“I told you I got ’em, C,” Finn says. “Just put your boxes there and I’ll make another trip.”
“Such a well-mannered young man,” says the woman who was decked out like the sun last time. Today she’s in blacks and silvers, with a marvelous shooting-star pin on a sparkly sweater.
“Yes, but he could use a haircut,” the lavender-haired woman says too loudly, and Finn’s already red face goes redder.
Carla drops her three boxes on the back counter and shakes out her arms afterward, rolling her shoulders. “Morning workout!”
She tries to ruffle Finn’s hair as he passes, but he ducks. “Thanks, Finnegan.”
“Anytime,” he says as he troops downstairs.
“Parker!” Carla says, motioning me over.
I hand Carla my W-4 and references, but she only glances at my paperwork before shoving it in a drawer and leaning conspiratorially forward.
“So these four are from Wild Meadows Retirement Community. They’re here as part of an art outreach program.”
“Oh, that’s nice—” I start, but Carla flaps her hand, motions me closer, and drops her voice to a whisper.
“They fight. All the time. Harriet over there, the one in the green muumuu? She’s usually the instigator, but I can assure you Miss Peggy—the one with the purple hair?—she isn’t blameless. It’s like a grade-school playground. All I need you to do for the morning is to babysit and make sure they don’t destroy anything valuable or each other.”
A babysitter for old ladies? My face must be betraying my surprise, as Carla pats my hand reassuringly.
“Trust me. I need you up here. The real pottery stuff will come later.”
Right then, Finn comes back upstairs and grabs the remaining boxes. I can see the muscles in his arms, and I blush, looking away, meeting Harriet’s eyes.
She winks at me.
“Just yell downstairs if there are any customers or if you need me—I’m going to go help Finn.” She turns toward the table. “Ladies, I’m leaving Parker in your good hands. Be nice.” She looks relieved to leave.
I listen to her follow Finn down the stairs, and I realize I have no clue what to do next.
“Hi?” I say to the ladies.
Harriet snorts, stabbing her paintbrush in black paint. Her bowl’s design seems to consist solely of sharp, jagged lines.
“Parker, it’s so nice to meet you,” says the lavender-haired woman. “I’m Miss Peggy.”
The woman with the star pin pats the empty stool beside her. “I’m Lorna. This is Alice,” she says, nodding toward the quiet woman.
“And that’s Harriet,” Miss Peggy says.
“Nice to meet you all,” I say.
Harriet glares in our direction from across the table.
“What is it you do, Parker?” Miss Peggy asks.
I nearly mention the internship, but I catch myself. “I just graduated. I’m going to Harvard next year. I’m going to be a doctor.” As the words leave my mouth, they feel hollow. But what’s on the other side feels too empty to begin to contemplate.
“That’s very impressive,” Miss Peggy says, and Harriet sniffs loudly. Lorna shoots an anxious glance in Miss Peggy’s direction, but she seems to have missed it.
“My husband, Leonard, was a dentist,” Miss Peggy says. “The hours were hard, but it was worth it, knowing he was making people’s lives better.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Harriet grimace.
Miss Peggy begins listing all the sacrifices she made as a dentist’s wife, while Lorna nods sympathetically in response and Harriet ignores all of it.
Alice is in her own world.
While they talk, I study the space around me. There are a few painted objects on the shelves, and I can hear the creek babbling softly through the open window, a hearty laugh from Carla downstairs.
When I got up this morning, Charlie had already left for tutoring. My parents were in the kitchen, Dad in a much better mood than the previous night, both of them discussing the morning’s news. I tried to ignore the pangs of guilt in my stomach when they both wished me a good day at my internship.
Miss Peggy’s voice brings me back to earth. “In other news, I also heard we’re getting a new resident on the second floor.”
“Interesting!” Lorna says. “How’d you find that out?”
“I have my sources. And guess what?” She waits, clearly savoring having the knowledge. Even Harriet seems to be leaning slightly closer.
“It’s a man. A widowed man,” she adds.
“Well, that’s something!” Lorna says, immediately patting her hair, trying to push the curls into shape.
Harriet shakes her head and points at Miss Peggy. “No one likes a know-it-all.”
Miss Peggy rolls her eyes.
“I think Miss Peggy is just sharing some information,” I say, somewhat surprised by the unprovoked aggression, but Harriet only shrugs, while Miss Peggy whispers something in Lorna’s ear.
Whether it’s due to hearing aids, passive-aggressiveness, or a healthy degree of both, it’s definitely more of a declaration than a whisper, and I suspect even Carla may hear it: “They clearly cut back on Harriet’s meds.”
Lorna cringes.
Harriet glares murderously at Miss Peggy, then bellows, “I can hear you, asshole!”
My mouth drops open.
“Takes one to know one,” Miss Peggy retorts.
At this point, Harriet wags her head at her and slowly draws a finger menacingly across her throat.
Lorna gasps, looking to me for reassurance.
I can’t believe these are grown-ups.
“All right,” I say. “Enough!”
Everyone looks surprised at my tone, and I feel a little guilty about the ensuing sulky silence, but then I remember this is what I was hired to do—to make sure these ladies don’t kill one another.
I turn my attention toward the tiny woman sitting next to me. “How are you doing, Alice?” I ask.
Everything about her is fragile and thin, like a bird. She doesn’t respond, just hums softly to herself, smiling at her hands, still folded neatly in her lap.
I pick up a paintbrush, watching to see if she responds, and then reach over and grab the sky-blue paint.
“This color reminds me of your sweater,” I say softly to her, holding it up against her vintage cardigan, decorated with tiny pearly seed beads. “And this one”—I pick up a mossy green—“is the same color as your eyes.”
I dab the brush in a little bit of the blue. “Is it okay if I paint for you?”
She keeps humming, so I lean over, lightly feathering the rim of the bowl with the brush and the blue paint. “Maybe you can keep this bowl on your dresser for earrings. I like the ones you have on—they remind me of dragonfly wings. Have you seen a dragonfly before? They always seem like characters from a fairy tale, I think.”
I continue painting the bowl, careful, slow, light strokes, talking to Alice the entire time, until the edges of it are as bright as a cloudless sky.
“This looks nice, doesn’t it?”
I rinse the brush in water and then move to the moss green, creating a solid border around the base. “This color reminds me of the ponds my brother, Charlie, and I used to explore when our family was on vacation in Ludington, Michigan. We’d take the trail with our parents and we’d run ahead, and when we rounded the corner, we’d find these green ponds, filled with lily pads with bright-yellow flowers in the middle. Usually there were turtles sunning themselves on the rocks. Did you ever wander when you were a kid? The world just felt a little more magical back then.”
I lean back to assess the colors together, and that’s when I register the stillness in the room. None of the other ladies are talking, but next to me Alice is silent as well, no longer humming. Miss Peggy’s and Lorna’s gazes are directed curiously toward Alice, and even Harriet’s expression has softened.
Alice is looking directly at the bowl in my hands, her fingers fluttering excitedly in the air, like bird wings.
I hand her the bowl, and she holds it carefully from the bottom, an expression of deep contentment on her face as she lets the paint dry.
Twenty-Eight
“SO, DID YOU TAKE your PSATs in sophomore year?” Ruby asks as she dumps half a bottle of ketchup on top of her already mustard-and-mayo-drenched fries, then sips her Cherry Coke.