Misplaced Innocence (3 page)

“Yeah, I think I met that one. On the way back from Doorman’s, bent over a dog in the middle of the road.”

Jared had the satisfaction of watching Bill’s jaw drop. “She did something like that to a dog?”

Jared shook his head. “Nah, the thing was just a little overheated. You should have seen it, Bill. She didn’t have a clue what to do with the dog. She told me she was going to take it back to her house, but she didn’t seem to know how to get it into the car or what to do with it once she got back to the house. It was the funniest thing. Then I said it looked like a shepherd mix, and she told me she didn’t think it looked like a German Shepherd. I almost laughed.”

Bill chuckled. “Give her a break. From the city, I think, back on the East Coast. Hasn’t been here that long. Bought that little bungalow out there. The one that used to belong to the Brinkman’s, before their breeding operation went under.”

“Right,” Jared nodded. “That place has seen better days.”

Bill shrugged. “I guess it don’t matter too much what a place looks like. She works from the house, so it must be good for something.”

Jared grunted in response. Whatever that woman was doing from home probably didn’t involve much brain activity. If she’d said one more stupid thing Jared had planned on taking the dog back to his place instead. Besides, any woman that lived alone and had a room full of dead animals couldn’t possibly be that stable. He mused for a minute over the mounted animals. Maybe he should have brought the dog back home after all, so it didn’t end up stuffed like all the others. He finally pulled out a turkey sandwich, figuring he’d have better luck with that than the tuna, and headed toward the register.

~*~

Charisma stretched. Her pencils and water colors were spread out over the drawing table, sheets of paper with characters in different stages of development strewn around her. The dog was occupying her usual place beneath the table, curled up on an overstuffed pillow bought specially for her and patterned with dog bones and happy looking dogs. She had never had a dog. In fact, she had never had anything more than a few hermit crabs and exotic looking fish that never seemed to last more than a few weeks. Now, she was making up for lost time. The dog had been there two and a half weeks and she had her own pillows scattered throughout the house, matching sets of ceramic bowls Charisma had painted herself, dogs parading across the rims, Scruffy written in script, leather collars, expensive dog food…she snorted at the thought. “Well,” she said aloud, “I might not have the slightest idea of what to do with you, but I certainly know how to shop for you, don’t I?” She laughed and stood up, “Come on there, Scruff, let’s go outside.” The dog followed her obediently to the front door, and bounded out into the yard.

Charisma was about to join the dog when her phone rang. She reached over and grabbed the cordless off the wall before stepping out into the hot sun.

“Hello?” she asked.

“You never did call about that dog. It die on you?”

Charisma was momentarily confused. “I’m sorry?”

“Remember, I left you my card…?”

“Oh, right! Of course you did.” Charisma stalled for time. She’d meant to call him, really. “It was the funniest thing. I lost the card. How did you get this number?”

There was a long pause. “Off one of the flyers,” he said, in a tone that reeked of I-Can’t-Believe-You’re-So-Stupid.
 

Charisma had the urge to hit her forehead. “Right, of course. You’re the first to call about her. She’s doing just fine. Really a sweetheart.”

“Good. You planning on keeping her?”

Charisma looked at the dog romping in the yard. In the kitchen, Charisma could see the heavy duty container full of forty pounds worth of dog food and the squeaky toys
 
that had been abandoned in the middle of the floor. “Well, yeah, I guess I am.”

There was a long pause. “I see. Well, if for any reason you change your mind, you let me know and I’ll find a good home for her.”

I’m sure you will.
Charisma thought, surprised at the bitterness she felt.
All those women just lined up to take the ratty dog home with them.
The ratty dog in question bounded up to her, dragging one dirty paw across the denim of her jeans. “Well, thank you, but I really don’t believe that will be at all necessary.” Her tone was icy. “Thank you for calling.”

She snapped the phone back into its cradle practically before she heard Jared say goodbye. “Well,” she said, turning to Scruffy. “The audacity of some men.,” Charisma huffed. She brushed uselessly at the dirty smudge on her jeans, mumbling under her breath. Men, after all, weren’t that different in Arizona than they were in New Jersey.

~*~

Charisma carted the supplies she would need for the project underneath her arm. The cardboard box was brimming with different size brushes and tubes of paint. Scruffy followed dutifully at her feet, her long tongue exposed as she trotted along, stopping to sniff at patches of weeds that had managed to poke up through the cracks in the sidewalk.

“Hey, Bill,” Charisma called as she deposited the box by the door. “I should have everything I need. You want to help me get this sign down?” She dropped her head back so she could stare up at the sign. From her spot beneath the sign she could hardly see anything. “I hope you have a ladder in their somewhere, because –
 
”

Bill’s appearance at the door interrupted her. “I have something better, even.” Charisma’s eyes narrowed. She’d come to recognize that twinkle in Bill’s eyes, the one he got when he thought he was being sly and had planned something that she really wasn’t going to like, but thought would be in her best interest.

“What’s that, then?”

Another shape appeared from the gloom of the store. “Well, that would be me, ma’am.”

The exaggerated way he drawled out the word ma’am irritated her. In fact, everything about this man irritated her. She fought the urge to throw her hands up in the air and yell obscenities. Instead she pasted on a smile she was sure looked less than real. “Well, that might help … a little.”

Jared grunted as he stepped out onto the sidewalk, Bill moving out after him. “If we can just get the sign down, I’ll paint it here on the sidewalk. Or inside. Wherever there’s room.”
 

Scruffy had finished her perusal of the sidewalk and padded up to Charisma, sitting beside her to stare at the two men.
 

“Nice dog you have there,” Bill said, “Jared was telling me the other day how you came across it.”

“Yes, she’s very nice.” Charisma patted the top of the dog’s head absentmindedly. She secretly hoped that Scruffy would attack Jared, or at the very least growl at him, because he hadn’t stopped staring at her with that look on his face that said he thought she didn’t have two brain cells to rub together.

Charisma supervised as Jared and Bill pulled down the sign and hefted it to the back room of the store, where a large table had been placed in the middle of the room and covered with drop cloth. Charisma dropped the supplies by the door and flipped on the lights. There were only so many good things to say about fluorescent light bulbs, but at least she wouldn’t be painting in the dark.

“That’s great. Thanks guys.” Charisma gave the men a silent dismissal as she lost herself in studying the sign. They moved out of the room without her noticing.
 

She hadn’t quite decided what to do with the sign, but figured anything was better than the garish apple. She popped off the custom-fit plastic protective cover, the kind
 
Charisma hadn’t see in use in years, pulled out one of the large brushes and began to prime the board. Her mouth twisted wryly as she wondered how many coats of primer it would take to cover that apple. “Who painted this anyway,” she muttered aloud.

It wasn’t long before Charisma had lost herself in the work of painting. While she waited for the primer to dry she sketched out different ideas on a pad of paper she had brought with her. The pencil was familiar and comfortable in her hand and moved nearly of its own accord, knowing innately where the next stroke should go, what would be most pleasing to the eye. She never noticed Jared at the door, watching her hunch over the pad, her hand moving quickly, her mouth alternately lifting upwards in a smile and downward in a frown as she thought of different things. She didn’t notice, that is, until Scruffy hefted herself up off the concrete floor that was cool despite the heat in the poorly ventilated room and headed toward Jared.

His voice jarred her away from her work, the pencil dragging across the paper in an unbidden direction, a thick dark line upsetting the tranquility and airiness of the picture. Charisma clamped her jaw down in displeasure. To make matters even worse, Jared completely ignored her, fawned over the dog and then walked back out into the store. Presumably to do something useful, though Charisma couldn’t imagine what. Charisma’s frown deepened. As if a man like that ever did something useful. He was probably too busy seducing all the women in town. Or, if what Bill had said was true, being seduced by all the women in the town.

Charisma tossed the pencil aside. The primer was dry anyway. She skimmed her sketches. Bowls of fruit, paper bags brimming with fruit… she frowned. There was a strong fruit theme happening in her pictures. With a shrug, she let it go. Was she supposed to paint hunks of raw meat instead? Cans of tuna fish? After a moment of half-hearted deliberation Charisma decided the fruit really wasn’t that bad and it would look nice on the sign. It wouldn’t look like the apple.

She hummed to herself as she ran a nice, neutral beige over the sign. She checked her watch when she was finished. Another frown pulled at her eyebrows. This wasn’t going to be the day project she had imagined. It had taken much longer than she had anticipated to completely cover that awful apple, and now she had to wait for the background paint to dry before she could even
 
consider working on the painting itself. She sighed and gathered her brushes. She would tell Bill she’d be back the following morning. She had a nice lull in work, but suspected that once her agent called she would be holed up in the house again, working to meet what seemed like impossible deadlines. Impossible, she thought wryly, but somehow she always made them. She shut the light off on her way out, bathing the room in inky darkness, hiding her work-in-progress. The opened door let in a rush of sweet, fresh air. Charisma took a deep breath. She hadn’t noticed the heavy, chemical small of paint in the small room until she was greeted with the welcoming air of the day.
 

“Hey, Bill,” she called, searching the comparable gloom of the store for any sign of him. He wasn’t at his usual place behind the counter, although his ever-present newspaper was folded up and tossed carelessly on the wood surface, and Charisma suspected he hadn’t ventured too far out of his domain.

Through the shop window Charisma could see that darkness had begun to settle around the town. Or at least, what could be counted as darkness in this part of Arizona. Time had passed quickly as she worked on the sign; the sweep of her brushes and the development of her art pulled her away from reality, left her ungrounded and lost in the moment, in her images. She hadn’t realized how late it had become. The sun had sunk low in the sky, pinks and purples mingling together and bleeding outward, erasing the vibrant blues of day. Charisma took a deep breath and, for once, truly enjoyed where she was. She knew that when she got home the songs of evening insects, and the occasional sound of some mammal scurrying around would surround her, soft and melodic, and more hypnotic than any traffic she had ever heard living off the Garden State Parkway.
 

She frowned just thinking about New Jersey. It had been a long time since she’d heard from anyone back there. It had been a long time since she’d thought about them really. Of course, it didn’t help that she hadn’t left a phone number or address; that she had packed her car and left one day, had arranged her apartment to be packed and shipped from some truck stop in Illinois. It wasn’t as if she suspected someone would be able to track her down, she just knew it was an inevitable part of running away from what you didn’t like.

Charisma was so caught up in her thoughts she didn’t hear Bill until he was directly behind her. The irritation in his expression let her know he’d already spoken to her several times. “Sorry, Bill,” she said automatically. “I was just thinking.”

He harrumphed at her, but looked less annoyed. “You on your way home now?”

She nodded, “I did as much as I can today, but I’ll be back tomorrow to start the bulk of the painting.” Charisma smiled. This was the first time in a long time she had found a reason to paint outside of her illustrating career, and she found she had missed it terribly. She should have remembered the difference between creating art for money’s sake and creating art for one’s own sake.
 

“Okay, then. I’ll look for you tomorrow. I’ll be here.”
 

She smiled at the dry joke, as if he didn’t know he was being funny, as if he weren’t trying. But she could tell from the littlest of twinkles in the depths of his blue eyes that he was kidding. “I know you will.”

The air was cooler now, and Scruffy had settled herself down outside the shop door to enjoy the breeze and the sounds of the town. Not that there were many sounds in this town, but from the way the dark ears were pricked upwards and her eyes were open just enough so she could survey the area around her, Charisma knew the dog was enjoying the change in scenery.

“Let’s get home, you mutt, you,” Charisma said as she swung the passenger side door open. Scruffy bounded in and quickly sat facing the windshield, as if she might miss something important. Charisma chuckled to herself. “Been a long day for you, huh? Don’t worry, there’s some good dinner for you at home and maybe we can watch some television before we go to bed. Oh yes,” she added as an afterthought, “my life has definitely hit pathetic.” Charisma looked sidelong at the dog and mumbled under her breath, “And then some.”