Page 36

She was halfway down Main Street when she realized she was smiling.

She made herself stop, which worked for about half a block.

* * *

Inside, Doug Dawson put down his pen.

He looked at Shane, who was looking at the order form with the concentration of a man who was definitely reading it and not thinking about anything else at all.

“Common size for school bracket applications,” Doug said.

“Yes,” Shane said.

“Very specific knowledge.”

“I know hardware, Doug.”

“You knew it fast.”

“I’ve been doing this for fifteen years.”

Doug picked up his pen. He looked at the inventory sheet. He set the pen down again.

“Longest panel cutting I’ve seen you do,” he said. “Usually you’re in and out in twenty minutes. That was...”

“The cuts required attention.”

“They were straight cuts.”

“Precision matters.”

“Uh huh.” Doug picked up his pen again. “She asked you about Roy.”

Shane said nothing.

“You answered,” Doug said.

Still nothing.

“That’s not...” Doug considered his words. “You don’t usually answer questions about Roy.”

Shane put the order form down. He picked up a different order form. He looked at it.

“She asked,” he said finally, which was not an explanation and both of them knew it and neither of them said so.

Doug nodded once. He went back to his inventory sheet.

He thought, privately, that it was the most useful thing Shane Colter had said in years.

* * *

The first real painting day went beautifully for thirty-eight minutes.

She had the panels laid flat across the tables on a bed of newspaper, one for each homeroom in the room, and for thirty-eight minutes the art room did the thing she loved most about it. Twenty-two kids bent over their work. Brushes clicking against water jars. Somebody humming without knowing it.

Then Marcus made a sound she had never heard him make.

He was standing over his class’s panel with his brush in the air. The corner he had worked on all period, a long jagged shape in purple and deep blue, was gone. In its place was a neat stripe of sky, and beside it stood Lily with a wet brush in her hand and the pleased, pink face of someone who has just been very helpful.