The Weight of Rain (3 page)

“Are you lost?”

My eyes widened as I looked between the girls, holding my pillow a little lower so I didn’t look like a lost ten-year-old. “Sorry?”

“Are you lost?” she repeated, a heavy British accent joining each of her syllables into a song.

“No,” I replied, shaking my head. “I was just taking a walk.”

“At midnight? In your pajamas? With your pillow?” With each question, the lilt in her voice diminished, making each sound more like a statement rather than a question. “Are you hurt?”

Shaking my head, I gripped my pillow a little tighter, wishing she would stop staring at me. “No. I’m okay, really.”

“Do you want something to drink? Some tea maybe?” she continued, taking a step closer.

“Thanks, but I’m good,” I replied.

“Clearly you’re not. You’re creeping around after midnight in your pajamas. You aren’t a mugger, are you?”

“A what?” I asked.

She looked across the hood of the car as her friend began to giggle. “She asked if you’re a burglar,” her friend said, a light southern drawl accompanying her words.

“No!” The word popped out of my mouth with enough force to reach the opposite side of the apartment building. “No,” I said again, softening my tone. “I’m not a burglar.”

“Then what are you really doing?” the British girl asked.

“My roommate has a male friend over.”

“These flats are studios. There’s no privacy!” I noted the lack of the “a” as she spoke the word with emphasis, making me mentally repeat it a few times myself,
privicy
. “That’s awful.”

I lifted a shoulder and moved my pillow to my side, dipping my free hand into the pocket of my hoodie.

“We have a couch you can sleep on,” the friend said, her accent lost.

Normally I would have declined the offer and sought out a place to sit where I could watch for my roommate’s guest to leave, but something about her kindness, or possibly her persistence, had me nodding in agreement and taking my hand back out of my pocket as I took a couple of steps closer to them.

“I’m Charleigh, and this is Allison,” the British girl said as I got within a couple of feet.

“Allie,” the dark-haired woman corrected her instantly, her tone agitated, like this was something she repeated often.

“What’s your name?” Charleigh asked, ignoring Allie’s correction.

“I’m Lauren. It’s nice to meet you both.”

“It’s nice to meet you too, Lauren. Come on, then.”

I followed them back up a flight of stairs to the studio apartment below mine where I was met with fabrics of all shades filling nearly every surface of the small space. My eyes tracked several of them, a new one beginning before the last ended.

“We’re going to school for fashion and design,” Allie explained from my side. I turned to look at her and nodded a couple of times before my attention was caught by something that resembled the fur of a long-haired cat, only fuchsia pink. Eyebrows slightly raised, I moved my focus back to Allie and Charleigh.

“You’d make for a great model.” My eyebrows lifted even higher as I looked to Charleigh. “You have that willowy look to you. But we need to work on your posture.” With that as her warning, she pressed her right hand to my breastbone and her left to the center of my shoulder blades, pushing down, making me stand taller.

“There you are. That’s perfect. Right, Allison?”

“You would be pretty great. How tall are you, anyway?”

“Nearly five-eleven.”

Allie blew a low whistle between her bottom lip and her two front teeth. “You can sleep here anytime if you’re willing to model my final project.”

“Yeah, I sort of need a hazard sign on my back when I wear heels.”

“That’s okay. We have months to get this right. We’ll have you walking the runway like you own it.” Allie turned toward the small inlet of a kitchen and quietly began singing “On the Catwalk.”

My gaze moved to Charleigh seeing her give me an assuring smile. “You’ll get used to it. Besides, she’ll be on to her next thought in like five seconds. She’s totally ADHD.”

“I can hear you,” Allie sang as she turned off the tap from filling a tea kettle.

“I intended for you to,” Charleigh returned in the same sing-song tone.

“What’s your poison, Lauren? Coffee or tea?”

“Coffee, please,” I replied as my eyes started following another bolt of fabric. “You guys have so much stuff. School hasn’t even begun.”

“What are you studying?”

“Art restoration and composite drawing,” I replied.

“And you don’t have any supplies upstairs in your apartment so you can work whenever you please?”

I looked at Charleigh, noticing her eyes were a beautiful grayish blue, almost the same color of the skies before they turn dark with a storm. “Touché,” I said with a smile, turning my attention to where she was staring at my hand with the charcoal stains that never fully washed away, regardless of using a hand brush or special soaps.

“We’re artists. We’ve been living and breathing fashion and designing our own clothes since long before we enrolled here.” Charleigh’s words made perfect sense to me. I never went anywhere without my messenger bag, which always contained at least one sketchpad, multiple pencils, and random pieces of charcoal rolling around the bottom.

“Coffee for you, and tea for you.” Allie extended two giant mismatched mugs to Charleigh and me.

“I can’t believe I haven’t met a single American who likes tea.”

“You’re in the Pacific Northwest, babe. Land of great coffee and the best garage bands in the world,” Allie explained, reaching for her own mug, a cup with yet another design and shape.

“Are you from Portland?” Charleigh asked, looking up at me.

“No.” I shook my head and carefully set my cup on the small table beside me, watching as billows of steam evaporated into the air. “I’m from Montana, actually.”

“Montana?”

“Yup.”

“Is that where your roommate is from as well?” I repeated Charleigh’s question in my head a few times, memorizing the notes as she spoke.

“No. She’s from here.”

“How did you meet her?” Charleigh took a seat beside me, her eyes wide with interest.

I took a deep breath and released it nearly instantly. “I replied to an ad.”

“You found your roommate through an ad?” Allie turned her full focus to me “That’s crazy! She could be all single-white-female crazy.” Allie’s brown eyes were wide, and I could tell her imagination was starting to run with possibilities as to why I had truly left my apartment.

My soft laughter was inevitable. “I don’t think she’s that kind of crazy.”

“You never know.” Allie’s eyes were still stretched, catching on the light of the lamp, leading me to inspect the chestnut shade with amber tints around the edges. I couldn’t help it. Art has always been something I have loved and always led me to carefully inspecting every color, shape, texture, and movement that many disregard.

“I guess it’s a good thing I can model my way onto a couch, then, right?”

They both laughed, and I traced their faces, noting Charleigh’s upper lip, which was slightly more pronounced than the lower—became even fuller when she smiled. And that Allie’s nose bunched up and her nostrils flared in an endearing fashion.

“As long as you can learn to walk in heels,” Allie said, nodding to my flip-flop exposed feet.

“Heels … right.”

I
ROLL
over and try to get comfortable. It was only a few days later that their couch became an important surface to store materials with such limited space, thus leaving me to the floor. But I don’t mind. The friendly memory tickles my mind as I search for sleep.

“H
EY
, L
AUREN
, would you be interested in going to dinner with Celeste and me? We’re going to that Chinese place you like.”

I look over to Kenzie and try to hide my surprise. It’s been over a month since she has made an attempt to be friendly toward me. Most would likely think this is because I complained about her disgusting habit of inviting strange men over, leading me to sleep downstairs on the floor, but it’s not. I don’t know why I still haven’t voiced my objection. Actually, I probably do. I’m sure it has something to do with the fact that I can’t afford to live in Portland by myself, don’t know anyone looking for a roommate, and as lame as this sounds, I want her to like me.

I’m still not certain why she was looking for a roommate, because according to Charleigh, she can afford this place on her own without a problem based upon her wardrobe. Her clothes are all designer, made to look vintage and worn. I may have eventually noticed that all of her clothes were laden with popular and expensive names, but it was Charleigh who noticed one day while she was up visiting me as I finished a portrait of her that I was working on.

Kenzie had returned home and was changing her clothes, throwing her dirty clothes in a pile on the floor. Charleigh’s jaw dropped. Initially, I thought it was because Kenzie was naked; she had little concern for modesty. Then Charleigh’s eyes moved across the room. “How did you get the winter collection already? It’s not out until next month!”

My charcoal hovered over the surface of my canvas, and I followed Charleigh’s eyes over to Kenzie. I have always loved fashion. I guess it goes with being an artist—my clothes are yet another form of art—however, my clothing budget has always been sparse, forcing me to be creative with used clothing stores and sale racks, intermingled with a few more expensive items that I can mix and match. Charleigh smiled with appreciation, and the two discussed designers and brands that I had never heard of as I finished my drawing.

I guess you could say Charleigh in many ways bridged the relationship between Kenzie and me because, after their conversation, Kenzie started to spend fewer nights going out and more of them with Allie, Charleigh, and me.

A month later, Kenzie invited us to the party that changed way too much, and yet nothing, for me. It’s where I met
him
. Charleigh and Allie weren’t able to attend—they had a previous engagement with some other design students—but I chose to step outside of my comfort zone and go along.

The next several days following the party, everything was normal between Kenzie and me. She would tell me about her dates. Charleigh would try to make different teas in an attempt to convert us. The three of them discussed fall fashion trends. Everything was following what had become a familiar and comfortable routine. Then one day, it stopped. Kenzie’s tone became petulant when directed toward me, and she avoided eye contact with me at all costs. She started spending less time at the apartment again and more time avoiding my calls and messages as I worked to apologize for whatever I had done.

“I can’t go tonight. I had to get more canvases for class. It’s Top Ramen for me until I get paid next week. Thanks for the invite, though.”

Something flashes across Kenzie’s face, and her eyes narrow in question. “Do you like kids?”

“I don’t know if I want my own, but other people’s I like.”

My eyebrows draw down as her brown eyes grow wide and bright. “I have the perfect job for you!” she cries, jumping up from her bed.

“I have a job.”