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“Your shadow’s taking a nap in the living room,” he said, unaware of the effect he and his damp T-shirt were having on her. “That woman has more balls than you do.”
“It’s why she and I get along so gosh-darned well.”
He examined the sketches she’d taped to the door and window frames, then turned his attention to the long wall, where she’d begun working in the sky. “This is a big project. How do you know where to start?”
“Top to bottom, light to dark, background to foreground, soft edges to hard.” She came down off the stepladder. “The fact that I understand technique doesn’t mean you’re not going to regret pushing me into this. My landscapes are—”
“Cutesy crap. I know. I wish you’d stop worrying so much.” He handed her the roll of masking tape she’d dropped and studied the cans arranged on her metal cart. “Some of this is regular latex paint.”
“I also work with enamel and oil paints—alkyds because they dry faster, right out of the tube if I want more intense color.”
“That bag of kitty litter I carried in from the car…”
“It’s the best way to get rid of the turpentine I clean my brushes in. It clumps, and then I can—”
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nbsp; Riley shot into the room with her guitar. “Mrs. Garrison told me her birthday is in two weeks! And she’s never in her whole life had a birthday party. Marshall only gave her jewelry. Can we like have a surprise party for her here, Dean? Please, Blue. You could bake a cake and make some hot dogs and stuff.”
“No!”
“No!”
Her forehead wrinkled in censure. “Don’t you think you’re both being kind of mean?”
“Yes,” Dean said, “and I don’t care. I’m not having a party for her.”
“Then you do it, Blue,” Riley said. “At her house.”
“She wouldn’t appreciate it. Appreciation isn’t part of her vocabulary.” Blue picked up the paint she’d poured into a plastic cup and mounted the stepladder.
“Maybe if everybody wasn’t so mean to her all the time, she wouldn’t be so mean herself.” Riley stormed out.
Blue gazed after her. “Our little girl is starting to act like a normal bratty kid.”
“I know. Isn’t it great?”
It was pretty great.
Dean finally left to look at some horses. Blue pulled white paint onto her brush, and Riley wandered back in, still carrying her guitar. “I bet nobody even sends her a birthday card.”
“I’ll get her a card. I’ll even make her a cake. We’ll give her a party ourselves.”
“It’d be better if more people would come.”
As Riley returned to Nita, an interesting idea struck Blue, a welcome diversion from worrying about what was and wasn’t taking shape on the walls. She thought it over for a while and finally called Syl at the resale shop.
“You want the town to throw Nita a surprise birthday party?” Syl said after Blue had explained. “And we’re supposed to pull it together in two weeks?”
“Pulling it together is the least of our problems. Getting anyone to show up is the challenge.”
“You really think throwing her a party will soften her up enough that she’ll go along with the town plan?”
“Probably not,” Blue said. “But nobody has a better idea, and miracles do happen, so I think we should give it a shot.”
“I don’t know. Let me talk to Penny and Monica.”
Half an hour later, Syl called back. “We’ll do it,” she said with a marked lack of enthusiasm. “You just make sure she’s there. It would be exactly like her to get wind of this and refuse to show up.”
