Chapter 3
The Villa
1
One more night at the
Her face pressed to cold porcelain, she struggled to understand her fascination with Southern Comfort. She had reanimated to the dismay of her pounding head and was desperately trying to avoid Annie.
Crow hadn't come back from his errand yet, causing Annie to be on edge. The concert ended early because the mosh-pit got out of control. Annie had made a big stink about it on stage and she was sure it would be in all the papers tomorrow. MTV would have a field day with his brat tactics. She emerged from the bathroom feeling pasty and drained.
With resignation, she took out a clove and sat next to Annie on the couch. She hissed with pain and twisted around to peer at her butt. “Holy shit,
“You rolled over on my knife, it was open in my pants. You don't remember?”
She rubbed her face to scrub the cobwebs away and looked at her butt again. “It's fucking mutilated. Look at it.”
“It'll heal.” He didn't bother to look.
Calliope gave him a doubtful look and then turned just in time to see Clio walking in.
“Hey! Where have you been all night?” She demanded from her sister and waited for Crow to light the cigarette she was holding.
Clio shrugged, her gaze fluttering to where Annie stood in the doorway.
“Crow, in my office,” Annie said and went into his private room. Crow followed behind, and Annie slammed the door.
Clio paced the emptied out mess of a room. Annie’s foul mood had driven the whole lot out when he had gotten off stage. She stuck a thumb in the lukewarm vegetable dip as she passed the refreshment table and popped it into her mouth. Her face screwed up with horror and she wiped at her tongue with a napkin.
“I don't believe you're with that kid,” Calli said as she took a drag on her clove, “isn't he a little… beneath you?” She stood in front of a mirror and wiped some lipstick off her teeth.
Clio grabbed Calliope and spun her around to make her look at her. “One of my busts was at his grandma's house.”
“You did it at his grandma's house?” Calliope looked her up and down in disgust.
“No. God, are you listening to me? There was a bust of me at his grandma's house.”
Calliope could not understand what Clio was getting worked up about. She wandered around searching for her backpack. “There are plenty of busts of us around, she's an antique dealer, that's all.”
“No, I don't think so.” Clio plucked her sister's cigarette from her hand and took a deep drag from it. “She has your harpsichord,” she said.
Silence. Calliope retrieved her clove and crossed the room, her six-inch spikes clicking on the marble. She whirled around at her sister. “You sure? I mean, are you absolutely sure it was mine?”
Clio poured herself a shot of vodka. She tossed half of it back and made a face.
“Maybe she bought it at an estate auction. Maybe,” and here Calliope paused, “Miranda sold everything.” She gambled a peek out of the corner of her eye to see Clio's reaction.
“Miranda?”
“I left the spinet with Miranda, remember?” Calliope knew it hurt Clio, but it had to be done. “We left everything with Miranda.”
“What if she's one of those on to us? I was actually in her house. God.” Clio shivered.
Calliope found her backpack, pulled out her brush, and said, “She'd be a seeker, and not many real seekers have called on us in eons. Only Scotty after he went broke, I think he was the last.” Calliope yanked the brush through her hair, deep in thought, thinking about the Fitzgeralds. “Maybe she's a seeker. She's too old to do anything about it now, right?”
Clio flopped on the couch. “I think she's on to us,” she said and hugged a sofa cushion.
“I think you're paranoid and maybe you shouldn't hang out with that kid so much.” Calliope was picking up piles of clothing and shaking them as she said this.
“I should say the same to you – Annie's an asshole.” Clio said under her breath.
Calliope sat next to her sister. “Touché.” She felt a fleeting moment of disembodiment as she drifted along with her thoughts. “Hey, have you seen Homer around? I haven't seen him all night.”
“He's in my backpack. Oh, my backpack!” Clio looked ready to cry.
“You left it at that woman's house, didn't you?” She smirked at the panicked expression on Clio's face. “Good. I wanted to see my harpsichord, anyway. If she is a dealer than she has a price.”
The door opened and the boys came out, Annie looked pleased. His look turned south as he saw Calliope with her sister. “He'll drive you two back. I won't be home tonight.”
“Where are you going? You need some sleep. We're almost done with this whole fucking tour and you need your rest.” Calliope followed him all the way to the bathroom, where he slammed the door in her face. “Fine. Fuck the whole world for all I care.”
She grabbed her jacket and purse and turned to stomp out of the dressing room.
“Bye, Calli,” Bliss's soft, sing-songy voice called out from where she stood in the doorway. She wore nothing but the afghan.
Calliope felt like a teakettle that had been on the stove too long – she pounced on Bliss. Her fist snatched a handful of the girl's copper locks and hauled her head in close to her mouth. “You think you mean anything to him, child? Do you like it when he beats you? Does it remind you of Daddy?” She dropped the girl’s hair and put her lips to Bliss’s cheek. “Don't forget who runs the show around here, ” she said through twisted lips. “ Now, what do you say?”
“I'll scream, you'll scream, we'll all scream,” Bliss whispered. She shut the dressing room door.
“You little freak!” She screamed at the door.
Calliope's eyes narrowed and she took in Clio and Crow standing by the door, waiting for her. Clio's face was flushed. Calliope didn't say a word, she rumbled through the door, all fury and venom.
2
The Villa
The ride home was quiet and tense. Crow knew it was better for everyone concerned Annie didn't come home tonight. He stared at Clio in the backseat through the rear view mirror.
They pulled up to the house in the Hollywood Hills, an exquisite Moroccan style villa.
“Ladies, pick you up the same time tomorrow night?”
“Crow, why don't you come in?” Clio said. She gave Calliope a look.
Calliope hopped down from the truck and went inside to leave them alone.
He shifted around to where she sat in the backseat. “I don't know, it's really late. Annie keeps me busy during the day, doing all the shit he can't do himself.”
“You should come inside, Crow.” Clio got out of the
He thought about it a moment, turned the engine off, and got out.
“I guess I'll get enough sleep when I'm dead,” he said.
“Come on,” she said and held her hand out.
Through an arched wooden gate and courtyard garden, she led him to the front of the villa. Night blooming flowers choked him with their over-powering perfume. She pointed out her tuberoses, fairy lilies, night gladiolus, sweet rockets, and Carolina jessamine as the culprits. One glance about the garden and he knew this was her place by the look of pride she had when naming her flowers. An entire section glowed with white flowers, picked especially for a night garden.
The front door was of a mosque design and opened into an entry hall with a thirty-foot ceiling. A mosaic of a blonde man with a lyre decorated the floor's inlaid tile.
“That would be Apollo,” Clio said in reply to his interest.
Great potted palms and tapestries gave the villa a middle-eastern flair. Large exotic furniture made from woods he could not name lay scattered about the red Spanish tile. A mahogany staircase meandered through the villa and beyond that, a traditional atrium in the center. The atrium was full of wicker and rattan furniture piled high with overstuffed pillows and a huge fireplace. The atrium was also jammed with palms and ferns standing on little tables with elephants for bases.
“What do you do when it rains?” His gaze drifted to the night sky hanging above the atrium.
“We bring the cushions in. There are drains in the floor. Doesn't come up too much.”
In the kitchen, polished terra cotta gleamed on the floor, and a pot rack descended on heavy chains from the ceiling in a medieval manner. She pulled a beer and hard cider from the refrigerator.
Silence ate at them as they stood in the atrium. Clio ran the cider over her tongue, deep in thought.
“You might as well sleep over here tonight, since you have to pick us up tomorrow anyway.”
He looked at her, surprised.
“That wasn't how it sounded, I meant...”
“What's upstairs?” His words tangled into her hair from where he stood behind her.
“Bedrooms, office, the usual,” she said and tentatively reached for his hand.
She took him by the library, the entertainment room, and the gym.
At the gym, he eyed the heavy bag in the corner. “What's that for?”
“We used to alternate yoga with kickboxing every other day when Calliope was going through a bad spell. She didn't have anyone to rely on in the Superman department, if you hadn't noticed.”
“Tough girls, should I be scared?”
“Oh yeah, I'm real tough,” she said. “Watch out.”
Back at the stairs, she turned to face him square. “I'm showing you the upstairs so we can kick back in my room, it's not an invitation to have sex with me. I'm not that kind of girl.”
“I know.” He held up his hands in mock surrender.
She turned off lights as they went along, walking through halls with long Berber runners of brilliant fuchsias, greens, and yellows, and walls painted with murals of tropical desert oases. They reached a door, all the doors had the same Mosque arch shape, and she pushed it open. He stood agape at the centerpiece of her room, her bed.
A wooden platform hung from four great chains fastened into the cathedral ceiling. The platform hung in the center of the room about four feet from the ground, square, and at least ten feet long on all sides. On it were a heap of silken pillows, featherbeds, and exotic silk-covered duvets. The entire thing was cocooned in delicate water-colored mosquito netting, giving it an Arabian Nights appearance.
“This is the single coolest room I have ever seen.”
On one wall, an immense fireplace joined the two rooms and he saw Calliope lying on a similar bed watching TV in the next room. Iron sconces with white candles clung to the frescoed walls and the now familiar palms and ferns were scattered about. A small writing desk with an out-of-place computer heaped on top sat by itself in one corner of the room. Soft rugs, so thick you couldn't feel the stone tile beneath, lay underfoot. Along one wall was a big-screen TV with an audio system and Crow saw a small patio overlooking the atrium with rattan tables and chairs outside the French doors along the far wall. She pointed to the bathroom the size of a studio apartment before she disappeared into a walk-in closet. She grabbed some pajamas and closed the bathroom door.
Through the door she yelled, “I'm going to take a quick shower, do you mind?”
Water turned on and he looked to the door. “Maybe I should get going?”
She cracked the door open, wearing only a towel. “No, stay here tonight, would you? I want company.”
He pulled a well-worn baseball from his jacket pocket when he sat to remove his boots. The remote control sat abandoned on the desk, and he shrugged at it. The TV burst to life. There was only an amazing quantity of infomercials. The water turned off and he looked to the door, the sink turned on. He sighed and resumed channel surfing.
She came out of the bathroom in leopard print pajama bottoms and a tiny white camisole pulled over her taut stomach. Pink wig doffed, her damp chestnut curls hung down her back. She had no makeup on and her cheeks were flushed from the hot water.
“You look shorter,” was all he could manage.
“No boots.” A pointed foot picked him out and she wiggled her painted toes at him. Her expression sobered as she took in the sight of him tossing the baseball. “What are you doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“With that ball,” she snapped.
“I'm just tossing it, I'm being careful.”
Her brow crinkled. “You should take a shower.” She crossed over to wear he lay on the bed. “I took the liberty of putting something comfortable for you to wear to bed in there.”
His gray eyes flicked to the bed. “Do you need to have men's pajamas here?”
She laughed. “No, no, no – they're mine. It's a big T-shirt and some men's cotton pajama pants I sometimes wear. You're not exactly a fat guy.” She moved her arm up and down indicating his wiry body. He had a tattoo of Death from the Sandman comic on the inside of his right forearm and he found her staring at it.
“I'm going to try and remove this foot from my mouth in the shower, is that okay with you?” He slunk towards the bathroom.
The bed swung when she hopped on top.
“Hey, toss me the remote,” she said – too late, he was already behind the closed door. His ball was plucked from where he had tossed it in her duvet. She held it to her nose, and dropped it back into the blankets.
When he was done with his shower, he sat back down on the chair.
“Come over here, silly, how do you expect to sleep in the chair?”
He stared at her.
“Well, where else would you sleep? This is a big enough bed.”
“Will it hold?”
“Yeah. I didn't say I was a virgin.”
He jumped on and crawled to where she was sitting in the middle of the bed. “Pretty cool.”
A smile escaped her impatient scowl and she shook her head at him.
They lay there watching TV awhile before she broached the subject of his grandma. She cleared her throat. “That, umm, harpsichord at your grandma's is interesting.”
“Yeah, how'd you know about that?” His gray eyes studied hers.
“Calliope would die if she saw it,” she said.
“Why?”
“She plays the harpsichord, she's really good at it. She loves the harpsichord, and that piece your grandma has is kinda rare, y'know?”
“I suppose Calli can tag along tomorrow when we go to get the ferret and your bag.” He brought his face close to where hers lay against a stack of pillows.
“Thanks.” She only had to whisper this because his nose was grazing hers. His cheek brushed hers and he brought his mouth around to kiss her bottom lip and down to her chin. He kissed her throat and made his way back to her rosy lips where he kissed her deeply, his tongue sending shivers through her.
She kissed him back, pressing him upward with the force of her kiss. He moved his mouth to her ear and inhaled her hair. He nibbled on her ear and ran a soft trail of kisses down to the nape of her neck.
“You still smell like cookies,” he whispered as his hands discovered her hair.
His body pressed into hers while she gazed into the same soft grays as hers. His fingertips explored the hollows of her back and he pressed his lips to hers again, caressing her mouth with his. She felt his hand move to the bare skin of her tummy, sending tiny bolts of lightning through her. Tremors ran through her as she lay beneath his warm body. Clio realized it had been too long since she had felt this way.
When his hand dared to move higher, a flicker of dread flared up from somewhere within her. She didn't know what it was or where it came from, but it took up residence.
“I'm sorry, I'm really sorry, I can't do this right now.” Clio sat up.
“No, I'm sorry, I moved too fast, it's that, you – you do something to me.” He ran his fingers through his damp hair.
“I think we should take this slower, okay?” She cupped his chin and made him look at her. “Please stay here tonight, don't be angry with me.”
“Angry? Are you kidding? You have me wrapped.” He said and reddened.
“I'm sorry, Crow.” She buried her head beneath his chin. Her loneliness and confusion had welded together into a big, messy pile in the pit of her stomach. He reminded her of someone, his smile, his laugh, his eyes and she couldn't put her finger on it.
Crow fell asleep with his arms possessively about her waist. Clio lay awake for a long time after, alone with her failings in the dark.
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