That Night | JenLisa FF

Part 11

It was a third-floor walk-up to Lisa's apartment, but Jennie didn't think much of it. The tiny place she shared with Canny and Rosé was fifth floor. Jennie took a deep breath and looked at the door to Lisa's apartment. The door, however, wasn't a regular door. It was a huge square chunk of steel that slid back and forth. She looked at it warily for a moment before pounding with the flat of her hand.

Several moments later, it slid open to reveal Lisa wearing a black pullover sweater and a pair of worn jeans. Jennie smiled and blushed, feeling like some fourteen-year-old virgin on a first date. Lisa smiled back, looking every bit as awkward.

"Mom!" Canny chirped, elbowing Jennie in the side.

Jennie smiled tightly at Lisa and then turned to glower at her child. Canny stared back, undaunted. Jennie turned back to Lisa. "This is my daughter," she said. "Chiquita."

"Canny," she said, "I'm Lisa." The two sorts of nodded at each other and Lisa stepped aside so they could enter the apartment.

Jennie looked around with undisguised curiosity. The building was an old factory that had been remodelled and turned into artists' lofts. It was almost impossible to get into, with a waiting list a mile long. She was very curious to find out exactly how Lisa had managed to get a spot.

She couldn't help but sigh as she looked around. Jennie would have killed to live in a place like this. Most of the apartment was a giant open space. It was absolutely enormous, about seventy feet square. The ceilings had to be at least fifteen feet high with exposed duct work, bare brick walls and scarred hardwood floors. There wasn't much furniture, a chair, an old sofa and a television. There was a small space in one of the room's corners that obviously served as a bedroom. A mattress and box springs rested on the floor, framed in by several huge bookcases and separated from the rest of the room by a very inadequate screen. The rest of the room, however, was open, scattered with canvases, easels and a wealth of art supplies. Drop cloths covered the floors. There were three doors. One led into a small galley kitchen, the other into a bathroom. The third was closed.

Lisa noticed Jennie staring at the door. "That's Jackson's room," she said. "My roommate. Since I occupy most of the apartment with my art, he gets the bedroom."

Jennie smiled. "I guess there's always a trade off," she said.

Jennie waited patiently while Lisa pointed her to the canvases stacked against the wall. She was unprepared for the sheer volume of her work. She took a deep breath, pulling out her laptop and small, digital camera. These were her prized possession, she had pinched pennies for years to be able to buy them, knowing they would be indispensable in her new line of work. "This is going to take a while."

Lisa winced and pointed. "There's more over there," she said.

Turning around, Jennie saw the second stack of canvases, every bit as large as the one before her. "A long while," she amended.

Lisa pulled a chair and a TV tray over for Jennie. She was meticulous in her cataloging of her work. For the first few minutes, she chatted with her about what pieces she'd already sold, where she'd had shown. But eventually, Jennie needed to just get down to business. Lisa stood back for several minutes, watching her.

Lisa could have stood there until sunset watching Jennie do nothing more exciting than typing, but someone tugging on her elbow broke her concentration. Looking down, Lisa met Chiquita's eyes. She blinked up at her, her expression serious. "Are those your books?" she asked, pointing to one of the large bookcases against the wall.

Lisa nodded.

"Could I look at one of them please?" she asked.

Lisa's brow furrowed, but she followed Canny over to the bookcase. Her initial reaction was that she didn't allow anyone to touch her books, much less a nine-year-old. But that really wouldn't be a good way to start off with Jennie's daughter, so she decided to humour her. Once she explained that these books were about important subjects, she would most surely lose interest.

"That one," she said. "The book on Byzantine art."

Lisa looked at the little girl wide eyed and then mutely retrieved the book off the top shelf for her. Carefully, she set the book down on top of her bed and shrugged out of her backpack. Lisa watched as she sat down on the bed and carefully removed a pen and a journal from her backpack. Methodically, she flipped through the journal until she came to the appropriate page, filed with line after line of tiny, perfect penmanship.

Chiquita looked up and seemed to be confused as to why she was still standing there. "Thank you," she said. "I checked this book out from the library, but I had to return it before I was finished with my research."

"Research?" Lisa parroted, feeling like a moron.

"Yes," Canny answered, "into medieval art in the former Roman Empire, the crusades specifically."

"Oh," Lisa said, somewhat dumbfounded. "Are you studying that in school?"

"I'm not in school right now. It's summer," Canny said patiently. She always had to explain things so many times for adults. "But no. In school, our art teacher was up to finger paints and paper mâché."

Crossing her arms over her chest, Lisa stared down at the little girl in undisguised curiosity. "So, you're doing all this research for fun?"

"Yes."

Lisa nodded.

"You think I'm weird," Canny said plainly.

"No," Lisa said, shaking her head as she took a seat next to Canny. "I used to do things like that when I was younger. Though I'll admit that my field of interest was geared more towards sharks and nuclear war at your age. I used to spend a lot of time at the Museum of Natural History."

"We went there last weekend," Canny offered.

"See the sharks?" Lisa asked.

"I was interested in the whales," Canny countered.

"I don't know," Lisa said in a singsong voice, "the sharks are pretty neat."

Canny looked away from her, down at the book in her lap. "Rosé was supposed to take me to the Cloisters today," she said petulantly. "But she had to work."

"Ah, yeah," Lisa said, "that's a really cool museum. I go there a lot. The architecture is amazing."

"I thought you painted."

"I do," Lisa said, "but I get my inspiration from a lot of different places."

"I was really hoping to see the tapestries today," Canny hinted none too gently. She batted her eyelashes and smiled at her in exactly the same way Jennie used to when she wanted her to finish her math homework. Lisa found that she was just as defenceless now as she had been then.

"Hang on a second," she said to Canny.

Lisa walked over to Jennie and gently tapped her on the shoulder. She looked up at her with a smile. "Do you care if Canny and I go to a museum?" she asked. Her expression changed into something unreadable, and Lisa quickly backpedalled. "I don't mean to be presumptuous," she said, "I understand if you don't want your daughter going somewhere with someone you hardly know anymore."

"No, no," Jennie said, "it's just ... Is Canny okay with this?" she asked, looking around Lisa at her daughter whose expression was so innocent it was automatically suspicious.

"I think she really wants to go," Lisa said.

"Well ... I guess it's fine then," Jennie said. "As long as you're okay with this. I'm sorry. I didn't mean for you to babysit my kid."

"No," Lisa said, "it's not a problem. I have my cell phone with me if you need anything."