Page 31 of The Shade of Things
8
Emmett,dressed in a sky-blue ball gown with cream piping, let me in to Tatiana’s mansion. He clutched the fabric of one shoulder because his back was too broad to do up the zipper.
“Did I miss a party?” I said.
“Marjorie was teaching me to waltz, and Tatiana said I could choose appropriate attire from her costume closet.” He jutted his chin up as if daring me to comment.
Tatiana’s assistant Marjorie had a reciprocated crush on Emmett. They were incredibly sweet in their fumbling way.
“You look very fetching.”
He tossed his head back. “I know. Eli’s up in the studio.”
Ooh, the artist’s inner sanctum. I rubbed my hands in glee, bouncing up the final flight of stairs in time to the Tony Bennett music playing.
I let out a soft “ooh” at my first glimpse of the workspace, which took up the entire top floor.
An antique desk was placed to maximize the light from the row of huge picture windows. Corkboards hung on two of the walls, crowded with scribbled notes, magazine clippings, color swatches, and invites to dozens of art openings, some faded with age. A jungle’s worth of plants crawled over one wall, infusing the room with both an earthy scent and a tinge of orange, while a tiny water feature on a low table cascaded a small, soothing stream that was recycled up a length of bamboo and back into the basin.
Paint drips led from the front office area to the studio proper, which was the explosion of art and supplies that I expected. Canvases stacked six deep were all turned to the wall. Brushes spilled out of tiny cubbies in a custom-made wall rack, while paints and other supplies crowded the stainless-steel counter to the sink and were stuffed haphazardly in repurposed wardrobes that were works of art themselves.
With the windows open, I didn’t smell the turpentine I expected, just a faint trace of linseed oil.
Tatiana perched on a high stool, her frail frame dwarfed by an enormous blank canvas set up on an easel next to her. She wore the old-timey oversized painter’s smock that I’d seen her in before paired with bright green leggings that matched the polish on her bare feet.
She held a magnifying glass up to one eye, examining the side of Eli’s bald head.
He shot me a pleading look, receiving a sharp swat on his back from the elderly artist. “Don’t move,” she said.
I stepped forward to rescue him, but Emmett hauled me back with a finger to his lips.
Tatiana tilted Eli’s head in all different directions, her enormous eye behind the magnifying glass blinking owlishly.
Frowning, she hopped lithely off the stool and exchanged the magnifying glass for a digital camera. She snapped about seventeen pictures of his left ear then squinted at the screen on the back. “Feh. This is completely unusable. I had high hopes for your cranium, Eli. I’m very disappointed.”
“Uh, sorry?” he said, getting away from her as quickly as possible.
“Miri’s here,” Emmett announced, tidying the brushes in the wall rack.
I threw Tatiana a small wave, but her returning smile made me feel three feet tall.
Tatiana pulled tubes of paint out of one of the wardrobes and tossed them onto the table behind her. “What do you need, kindeleh?”
Eli and I squished onto a vintage lounge sofa, and I told Tatiana about the Human Race, while toying with a decorative tassel on one of the small, fussy cushions.
“They abduct Sapiens globally,” I said, “so they have the ability to access it from anywhere, but unless we find a portal in, we’re screwed. How do you find a hidden space if you have no clue where an entrance is?”
She turned the easel around, positioning its back to us. “You could take Route 666.”
“You mean Route 66?” Eli said.
Tatiana smiled sweetly. “You heard me.”
The knot I’d just made in the fringe was as hard as the one in my stomach. “Do we have to fiddle against the devil at some crossroads?”
“Like I’d send you somewhere requiring musical ability,” she said.
Emmett laughed and I shot him the finger.
