Unearthing Passions by Elaine Sims

Author:Elaine Sims
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-58571-519-0
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2006-04-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

“Knock, knock.” Asa called, as he walked up the stairway in the rear of the Aromia Natural Body Spa the next morning. Schyler’s loft above the store was her sanctuary. The eighty-foot by twenty-five foot expanse was a source of envy and one of the reasons he had decided to move to Atlanta.

“A, that you?”

“Yeah, I’m here.” He stepped into the loft and looked around. Even though Schyler had lived in the space for over seven years, he still got a rush from simply being here. The loft was raw and beautiful, interrupted only by large twelve-inch square columns. There were remnants of paint on the walls, an old iron crank press sat in one corner and heavy wooden beams traversed the plaster ceiling, slicing it into massive recessed rectangles. There seemed to be acres of floor space, and at least a mile of windows cut through the worn brick walls on both sides.

“Hey, babycakes.” Schyler approached and stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek. “How you doing?”

“I’m doing good. Well, actually better than good.”

His sister’s knowing smile made him grin. He followed her to the open kitchen that seemed to have grown from the ceiling and rooted itself in the center of the loft.

“How about let’s have some coffee and you can tell me.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Schyler dumped ground coffee into the filter and rinsed the glass carafe.

Asa shifted on his stool and glanced around the loft. “Coming to your place calms me down. I like chillin’ up here.”

“Good.” She busied herself with her task, then turned to the fridge. “How about some deep fried tofu?”

Asa grimaced. “Coffee’s fine, thanks.”

“Hey, don’t knock it, baby, but I knew you were coming by, so I bought some blueberry muffins. The giant ones you like so much.”

“Now, that’ll work.”

Asa refused to eat Sky’s cooking now. Prior to her transformation, whenever he came to visit, she had to beat him with a spatula to keep him from eating her out of house and home. Now that she was a tofu-eating, wheat grass growing, vegetarian, she always had leftovers.

“If you add some salsa on top of tofu…” she licked her lips and rubbed her belly. “Boy, mmm. It tastes just like huevos rancheros.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Asa said with a shudder.

“You’ll get to meet Leon today.” Schyler’s voice was muffled as she dug a block of tofu out of the pan of water where it rested in the refrigerator. “He’s an artist that lives nearby….” She stood and went to the counter to rinse the square she had extracted. “I’m getting some more pieces from him today.”

“Oh, yeah?” Asa was intrigued. “Folk or modern?” Archaeology was a discipline that uncovered the old and the ordinary more often than the extraordinary. As a result, Asa had developed a deep fondness for the ordinariness of folk art.

“Folk.”

“Sounds cool. I’d like to meet him…,” He grimaced as he watched his sister slice tofu into inch-sized cubes and coat them with … something. “How do you eat that stuff?”

“Yumm, yumm, yumm.

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