A/N: This chapter is dedicated to Sance777 – thank you so much for your wonderful review and excellent questions! You're really making me think. I love it! :) Also, thank you to all my guest reviewers! I can't respond to your reviews because I can only send messages to account holders, but thank you, thank you, thank you!
I walk with Mr. Schiller through the same doors as before, up the elevator and past the same people. There's a man who sits at a small glass table at the front of the office, and he nods at me as we walk past. I wonder who these people think that I am.
Mr. Schiller turns on a wide screen TV, and it shows stock market prices and graphs. We stand in the middle of the room looking at it. Mr. Schiller's eyes narrow as he reads the numbers, and I wonder what he's seeing in all that information. I don't know what I should do, whether I should go into the back office again or stay out here. Mr. Schiller doesn't seem to remember that I'm with him, so I just stand there and wait.
My phone buzzes and I take it out of my pocket, running my finger over the screen to unlock it. Mr. Schiller glances down at me, and he takes the phone out of my hands before I can read it. He holds the phone out to the man at the table.
"Give this to Nolani. Tell her to change it," Mr. Schiller says.
"What are you doing?" I ask. I stare as the man takes my phone away. It feels like he's carting off a piece of me.
Mr. Schiller barely glances at me as he walks to his desk. "It's broken. Nolani will change it for a new one."
I stand there for a minute, not knowing what to say. Does he mean he's giving me a new one to keep? It's an expensive gift, and I don't want to sound ungrateful, but all my contacts, my texts, my pictures are on it. I don't want a new phone. I want my old one. I look back over my shoulder at the doorway the man has gone through. Should I ask Mr. Schiller if I can keep my old one?
I wander to the window and look out. I can feel his eyes on my back, but I don't know what to say, so I just stand there looking at my reflection in the glass. I look out of place here, a small pink thing on a backdrop of red and black. I'm a dissonant color on a foreign palette, and I wish I had worn a different sweater.
Mr. Schiller sighs behind me, and I'm afraid he'll be mad. He's so different here than he is at his house. He moves quickly here – it feels chaotic, like at any moment things could spin out control.
He comes to stand behind me and looks out the window too. After a long moment, he looks down at my face from the side. He doesn't say anything, just watches me, and I wish I could tell him I'm not always like this. I'm not sullen or moody or things I know adults think teenagers are. It's just that everything is so different here, so alien, that I have trouble knowing how to begin to explain. It's a loss of control so sudden, it makes you realize how carefully you've been held – how intricately things were arranged around you to have ever made you feel safe at all.
I look up at him and give him a small smile. He softens his face, almost a smile in return. I take a deep breath and look back out the window. Mr. Schiller puts his hands into his pockets and looks out with me.
After a few minutes, the man comes back. He hands me a new phone that looks exactly like my old one. They've even put my purple phone case on it. "Thank you," I say. The word is pulled out automatically before I have the chance to look from the phone to the man's face. He doesn't look at me, just nods once and walks away.
I turn around and look up at Mr. Schiller. He tilts his head, just a little, as if to ask if it's okay. I smile a little and hold the phone in both my hands. He raises his hand and rubs my back between my shoulder blades before turning and walking back to his desk. I go over to the couch near the window and sit down. It's worn in at the corner, and I press my back into it, feeling it cradle me. I bring my knees up close to my chest.
I swipe my finger across the screen and enter the code to unlock it. It's the same code I set for my phone. I look up at Mr. Schiller, but he's already working, so I don't ask him how they figured it out. I'm not sure I want to know anyway. I check my texts, my photos, my music – they're all there. Even my levels have been saved in my games. It's better than they can do at the Apple store, and I wonder how they got all this stuff on here so quickly. I scroll back to the last text message I got – the one that came in just before Mr. Schiller took my phone. It's a message from my mom. It says, "I love you". "I love you too," I write back, but what I want to say is "how much, you have no idea".
We walk to a restaurant for lunch because Vincent isn't back yet with the car. How long does it take to dispose of a body? Natalie walks beside me, still holding her phone in her hands. She keeps it close to her – a lifeline, I suppose. I walk with my hands in my pockets, only touching her to guide her around a corner. She stays close to me, not clinging, but closer than anyone has walked to me in quite a while.
I take her to a Japanese restaurant near the water. They have the best sushi in town. I expect her to order udon or teriyaki or something similar, but she orders a yellowtail roll and eats it with chopsticks. We sit at a table instead of at the bar, and she tells me about something called street art. It sounds like a gallery exhibition when she discusses the pieces, and it takes me a long time to realize she's describing graffiti. Still, the irony of its illegality is not lost on me.
On the way back, she walks so close to me that our arms touch, and I put my hands back into my pockets. I listen to her voice without thinking. I watch our feet travel down the cracked sidewalk. It is a moment until I realize she isn't with me. I turn to look back and see her standing at a window. It is as if an electric field has caught her in its orbit. I walk back and stand beside her. She doesn't speak, simply stands there staring in.
"Would you like to go inside for a moment?" I ask.
She looks up at me. She wears the breathless look from the car.
The corners of my mouth tilt up, and I put my hand on her back, rubbing it lightly as I guide her inside. I lose her immediately to the close-packed shelves, the racks upon racks of oil paint tubes. I wander across the dark gray cement floor, splatters of brightly colored paint dripped and dried into place. There's an older man behind the counter cleaning paintbrushes. He gives me a knowing look.
"That your daughter?" the man asks. He nods at Natalie.
I follow his gaze to where she is kneeling on the floor, opening tubes and examining colors.
"She has expensive taste," the man says. He grins.
I shrug and turn back to watch her. The man dries the clean brushes on a paper towel, the bristles making a rustling sound behind me. I make a slow circuit of the store to give her space, but when I return she is still kneeling in the same spot. She is holding aluminum tubes of paint with names like Viridian Green and Sheveningen Yellow, her hands already stained with smudges of color. I rest my palm on the back of her neck to keep her from reaching for me when she stands up.
"I can't decide," she murmurs. She brushes her finger over the back of her hand where she has smeared two shades of crimson onto her skin.
I touch the shades, running my thumb lightly over the back of her hand, where her skin is soft beneath the paper-thin layer of paint. "Get them both," I say.
"They're expensive," she says.
"Don't worry. Get whatever you like," I say.
She turns and looks up at me, but I have already walked away.
Mr. Schiller stands outside the glass window with his back to the store. He's talking on his phone while he waits for me. I put down the tubes of paint and the new palette and glance over my shoulder while the man rings me up.
"These are good oils. Are you a serious painter?" the man asks.
I look at him, but his question seems genuine. "I do mostly acrylics, but I really like oils."
The man grins at me. "Tough stuff. No watercolors?" he asks.
I shake my head.
"Good for you," he says. He nods.
I hand him the money, but he closes the register. "Your dad already opened you an account," the man says.
I stare at the man for two long heartbeats – so long he starts to look worried. There are pinpricks of pain in my eyes. It takes me a minute more to realize that he's talking about Mr. Schiller.
"Are you alright?" the man asks. He reaches out and lays a hand on my arm.
I nod and stuff the pain back in. I pack it away to keep it from swallowing me whole. "Yes, I'm fine," I say. It's been months, but the briefest mention of my dad still knocks me back so hard it takes the wind out of me.
The man stares at me and slowly takes back his hand. "Do you want me to get your dad for you?"
"No, I'm okay," I say. I blink hard to get rid of the tears. "He's not my dad. My dad – died."
The man shifts his weight back and touches my arm again. "I'm sorry, angel," he says. He tilts his head.
"Thank you," I say. And the word almost chokes me. I've lost my dad and Uncle Mike in three short months.
"Listen," the man says. He picks up a business card in front of the register and hands it to me. "I'm here every day. It's my shop. You can come back any time you want – to talk or paint, you know, whatever you want."
I smile a little. It feels good to be able to say it out loud and have people know why you're dying inside. "Thank you," I say again.
He nods. I turn and start walking toward the door. Then I stop and turn back around. "What did you mean when you said he opened an account for me?" I ask.
"He put his credit card down," the man says. "So any time you come back, you just give us your name, and the charges go to the card."
I look at the man for a minute longer. I open my mouth to thank him again, but I'm afraid he'll call me "angel" and I'll start crying, so I just smile and tug my backpack on tighter.
The sun hits me with a flash of heat when I step outside. I am glad that Mr. Schiller is still on the phone. I need a second to get myself together.
His voice sounds different, and I think maybe it's because he's speaking in a different language. It's the same one he reads to me in – the same language and the same voice. I stand beside him without looking at him, taking deep, slow breaths. Mr. Schiller laughs, and I squeeze my hand into a fist. I've never heard him laugh before, and I try to concentrate on that, but the man's words are ringing in my ears. I will never be able to say, "my dad is waiting for me" or "hang on while I call my dad". I will never get to know him as an adult. I will never feel him hold me again.
Mr. Schiller hangs up but doesn't look at me. We both just stare in opposite directions. After a while, I hear him sigh and turn toward me. He comes up behind me and squeezes my shoulders. He doesn't ask me if I'm alright. He leans into me until his chest presses against my back.
I turn around in the middle of the street and put my arms around him. This time, he doesn't hesitate to hug me back. Even after I'm ready to stand up again, he just stands there holding on.
I don't have to bring the cash to Schiller immediately. I can give it to him at the end of the runs. But I carry it to his office in a black duffel bag so that I can give it to him and see Natalie while I'm there. His guards have stopped checking me for guns. I guess I'm trusted into the building with one now. They take a cursory look for bombs this afternoon and then wave me on my way.
I walk into Schiller's office carrying the bag. He's looking down at some papers on his desk. When I enter, he looks up at me, and there are lines around his eyes. His posture sags in a way it doesn't even when he's tired. I stop in my tracks. He doesn't say anything, just sits up and looks at me. I walk the last few steps to his desk and set the bag slowly down onto the floor.
"Thank you for bringing it," he says.
I nod. "Sure," I say. It's not usually the kind of thing I would say to Schiller, but there's a vacantness to him that catches me off guard.
"Natalie's in the back," Schiller says. His eyes return to his papers.
"Mr. Schiller, are you . . ." I say. I look at him.
When he looks back at me, I hold his gaze. I can see the look he's going for is bored, but he doesn't quite pull it off today.
"Is everything okay?" I ask.
I bite my lip. It's not something I should ask. Schiller drove my daughter to work today with a cut up body in the trunk of his car. And he's threatened to kill me more than once over a debt I can't seem to repay. I think it might be in my best interest if he weren't okay. I think it might be in my best interest if he fell off a cliff.
"Mrs. Walraven," Schiller says. It comes out an impatient growl, and the wheels of his chair scrape the floor when he pushes back.
I freeze like a deer in headlights. Schiller walks – slow – around the edge of his desk, each step a distinct click of his shoe. I think wildly as he approaches me that he'd be great as one of those monsters in a horror movie where you can't see him coming, you can only hear him. Schiller stops when he's beside me, breathing down my neck, my shoulder pressed against the lower half of his sternum. My eyes flit to the side, but I can't turn my head he's so close, and I wonder in times like these if he expects me to run. Is that what most people do? Or do most people stand here like an idiot, frozen in time, while the monster walks up and eats them?
Schiller leans so close to me I can feel his breath on my face, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. His lips brush my hair so that it tickles my face. I feel like my eyes must be wild with panic. "Natalie . . . is in . . . the back," Schiller says.
I'm breathing fast – light – preparing for an attack that doesn't come. That's the worst part with Schiller, not knowing when you can stop being scared. I give a convulsant nod and turn toward the back door, without bringing my eyes anywhere near him. I walk as if on stilts, as if the ground is made of toothpicks that at any moment could splinter apart. I grip the doorknob so hard it hurts my hand.
I open the door and stop. I don't know how I can keep getting stunned, but the sight of my daughter nails me to my spot. She's propped up her sketch pad like an easel on the desk, and she's holding a palette with colors as vibrant as the setting sun on it. The desk is draped in a white sheet and she stands looking at her work, like a professional artist in a gallery studio. I let out a quiet laugh and gaze at my daughter.
"Mom," Natalie says. She puts down the palette and runs to me, swallowing me up in a hug.
"My girl," I say. I press her cheeks between my hands, and I'm amazed that with all the colors she isn't more paint-spattered.
"Mr. Schiller's letting me use this as a studio," she says.
I smile and nod. "I can see that," I say. The smile hurts my cheeks and makes them warm. I look over my shoulder at Schiller.
He's standing in front of his desk where I left him, brushing dust across its surface with his fingertips. He shrugs with one shoulder. "She was making a mess," he says, but quietly, so only I can hear.
I smile at him, and he draws himself up, narrowing his eyes at me – seething. But I'm too tired to care – I'm so happy to hear my daughter laugh that I turn away from him and walk into Natalie's room.