energy with smiling coffee-colored eyes and white smile. When God handed out the beakers of life, she thought, Dominic got two. He felt somehow familiar. Surely she knew this man? Or was it just that he resembled her father's family in some vague ethnic way? For a moment she forgot why she'd come, then the spell broke and she shifted her attention to the loft.

Dominic had made few concessions to comfort. A vestigial kitchen on the north end of the condo with a tiny refrigerator, stove, panel door on filing cabinets for a counter, stained laundry sink, an ancient bedroom dresser to hold his pots and pans. His pantry was a plastic utility cabinet, the kind Home Depot sold for garages. A single bed shoved against the east wall, a bathtub next to that. Seraphy understood it was all he needed.

“Nice kitchen,” she said, and meant it.

“You must see the master bedroom,” Dom replied, recognizing a fellow soul who knew what a studio should be. He took her arm, laughing, and pulled her to the side of the loft, where a sagging daybed and another gray plastic storage unit were tucked alongside a chipped footed bathtub and toilet. He gestured, “Note the elegant ensuite bath.”

“Nice, but a little rich for my taste,” she said, smiling back at him, wondering why her arm tingled from his touch, swaying toward him and working to maintain her balance. She should definitely have taken it easy on Nika's wine.

“I'm envious, Dominic.” Turning and gesturing around the crowded space, she said “This is wonderful. Space and light and work and life all in one. You're a lucky man.” A deep breath of turpentine-scented air, a long look around at the huge space filled with easels taller than she, covered ten-foot canvases, tables crusted with half-squeezed tubes of paint and grubby cans filled with brushes, and she felt at home.

“I knew you'd say that.” Nika had followed them across the studio. “Dom, Seraphy's not like any architect I've ever known. She's the one for us.”

“For you and Peter, maybe,” said Seraphy, shaking her head. “Dominic doesn't need me. I wouldn't know what to change. For him, this studio is perfect as it is.”

“So I always thought. Call me Dom.” The painter sighed and bit his lip. A shadow moved across his face. “I doubt if I could afford you anyway. Come and sit.” He led the way to tall stools scattered around a covered easel.

He's different, Seraphy thought as she followed the painter, not like any man I ever met. He has a kind of innocence. No, that's not right, Dom's far from innocent. Huh. Honesty, maybe? Maybe he just doesn't bother with all the little maneuvers people use to make truth palatable. They're irrelevant to him. Intrigued and a little unsettled by the artist, she worked to understand why. He sees into the essence of things, likes the truth. Instinct told her nothing scared Dom. She couldn't say the same for herself. Whatever force pushed her away from George seemed to be working the other way here and the attraction made her uneasy. When they were seated, Dom brought them each a bottle of water.

“Last month I got a letter. All of us in this building got letters, from the building department. They want to inspect our condos. Somebody there noticed that our building was converted without ever being inspected by the city. I think when we made that big fuss about getting our taxes split somebody started checking.”

“Shit.” Seraphy glanced at the makeshift kitchen, then at the toilet at the other end of the open loft. “You've got a problem. I understand why this is right for you, but the building department's not going to like what you've done here.” So there was something that scared the painter after all.

“Me and the others,” he nodded. “We know we're not up to code, how could we be?” He glanced at extension cords festooning the walls and snaking across the floor. “We're not stupid. Mostly we don't have a lot of money for an architect and contractors and all that.” Dom looked around at his studio, his eyes anxious. “I like my kitchen. It works. I don't want one of those yuppie kind, all kinds of industrial equipment I don't know how to use. Seraphy, I'd die of claustrophobia if I had all those cabinets and stuff in here.” Suddenly, he looked his age. Seraphy realized he was afraid of losing his studio, of being forced into unwanted renovations. “I have to be able to make a mess. Painting's messy. My life is messy.” Dom's studio was his life.

“It's not the cabinets they'll get you for, it's the plumbing and wiring,” she said, looking at the exposed toilet and tub, fine for a man who lived alone with no one to see and at least forty feet from the ‘kitchen,’ but still. Not to mention the extension cords. The city was going to kill him. “Technically, your bathroom is in the same room as your kitchen and they frown on that, too.”

“Dom, you need to see what Seraphy's doing with my studio,” Nika put her arm around the painter and stroked his hair as if he were a child. Seraphy found herself wondering what that hair felt like. Thick, lush, just a slight wave. “Uh, Seraphy, could you come up with plans to make Dom's place legal without ruining it?”

Damn, Seraphy thought, yanked from thoughts of stroking Dom's hair. Nika, you're so dead. Seraphy hated being dragooned into helping friends of friends. No pressure. They always wanted something impossible, right now, and cheap or free. Blaagh. She looked around, trying to think of a way to escape, politely. Poor Dom, she could feel his face flame from here. It wasn't his fault Nika couldn't let anything alone. Nobody said anything. Damn it to hell.