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“There’s a park near the condo,” he says.
“There is.”
“With grass.”
“Generally considered a park feature.”
“And space.”
“Yes.”
He looks at the canvas again. “I want it.”
Twenty minutes later, the largest canvas that will fit in my car is wedged behind the front seats along with a larger drop cloth, several tubes of paint, brushes, and something called a catalyst wedge that Kell apparently understands better than I do.
He chose every bit of it himself.
A week ago, he needed me to explain what half the things in an art-supply store were. Today he knew which brushes he wanted badly enough to reject four of them.
I should be nothing but pleased by that.
Mostly, I am.
The park is only a few blocks from the condo, a wide green space with mature trees, a playground on one end, picnic tables on the other, and a paved walking path looping around the perimeter. A few of the sumacs along the edge of the park have started turning red, the first real sign that summer is giving up. Kell carries the canvas under one arm and most of the supplies under the other while I follow with the drop cloth.
“Why am I carrying the least interesting thing?”
“Because I’m carrying everything else.”
“Fair point.”
He picks a place beneath a tree but far enough from the shade that the light reaches the canvas evenly. I spread the drop cloth over the grass and use four rocks to keep the corners from lifting. Kell puts the canvas flat on top of it.
“You’re painting it on the ground?”
“Yes.”
“Is that how you’re supposed to do it?”
He straightens, and I hear the question properly only after I’ve asked it. Kell does too. His woven eyebrows rise.
“Never mind,” I say hastily.
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to do it.”
“That was my mistake.”
He looks down at the canvas, then back at me. “Why?”
“Because I asked whether you were doing it the right way before I asked whether it was the way you wanted to do it.”
He considers that.
“I know how I want to do it.”
“Then start there.”
“Even if somebody else would do it differently?”
