Unfinished Muse (17 page)

I shook my head and closed the cabinet door.
No wonder he had all those muscles under his tight shirts.

Ashamed of my lack of healthy habits in my
own kitchen, I moved into the living room. I didn’t linger long.
Aside from a pair of socks under the coffee table and a home
improvement magazine sitting on the sofa, it was pristine. I
checked a drawer in the table, found three remotes, closed it, and
moved on.

The bathroom was a little messier. A yellow
bath towel lay discarded on the floor. I glanced up and found a
hook on the wall. The towel had probably fallen. The shower curtain
hadn’t been pulled all the way shut, and a damp washcloth lay
spread over the rim of the sink to dry.

I opened the medicine cabinet because that’s
what every good snooper was supposed to do. Toothpaste. Floss.
Aspirin. Deodorant. Nothing interesting. The single drawer beneath
the sink yielded nail clippers and a crap-ton of condoms.

“Now you have my attention, sir.” Impressed,
I closed the drawer and moved across the hall to the bedroom.

And that’s where I found the mess. Discarded
clothes. Work boots piled in the corner. Wadded sheets and blankets
in the middle of the bed. And best of all, papers strewn
everywhere. Crumpled balls covered the floor, and smooth pages
spread across the desk. Whatever Mark was working on, it was
frustrating the hell out of him. If I couldn’t find the answer to
what he was making here, I’d never find it on my own.

It was also a huge relief to find out my
neighbor wasn’t perfect.

I bent over the desk and tried to decipher
the sketches he’d made. Most were seemingly random squares and
circles. Some were a little more interesting, though. One featured
what looked like a dinosaur made up of geometric shapes. It also
could have been a dragon. I wasn’t sure. Another looked like a tree
with holes cut out at precise intervals.

The problem with being invisible was how
much I had to concentrate in order to touch anything. Sitting on a
chair was easy. Apparently, the gods who’d created this system had
set it up so we interacted normally with our environment. This kept
me from falling through stairs or sinking into the floor. Going
through doors, now that I’d done it a few times, was possible
without thinking about it. But individual items were a bitch to
negotiate.

Obviously, I was doing something wrong.

Every time I tried to move one of the pages
so I could look at one under it, my hand went through the desk. And
forget about trying to smooth out the discards on the floor to see
what secrets they held. Opening the cupboards had been difficult
enough.

If I was going to get anywhere, I had to
shut off the invisibility on my belt. This was probably a terrible
idea. If I got caught, I’d have no way of explaining why I was
there or how I’d gotten in. I’d only spoken to the guy a few times.
Our next conversation really shouldn’t have to be as he was calling
the police.

But I had a deadline, and he was failing.
Which meant I was failing.

I pressed the button on my belt and tested
my solidity by tapping the desk. My fingers touched the polished
wood instead of falling through.

Immediately, I panicked. “Fingerprints,
fingerprints!” I tugged my blouse out from under the golden belt
and used the material to scrub the desk in a vigorous motion. “And
stop talking to yourself! You’re not silenced anymore, either.”

I took a step back and tripped, falling on
my ass in the middle of the room, sending balls of paper rolling in
every direction. For a moment I sat on the bedroom floor, trying to
slow my breathing and get control of myself again. When I was a
little less freaked out that I was sitting in my neighbor’s house
going through his stuff without the aid of magical camouflage, I
reached for the nearest paper ball and smoothed it flat with hands
that shook a little less than they would have a few minutes
before.

I squinted at the page. Once I had the
wrinkles ironed out enough to see the pencil lines, it appeared to
be a fish. The series of three fins on its back were oddly flat, as
if something was supposed to sit on it.

The next page showed a pirate ship with the
Jolly Roger flying above it. Those strange circles dotted the
sides, similar to the tree I’d seen before.

A third page yielded a picture of a
two-headed animal of some kind—maybe a llama. One head was up and
the other down. Both heads were flat, like the fins on the
fish.

“You clever son of a bitch.” I grinned at
the pile of drawings. “You’re trying to build a playground.” I
couldn’t prove it, exactly, but
urban renewal
combined with
these whimsical sketches told me I was right.

But Mark couldn’t decide on the theme.

“Oh, honey. How the hell are you going to
build something of this magnitude in less than a month if you can’t
even decide what to build?”

I examined each picture. He had great ideas.
But they weren’t cohesive.

A key rattled in the door and I froze. “No,
no, no,” I whispered.

In a burst of motion, I scuttled around the
floor, wadding up the papers I’d smoothed and tossing them around
in as natural a pattern as I could manage.

The front door opened and shut. Frantic, I
reached to press the button on my belt, but the belt had shifted
when I fell, and the fabric of my blouse was tangled from when I
pulled it out to wipe off my fingerprints.

The kitchen faucet turned on and ran for a
moment, then turned off. Shaking, I stuffed my blouse under the
belt and tried to straighten the chain. The Beastie Dust bottle was
caught, and the buckle I was searching for had migrated over my
left hip.

Clunky footsteps strode down the hallway
toward me. My fingers touched the button and I clicked it. Mark
walked into the bedroom and looked right at me.

He frowned. “I thought I mailed those.”

My eyes grew wide as he walked toward me. “I
can explain.” Why did people always say that? It was rarely true. I
held my hands up, as if in self-defense, but he walked through me
to the desk. I shivered from the weird contact—or lack of
contact—and spun around.

Mark reached for two envelopes I hadn’t
noticed sitting on his desk. He shuffled them, then left the room.
After a moment, the kitchen door opened and shut, and I was left
alone to deal with an over-abundance of adrenalin.

I sat on the edge of Mark’s bed and took a
few deep breaths. “So stupid.” I dropped my head in my hands.
“Never again.”

And yet, a small voice in the back of my
head gave a little yip of excitement. I’d never really done
anything dangerous or even slightly daring before. I was not a risk
taker. I’d spent my life following the path of least
resistance.

Pushing the envelope was kind of a rush.

I squashed the excitement I was feeling and
waited for Mark to come back from the mailbox. No more risks for
me. At least not for a long while. I would play it straight and
follow the rules.

Whatever the rules were.

When Mark came back in, I had my bubble wand
at the ready and my bottle open and waiting. He meandered from the
kitchen to the living room and back again, avoiding the bedroom
where I wanted him to go. He needed to work.

He needed to stop waffling.

I followed where he went, relentless. Small
bubbles in a steady stream, large ones that glided on their own
wind currents. I blew slowly and sent a large bubble to land
between his shoulder blades.

If my Thought Bubbles had been made of the
same substance as regular bubbles, Mark would have been drenched in
sticky liquid.

“Come on.” I blew another long stream at
him. “Go sit down and hash this out. You know what you want to
create. You just don’t trust yourself. Unless you draw it, you
can’t make it.” I blew a long squiggly bubble. “The thing in your
head can be real. You know how to do it.”

I doubted he heard me, exactly, but he did
stop wandering around like he’d lost his wallet or something. He
settled in front of his desk and took out a fresh piece of paper
and a pencil.

I blew a massive bubble at his head. I blew
so hard, it popped in my face, and I had to try again.

The resulting bubble was a great, ponderous
blob that wobbled at him in a painfully slow line. I closed my eyes
and put all the positive, encouraging energy I could into it.
“You’ve got this, Mark. What’s your fabulous idea? Be brave.”

The bubble hit him on the back of the head
and bounced. I blew a little air at it to make it change course and
it returned to him, popped, and splattered.

Mark tensed as if he’d felt it, and I
waited, fingers crossed. He blew out a lungful of air and touched
his pencil to the page.

And the phone rang, breaking the spell.

“Son of a bitch,” I said.

“Son of a bitch,” he said.

I moved closer to his ear, hoping he would
hear
me, even if he couldn’t hear me. “Don’t answer it.
Whoever it is will leave a message. We’re
so
close.”

The phone continued to ring. Mark sighed and
answered it. “Hello?”

I smacked my face. “No, you knucklehead. I
told you not to answer it.”

Mark nodded. “Yeah, Pete. I’ve been working
on some ideas to show you at dinner next week. Once we go over it
together, I’ll get the ball rolling.” He listened for a moment, the
fingers of one hand drumming on the desk. “No, yeah. We’ll get it
done before her birthday. No worries. I’ve got this. Yeah. You too,
Pete. Take care.” He disconnected the call and stared at the phone
in his hand for a long moment. “I don’t have this.” He sounded
miserable.

“You
do
have this, Mark. I saw these
drawings.” I gestured at the crumpled paper on the floor as if he
could see and hear me. “I’ve never known anyone with half your
creativity. You have to believe in yourself.” I drew close to him,
looking him in the eyes. “I do.”

He sighed and put his phone in his pocket
and rose from his chair. If he hadn’t gone right through me, I’d
have been knocked over. He clomped out of the room to the
kitchen.

“Hey.” I trotted behind him. “What are you
doing? We’re not done.”

He opened the fridge, scanned the contents,
then slammed it shut. He leaned against the counter and rubbed his
face, looking tired and worried. With another deep sigh, he grabbed
his car keys and headed for the door.

“Hey,” I said, scowling. “Where are you
going?”

“I’m out of beer,” he said. “I need a
drink.” He shut the door and locked it.

I stood in the kitchen and watched him out
the window until I realized what had happened.

Mark had answered me.

Chapter 14

Mark must have gone to Colorado for that beer,
because he was gone all evening. I gave up after an hour and went
home. I had to hope the work I’d done with him earlier had greased
the gears a little. Maybe a few drinks would finish the job.

The truth was, Mark had stressed me out. And
I didn’t think I could help him unless I got myself in a better
mindset.

Fortunately, I had a date with a gladiator
the next day. That ought to do it.

I went into the office Friday morning before
taking the day off. I was, after all, brand new. Maybe Fridays were
a day of departmental meetings and I’d be notably absent. Maybe
everybody brought potluck. Hell, I’d have been surprised if
anybody
had been there. But they weren’t. And the biggest
reason I’d come in was to check my inbox to be sure I didn’t have a
new assignment.

My inbox was mercifully empty.

I stopped in the prop room and refilled my
Thought Bubbles. Mark had used up half a bottle with all the
craziness the night before. I didn’t want to get caught
unprepared.

With nobody to stop me, I walked out with no
intention of visiting any clients that day. My stomach had
butterflies, but I didn’t change my mind. At the end of the day,
nobody cared but me.

I stepped out of the elevator and found Rick
waiting outside the cafeteria. He wore totally normal clothes this
time—jeans and a blue, buttoned shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
He smelled clean like he’d stepped out of the shower five minutes
earlier.

Rick grinned at me. “Good morning. You look
beautiful.”

I’d chosen a yellow print dress with a
short, fluttery skirt and sandals with low heels, since I didn’t
know where we were going. Mom always told me yellow brought out the
blue in my eyes and made my blonde hair shine like gold. Mom was
weird like that. But she was surprisingly good at fashion
advice.

“Morning.” I smiled back. “And thank
you.”

His grin widened, and he held open the
cafeteria door. “Shall we start with coffee and then go from
there?”

I glanced up at him as I walked past, and my
smile wavered. His adorable dimples were gone. And his eyes were
definitely blue. How did a person change their eye color and lose
their dimples?

For the first time, I wondered what Rick
really looked like. Was this the real version?

He brought the coffee to our table, and I
waited for him to settle into the booth. He handed me my cup and
took a sip from his own.

“Rick?”

“Yeah?”

“Before we go any further with all this,
maybe you should tell me a little more about your job. And, you
know, your costumes. How they work.”

This time, Rick’s smile faltered. “It’s all
in the details, isn’t it?”

I tilted my head and looked closer at his
face. “The cowboy duds and the gladiator getup weren’t really
costumes, were they?”

His cheekbones were a little higher today,
his nose a bit narrower. Both earlobes were pierced, but I didn’t
recall having seen them that way before. Both times before, his
hair had been a shiny, bright blond, but now it was more of an ash
blond. He was still attractive as hell, but he was also different.
In fact, the previous versions of him had almost been too perfect.
This Rick had a little razor burn on his neck, and his left eyebrow
had a small scar. He wasn’t nearly as intimidating with a few small
imperfections.