Sensing her confusion, Elliot busied himself rearranging some boxes up against the wall, producing a makeshift chair. “Come here. Let’s sit down and you can wax poetic about the many fine attributes of this exquisite room.”
“Wax poetic? I doubt it.”
“Try,” he whispered dramatically as he positioned himself on top of the boxes and patted the empty space beside him.
A million cautions crackled in her mind. A million desires snuffed them out. She grinned over at him, her mind vacillating, her body tense. She marveled at his easy composure.
Propped on top of the broken boxes, his lean blue-jeaned legs swung loosely to an inaudible song. He again patted the empty space beside him and raised his eyebrows.
“Your turn.”
Mentally, she glanced around. The windows were covered; the door was closed. Taking a deep breath, she stepped toward him, maneuvering somewhat awkwardly through the maze of items as she felt his eyes on her. Edging gingerly past a looped anaconda of rusted chain, her foot toppled over a chipped mason jar displaying a morbid collection of dried spider carcasses.
“Oh,” she said distastefully and almost instantly felt Elliot’s hand hot against her back as he steadied her. He helped her over a pile of pails, and they sat down in a perfectly choreographed move. They burst into laughter, dissipating the tension sparkling around them. Sitting silent for a moment, their legs swinging in tandem, they pretended to study the contents of the room. A wafer-thin line of respectable space ran between them.
Surreptitiously, she slid her eyes up his legs to the navy T-shirt loosely tucked into his jeans. She scanned his denim jacket for bleached-out grease stains, mended tears or resewn buttons. Finding nothing, she wondered how long it had been since Elliot had had someone in his life to take care of such things. A stab of jealousy flashed through her.
A dangle of dark laces flicking out from his pant hem caught her attention.
“I think your shoe is undone,” she offered.
“Yup. Both of them are,” he said as he pulled up his pant legs to reveal the loose laces of his brown suede shoes.
Victoria scrunched up her nose. “Doesn’t that bug you?”
“Nope. It bugs me when they’re tied up and my feet feel like they’re choking. I’m actually more of a barefoot-in-the-sand kind of guy.”
“Ha! Well, what on earth are you doing in Hinckly then?”
“Not quite sure, yet. But I think I might be very close to finding out,” he twinkled her a grin. She shifted her position, slightly increasing the space between them.
“You have really long legs.”
“What? Oh, ya, I guess so,” Victoria murmured, pulling them up toward her and wrapping her arms around them tightly.
“You guess so? Well, look at them. I have to be a good two inches taller than you and our legs are almost the same length.”
“Maybe you just have short legs,” she cracked.
Elliot nudged her softly sideways, his arm remaining pressed up against hers.
“Okay. Quit stalling,” he grinned. “What do you see?”
“Junk.”
He nudged her sideways again, a little farther this time and she reached out and grabbed onto him to keep from tumbling to the floor. “Okay! Okay!”
She turned serious, skimming the room in a desperate attempt to see beyond the tangle of cast-offs. They sat in comfortable silence, Elliot patient as she struggled to form her thoughts. Finally, she cleared her throat and spoke aimlessly into the room.
“I’m sorry, Elliot. It just looks impossible to me.”
“Why impossible?” he asked, laying his arm along her leg and gently squeezing her knee.
“Just with all this stuff,” she mumbled, her thoughts heavily distracted by his casually placed hand. “I’ll never be able to get it all out of here.”
“Are you serious?”
Victoria frowned at him, confused.
“You mean you would seriously let all this junk stop you from pursuing your lifelong dream?”
Victoria bristled.
“Have I offended you?”
She shrugged one shoulder.
“Good.”
Snapping around to face him, she was met by the smooth stroke of his fingers across her prominently protesting lips.
“Look, the last thing I’d want to do is offend you. But it’s good that you felt that way.”
“Why?”
“Because now you know where to look for the truth.”
She flicked her hair away from her face. “That was the truth, Elliot. Look at this mess. It’d be impossible for me to ever clean this up.”
“Impossible? Or just difficult?”
Her mind raced to all the other errands she wasn’t getting done. Bobby would be furious if she missed the grocery store and she had to drive all the way back into town again tomorrow.
“Okay well not impossible, I guess. Look, I really should get going. I have to stop by the Lucky Dollar before they close.”
“Friday today,” Elliot smiled. “They’re open late.”
He reached over and she watched as her hand disappeared inside of both of his. He held her eye steadily. “So. What do you think might really be holding you back, Victoria?”
She shrugged, her mind a maze of confusion.
He sat patiently, cupping her hand in his, waiting for her answer. Finally, he sighed gently as he slowly spread open her fingers and began to analyze her glistening palm.
“Okay, well maybe we can find some answers in here,” he whispered secretively. She leaned her head against the wall, lulled into a hypnotic trance by the butterfly touch of his middle finger as he stroked the telltale lines of her palm.
“Oh, my. There are definitely some mysteries written here,” he said with playful seriousness.
Struggling against a deep desire to curl up into sleep, Victoria closed her eyes and smiled as he continued stroking down over her wrist and began to trace the inky veins which branched up the inside of her arm. Drifting in a moment of soft pleasure, she suddenly sat bolt upright, snapping her arm from him.
“Oh! That . . . tickles,” she gasped, roughly rubbing away the electrifying sensation which had erupted when his finger had found the small, concave depression at her elbow.
Elliot shook his head and cast her a sidelong look. “Well, that’s really a shame, Miss, because I think I almost had the answer there. Now, I guess it’s up to you again.”
Victoria chewed her lip, struggling for a full breath. A racing fear replaced the calm in her stomach.
“Maybe I’m just scared a studio won’t work out, that’s all.”
“Or, maybe you’re scared it will work out.”
Their eyes met abruptly. “At any rate, I don’t think we can reasonably hold all this junk here responsible for holding you back. Right?”
Victoria shook her head slowly.
“Besides, we can get this place cleaned up in no time . . . with a little help.”
“We?”
“Ya. We can get your husband and his buddies, a couple of trucks and we’ll have you Swan-Laking in here in no time.” He snapped his fingers to accentuate the simplicity of his plan, jolting Victoria’s senses back to reality.
“No. That would never work, Elliot.”
“Of course it will. Believe me, I’ve cleared out worse situations than this one.”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just . . .” she hesitated, nervous about revealing any more of the intimate details of her life. Part of her was convinced that the more Elliot found out about her, the less attractive he was likely to find her.
“What?”
“Well, it’s just with Bobby. I don’t think he would be able to help.”
Elliot frowned a question.
“He, um . . . he doesn’t really want me to have a studio, at all.”
She waited for Elliot to say something, but in the void of his words her own tumbled out.
“He just doesn’t think it will be a success. Says he doesn’t want me to end up disappointed. I don’t know. Either way, he definitely won’t help me with it.” Her foot toyed abjectly with a rusty bread pan filled with orange nails.
“Well, I’ll help you then.”
“Elliot, no. I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You didn’t ask. I offered.”
Victoria released the tension between them with an exasperated laugh.
“Don’t you ever take no for an answer?”
“Only when I think someone really means it,” he grinned.
Victoria took a deep breath and allowed her eyes to follow the caves and mounds that littered the room. She felt like she stood on a free-floating bridge with elation and fear seesawing manically at either end. Finally, she shook her head.
“Thank you, Elliot. It’s very nice of you, but I really can’t accept your offer.”
“Because . . .?”
“Because, well, because Bobby is kind of protective sometimes.”
“Protective?”
Victoria nodded.
“Well, that’s fine. Because I don’t plan on hurting you, I plan on helping you.”
“Okay. Maybe protective isn’t quite the right word.”
“And what would be the right word?”
She twirled a long, silky strand of hair around her index finger and shrugged.
“Jealous?” Their eyes met in a steely gaze.
“Look, I really do have to get going,” she said brusquely as she edged off the boxes and stood up.
“Okay, wait! I’m sorry. It’s not my business, right?”
She looked down at his softly restraining hand on her arm. “It’s just that it’s complicated, Elliot. I’d rather not talk about it.”
“Might be good for you to talk about it,” he said quietly.
Victoria laughed mirthlessly. “Spoken like a true out-of-towner! It’s best to keep things to yourself here in Hinckly, Elliot. If you haven’t learned that yet, you just haven’t been here long enough.”
“Maybe. Maybe you just need to learn to trust people more. I find most everyone confides in someone, whether they think of it that way or not. Think of how often people bare their soul to the semi-listening ear of a hairdresser or bartender. It’s good for you.”
“Well, it might work that way in the city. Bare your soul around here and it’ll be served up with Pearl’s lunch special by the next day.”
Elliot shook his head and laughed. “Pessimist.”
“Delusionist.”
She looked at him curiously, thinking back over their conversation. Was it possible he had been the one who’d called her? That he’d called because of some altruistic concern for her? She displaced the thought at once.
“Fair enough. Still, I want to help you with this. I have an idea I think could work.”
She cast him a dubious glance.
“You know, I bet Pearl has no idea that Bud has been sneaking all this junk in here through that back door over there. And I’ll also bet she’ll be more than happy to pay me to haul it all away.”
“Elliot, I can’t let you do that. Pearl will have you working for a pittance.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “True. But there are other ways you can pay me back, you know.”
“Elliot!” she flushed hotly.
His rippling laughter filled the room. “Hey, get your mind out of the gutter, young lady. That’s not the kind of favor I mean.”
Victoria crumpled her burning face into her hands. “Okay, well I feel silly.”
“Don’t. I completely set you up for that.”
She looked up at him quizzically. “Why?”
“Because I love it when you blush. It’s a truly lost art form.”
She blushed again and pushed his leg playfully.
“There really is another way you can return the favor, though.”
Apprehensive green eyes flicked his way. “How?”
“First, you have to promise to hear me out.”
She held his eye, stalling as she tried to ascertain where he might be leading her. Finally, she shrugged her consent. “Okay, I promise.”
Elliot sprang to his feet, facing her, his features animated. “Okay, great! I want to do a painting of you . . .”
Victoria erupted, arms wildly waving away his words. “No way, Elliot! Forget it.”
“Victoria, wait,” he pleaded. “You said you’d hear me out.”
“Well, there’s no point in hearing you out, Elliot, because it’s just not ever going to happen.”
“Why do you insist on slamming doors shut before they’ve even had a chance to open?”
“I don’t,” she defended hotly, crossing her arms and bracing for an argument.
Nodding his head in apparent agreement, Elliot slid back onto the boxes, steady and silent as he closed his eyes and rested his head against the wall.
She stood watching him, coiled inside herself, searching for any sign of hostility. In its absence she started to become acutely aware of her own, percolating ferociously through her veins. Standing in the presence of his peaceful demeanor, she began to feel self-conscious and foolish.
“So, are you going to finish telling me, or not?” she asked, twirling her hair back into a thick ponytail and then letting it go.