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“Army shelf…?” She giggles. “You mean the armoire?”
“Yeah, that too.”
She lets me go and steps back. “I don’t know how to thank you for all the work you did today. Or for the glider. Words just aren’t enough somehow. Not the ones I can come up with, anyway.”
But what she doesn’t understand is that no thanks are necessary. I’d do just about anything to put a smile on her face. “No need. But I’d like another one of those hugs some other time.”
“Deal,” she says as she sticks out her hand. I take it and give it a quick shake.
“Deal,” I repeat, sealing it. Then I catch a whiff of something that suddenly has my mouth watering. I spy the pizza boxes. “I’m starving!”
Evie wraps her hands around her mouth and bellows, “Barbara-Claire! Junior! Get your asses in here so we can eat!” When they don’t appear immediately, her brow furrows. She whispers, “You don’t think they’re out there having sex in my new glider, do you?”
I chuckle. “I wouldn’t put it past them. They do it everywhere else. I had to take my J
eep and have the inside detailed because I couldn’t stand the idea of them doing it in my back seat.”
Barbara-Claire and Junior walk into the house, and Barbara-Claire is carrying a hanging plant. “Housewarming gift,” she says with a smile. “We’re so damn happy you’re moving back to town.”
“So what brought the move about?” Junior asks as he takes a piece of pizza and lifts it to his mouth.
Evie thinks about it for a moment. “Well, Grandma’s not getting any younger. She’ll be ninety next month.” She takes a bite of pizza, chews, and then continues. “Plus I can work from anywhere, so I might as well work from here.”
And it strikes me that I have no idea what she does for a living.
“Freelance design work is booming, huh?” Barbara-Claire asks.
She shrugs. “I wouldn’t call it booming, but I’m comfortable.”
“Freelance design work?” I ask. When we were younger, Evie was always drawing pictures or painting. She loves art. “What exactly is freelance design work?”
She rolls her eyes. “I make pretty pictures for hire,” she says, as if what she does isn’t all that important.
“What kind of pictures?” I crack open a beer and take a sip.
“Oh, the usual stuff you’d pay someone to create. Marketing materials. Advertising copy. I have even designed some book covers.” She shrugs again. A becoming blush creeps up her cheeks.
“Can I see some of your work one day?” I ask her.
Her blush deepens. “Maybe,” she replies.
“You know that big billboard on I-40 as you drive into Raleigh? The one that’s always rotating with different businesses? I think it’s an insurance company right now, right, Evie?” Evie nods. “Anyway, Evie designed those. Isn’t that interesting? She has so much talent.”
“Well, I just got lucky that I could actually find work making art. A lot of people never do.”
“You like what you do?” I ask.
Her blush deepens even more. “I love it.”
Junior walks up behind her, puts his hands on her shoulders, and gives her a gentle shake. “That’s pure success right there, being able to do something you love. Kind of like Grady here. He loves what he does too.”
Junior goes and gets a beer, and I know that our talking time is over.
“Y’all ready to start painting?” Barbara-Claire says.
“You bet your sweet britches I am,” Junior states dramatically.
Barbara-Claire rolls her eyes and the two of them go and grab some rollers and get ready to start pouring paint and prepping rooms. Evie has already painted a sample of the paint color for each wall as guidance. I guess she did that this afternoon while I was finishing the yard.
