“Nope.” I smiled.
I was so grateful for Lauren’s help. I would have never gotten done with a paint brush. She trimmed while I rolled on the light gray paint. I liked it so much in my new room that I decided to use it in the living room, as well.
“Do you have a radio?” Lauren asked.
I ran over to my list and jotted it down along with other things that I had been remembering throughout the day. Like a microwave. How could I forget that?
“I am going to run home and do number two and get us one,” she announced. I laughed out loud at the number two comment. I actually laughed and if felt great.
Could this truly be happening? Could I really pull this off and not be found? My thoughts were all over the place, and Lauren was back disrupting them ten minutes later.
“Everything come out okay?” I teased.
“Do you really want me to elaborate on that?” she provoked right back. I shook my head. Nope, didn’t need to hear that.
Lauren turned the radio to a country station. I hated country music. Brakes. Wait a minute. Drew hated country music. I had never actually listened to it. How could I hate it if I had never even listened to it?
“Where’re you from?” Lauren asked as we painted and listened to something about somebody digging their keys into the side of somebody’s souped-up four-wheel drive.
“Indiana,” I remembered.
“What part? I have a cousin in Indiana.”
And the questions begin. “Carson,” I answered with only that.
“What brought you to Misty Bay? I know you didn’t come all the way here just to work with Starlight Scarlett in her weird little coffee shop.”
“Now you’re scaring me,” I stated, hoping to get off topic.
She laughed. “You will absolutely love Starlight.
She is as Bohemian as they come. I just know that you didn’t move to this sectarian town for that purpose,” she assumed.
“Are you calling this town a cult?”
“Are you going to avoid my question all night?”
she retorted with her own question.
I smiled down at her from my step stool, which thank God she owned too. “I lost my job when they downsized, and my grandmother left me this house. I just decided it was time for a change.” I lied, hitting it right on the money. I smiled inside, proud that I remembered until I saw the look on her face. She knew I was lying. She knew my grandmother didn’t leave me this house.
“If we’re going to be friends, you can’t lie to me,”
she said being exceedingly blunt. “My aunt owned this house up until last month. She owns mine too. That’s why they are both ugly blue.”
I walked down the step stool to face her. “Lauren, please don’t ask me too many questions about my past. I am not running from the law or anything like that. I just need to keep a low profile,” I tried to reassure her.
“Well, you need a better story,” she said, turned and started painting again. “People around here know that my aunt has owned these two houses for years.”
Thanks a lot, Ms. K. Nice investigating skills.
“I’ve got it,” she stated matter-of-fact. I looked down at her with a peculiar stare. Why would she be so zealous about helping me? I didn’t get it.
“How old are you?” she asked, again bluntly.
“I will be twenty five next month. Why?”
“Perfect,” she alleged while I continued to look at her like she had two heads. “We went to college together, and when you lost your job, I told you about my aunt’s house, and you bought it,” Lauren exclaimed excited. “You didn’t tell anyone else the grandma story, did you?”
I shook my head.
I was happy that Lauren stopped asking questions, and we talked and talked while the room was being transformed into a whole new domicile. We painted the living room and kitchen with the light gray almost silver tone paint. The wall around the French doors and the front door were painted in a darker shade of gray, and I, without question, loved it. I tried to get Lauren to quit and go home just before midnight, but she wouldn’t. I was glad that she didn’t.
She washed all of the new dishes and put them away while I hung curtains. The only thing left to do was clean the hardwood floors and wash down the two bedroom walls. I could do that the following morning. The furniture wouldn’t arrive until around noon.
“I’m done.” I stated. I couldn’t go anymore. My energy was gone, and my body was telling me that it had enough. “I can’t thank you enough, Lauren,” I told her, and I couldn’t. I would have never gotten that much done without her, let alone trying to do it with limited tools.
“Yes, you can. You can thank me by going in there and getting some clean clothes and coming home with me.
I have an extra bed.”
“I’m fine here, but thank you just the same.”