Lucas and Lora

    Lucas was distracted.
    His eyes watched tiny bubbles of carbonation climb the sides of a neighboring patron’s pint glass, the dull ruckus of bar room music and banter around him dissolving away into a white noise drone.
    “’Nother?”
    Lucas looked up slowly at the old bartender. A man with a lot of years in his eyes. He held out a bottle of Jameson’s Irish Whiskey and motioned to Lucas’ empty glass.
    “No, thanks. What do I owe you?”
    The bartender turned to the obnoxiously lit touch screen till behind him and browsed clumsily through a few menus.
    “Eight fifty.”
    Lucas laid three fives on the bar and stood up, buttoning his jacket.
    “Thanks.”
    The bartender nodded to him, smiling over his tip.
    “G’night to ya then.”
    Lucas left the bar for the cold air and frozen ground of a February night, feeling his face numb as he walked to his car. He drove away with a tugging in his mind.     Something was trying to encourage him to action. Something had to be changed.

    Lora was nervous.
    She clutched and released her interlaced fingers, feeling her hands getting clammy. She put them palms down on her lap, then cupped them back together. She looked around the office, a large painting of a drab looking sailboat, a few potted plants, and the small desk in the corner where a temp was lazily reading a magazine. She tried to ignore the terribly depressing feeling she felt whenever she began a new job.
    She tucked her knees together and smoothed out her skirt.
    The door into the dental offices opened, and a young hygienist popped her head out.
    “He’s ready for you, Miss…”
    “Keptner.”
    “Of course, Miss Keptner. Come on back.”
    Lora walked quickly to the door, her large blue eyes darting across the floor as she followed the assistant back.
    They passed by a few open areas with padded chairs and lines of instruments, before turning a corner to a large office. The dentist was behind a desk, smiling with his hands clasped.
    “Miss Keptner?”
    Lora smiled and stuck out her hand. He shook it, and motioned for her to sit.
    “So you’re looking to be our receptionist?” He smiled again.
    Shining white perfect teeth.
    Lora cleared her throat and began.

    Lucas stood in line.
    He was waiting to deposit a check, watching the shifting stances of the people in front of him, all leering at the one window open in unified anger. The teller was trying to hurry things along, but the senile old man in front of her was counting his change over to her at a maddeningly slow pace.
    Lucas sighed and looked down at his check.
    A measly four hundred dollars. He could remember being a kid and thinking about such a high number. Thinking of all the possibilities such a quantity represented.
Now it was just enough to pay for another two weeks at the dingy hotel Lucas called home.
    The old man started to shuffle away with receipt in hand and the teller, relieved, called out, “Next!”
    The line eagerly moved two feet forward in unison, and then stopped again.
Lucas wondered how long he’d be able to keep living at the Chateau De Merde, as he called it, with such infrequent income. Paintings do not pay bills well. He’d sold only three in the last few months, the last one going for much less than what Lucas had hoped for, but his wallet filling with cobwebs was enough motivation to drop down to a price that would move the piece quickly. He always hated having to cheapen his art.
    “Next!”

    Lora stubbed her toe on her corner desk, sending a hot flash of pain up her foot to her brain. She sat down wincing and holding her bare foot.
    All around her were boxes filled with her childhood.
    Old school assignments from her elementary days, rough construction paper in bright colors with hard milky glue still holding fast all manner of noodles and glitter and imagination. There were torn and faded stuffed animals --victims of too much love and hugging-- and small dresses that still made her smile with their carefree colors and designs.
    She rubbed her foot and slowly stood up, cursing her clumsiness.
    She was trying to keep a mask of determination on, one of ambition and maturity, while sorting and throwing out so much she’d held onto for too long. She was trying to let go of silly little girl fantasies and clean out her spare room. But it was so hard to say good bye.
    She limped to the large bay window, spreading the yellow curtains open to let the bleak sun in. The sky was gun metal grey, and the sun hid behind a haze. A dying flashlight in the fog of winter.
She held her arms, and took in the room.
    The little yellow dress she’d worn when she was five. She’d wear it everyday, only taking it off to sleep and bathe. It made her remember summers in the backyard, spinning and running in that dress, being chased by the family retriever. She reached out and ran her fingers over the thin fabric.
    There was a stack of yellowed fairytale books, some with the covers completely torn off. She’d spent hours in her room, devoid of the world around her, sunken in these fantastic tales. Magic and romance and possibility.
    A small finger painting she’d done showed a happy dancing girl, and a man and woman holding hands, all on a bright green hill with rainbows and huge golden sun rays filling the sky. She looked at the three figures and her eyes quivered, filling with tears and memory.
    She walked to the doorway, her toe still a dull throb, and closed the heavy door behind her, feeling relief when the latch clicked shut.

    Lucas was fiddling with his mail.
    He sorted through the stack in his hands one by one, tossing the junk mail unopened into a growing pile, and dropping the bills into a smaller, but much more intimidating pile to the left. He hadn’t checked his mailbox in almost two weeks, mostly out of fear. He knew what he would find: more balances due that he couldn’t pay.
At the bottom of the stack was a small sealed envelope with just “Lucas” written on the front.
    He opened it and took out a small note hastily written in almost illegible handwriting.
“You are two months past due on rent, pay me this week or you’re out.”
Lucas felt no shock or burgeoning fear now. He’d known this was coming, how could he not? He’d already hawked almost everything that wasn’t bolted down in his little squalor sanctuary. He took a half dead cigarette from his ashtray and lit it with a match.
    Guess this means I won’t have to worry about the electric bill this month, he thought.

    Lora sat drinking a beer in her living room.
    She looked through the big bay window across from her. It looked out over the sloping  front lawn and down to the street she’d grown up on. She’d learned to ride a bike on that street. She could still find the square of sidewalk where she fell and bashed her knee the first time Dad had removed the training wheels. If she looked hard enough.
She could still find the tree stump next to the driveway where a great Weeping Willow and once stood, and where on cool fall evenings she’d climb the low sprouting branches higher and higher until she could see so far that her own life didn’t seem to exist anymore. She could still point out the dead brown grass that trailed the side of the house to the back gate, where there used to be great flower boxes her mother had made. Thick wooden beams nailed together and filled with rich black soil. There were perfect rows of rhododendrons and hyacinth, and at the far end a small herb garden where Lora would pick fresh chives to chew on as she played. She could still find all these scars of a life so long ago.
    If she looked hard enough.
    She gulped the frothy beer, taking half the can.
    After her father had died when Lora was twenty four, her mother had let the place sag. And after he mother had taken a bottle of sleeping pills with a bottle of whiskey last winter and Lora had moved back into a box of fresh wounds, she hadn’t really felt the need to spruce the house up much either.
    This was a haunted place, she’d decided.
    She finished her beer.

    Lucas was rolling a cigarette between his fingers.
He’d never really been any good at it, always ending up with a loose tube of wet paper and tobacco falling out of the end. He twisted it and stuck the end in his mouth, lighting the sorry thing with a match. His rear end was sore from the wooden stool he’d been stoically sitting on all afternoon, and he shifted from side to side.
It was starting to get dark, and he’d have to pack it in soon.
His paintings were all around him, all leaning on one another or small boxes hidden behind them to create a little wall of color and movement that faced anyone walking by.
“Make an offer” the little cardboard sign said.
    Sadly, most hadn’t.
    He puffed furiously on the end of his sad cigarette, finally inhaling a stale drag.
He looked through the little tin box of bills for the day.
    Twenty two dollars.
    He flicked his cigarette and started to piled the canvasses next to the two bags of all his belongings, slowly removing each from its makeshift easel. He’d pulled down all but one when a young woman slowly crossed the street and stopped to look.
     “Is this still for sale?” she said.
    Her eyes were wide and vulnerable when she asked him.
    “Yes, it is.” Lucas replied, a little more hopeful than a minute ago.
    “How much do you want for it?”
    Her face said she needed this painting.
    “Whatever you think it’s worth.”
    She looked into the painting, deep down into it. It made her want to cry and laugh at the same time. It looked as though it had sprung right from her mind, the colors were so vivid and life like. It was a small girl in a bright yellow dress, smiling and running in a wide green meadow.
    It was her.
    “Will you take a check?”
    Lucas nodded.
    Lora took her checkbook out of her wallet and scribbled out the check, handing it to Lucas as she picked up the painting.
    “Thank you.” she said, and immediately began walking away with it clutched to her chest.
    Lucas furrowed his brow and smiled a little, bewildered by the whole scenario. No one had ever been so affected by his work. He looked down at the check and furrowed even more.
    She’d given him five thousand dollars.
    He bolted upright and looked down the street. She was far off but he could still make out her shape on the next block. He looked down at his stack of art and in a split second made the decision to leave it. He took off after her.
    “Wait!” he called out, but she wouldn’t turn around.
    He ran as fast as he could, almost catching up to her as she turned the corner. Lucas almost fell as he skidded to round the corner, and saw the top of her ponytail descending a staircase to a basement coffee shop. He was panting, and walked slowly behind her now, catching his breath as he followed her in.
    Lora sat down near the door, staring at the floor while she still clung to the painting.
    “I can’t accept this.” Lucas said plainly, echoing screaming in his head said the contrary.
    “Please,” she slowly looked up at him, and met his eyes with a look of such deep emotion he almost stumbled back.
    “You have to. You asked me what I thought it was worth, and to me it’s worth more than I can give you, but what I can give is on that check.”
    Lucas was stunned.
    “It really means that much to you? Why?”
    “Because it reminds me that sometimes innocence can be captured,” she dropped her eyes back to the floor, “and sometimes it can’t.”
    A waiter came to the table and Lora turned to him, ordering a coffee and leaving Lucas to his thoughts, before he slowly walked back out of the café.

Reviews

[Pen Draggin']

This was a really nice change from my own morbid short stories. I quite enjoyed both characters and the switch between point of view. Hey man, I like your vocabulary. Miss your face!

[Leap]

Timmy, Timmy. My friend, I am thoroughly impressed. Masterfully written, and such a unique but simple idea. Kudos.