“Too much energy. I think she’s hyper.” She eyed me sideways. “She needs more sex. It calms her down.”
“I heard that, Miss Fussbudget,” Christy said. “And my sex life is just fine, thank you very much.”
I snickered.
Christy gave me a sunlit smile and pirouetted away.
“When can we get started?” I asked her.
“I told you, not till we’re married.”
Trip laughed.
“No,” I said, “when can we get started with your friend?”
She feigned surprise. “You wanna have sex with my friend?”
“Not sex! Sheesh. All I wanna do is make a roof. Is that too much to ask?”
“All right, all right! You don’t have to get all grumpy. That’s
Wren squawked and made a grab for her.
“Can’t catch me!” She ran off, with Wren in hot pursuit.
Trip bent and snagged Wren’s duffle bag. “This seems so familiar.”
“Déjà vu all over again.”
“Ha! I know that one. Yogi Berra, right?”
“Yep.”
The girls rounded a lamppost and came shrieking back toward us.
Christy almost knocked me over when she grabbed my arm to slow down.
She was a speedy little thing when she got going. She whirled around us and used
“Help, help! Protect me from the evil witch!”
“Whoa there, Hazel,” I said to Wren.
Trip caught her around the middle as she lunged at the little blonde.
“Put me down!”
“Not until you calm down.”
“Franklin Davis Whitman the Third, put me down
“She sounds serious,” I said.
“I
“Are you going to behave?” Trip asked.
“Yeah, behave!” Christy taunted.
I caught her eye and shook my head sternly.
She immediately settled down.
“Think about your position here,” Trip said to Wren, his voice
reasonable. “I can carry you home if I have to.”
“Do it and you’ll—”
“Be careful what you say next,” he warned.
“I’m sorry, Wren,” Christy piped up. “I’ll be nice. I swear. Still friends?”
“I’m not mad at
“You’re not mad at me either,” Trip said with calm assurance. “You just don’t like losing.”
She didn’t answer.
“If I put you down,” he asked again, “are you going to behave?”
“What if I say no?”
He chuckled. “Then I’ll carry you all the way home. Over my shoulder.
With your cute little ass in the air.”
“It
“Very cute,” Christy agreed.
“Fine,” Wren huffed after a moment. “Put me down.”
Trip waited.
“Please.”
He set her on her feet, and she blew hair out of her face.
“I’m sorry,” Christy said contritely. “I was just having fun.”
“I know,” Wren said. She smiled. “You just drive me crazy sometimes.”
“Maybe
She glared.
“He may be right,” Trip said. He grinned at her. “I can pencil you in tonight if you’d like.”
Christy giggled.
“Don’t sell yourself short,” I told him. “You’re a lot bigger than a pencil.”
Christy’s look of shock was priceless.
“Well, he is.”
“But… how do
“I’ve seen it,” I said simply. “I’ll tell you about it one day. But first, this friend of yours… Jonas? I really need to get this model back on schedule.
Can he help me do the roof or not?”
I skipped judo the next day and Christy skipped the pool. Together we descended into the bowels of the A&A building. Jonas was an MFA student and shared studio space with several other artists who worked in mixed media. His sculptures reminded me of the Chicago Picasso, all weird shapes and flat planes, but he knew how to form plastic.
I sacrificed a half-finished elevation drawing to use as a template. I used it to cut a second template and then taped them both to the ends of a composite block of balsa. Then I spent four dusty hours shaping and sanding the mold into the proper curves. Christy handed me tools, brushed away sawdust, and was the best little assistant I could ask for.
Jonas returned after dinner. He studied the mold, ran his hands over it, and pronounced it good.
“Dunno why, but I like it,” he said. “It has a feminine vibe.”
Christy beamed.
“But you’re really gonna be pissed when you see how long this part takes,” he added.
“Why?” I said in alarm. “Is it hours? Days?”
He simply chuckled as he set a flat piece of plexiglass on top of the mold.
Then he donned a pair of thick work gloves and triggered his heat gun.
“Hold on,” I said, “are you sure this won’t burn the wood?”
“I’m sure. Balsa has an ignition temp of nearly 400°F.”
He said it “four hundred eff.”
“Plexi melts at 360°F, but we only need to get it to about 280°F to make it pliable.”
“You’re the expert.”
He nodded. “So, you’re an architect?”
“Yeah. Working on it.”
“Cool, man. I dig what you’re doing here. Not the usual temple of capitalist greed.”
“Um, no.”
“Little B here says you’re a visionary.”
“I dunno about that, but thanks.” I gestured at Christy. “Little B?”
He glanced at her and nodded. “Yeah. Little Bernini. What some of us call her. She has the touch. Gonna be famous one day.”
The sheet of plexiglass had been heating up as we talked. After only a few minutes, it started to sag into the curves of the mold. Jonas gave it another couple of minutes before he set the heat gun aside. He gave the sheet
some gentle taps and then studied it from several angles.
