He stood, looking at the prefab the following Monday, effervescently proud, with the entire team around him. There were varying degrees of surprise, uncertainty and delight. But Eddie didn’t really care, because Helen had done a fantastic job.

The shabby box had been given a facelift. Helen was a very talented graffiti artist but her gift was in the little details. She had turned the decrepit looking junkyard container into a charming blue house. It had been stripped, sanded and repaired the damaged areas and then painted the entire thing in shades of blue, including all the miniscule details that made a two dimensional object into a three dimensional one. The blue framed windows had shadowy figures in them, the painted windowsill had dark blue wood grain, and the doorway had been turned into a pretty picture frame. There was even a little rim of bluegrass that went all around bottom edge, and to cap the illusion of the charming fisherman's cottage look, a blue corrugated iron roof.

“It’s wonderful!” Eddie proclaimed. The others were slowly approaching it, examining the artwork, the intricate details of the flowers in the painted flower box. He would have to send Helen an enormous box of chocolate. And some wine. No wait, she preferred brandy.

“Who did this?” Christian asked, looking at the image of a window, with a misty hand on its sill.

“A friend of mine.” Eddie said, feeling so damn chuffed. This was far more encouraging than what they had had before. He made a call on his phone.

“Helen? Helen. It’s a masterpiece.” A pause. “Fine, a mistresspeice. I’ll see you later, you fucking fabulous woman.”

As he hung up the phone Christian turned to him. “You did this?”

Eddie waved him off, deliberately looking away from that shining face. “No no, I did say. My friend owed me a small favour.”

Brendan glanced at him. “This is ‘small’? She painted the whole thing! Even the back!”

Eddie waggled his eyebrows at him. “You should have seen the size of my favour.”

What Eddie had actually done was save her exhibition. The original gallery that was going to show her work had caught fire and she had been left without a space to exhibit. She had been devastated and in a state of hysterics when he had appeared for his painting class that evening, and so Eddie had called an acquaintance (actually a one night stand named Martin) who owned a gallery, and sweet talked him into letting Helen showcase her work there a week later, So Helen was showcasing at a far superior gallery and drunk on gallery wine, and had promised him any favour he wanted in the future. Funny how a lot of favours came to him that way. From the mouths of drunken babes.

“Well?” he asked them after they had been inspecting it in awe for a few minutes.

Christian answered first, lovely soul that he was. “It’s perfect. I love it.”

Brendan nodded in agreement, touching a wall. “I thought this was a real rivet, but it's paint. Damn.”

Jordan gave a thumbs up and Laurel still had her mouth twisted. “Do Richards and Cress know about this?”

Eddie rolled his eyes and Brendan shot her a dirty look. “Laurel, for cripes sake.”

“Fine fine. Its miles better than what we had for sure.”

Eddie accepted that was as good as it was going to get from her.

At that point, they were joined by Richards and Cressida, who approached the house with wide eyes and in the case of Richards, mild surprise.

“Oh wow.” Cressida said. “It’s lovely!”

Eddie caught Richards’s eye and swung a play master’s arm out at the prefab, presenting it with a flourish.

“I give you ‘The Blue House’.”

-8-

‘The Blue House Project’ sounded so much better that it had been when it was nameless, and Helen had thoughtfully assigned one of her students to design a logo to use on their letterheads. It showed a much more canonical style of cottage, with references to the prefab but far simpler, so it would be easy to use on any format and in smaller sizes. In fact, the student was so taken with the project, she offered herself for any future design needs and was promptly taken on board. Megan was a sweet little thing, with brown eyes and ash blonde hair, and had the kind of shoulder hunch that was associated with people who spent a lot of time on the computer. She fitted in perfectly with their little team. And of course now that they had a name and a logo and everything, Eddie could sell it to his parents especially his father. But he started with his Mamma, because her approval could grease the wheels.

“But that is wonderful, caro.” His mother told him in her melodic voice, sounding genuinely proud, when he updated her.

Eddie smiled into the phone. “I’ll send you pictures Mamma. May I speak to Papá please?”

“Of course dear.” She said and he heard her heels clack against the tile as she walked to his father’s workshop. It was off the east side of the kitchen. Even though he owned stores and manufacturing houses, he still liked to dabble in the making and designing of pieces when he had the chance. Eddie remembered the walls being papered with hand-sketched designs, cuttings from magazines of pieces that caught his eye.

“Pronto.” His Papa’s voice came on the line.

“Ciao Papa.”

His father’s voice was warm. “Ciao Federico. How are you?”

“Doing very well Papa. I was just telling Mamma about the project I’m working on. The rape crisis one.”

“Hmm.” His father said distractedly. The quality of the ambient sound changed and Eddie knew he had laid the phone down and put it on speaker so his hands could be free to tinker.

“Papa,” Eddie said, feeling like he was walking across a glass studded floor with only a few places to put his feet. “I have a favour to ask.”

A pause, then: “Yes Rico?”

“The thing is, the project needs a backer, for it to be successful.”

“It needs money you mean.”

Eddie was quick to go on. “Yes. But it isn’t a fly-by-night idea. This is something that really needs to happen.”

“Your Mamma has not given me the full details.” His father said in a way that invited Eddie to go on, and he took heart from that.

“It began because a friend of mine was attacked on campus, Papa. When we saw what he had to go through just to be taken seriously, the staff who had been directly involved decided to do something to change it.”

“What happened?” Papa sked.

Eddie was feeling slightly odd from the conversation, which was the longest he had had with his father in some time.

“Papa, if someone is attacked on campus, no one listens. He went to the police, but they didn’t care because it was a college issue.”

“Yes, but what happened?”

Eddie paused, remembering vividly shoving his finger down Christian’s throat so he would vomit up whatever thing he had ingested to make him a stringless puppet.

“He was drugged, and someone tried to rape him.”

“A boy? This was a boy?”

Eddie closed his eyes. “A friend.” He said shortly. He wondered if he had said too much, if he should have pretended Christian was a girl so they would take it more seriously. He couldn’t even begin to unravel all his parents’ complicated ignorance over the phone, or even face to face. Or ever.

“This friend must be important to you.” his father said quietly.

“This project is important to me. To everyone. It’s so what happened to him doesn’t get swept under the carpet. So that we can try to stop it happening again, or so that if it does, there is someone to help.”

There was another pause and Eddie rocked back and forth on his feet.

“I’ll put you in contact with the staff in charge.” Eddie added. His father liked figures of authority.

“Rico, I will think about it.”

Eddie sent a silent thank you to whatever gods were listening. “Grazie Papa. I’ll send you those details tonight. May I give them your email address?”

“Si, si, alright.” His father may even have sounded slightly pleased. But Eddie knew his imagination was playing into his dreams again.

But still, it was a Step. He called Richards, who picked up on the fourth ring.

“Yes?” he answered distractedly.

“It’s Eddie.”

“I know.”

“You don’t sound happy to hear from me.”

“Should I be?” Richards replied, sounding a little bit livelier.

“Indeed you should.” Eddie replied, feeling gleeful. “I’ve set it up, now you have to sell it.”

TBC