Negative Space XIX

By Myra Love

April 30, 2002

 Chapter XIX

"It might just work," Andy said when I phoned him after dinner. "The family in question lives on the other side of the town's boundary, but they're cheap as hell and twice as greedy. One of their neighbors had a dog that, uh, well, it left a pile on their front step. Their teenage granddaughter stepped in it and dragged it onto the rug in the living room. They threatened to sue the neighbor for the cost of a new rug and new shoes for their daughter, as well as for mental anguish and the cost of getting rid of the stink in the house."
I laughed. "So what happened?"
"The neighbor offered them a hundred bucks and they accepted it. Old Man Schultz said that he really didn't want to pay a lawyer and go through the hassle of a lawsuit that might cost him more than he collected in damages."
"Well, then, he might be amenable to bringing the conflict to the mediator," I said.
Andy agreed. "Now I just have to convince the prosecutor to sign on to the idea that if Miss Carswell gets information out of your brother that puts the suppliers out of business, your brother will get a reduced sentence."
I nodded even though he couldn't see me. "Thanks, Andy," I said softly.
He was quiet for a moment. "Don't thank me until I get some results," he said then. "Just keep your fingers crossed."
I was about to wish him a good night and hang up when he asked, "How's the studying coming?"
"Your notes are really helpful," I replied honestly. "I have another twenty-five pages to slog through. Then after work tomorrow, I'm going to take a short break and draw for a while."
I heard him inhale and then there was a brief hesitation before he said, "You know, when I took that course, one of my classmates and I took turns quizzing each other on the material. That really helped both of us."
"I'm sure it did," I said.
"If you like, I could come by and quiz you on the material," he offered. "I'm off tomorrow afternoon."
When I was silent, he added. "It's only an idea. You don't have to, if you don't want to. I just thought it might help."
"I know it would," I said. "It's just that, well, my parents are kind of strange right now, and I don't think it would be comfortable to have you come over here."
He laughed and I could hear relief in his laughter. "Oh, is that all!" he exclaimed. "Well, how about if I meet you right after work and we go somewhere to study? Oh, right, I forgot, you want to draw. Where are you going to draw? I could come get you there."
"I don't think there will be enough time, Andy. I work until one and I've been invited to a party in the evening. In between I need to get back home, finish up the last twenty-five pages of notes, draw, get dressed, and find a way to get to the party."
"Oh," he said softly. He sounded disappointed. "Well, another time maybe."
"Wait a minute," I said, realizing I really wanted to see him. "Do you want to go to a party?"
There was another silence on the other end of the phone line. "A party?" he finally asked.
"Yes, at Amanda Hardy's house."
"The mother of your ex-boyfriend, right?"
"Yes, that's right. He'll be there with his new girlfriend. And a lot of his friends will be there as well. The whole pen club probably."
"Pen club?" Andy repeated, sounding bewildered.
"Yes, the pen club. You know, the group Miss Carswell started for all the people in the area who collect and use fountain pens."
"Fountain pens?" Andy echoed with a chuckle. "Those things people used to use back in the dark ages?"
I laughed. "No, not in the dark ages, Andy. Miss Carswell collects them and so do a lot, well, a small group of people around here, including Jason, my ex."
"And you?"
"Well, I don't exactly collect them. I use them for drawing."
"I see," Andy replied, though I don't think it was true. "It's funny, but I have a hard time imagining Anita Carswell collecting anything, let alone something as esoteric as fountain pens."
"Huh?"
"Never mind," he said. "I guess that there's a lot of stuff about her I don't know."
He sounded disappointed, and I wondered exactly how well he thought he knew Miss Carswell. She didn't seem to me the sort of person to let a lot of people get really close to her.
"Well," Andy said, "I'll have to ask her about her fountain pens at lunch next week."
"Why don't you come to the party? You can ask her then."
"Oh right, the party. Are you sure it would be okay with Amanda and, uh, Jason, if I showed up?"
I couldn't see why not and told him so. So we arranged to meet after I was done with work and had drawn for an hour or so.
"Don't forget to bring the psych notes," he reminded me before we hung up.
I decided it probably wasn't worth my while to come home between studying and the party. I'd wear my work clothes and since I planned to take a drawing pad anyway, I'd drag along one that had a few pictures in it already so Diana could get a look at my work. So really all I had to do that I didn't ordinarily was take Andy's notes and my art materials with me. I can do that, I thought as I fell asleep. No problem.

I'd been using Donald's bicycle to get around while he was in jail, but if I wasn't going to come home after work, I knew I'd have to find another way to get to town. I was thinking about riding the bus the whole time I was out doing my chores. It would be hard with the extra art supplies and Andy's notes, but at least the weather was decent, so I didn't to worry about getting everything all wet.
Dad was on his way back to the house when I finished milking, so I caught up with him. He seemed tired, but maybe that was just depression about Donald. I couldn't tell for sure.
We didn't speak, and he didn't want any breakfast, just coffee, so I was able to get out and on my way early. That was a good thing as it took me longer than usual because of the extras I was carrying to walk to where I could flag down the bus.
Work went slowly. That was true most of the time now that I wasn't out front with customers. Sure, they could be annoying at times, but they were mostly entertaining. I missed the social contact, especially with the old ladies who always had something to say.
At one I headed out to the small square near the town hall. There were a couple of interesting trees there, and though I'd drawn them before, that was during summer, fall, and spring. I needed a winter drawing to complete my series.
It was cold, and I wore fingerless gloves. My fingers got numb after only a half-hour, but I drew for another few minutes, stopping to blow on them from time to time.
"Hey, you look like a major league pitcher," I heard an amused voice say and turned to see Andy looking over my shoulder.
"What?" I asked.
"They blow on their hands when it's cold," he explained. "Gosh, that drawing is really spooky. Good, but really spooky."
I didn't think the drawing was all that good, but I thanked him for the compliment anyway. I wanted to ask him what he found spooky about it, but he didn't give me a chance.
"Can we go get some lunch?" he asked immediately.
I nodded. "Fine with me. I'm ready to call it a day. Drawing in the cold is hard."
He chuckled. "Drawing anyplace and in any climate is hard," he said lightly. "I can barely make a straight line with a ruler."
He took my hand, as if to check the temperature, but then he didn't let it go.
"Want to drive out a ways or look for something in town?" he asked. "There's supposed to be a good little place that opened up last month about twenty miles south of here. I haven't tried it yet."
"That would be fine with me. Do you think we can sit there and study, or is it one of those places where they rush you out the door as soon as your plate is empty?"
Andy shrugged. "In this weather they probably aren't getting all that many customers. If we keep ordering coffee, I'm sure they'll let us stay."
The restaurant was nearly empty and no one minded that we sat for hours over coffee. First Andy quizzed me for my exam and then he talked about himself. It didn't start out as his talking about himself, but that's how it ended up. It started out with fountain pens. Andy couldn't believe anyone used them.
"I know that some people, corporate types, carry them around for show," he said, "but everyone uses computers today, and it's just as well. Have you seen the way most people write by hand?"
I shook my head. "I know lots of people who use fountain pens," I insisted.
He laughed. "Yeah, the ten in your pen club," he replied. "I just can't imagine that Miss Carswell would bother with them. They're so…so…" He shook his head. "Well, they're fussy and if there's anything she's not into, it's fussiness."
"Fussy?"
"Yeah, you know, you have to fill them and you get ink all over yourself and they make blobs on the page when you write with them."
I rolled my eyes. "Have you ever used one?"
He shrugged. "No, I haven't."
I pulled a Balance with a nice, stiff nib out of my bag and tore a sheet of paper out of my sketch book. "Here," I said, taking the cap off the pen and handing it to him. "Try this! Write lightly! Don't press!"
He grinned at me and scrawled his name with a flourish across the top of the page. Then he handed the pen back to me. I noticed that he hadn't breathed the whole time he'd held and written with it.
"It won't bite you, Andy," I teased.
"Yeah, well, I didn't want to break it or anything," he explained. "Let me see you draw something with it."
I shook my head. "I don't draw on command," I replied. "But I'll write something." I wrote a couple of sentences from the Declaration of Independence which I'd had to memorize in grade school and never forgot.
He watched me and smiled broadly when I'd finished. "Well, you're an artist," he said. "No wonder you can make writing with that thing look easy!"
I laughed. "Writing with this is easy. You should see some of the pens Miss Carswell writes with. They have ultra-flexible nibs."
He looked blank, and I laughed even louder. "Never mind. You don't have the faintest idea what I'm talking about, do you?"
He shook his head. "I'm clueless. I do still wonder about Miss Carswell though."
"Why?" I challenged. "Did you think you knew everything about her?"
He shook his head. "No, it's just that I've seen her write and never noticed if she was using a fountain pen or something else. I'm a cop. I'm supposed to be a careful observer." He sighed. "Of course, come to think of it, I haven't seen her write anything since I joined the police. And before that, well, I wasn't all that observant, I guess."
"Do you spend a lot of time with her?" I asked, suddenly curious.
He grinned. "Not as much as I used to. We meet for lunch once a week. We used to do theater together, so we saw each other at rehearsals."
I stared at him. "What?"
"Ah, now you're the one who's surprised at what you don't know," he teased.
After a moment he continued. "I always acted in school plays. Then when I got to high school, my father made me stop. I had to give up what he called 'that nonsense" to work on the farm. After I'd run away, come back, and gotten into trouble with the law, Miss Carswell got me involved in amateur theater. There's a group about twenty miles the other side of the city that puts on a regular schedule of shows."
"Miss Carswell acts?" I was astounded.
Andy shook his head. "No, actually she helped direct and did all the prompting. She got into it through Miss Clarence. You know about Miss Clarence, her friend the art teacher, don't you?"
I nodded. "Yes. I never met her though. She died when I was still pretty young."
"I only met her a couple of times when she was already very sick," Andy explained. "But before that she'd done set design for the amateur theater group I mentioned. She was a real people person. Everyone really loved her. She's the one who got Miss Carswell involved, of course. And it's a damned good thing for me that she did."
His voice had taken on an angry edge, so I looked at him intently. He suddenly sounded a lot like Donald.
"What?" he asked, his voice softening.
"I can see how you might have been like Donald," I said honestly. "For a moment there you sounded really angry."
He blushed. "I don't like to talk too much about the past," he said. "I was really messed up."
"And theater helped?"
He nodded. "Acting did. And singing."
"Singing? I didn't know you could sing. I can't carry a tune to save my life," I told him.
"Yes, I sing and dance and act," Andy said with a slightly embarrassed grin. "Not exactly your stereotype of a policeman, is it?"
I smiled at him. "No, but I like it."
He blushed some more and looked at his watch. "We'd better head to that party," he said. "It's getting dark outside."
"You can tell that from your watch?" I teased him.
He nodded solemnly. "Of course. Can't you?"