Chapter Nine

NINE

Hey Frederick

Cassie. Hello.

Is everything all right?

You are still planning to move in, I hope?

Oh yeah for sure

I just wanted to let you know I’m arranging to have WiFi set up at your place

My treat

WiFi?

Yeah. If I’m moving back in I’ll need internet.

Everything I have heard about the internet makes it sound like a cancer upon the modern world.

I am not certain I want it.

Well I want it

I need it to watch my shows and do email and stuff

You’re gonna love it I promise

I can assure you I will not

But if it is something you require to be happy I’ll allow it

It was surprisingly good to be in Frederick’s apartment again. It was three in the afternoon, so just like the last time I moved in he wasn’t there to greet me. He had, however, left the curtains covering the lake-facing windows open—presumably for my benefit. The bright autumn sun glinted off the water so enticingly it almost felt like the view was welcoming me back home.

Or maybe I’d just gotten tired of camping out on Sam’s sofa.

I quietly entered the apartment, doing my best to ignore the bizarre decor. The too-dark walls, the creepy stuffed wolf’s head over the mantel, the way the hall closet I was forbidden from entering smelled vaguely of fruit—it was all just as odd, and still gave off every bit as much of the rich people have more money than sense vibe as it had a few days ago. The only difference now was that by knowing he was a centuries-old vampire it all made a bit more sense.

I yawned as I made my way towards my bedroom. I’d stayed up late the night before trying to convince Sam that yes, I was certain moving back in with the same roommate I’d fled from the other day was what I wanted to do. I couldn’t blame Sam for his concern; I understood that from all outside appearances I was behaving erratically.

But Frederick’s secret wasn’t mine to share.

Hopefully, in time Sam wouldn’t worry quite so much about me.

As soon as I entered my room my breath caught. Frederick had left my Saugatuck landscapes hanging in the exact same spot they’d been when I moved out. Even though I knew he didn’t really understand them.

Two envelopes with my name on them waited for me on the thick mattress of my four-poster bed. Beside them lay a wooden bowl filled with more of those mouthwatering little orange kumquats he’d given me the first time I’d moved in.

I opened the first envelope and out slid two sheets of crisply folded off-white paper, bearing handwriting that at this point I’d recognize anywhere.

Dear Cassie,

Welcome back. I am very glad you decided to move in with me again and hope you are glad as well.

I have begun preparing a list of potential lesson topics for us to cover together. Enclosed please find said list, submitted for your approval. Please note that I am so uneducated in the ways of the modern world that I likely do not even know what it is I do not know. If you can think of any serious omissions from this list, please advise.

Yours,

Frederick

ps: As you may have noticed, I included “Coffee shops and how to navigate them” in the list. After what happened at Gossamer’s when I tried to order a beverage, I thought you would agree further education is required.

I huffed a laugh when I got to the final line.

Good call, Frederick.

I reviewed the list he’d included with the letter, worrying my bottom lip as I pondered what he’d jotted down.

Frederick J. Fitzwilliam’s Proposed Modern Day Lessons List

Coffee shops and how to navigate them.

General conversation tips (with specific focus on how to converse with others in such a way that it is not immediately apparent I was born in the eighteenth century).

Public transportation: how, where, and when?

The internet (since you insist I learn about it).

A brief summary of all major historical events that have transpired over the past one hundred years.

Leaving aside the fact that there was no way I could summarize one hundred years of world history, Frederick’s list was incomplete. If he wanted to blend in with Chicago in the twenty-first century, one of the first things he needed to do was ditch the three-piece suits, the cravats, and the wing-tipped shoes and pick up some more modern, less formal clothing. I’d assumed he already knew he dressed like an extra from an old Masterpiece Theatre episode and that big changes were necessary—but Teach me what to wear wasn’t anywhere on this list, so I must have assumed wrong.

I quickly jotted down Fashion lessons—shopping spree? at the top of his list so I’d be sure to remember it.

The rest of his list would do, for a start. With some tweaking, I thought I could address his biggest concerns without much difficulty. I didn’t know much about TikTok, but I could show him Instagram. Teaching him about the internet might even be fun. I folded up his letter and his list and put them back into their envelope, already thinking through how best to teach him the things he most wanted to know.

As I pondered, I picked up the second envelope where it lay on the mattress. Beneath it was a long, slim, rectangular silver-and-gold foil-wrapped box that looked suspiciously like a gift.

Did Frederick get me another moving-in present?

I slowly opened the second envelope and pulled out the slip of paper inside.

This letter was only three words long.

Dear Cassie,

For your art.

Yours,

Frederick

Swallowing, I picked up the box and tore open its careful wrapping. The paper he’d wrapped it in was thick and butter-soft. The box inside was pale cream in color, its bottom stamped with the famous Arthur & Bros. forest-green logo. Arthur & Bros. was an art supply store based near the University of Chicago that shipped internationally and made some of the nicest paintbrushes I’d ever personally used.

I opened the box. Inside was a set of forty-eight beautiful colored pencils, ranging in colors from pale pink to a blue so dark it was nearly black. I hadn’t used colored pencils in any of my work since I was in high school and wasn’t certain I’d find a use for these.

The thoughtfulness of this gift, though, was undeniable. I wondered how he’d managed to even get them, given how far away Hyde Park was from his apartment—and how he seemed to have no idea how to pay for things.

I told myself I had to push aside any thoughts of what a generous, thoughtful gift like this might mean.

But I didn’t quite manage it.

I grabbed a pen and a scrap of paper from my bag, and scratched a hasty note for him.

Hi Frederick,

Your list looks good to me! It’s a place to start anyway. But we also need to work on your clothes. They’re very nice but they make you stand out in a way I don’t think you want. We should go shopping together soon. What do you think? I’ll show you exactly what to buy so no one thinks anything’s off about you when they see you in public.

And thank you so much for the pencils. They’re beautiful.

Yours,

Cassie

I stared at the way I’d signed the note for a long time before I could convince myself to leave it for him on the kitchen table.

There was nothing weird, nothing worst-idea-in-the-world about signing a note Yours, Cassie, in reply to a note signed Yours, Frederick—right?

I was just being polite. Doing what any good, friendly roommate would do. There was no reason at all for my heart to be racing when I imagined him reading my note after I’d gone to sleep, grinning so broadly at the way I’d signed it that it activated his killer cheek dimple. No reason whatsoever.

My heart was racing, though, all the same, when I left the note on the kitchen table five minutes later.

Because so many of the artists who shared space at Living Life in Color had day jobs during traditional business hours, the studio was always busiest on evenings and weekends. When I got there a few hours after moving back into Frederick’s apartment, it was seven o’clock and the studio was packed. There was no space left for me at the big communal table—my favorite spot to work when I made it in.

The project I wanted to create for my submission had been coming to me in bits and pieces over the past few days. It had solidified that afternoon when I’d walked into my bedroom and saw my Lake Michigan landscapes hanging in the place where that awful oil painting of the fox-hunting party had once been.

Frederick’s old painting was hideous. But not all art depicting life in the eighteenth-century English countryside was bad—at least if those classes I took while studying in London when I was in college were halfway accurate. What if I created something inspired by that era, but without the grisly hunting stuff? A manor house, set in the Lake District, with leafy green trees in the background and a babbling brook in the foreground? I still needed to think through exactly how I’d subvert the image through found objects—how to make it modern, how to make it mine—but that would come to me. In the meantime, the sort of image I was imagining would really get me to stretch my oil-painting muscles in a way that excited me.

I dug through my bag for my sketchpad—and for my newest gift from Frederick. Normally I just used a regular old graphite pencil for my preliminary sketches, but for this project, I would draw my planning sketches in color.