“It looks like it ought to be on a moon base,” Celeste said.
Trying to ignore her tone, he kept talking. “It actually ought to be on a pot farm.”
“Are you growing something useful, then?”
“This is useful.” His buoyant mood settled. “I just meant that indoor gardening is mostly the province of me and a bunch of guys growing marijuana in a closet.”
“A select bunch. Your mother would be proud.”
She was clearly grouchy about something.
“Did you get my present?”
“It came in with the tide this morning. Like garbage being washed ashore.”
Garbage. “You didn’t like it?”
“It was a” — she coughed — “wheelchair.”
“A state-of-the-art wheelchair. Did you put on the hat and test out the wireless EEG system? You can control it using your thoughts. You need to set up images in your head for directions, like raspberry for right or lemon for left.”
“It’s a gift you send a cripple, not your girlfriend.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
She sighed. She had so little breath it barely sounded like a sigh, but he recognized it anyway. He’d hoped to make her time in the wheelchair easier, but he shouldn’t have reminded her that he knew she was stuck in a wheelchair in the first place.
Slowly, he panned the camera across the whitewashed walls and up to the painted ceiling. The ceiling glowed a soft blue, like the real sky. Painted clouds adorned its surface. If he squinted, he could believe he was outside, but without the panic attack that going outside would bring on.
“Is that a seagull?” she asked.
“I put it up there for you.” Gulls were her favorite bird, and he’d insisted the artist paint a faraway gull flying close to the artificial sun. Its gray and white wings were angled in eternal flight.
“I like it,” she said.
Joe gazed up at the bird, making sure the angle of the phone let her see the same thing. He took another long breath of green-scented air and felt himself relaxing. The phone was a warm rectangle in his hand.
“Tell me about the lighting.” She was trying to act interested.
His good mood returned. He could make do with this. “We installed lights behind the painted clouds, and they dim or brighten depending on the weather outside. At twilight, pink and orange lights come on so the ceiling looks like a sunset. Then, at night, the lights dim down, and the paint darkens.”
“Really darkens?” Celeste was a former artist, so she was skeptical.
“Yup.” He waited for her to figure it out.
She did, of course. “You used thermochromic paint? Like a mood ring?”
“Exactly — it’s blue when the lights are high and indigo when they’re low. It gives me night and day like everyone else.”
“You’re a very talented and artistic nerd.” He was grateful to hear a smile in her voice.
“Maeve did the real work.” She usually worked designing stage sets and museum exhibits, but he’d lured her away to transform the tunnel in front of his house. He had the money to tempt her, and so few other things he could spend it on. Not cars, travel, or partying. He was the most boring rich guy he knew.
“Yes, Maeve.” Celeste had recommended her. They’d gone to art school together and stayed friends after. “Lucky Maeve.”
The bitterness in her voice was unmistakable. Was she jealous? Maeve was enigmatic and beautiful, but his heart belonged to Celeste. After all this time, she should know that.
“How are you feeling today?” Joe turned the phone around so she could see his face, even if he couldn’t see hers. He wanted her to see his concern.
She let out a rattling breath, and he wondered what number she’d say. She rated her days numerically. Low numbers were bad, high ones good.
“Three,” she said.
The color for three, red, shone in his head. Three was always red. “Three. Red like love. Red like lipstick.”
“Lipstick comes in lots of colors — pinks, oranges, whites.”
“Sunset colors,” he said. “But I saw some red lipsticks today, when—”
“Out there flirting?”
“Edison dug up some tubes of lipstick in the tunnel. Plus a purse.”
“Were you by Herald Square?”
“Under Macys?” He smiled. “Nope. Anyway, it’s no big deal. Tell me more about your three. That’s not a good number.” She didn’t sound especially ill. She hadn’t struggled for breath during the call. Something else must be wrong.
“It’s October,” she said. “And, well…”
Her voice trailed off, and Joe remembered what it was about October. Celeste’s overbearing and abusive mother had died years before, in October. They hadn’t been close, and Celeste had once told him that she and her brother Leandro had a drunken party after the wake, dumping their mother’s ashes down a sewer grate. She had died before Joe met Celeste, and he’d never even seen a picture of her. It was as if Celeste and Leandro had been raised as orphans.
“Your mother’s death?” he guessed.
“Or mine,” she answered.
“What?” His stomach clenched. “What’s happened?”
“Six months ago, they gave me six months to live.”
Six (orange) months. She’d been living with a six (orange)-month death sentence for half a year, and she’d never told him.
“Stephen Hawking has lived with ALS for over fifty years,” he said. Fifty (brown, black), a nice, reassuring number.
Celeste sighed into the phone. “I don’t want to die the same month as her. It’s bad enough that I look like her, that I have her DNA in my body.”
Dread settled in his stomach. He’d been hoping all these months that she had the Stephen Hawking version of ALS, and that she’d be around for a good long time yet. She’d never told him the specifics, and he’d never asked. “Are you that sick right now?”
“Nobody knows,” she said. “Nobody fucking knows anything.”
“When is Leandro coming over next?” He would know what to do with her. The twins had always been so close that Joe felt left out, but he was grateful she had someone who loved her in her everyday life, even if it wasn’t him.
“He leaves tomorrow to go to Key West for Fantasy Fest.”
Typical Leandro. Selfish enough to go on a drunken binge and abandon her when she might die at any moment. “But—”
As if she heard his thoughts, she broke in to defend her brother. “It’s just for the weekend, and he needs time away from the stress of his crippled sister. He should go.”
“Fantasy Fest?” Joe backed off. He imagined a festival dedicated to fantasy literature and tried to make her laugh. It was all he could think to do. “People dressed like hobbits?”
“It’s a big party, like Mardi Gras.”
“Topless hobbits?”
“Maybe,” she said heavily.
The thought of topless hobbits hadn’t made her laugh. “I could come over there for the weekend and keep you company while Leandro is gone.”
He was a poor substitute for her brother, but he had to be better than no one at all. Probably sensing how the conversation was going, Edison poked his head out the front door and looked over at Joe.
“You?” She laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “You haven’t been outside in months.”
“When they took me to the hospital. I was outside then.” He shivered at the memory, and Edison walked across the planks to sit next to him.
“You were unconscious. Doesn’t count.”
“I could get a knockout drug. Vivian could drag me across town. In an hour I could be drooling on your carpet.”
She fell silent for so long he worried she’d fallen asleep. Edison cuddled up to him and rested his head on Joe’s arm. The dog always knew when Joe needed reassurance. Joe petted his square head, and Edison thumped his tail against the ground in thanks. He and Joe had an uncomplicated relationship.