Thursday. August 15, 2016
Text from Eden (9:02 am): Hi I am home I have the tent it was perfect thank you very much where can I bring it
Eden had yet to realize the punctuation on her phone could be used for something other than emoticons. After some back and forth texting, Cane offered to pick it up at her apartment in Old Market so she didn?t have to go all the way out to his place in Seaside again after she got done with work.
He parked his Jeep right out front along the curb and took a look around. It wasn't the best neighborhood.
It wasn't WestEnd bad, but it wasn't good either. It had an old city feel to it, like the old Cheapside of London, or the Lower East side of Manhattan. Brownstones were smushed together, shoulder to shoulder on her block, the already narrow buildings broken up inside into multiple apartment units so that people seemed to be living right on top of each other. The small street appeared to be in the shade all the time, making it ideal for drug dealers and muggers to hang out in the shadowy basement stairwells. A handful of laborers were celebrating the end of their workday by loitering on the front steps of one of the brownstones, smoking weed and drinking from oversized bottles of ale in their shirtsleeves. A couple was having a loud argument in front of the corner bodega.
There was no one lingering on the crumbling front steps of Eden's apartment building. The iron rails on the right side were rusted and broken, but the left side was intact.
It was amazing what a difference of a few city blocks could look like. Main Street in Old Market was a lot better off than this little section of town, a fact that did not escape Cane as he climbed out of the vehicle.
He glanced in the direction of the bodega from where the voices of the arguing couple were coming from while mounting the front steps to the apartment building. After punching the buzzer for Eden's apartment once and not hearing anything, he tried again. Then he tried to open the front door. At least it was locked, but that didn't do him any good here.
Canaan dug his horrifically bedazzled phone out of his pocket and shot a text to Eden letting her know he was out front. Then he waited, entertaining himself by listening to the ongoing domestic dispute that was getting louder by the minute.
Text from Eden (5:49 pm): hi I see you I am waving
He looked up to find her waving down at him from a window one flight up. As soon as he waved back, she disappeared from the window and there was the sound of her footsteps on the stairs when she came to the door. It swung open less than half a minute later.
"Hi!" She waved him inside. "Come on in!"
"Hey, you," the Cajun greeted cheerfully when she opened the door.
He moved forward to catch the door, easing it shut behind him and making sure it locked once he was inside. As he passed her by, he caught the scents of sunscreen and salt, as well as some lingering traces of campfire smoke in her hair. It prompted him to inquire about her trip.
"Have a nice vacation? Camping on the beach is fun, eh?"
"It is really fun!" Eden cast that bright smile of hers over her shoulder at him, then bounded up one flight of stairs to the second floor. "A little sandy though."
She'd left the whole series of her front door locks open to let him inside her apartment. The crowding of the place was immediately apparent. Guests stepped right into the living room area, half of which was crowded by two bicycles, a loveseat couch and a coffee table. A kitchenette was crammed into a corner and a table with enough room for three people to sit was against the window. In one direction was the front bedroom and in the other was the back. A free standing clothes rack stood right there in the living room where four women had their winter gear stored out in the open for lack of any closet space. But despite the crowding, the apartment was clean and orderly and smelled freshly aired out.
"The tent was perfect! You can sit down if you like and I'll go get it real quick!" She gestured him towards the couch or the kitchen. From the sounds of it, there was only one other person in the apartment right now, making use of a hairdryer in the bathroom.
"Sure thing." The Cajun's reply was an easy thing, just like his smile. While Eden bounded away, he stepped into the small dining area and pulled out a chair, spinning it away from the table to face the rest of the room and had a seat. He took his hat off, curling the brim just to have something to do with his hands while he waited.
Eden really was just a brief moment in the back bedroom; he didn't have to wait long. She returned carrying his tent, all neatly packed up the way she had received it. "Look, it's not even pink!" Eden appeared quite proud of that since there was always a risk that she would accidentally turn things in her possession pink.
"Heyyy, yer right! Not that I would have particularly minded if it had come back pink. I could rock a pink tent." Cane smirked, resituating the ballcap backwards on his head. Once he got it in place, he stood up and reached for the small tent to relieve her of having to hold onto it.
"Thank you for lending it to me! Cory and I had fun."
"Anytime. Like I said before, it doesn't see much use. Let me know if ya ever wanna borrow it again." Cane glanced toward the door, not wanting to be rude by lingering longer than he should, but the cramped quarters of the living space dragged his attention from the exit, and after looking around the room again, he cleared his throat.
"Say, listen. There was something else I wanted to talk to you about." His eyes flickered in the direction of the bathroom where the hairdryer was still whirring. When he spoke again, his voice was noticeably softer. "Were you still thinking about maybe gettin' yer own place?"
Eden?s eyes brightened, but then almost immediately dimmed again. "I was!" She leaned back on the kitchen counter facing him and half-pouted. "But now that I'm starting school, I don't think it's gonna be in my budget anymore. I mean, I saved up a deposit and everything, but I gotta cut back my hours at the gym soon."
Cane set the tent on the table, then pulled a piece of paper out of thin air. He tugged a pen out from behind his ear where there hadn't been one a moment ago and then bent to scrawl something on the slip.
"I brought that up with Sal a few weeks ago. It sparked a discussion about an apartment we own over on Main Street. We decided to list it for rent, but wanted to offer you the chance to rent it first before we put it on the market." By that point he'd finished writing and had already stowed the pen behind his ear and folded up the piece of paper, which was then held up, pinched between his fore and middle fingers. "If you want, we can go take a look at the place right now. If it's something yer interested in, then you can tell me what you can afford. I put what we're willing to accept on this paper so you know I'm not playing favorites." He smiled at her, pocketing the paper. "What'd'ya say?"
Eden blinked a few times. "You have an apartment for rent? And I can maybe rent it?" She nodded eagerly, straightening up from her lean. "I'd love to see it!"
The girl's eagerness was just so damn adorable, he couldn't help but smile like a dope at her. Cane was trying to be clever and keep from wounding her pride, but was starting to wonder if perhaps he was being overly cautious. In any case, she'd agreed to come see the place.
"Great! Come on, it's jes' a quick drive." The Cajun scooped the tent off the table and beckoned her to follow him toward the door and ultimately down to his Jeep.
"Okay!" Eden bounced up to follow after him. She shut the door behind herself and then there was about a minute's worth of her putting all the locks in place. Her keys were pretty big and bulky, but once she put them in the pocket of her jeans they seemed to disappear. She bounced after him down the stairs, ponytail swinging.
"So you guys have a lot of places right? And this is one you don't need right now?"
"A few," Cane amended, chuckling.
Out front, he tossed the tent into the back of the Jeep and opened Eden's door, then grabbed the roll bar and launched himself over the passenger seat and into the driver's. "This was the first place we got as a couple; but we've got a cabin now and we're about to start workin on another place -- it's becoming something of a hobby, I think."
"Is the cabin the beach house? Or a different place?" Eden appeared to be trying to follow, her brow furrowed. She buckled her seatbelt and broke into a smile as Cane tore away from the curb. "Cory just got a new place near the dueling complex. It's Addie's old apartment. I'm making him curtains."
Cane smiled, listening to her talk about Cory, then backtracked to answer her question. "No, the cabin is... is far away from here. The beach house is my place. Sal's got a place of his own, too." He gave a small shrug. "I guess it's how we maintain some level of individuality. We're still separate, whole people, despite the way we seem to get lumped together as a single entity by others just because we're dating."
Cane drove them into the heart of Old Market, toward the Teas?n Tomes. "Should I know who Cory is? The name doesn't ring a bell."
"Remember that night in the Inn? He's the one who asked me out on a date. We're dating." Eden smiled over at Cane. "He came camping with me." She answered his question without missing a beat, but she was thinking about what he said about he and Sal maintaining separate identities. Whether they liked it or not, they were something of a role model for Eden of what an adult relationship looked like. After her parents, of course.
They passed the infamous tea shop and the neighboring Matadero Carniceria. Cane turned the corner and parked the Jeep behind the butcher shop in one of the designated resident parking spaces. He paused with his hands on the keys, trying to dredge up the face to put with a name. "I vaguely remember that, yeah. Asked you to a concert, right?" Eden nodded and Cane grinned at her before cutting the engine.
They both exited the vehicle and made their way through the rear entrance of the building. Cane gave the door a light push so that it opened wide and motioned for Eden to enter first.
The hall was lit by a dim, overhead light. Directly ahead was a flight of stairs and a locked door off to the right side that lead into the back office of the Carniceria storefront. Gesturing for Eden to take the stairs first, Cane closed the door and locked it, palming the key ring as he followed the woman up the steps.
At the top of the landing, the shallow foyer branched off in two directions with a door at either end. ?There?re two apartments,? Cane explained. ?That one,? he said while pointing to the left, ?belongs to Hank and his son, Hank Jr.? He crossed over to the door on the right and unlocked it. ?They run the shop downstairs and keep an eye on the place when Sal an? I aren?t here.?
The shades were drawn inside, covering the windows next to the front door, and as soon as they moved into the apartment, he raised them to let in the dying, evening light. The entire left wall was exposed brick, painted white, just like almost every other wall in the tiny apartment, and they all shone brightly in the sunlight that poured in from the windows.
?Actually,? Cane amended, ?those aren?t their names. It?s Boscoe and Lyle, but Sal?s **** with names and Hank seemed to stick. They?d probably get a kick out of it if you called them that, too.? He chuckled, reaching past Eden once she was inside to shut the door.
Eden?s bouncing settled into a muted up-step, and then settled even further into near stillness as she looked around the beautiful apartment. She was like a child in a fancy department store, overly afraid of knocking something over and getting in trouble so standing very still and walking very deliberately. Her dark eyes were wide as she took it all in, but there was also a hint of skepticism there.
"Does it come like this or...? I mean, are you going to take your stuff out?" It was literally the biggest TV she had ever seen. Though, to be fair, she hadn't seen many TVs.
At a whopping four hundred and thirty square feet, the apartment was fairly small. Cozy, Cane liked to call it. A couple long strides in any direction would have you hitting a wall. The small living room boasted a long, squat console to hold that fancy TV she'd pointed out. A small, square, glass top coffee table sat over a striped area rug, surrounded by the modular seating of a sectional couch split into three pieces.
"It comes with everything ya see. There are, of course, certain stipulations -- like ya couldn't just get rid of what's here. Ya dig?" Cane chuckled and leaned against the wall next to the door. "Go on, go take a look around."
The living room was distinct from the bedroom by a wall of sliding glass panels that separated the two spaces, but offered no privacy. It housed a low, platform bed and a small desk area, above which was some storage. On the opposite wall was a closet and a full length mirror. The bed was made with what looked like brand new linens, a simple gray colored comforter with white sheets and a few pillows.
To the right was the designated kitchen space, with enough room for a two-person table and that was it. The kitchen could hold what was necessary for two and no more. It had the essentials: a sink, two burners and a small oven, a little bit of counter space above an apartment sized refrigerator. Dishes were stored on open shelves mounted on the exposed brick.
A built-in bookcase flanked one side of a small hallway that was lined with slate black tiles, as opposed to the ash blond wood floors that were throughout the rest of the apartment, which carried into the full bathroom. Another linen closet for extra storage was located across from the bathroom.
"It's so big!" Eden exclaimed. No, she wasn't crazy; it?s just that she had literally never lived alone before. Never even had her own room before. To her, this tiny apartment was a palace for a single person. At first she seemed hesitant to touch anything but once she saw it was alright, she touched everything. She opened every drawer and each closet door, looking into the space, the little ways the apartment made the most of its small space, which made the exploration of it take a heck of a lot longer than it probably should have given the size of it.
She wandered to the bathroom, eyes wide again. "Cane, there's a bathtub!" Her voice practically squeaked with excitement, echoing off the walls in such close quarters.
While Eden explored, Cane watched her in silence, looking every bit as satisfied as she was excited. When she came out of the bathroom, he was standing by the little kitchen table. She leaned to check out the view from the windows.
"Could I bring in some plants? I like plants."
"You know, it's funny you should say that. You're more'n welcome ta bring plants with ya. But I've got something else ta show you." He waved her further into the kitchen with him.
They had to climb through the kitchen window to get out onto the iron fire escape that led up to the roof. One end contained the vents for the heating and cooling units; a bit of an eyesore, but at least they were quiet. Toward the front of the building, there was plenty of room to have a small gathering of friends -- having more than two or three people in the apartment itself would begin to feel cramped.
?Sal an? I never really got around ta fixin? this place up. We just brought a pile of blankets with us when we wanted to sleep under the stars.? The Cajun smiled, seeming to get lost in thought and memory for a moment. Then he shook his head free of the spell and beckoned Eden to follow him toward the far end of the roof.
?Speaking of Sal,? he went on. ?Long before we decided to rent this place out, he started building these. For you.? Canaan gestured to the cold frame planter houses that lined the entire front of the roof. ?He even filled them with plants from his own gardens.?
Stooping down, he grabbed the corner of a lid and lifted it open to reveal a few rows of still-growing heads of lettuce. ?These?re like little greenhouses. They?ll keep everything safe through even the winter, so you can have fresh fruits an? veggies. I told you before that he?s an amazing chef, so when he heard that you?ve been practically living on ramen, he wanted to fix that.? Chuckling, Cane closed the lid and gestured to the other boxes. ?They?re full of all sorts of things. That tall one on the end there has tomatoes.?
Eden looked at the planters. Then at Cane. Then at the planters again. "Sal made these. For me?" It was like a computer that could not compute. She blinked at Cane, watching him, standing entirely still, arms limp at her sides, just standing there, trying to understand what was happening.
Sensing he might have finally crossed the line and made her feel self conscious, Cane cleared his throat. "I'm a grown man with a ravenous appetite," he teased, trying to lighten the burden of information. "I take food very seriously." He winked at her, hoping she'd crack a smile and forget about the spotlight he'd also inadvertently placed on Salvador. The Spaniard didn't like attention, and would hardly appreciate it if Cane had, without thinking, made him look like a nice guy. "I like ta garden, believe it or not. Keeps my hands busy."
"Oh." She almost breathed out a sigh of relief.
As much as Sal wasn't too fond of the spotlight being on him, Eden couldn't bear the idea of someone doing something so monumental for her. The tease made it seem like maybe Sal had done it for Cane, which made much more sense to her, and she giggled a nervous giggle, then smiled and nodded. "I like to garden too! I've never seen planters like these, but they look great!"
Cane stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked around the roof for a moment, then back to Eden. "So are ya interested?"
Eden nodded immediately, but then she smiled wryly and lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. "I think it might be a little too nice though. I don't think I could afford it without a roommate." And it was obviously too small for a roommate who you weren't intimately involved with. "It was nice of you to think of me!" She smiled, struggling to hide her disappointment.
The Cajun narrowed his eyes and gave a minute shake of the head. "Nuh-uh. Slow yer roll there, cher. Remember this?" He withdrew the slip of paper from his pocket and held it up, still folded, untampered with. "Try me. What can your budget afford?"
"Umm." Eden looked past him at the planters, then the view, then down at her feet as if she could see the apartment below. She was tempted to up the number with the hope of coming near enough to what was written on that paper that they might be willing to give it to her for at least a little while. But when it came to money, Eden didn't mess around. She had things she needed to pay for---magic school, a roundtrip ticket to visit home---these were important things. And on top of that, she really wanted to pay her family back for the money they had given her just to get here. They'd worked an entire year for that. She owed them.
She bounced from foot to foot, then quietly told him the number she could pay, almost embarrassed to say it aloud. No one liked feeling poor, but it was good money, decent money---money she worked hard for. Maybe it wouldn't get her a place this nice, but it might get her somewhere.
Taking a step closer, Cane held the piece of paper out for Eden to take. She did so and opened it up.
Eden gasped, mouth open, staring at the number. It matched the one she had just said. She closed the paper, then opened it again. "Ohmygod! Ohmygod!" The girl jumped up and down once, then looked up at Cane. "Ohmygod, are you sure!?"
Canaan lived for moments like this. He was a coin with two sides; one he kept secret, showing only to those closest to him, the other side was often just as much a surprise to those who experienced its face. Making others happy made him happy. Eden's arrant surprise and unadulterated joy made his heart swell with delight. The smile he wore was a rare thing, not the usual, charming display that he flashed to get his way or the sharp, fish hook lure that made him look dangerous and inviting all at once. This was something truly real, something honest, and earnest to boot.
Utterly pleased with her reaction, Cane nodded slowly. "Yep. We're sure." There was a short pause, and then he asked, "Does that mean you'll take it?"
"Yes!" Eden jumped up and down a whole bunch of times now. "Yes, yes, yes!" She giggled, then clapped her hands, still holding onto the paper like it was something precious. Then suddenly, she stopped the bouncing to peer up at him. "Wait, wait. I won't be able to take it until October, ?cause I have to give notice to my roommates, is that still okay?"
"Of course," he assured her, nodding again. Cane gestured toward the fire escape and huffed a quiet breath of a laugh. "Let's go back inside an' we can discuss the particulars. Have you eaten yet? If you've got time, I'll pay fer dinner while we talk."
"Okay! Yes, please! Thank you so much! Ohmygod!" She was going to have some trouble stopping bouncing for a little while, but she still managed to make her way safely down the fire escape to descend into the apartment. "I'm so excited! I've never lived by myself before! Ohmygod! I can't believe I get to live here!"
"I can't think of a better tenant," Cane said. Seriously, the girl was going to kill him with the overload of cute. He had half a mind to tell her, but there was no woman on the planet who liked hearing from a guy that she was cute, even if she wasn't interested in said guy. He kept his thoughts to himself and just smiled at her.
Cane made sure to close up the window, pull the blinds, and lock the door behind them when they left. The echo of Eden's joyous mantra -- 'ohmygod' -- made Cane laugh as they made their way back downstairs. She'd managed to put a smile on his face that was sure to last him throughout the night.
