I nod. “That’s perfect,” I say and start moving again. “So it’ll be a day and night event—I can definitely work with that.”
I stop in the center of the room, surrounded by empty easels and extension cords running across the gloss-stained concrete floor. I look up, gauging the distance from the ceiling to the floor.
“The ceilings aren’t too high,” I begin, pointing upward, “so it’ll be easy to hang decorations from them.” I look right at Luke once and gesture with both hands toward the popcorn ceiling. “I think white tulle fabric would be beautiful streaming from the ceiling in highlighted sections of the room”—the motion of my hands becomes more dramatic as I try to visually describe the idea to them—“like this, in one long, sweeping piece, and with enough that the fabric pools just a little against the floor.”
Luke purses his lips, nodding; his expression is thoughtful and absorbed as he takes it all in.
“And then amid the tulle,” I go on, “I think strings of white or clear lights would be perfect—simple Christmas lights will do the trick.” I gesture my hands again, this time to indicate the top portion of the fabric. “And then white globe paper lanterns can hang in clusters from the top of the tulle—in the daytime it’ll all still look really pretty even unlit, but when the night falls, just turn on the lights and it’ll give the entire room a beautiful ambiance.”
“But won’t we have to turn the ceiling lights off for that?” Alicia asks with only a little concern in her voice. “It might be hard to see the art then.”
“Not with enough string lights and lanterns,” I say. “But you can leave the ceiling lights on.” I point briefly at them. “I noticed before that they’re on dimmers; just turn them down to about halfway and that’ll keep them from flooding out the decoration lights, but leave just enough ceiling light so the room isn’t too dark.”
“I’m liking this idea already,” Luke says, beaming at me. “How would we hang the fabric and”—he waves his hand in front of him, trying to remember—“those lantern things, and the lights?”
“With fishing line,” I answer and start gesturing toward the ceiling again. “It’s strong and durable so the weight of the lanterns, string lights, and the fabric won’t break it, plus it’s clear and won’t be easy to see.”
“That’s so perfect!” Alicia says excitedly, clapping her hands together once.
“I told you I had a secret weapon,” Luke says, glancing at Alicia briefly and then turning back to me, his proud smile stretching and his bright hazel eyes privately thanking me.
I smile back softly, privately telling him, You’re very welcome.
“How much of this fabric do you think we’d need?” Luke asks after a moment, observing the space contemplatively, as if trying to determine the answer on his own.
“I’ll have to do some calculations,” I say, “but I definitely think with Melinda’s budget, you can get all of it that you need and still have the funds for everything else—the tulle and the lanterns will make up the biggest portion of the budget.”
I go on to explain to them where would be the best places to hang each decoration, and judging by the easels and partition walls and other contraptions used for hanging art already scattered about the vast area, I begin to put together a method for an efficient way to lay out the floor plan.
After an hour, Alicia leaves us so she can start shopping for certain items—we also decided to hang clear silver and gold balloons in grape-like clusters from the ceiling in other sections of the room. But some things will have to be ordered online—the tulle, for instance; since we need so much of it, it’s unlikely it could all be found in any local craft or material store.
Luke comes walking toward me with two bottles of soda in his hand.
He sits down next to me against the wall where his paintings hang just above us.
Breaking the seal on my soda, he hands the bottle to me.