ONE
Phoebe
“You sure youdon’t need another coffee, Phoebe?”
“Any more and all these lines are going to start blurring,” I called down from seven feet up.
I sat criss-cross applesauce on the paint splattered plank of my scaffolding I’d named Daisy. Mostly because all the metal bars and pipes had been painted in the happy flowers over the years. If I had to sit on it for up to twelve hours, it was going to be pretty.
And it was good practice.
My specialty had inadvertently become florals. I wasn’t mad about it.
I peered up at the leaves and branches I’d painted on the ceiling of Haven Café. It was part of an overall tree that had quite literally sprouted in my mind the first time I’d seen the old, cracked mantel over the fireplace in the back of the café. The funky tree had become so much more the longer I worked on it.
The last four mornings at o-dark-thirty had been an easy collaboration between me and Jenna Kay, one of the owners. She needed to do inventory and since they opened at six-thirty in the morning and closed well after eight in the evening, the bothof us had limited time to work without customers getting in the way.
My back was screaming, but my arm and hand were rock steady as I dragged my pink-paint-filled brush along the bark I was creating. I’d created a stamp of sorts to mimic the bark texture for an outline, but in the end I’d created my own thing.
Typical for my brain.
A crack in the sidewalk became a mouse face. A knot in a plank of wood became a flower or a ghost’s face. It was like laying in a field playingwhat does that cloud look like?as a kid. Only now people paid me to do it on the walls of their businesses. Of course, in the beginning I had to beg to do the painting. But then one of my murals went viral and I couldn’t keep up with the requests.
Now I got to pick my jobs instead of begging for clients.
Though, to be fair, I was still bending over backward for them. Their happiness fed me almost as much as the increased stability of my bank account. A few more years and I might just be able to slow down.
For now, Jenna and her sister Marty saw my initial sketch and let me go wild.
My very favorite kind of job.
I rolled my shoulders and stretched as I leaned back. I knew I really should get down on the floor to make sure the tree wasn’t warped, with me being this close to the painting. But I knew myself—I wouldn’t want to climb back up.
Instead, I shoved my palette out of the way and stretched out on my scaffolding, crossing my paint-scarred boots at the ankle, and let my vision blur. It was the best way to see where I needed to add things.
My heart tripped at the details that peeked from the chaos of green.
At the flowers that peeked out of the leaves.
At the teapot I’d hidden in the branches.
At the French press that hung from a gnarled knot of a twisted limb.
At the fat robin’s-egg blue mug with the chipped lip that was turned upside down and caught between a split branch, coffee spilling out and turning into a rainbow.
All the illustrations had come alive in the nooks and crannies of the ancient plaster of the ceiling. Some would sand down all the imperfections for a fresh canvas, but I used them. It became bark or a squiggle.
“Did you fall asleep up there?”
I rolled onto my side and peered down at Jenna. “No. I was contemplating getting down to get away from my bird’s-eye view. But now you’re here. So, how’s it look?”
“Amazing. It’s a tree, but so much more than that. I can’t believe you can do all that.”
Pleased, I couldn’t stop smiling. “Well, I can’t believe you know the perfect espresso and cinnamon ratio. So, we’re all artists.”
She put her hands on her hips, her chin tipped up as her gaze darted around all the boughs I’d painted. “That’s sweet of you to say, but what I do is nothing like that.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. We all have magic.”
