Ah, Hell

Chapter 26

Left Behind

Daria looked around the lovely space that she had called her office sadly. All her books and mementos that were to make the move were packed away safely, a few boxes dropped off at a charity, and a few items had made the trip back to Lawndale with her parents.

She sat on one of the tiered platforms that led up to her little loft, and chose one of the black river stones that had marked the borders and transitions between functional spaces. She stroked it between her fingers before slipping it into a pocket.

I hope the next tenants can appreciate the thought that went into this room. At least Linda, the landlady did. As Daria had hoped, she liked the room treatment and declared it to be a definite improvement to the rental.

So much had changed in her life in a few short years. Soon, she and people important to her would be starting a new chapter in their lives together.

You have to leave the past behind so you can have the future. Trent had written that line into a song.

Urban homesteading, or something like that. At least the residential flat, on the top of the old building, was reasonably livable, now that the roof membrane had been replaced. The place had been inspected carefully for toxic mold, something that was a real concern considering the purpose the structure had supposedly been built for.

Trent and Matt had gone in and pulled out years of accumulated junk, some of it dropped directly into a debris box at ground level, and a surprisingly interesting stash of possibly usable items transported down to the ground floor via the freight elevator. They were going to have the mother of all garage sales later in the month, assuming Jane and Matt didn't want to keep all of it for art projects.

As the guys emptied out rooms, they finished by powerwashing the surfaces and setting fans around to dry things out. The girls followed, taping over the windows, doorframes and light fixtures and then rolling on a heavy coating of waterbased clear finish onto the battered wood floorboards. The first expanse of floor needed to cure for at least fourty-eight hours to harden, so they had retreated to work on the kitchen space, which had been redone with a modern laminate floor for ease of cleaning.

"That power painter rocks," Jane smiled, surveying the clean white ceiling and butter yellow walls. "I can't wait to start on the outside of the building."

"Good thing you don't have a fear of heights," Daria mused, surveying the sketches taped to the gallery wall at the end of the dining area. "You toned the design down a bit."

"Only way I could get the city to issue signage permits," grumbled Jane. "That's what they call murals this big."

"Philistines," smirked Daria. "I'm making coffee, now that we have power again. The refrigerator should be here by noon, and the stove's hooked up. The roof vent's not hooked in yet, so open the window if you use it."

"I can't believe how much money this is costing," Jane sighed, looking in the big cooler for the milk.

"Well, renovating kitchens and bathrooms are the most expensive part of remodeling, and we saved a hell of a lot by buying used and salvaged when we could. These cabinets were custom made and cost the original buyer way more than what we paid."

Jane rinsed out coffee cups. "Good call, requiring the kitchen, dining area and at least two of the bathrooms to be clean areas." She pulled out her phone. "Hey, Matt, coffee's on. Make sure you and my pig brother leave your dirty coveralls in the work zone, and wash your hands."

"Trent is not a pig," Daria shot back.

"Sibling prerogative, Amiga. You've cleaned him up a lot, but to me he'll always be my slacker bro."

Daria fell silent as she watched the coffee brewing.

"That's not what I meant," Jane said quietly. "He wouldn't have changed if he didn't want to. You made him want to grow up."

Once the cleaning and painting were done, the moving boxes were hauled up and unpacked. Daria's first priority was her office, which needed to be online so she could return to work. Grace had been generous with three weeks paid vacation, but they needed to get money coming in to the household.

True, Trent had managed to save a lot from his stint with Nimbus, and still brought in good money, but the renovation of the old icehouse had bit deep. And now, they had a mortgage.

Still, no matter how you looked at it, they had all made a sound investment. Grace, Ray, and Daria's parents had kicked in the down payment, and an investment corporation had been set up. All were shareholders, and sweat was as valuable as cash in this endeavor. Grace was the one who had long understood the long-term value of this rough building, having an ear to the ground and the last twenty years as an indicator. The down was big enough to keep the monthly payment reasonable, at least as far as Daria, Jane, Trent and Matt were concerned.

"There goes the neighborhood," grumbled Jane as they drove past the new Starbuck's under construction.

"Just means that Grace was right about the area," smiled Daria. "We got in just under the wire, before the Hipsters took over."

"Look in the mirror, pot."

"Bite me, kettle."

Jane laughed. "Face it. Liberal, culture loving, thrift-store haunting elitists. We have met the enemy, and she is us, you know. We invented it, they just copied us."

"A Starbucks? We Hipsters favor independents."

"Indicator species," smirked Jane. "Like a two-headed frog."

They drove on in quiet contemplation.

"At least you're hauling building supplies in your SUV."

"My mom's old car, okay?" Daria snapped. "Geez! You never bitch about it when you borrow it to get art supplies."

"Sorry," Jane muttered quietly.

Daria sighed. "No, I'm sorry. I guess I'm just a little freaked out about what we've committed to. I kind of miss the old place, you know? It was just a quiet little world, and I could just hide in my office." Daria's expression lightened for just a moment. She drove on in silence.

She glanced at Jane. "Leaving my retreat was the hardest thing…you guys made it for me."

"Yes, we did, because you've given Trent and I more than you'll ever know, Amiga."

Jane could see that telltale sparkle in the corner of Daria's eye.

"We'll just have to make you another one," Jane smiled, looking around at their new neighborhood.

The location was great. The old icehouse, a four-story structure built at the turn of the last century, had good bones. Built partially into a swell of land, it had excellent thermal stability and was constructed with a frame largely made of steel and concrete. The walls were of timber and insulated with rock wool, and the outside sheathed in stucco. Oddly enough, the inspectors had found that the outward facing surface of the inner shell had been sheathed with copper foil, which had served to prevent the growth of mildew and mold. There appeared to be sufficient provision for removal of condensed water in the warmer months.

Still, just to be on the safe side, Trent had spent some extra dollars and hired a small crew to come in and caulk and seal the interior surfaces, effectively creating a shell inside the structure on each of the midsection floors.

The interior, once stacked with huge blocks of winter lake ice, was dead quiet, perfect for recording sound. The remains of an old-school analog studio in fact took up a lot of the volume, long out of business. Much of the old gear from the late 1950s and 60s had been shoved into storage rooms; the guy that ran the place was something of a resourceful tinkerer and kept a lot of junk around. That seemed to be some kind of New Englander trait; you'd see piles of old stuff behind garages and sheds when you drove around the countryside.

From the outside, there were no windows in the floors above the ground floor, which had been built as office space but converted later to storefronts. The structure was largely unglazed to avoid letting in sunlight which would raise the interior temperature, obviously not good for storing ice in the summer.

The place was a little strange in its layout; the owner had some interesting ideas and had designed in a large, central open shaft that originally served to house a system of rigging that allowed the loading and unloading of blocks of ice from the ground floor to the upper levels. The very top of the shaft was an iron latticework that mounted the winches and lifting sheaves, and was covered by a glassed structure. That let in light that was enough for the workers to see as they worked on the lower floors, since the space was mostly filled by huge blocks of translucent ice.

As a result, the building had what amounted to an atrium, opening onto each of the four floors. Later on, electrical freight elevators were added to the north wall, and much of the old block and tackle rigging in the central shaft was removed. The freight elevators were faster and safer to use.

The ground floor could generate income as rental retail space, and there a low roofline cantilevered out over the pedestrian walkway. The loading areas were along the north wall, accessed by a roadway that fronted long unused train tracks. It was something of an industrial cul-de-sac, and across from the icehouse were lower warehouses ripe for conversion into residential lofts and studios.

The top floor, originally the owner's pied-à-terre, was set back and invisible from the street. It was built as something of an afterthought, perched as it was on the top of the fourth floor. Not quite a floor itself; there was a perimeter deck that allowed for relaxing and sun when the weather was good, and the walls had been topped with copper planter boxes that were still home to neglected but nonetheless refreshing greenery and flowers. It was sited north of the atrium 'greenhouse', where it's adjacent surfaces served to redirect sunlight into the lightshaft. It was a fairly large but neglected space, so much so that it had consumed more than half of the renovation budget.

It was now home to possibly three young couples. Lori had been talked into joining them, and lately she had been seriously dating Alex, who was an animator.

This is good, but it's not what I really wanted to be doing before I started touring again.

Trent sighed, setting aside his laptop and walking over to the whiteboard that covered the west wall of his office. Maybe Daria and I can meet up in Seattle. I hope so, anyway.

He was glad that there would be people around. He didn't want Daria alone in a strange new neighborhood.

Not that she couldn't take care of herself, you're just being an idiot.

I know this place is important, and we had to do jump on this when we had the opportunity, but Daria and I were supposed to get married. That was the important thing.

He stood, lost in thought, reading the summer splayed out in front of him. He had marked those cities where there was a chance he could see her, where she could possibly break away to join him.

But why was it on her? Why did she have to be the one making the accommodation? Ellie had suggested that they should work Trent and Daria's situation into the materials released to the media. It made a compelling backstory to what drove this artist, and Daria had reluctantly agreed to go along with it. It made sense; Nimbus could justify more money spent on flying Daria to meet him.

"Dinner's ready," came Daria's quiet voice. There was an odd overtone there.

She came up beside him, her arms crossed over her chest as though she were hugging herself. He reached out and put his arm around her waist; she returned the gesture after a moment. They stared silently at the schedule in front of them.

All these days on the road. How had things taken this turn? It's not like anything jumped the rails, so to speak, but did we go wrong somewhere?