In Over Her Head by Elsie Russell - Parnasse.com

ubbles were clumps of toga clad goddesses sulking on denuded
hilltops. Dick and Beatrice squealed with delight having an art academy
right there, just like the Beaux Arts on rue Bonaparte.
"Look! Hangh, hangh, hangh. A picture in the classical style! Is
Retardataire the new avant-garde? What do you think the Turner and
Biennale committees will think of that?"
Beatrice clutched Dick's arm. "Oh, look! You can see the
student's Ateliers up there. I wonder if aromas of the turpentine will
make it across the street. Non, mais, Dick, c'est tout a fait adorable!"
The real estate guy sprinted up out of nowhere, apologizing.
"Sorry I'm late, folks, got hung up, ready for a look see?" He
said, as if he was showing them a suburban split-level and not a twenty
million dollar gutted nineteenth century industrial building. He
unlocked the glass fronted doors and they all squeezed into an elevator,
half iron cage, half plywood box plastered with seventy years of
inspection labels. The box rattled up and dumped them onto a vast
sloped floor surrounded by three spackle-splotched walls and a row of
murky windows. Every floor was like this, with the top one, apparently
slated to be the dance studio, worst of all, from a hundred years of
leaking roof. Sandro just shook his head, raking his shoe against the
rotten floorboards and jiggling his change. In contrast, Dick and his
mother were effervescent.
Ula headed for the door. "I'm going out," she announced
without looking back.
Sandro followed her down the battleship gray stairs, and Penny
followed a few steps behind them. The dust was asphyxiating and they
coughed all the way down.
Ula spotted a windowless brick building flanking the art school
and pointed up at to the glass transformer discs protruding from the
roof. "We can't buy that dump, look! That place has enough
electromagnetic emissions to fry our brains crispy crispy!"
"We go back and tell them! We veto!" Sandro marched up to
the door, but the door had locked behind them and now all they could
do was wait.
"Well, I need a drink! Andiamo?"
They followed him to the empty restaurant's forty foot
mahogany bar.
"We wait until they come out, what do you want?" He turned to
Ula, slapping out a Marlboro Red from a hard pack. So, married life
agreed with him so much that he'd taken up smoking."The suicide of
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