Worship (On My Knees Duet 1)

I’ve been doing better. I’ve gotten a handle on how fucked up I can get.

I should tell Pearl I can’t. Instead, I give my place to Carolina rent-free through the end of April, ship my centaur out by train, and catch a plane to San Francisco.FiveLuke

She likes cycling, so I get a bike. Every morning, we meet at my place at 4:40, and she leads me around the city, bike lights flashing in the pre-dawn gray. After an hour, no matter where we are in the city, we get breakfast at the first place we see with a neon “open” sign. Afterward, we part ways. Megan cycles back to her apartment. Bernard picks me up and takes me home to shower.

It’s been five days, so not a routine yet—but soon.

We talk every night when she gets home from work. We’ve done dinner twice since our first date. Both times, we went back to her place after.

I look out the window as the cityscape rolls by. Bernard is playing romance jazz and tossing proud-dad smiles at me in the rearview. He hangs a left onto the block where the Evermore campus sprawls and turns the music down. His eyes lift to the mirror. Satisfaction lights his face.

“I like her.”

I smile. “I do, too.”

When I get to my office, my phone assistant, Sasha, gives me a note—from my mom.

“I saw her at the club for breakfast. She is wonderful!”

Sasha smirks, and I narrow my eyes at her. I hold that look as I back through my office door, and then I shut it with a flourish. Around midday, when Megan texts, I take a photo of the note from Mom and send it to her.

She sends back the panicked blue smilie with its hands by his face a la Edvard Much, and then the prayer hands. I send an upside down smilie. Dating these days seems to be done in mostly emoticons. Thinking of texts and phones tugs my mind elsewhere, but I jerk it back here with me.

Man, it’s nice to have someone. I send up a quick prayer of thanksgiving that if I have to do this, it can be with someone like Megan. Then I sit down to my work—which, today, is signing off on some expenses before editing a podcast.

I’m doing iPhone calculator math between texting Megan when my door opens. Pearl hops in. Okay—she doesn’t hop, but that’s what it looks like when she’s got on a high pony-tail. She’s small and bouncy. And, right now, grinning.

“Mornin’, Sunshine,” she says.

“PNW.”

She steps over to my desk, plants her palms atop it, and glances slowly around my office.

“What are you doing, weirdo?”

“Just looking around.” She makes another slow survey of the room.

“Why are you looking around?” I give her a scowl for effect.

Her eyebrows notch in the middle, like she’s genuinely puzzled. “I thought there was a painting in here.”

“There was. But it was Dad’s, remember? That terrible poppy field thing with the weird purple sky?”

“Ah, right. Well, anyway, I came to tell you the good news in person.”

“What good news?”

“Well that’s the question, isn’t it?” She swings her arms up and one leg out, like the cheerleader she was in college. Then she wiggles her fingers above her head. “The good news is….I got one of your faves for the mural!”

The words slide through my brain like a message on a news ticker.

“One of my faves?” The words come out slow.

She nod, beaming. “That one artist you love, remember? Vance Rayne.”* * *Vance

Saint Luke is the patron saint of artists—and I see why.

I was thinking I’d be in some churchy, bunk-bed setup, like a summer camp with secret closet fucking. Instead, Pearl e-mailed directions to this place. It’s a narrow, four-story, powder blue dollhouse—San Francisco as fuck, right by Buena Vista park and all the 1960s landmarks.

I tilt my head and squint against the afternoon sunlight, checking out the accents, which are done in mauve. I really dig the curved bay windows on the second and third floors. The fourth floor is smaller than the others—just a cylindrical room with window walls and a witch-hat-shaped roof. The first floor is a one-car, white garage on the left, with a delicate-looking front door on the right.

Fucking perfect.

I glance around me one more time, smelling something good from that bakery across the street and noting the record store a few doors down. Then I hoist my pack onto my shoulder and climb three stairs to the front door. Over it, in thick, black, cursive scrawl, are the words, “honey, welcome back home.”

That’s when I know I’m going to like this place.

Every room is inspired by a Janis Joplin song. The foyer’s done in rich, green velour wallpaper with a tree sketch pattern. Overhead is a recessed olive ceiling with a crystal chandelier that’s got these teardrop crystals shaped like leaves. On one wall, above an ornate, antique telephone table, someone hung brass numbers: 621. June 21. “Summertime.”