We moved on to the other bungalow.
“I can let you into this one. It’s empty,” Joe explained, opening the door.
There were no flowers on the stone path leading to the door or flower boxes under the windows. But there were two pretty windows in front, cut into squares with wrought iron crisscrosses. The door was round like the door of the other bungalow, but this one was painted a pretty green, worn and muted, which made it look like it was from Santa Fe. The bungalow had a good roof, and as soon as I realized that, I wondered why I was looking at the roof and wondered even more why I was trying to ascertain if it was a good roof or not. It was probably the first roof I had ever looked at. In the scheme of things, I wasn’t a roof person. Or a plumbing person. Ditto cars and anything with a motor. But for some reason, I was not only interested in the bungalow’s roof, but once we went inside, I also found myself looking at the floors to see if they were buckling (they weren’t) and the walls to see if the paint was chipping (it wasn’t).
I was very interested in every aspect of the soundness of the bungalow’s structure. Finally, as we walked through the small living room with the homey, country furniture, and diminutive fireplace and into the kitchen with original post-war appliances, all bathed in sunlight, and upstanding hutches with blue and white china plates stored in green, wooden slots and a large farmhouse sink, an old one with two faucets and cracked enamel, I understood why I cared about the soundness of the bungalow.
I cared because I had fallen instantly in love with the tiny house. I was in love with it, in much the same way a man falls in love with a woman. Like Romeo when he saw Juliet. It was that kind of love. A lightning bolt. A rapturous event. A moment of fate, of kismet. I loved the bungalow, and I never wanted to leave. There wasn’t much to it. There was the living room, the kitchen with a nook for eating, a bathroom with a claw-footed bathtub, and a bedroom just big enough for a queen-sized bed and two nightstands. Not even a closet. There were two armoires in the hallway, and I opened each. I could definitely fit my clothes in them, I thought, and then I wondered why I was eyeing the armoires for clothes space.
I woke out of my reverie and realized that I had been in the bungalow for quite some time. Joe was standing patiently in front of the fireplace without saying a word.
“Nice place,” I said, finally.
“One more place to look at,” he said, ending the sentence with a questioning lilt at the end. I felt mortified that I had held up the tour so I could check the toilet to make sure it flushed and ran the bath faucet to see how long it took to get hot water.
“Sure!” I gushed, loudly, as if I didn’t care about the bungalow at all, and I was desperate to see the next building because it was undoubtedly more interesting.
I followed Joe out of the bungalow with one last look back at the green door.
The next structure was another art studio. This one wasn’t devoted solely to painting. There were all kinds of art made there. From pottery to painting to mosaics to weaving and other things that I didn’t recognize.
“Wow, you do a lot of art,” I said, impressed.
Joe touched the loom. “I’m just a painter. I set up this studio for people who would like to come and express themselves.”
“Like Madonna,” I breathed, finding a box of mosaic pieces. Digging my hand into it, I let the colorful shards slip through my fingers.
“I’m going to start the ziti,” Joe said. “You want to stick around here while I cook? You could play a little, if you wish. I’ll get you when the food’s ready. We could eat outside at the fire pit.”
“Sounds good,” I said and sat down at one of the tables.
When he was gone, I slid a small, thin rectangular piece of wood toward me and placed my hand on it. The wood felt good. Organic. Alive. Ready to be transformed. My other hand dipped into the box of mosaics and pulled out a blue shard. I placed the shard onto the center of the wood and then shifted it to a spot on the left.
There.
An electric calm—I didn’t know how else to describe it—washed over me. Calm in the deep conviction that I was doing exactly what I should do at that very moment. Electric in that it made me come alive.
After that, I became lost in the doing. I lost track of time, settled into a flow state until half of the wood was covered in a selection of blue and green shards and I was woken from the flow state when Joe gently touched my shoulder.
“You’re talented, Eliza,” he said, looking at my mosaic.
I pulled back and stood. “Oh, no. I was just playing around.” My face was hot, and I imagined that it was bright red. How embarrassing. Grown women aren’t supposed to blush, I thought, chastising myself.
“Playing around,” he repeated. “No greater art than playing around. Children do it the best, and then we forget how to do it as we get older. It’s an art to remember how to play.”
Who was this guy? He was like the Dalai Lama mixed with the Pope, with a smattering of Picasso and a touch of Steinbeck. Maybe he really was a cult leader. He just hadn’t found his cult yet.
Joe had prepared the ziti and set out the meal by the fire pit. True to his word, he had also prepared the toasted sourdough with goat cheese and fig sauce. There wasn’t a vegetable to be seen. The entire meal was delicious, and for the most part, we ate in companionable silence, just enjoying a pretty perfect day.
“Thank you so much for this,” I said as I took seconds of the ziti. “This has been a great day.”
“You’re welcome back here any time,” he said. He caught my eye, and we stared at each other for at least seven seconds. All right, it was exactly seven seconds. I counted. When I got to seven, I broke away because I was sure that eight seconds meant we were engaged, and I was a married woman.
“I’m a married woman,” I blurted out. “My husband’s name is Steve.”
“I know. You told me. Steve Farris.”
“He left me for Tight Tammy. She’s his personal trainer. She has a genetic disease, which doesn’t allow her to grow fat cells or make convincing facial expressions. I think if she ate baked ziti, her whole system would shut down, like throwing water onto an IBM computer. Not that I know if they make IBM computers anymore. I’m not a computer person. I bet Tight Tammy is a computer person. I bet she uses a computer to track every morsel she puts into her mouth. She probably doesn’t put morsels in her mouth. She only puts body parts in her mouth. Sorry… that was crude. It’s not my fault, though. Tight Tammy makes me crude. And angry. Anyway, I won’t have to worry about Tight Tammy for much longer. I’m going to win Steve back. It’s going to happen soon. I’m riding a bike and eating egg whites these days. I even drank Brussel sprouts yesterday, so it’s just a matter of a few days before Steve comes running back to me. He must also be tired of hanging around a woman who can’t make facial expressions. Right?”
