What in the world? Were crossed arms some kind of bro code I didn’t know about? Either way, I was glad New Guy was done with his challenge. I poured some fresh orange juice and swung by Aidan’s table to deliver it.
“I could have handled it, but thank you,” I said, setting the glass down in front of him.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Accept the gratitude.”
“I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give me,” he said in resignation.
I fought a grin. I had shut him down about a billion times already, but he’d been a good sport about it.
He lifted the glass like he was toasting me and took a swallow. I watched his neck muscles for about two seconds before I realized how weird it was to stare at his throat and find his juice drinking sexy.
That’s why Aidan was harder to put the brakes on, because he had an elusive, dangerous charm. He’d taken my rejections as a challenge too, but each time I shut him down, he sat back with a smile on his face, as if he were looking forward to seeing what I would come up with next, not trying to wear me down into submission. It was the same mixture of humor and confidence my ex-husband, Donovan, had charmed me with. Unfortunately, Donovan’s charm had hidden dark, spiny secrets.
I turned on my heel and fetched the coffeepot so I could busy myself at other tables, topping off drinks and checking on customers so I wouldn’t get drawn into any more schoolgirl staring at Aidan. I knew exactly what to expect each of them to tip, and even with Mr. Benny’s miserly dollar, I was happy with the total. If tomorrow was about the same, I could trade away my Friday shift.
“Order up,” Tom said.
I scooped up the chicken-fried steak and set it in front of Aidan. “What are you going to do when you’ve tried everything on the menu?” I asked. Move on? I’d miss . . . Chief.
Aidan leaned back in the booth. “If you’re worried I’ll quit coming around, you can say so. Try, ‘Aidan, I’d love to see you sometime, not at the diner.’”
I stuck a hand on my hip, and he nodded like it was the reaction he’d expected. “Aidan, I’d love for you to not come to the diner.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“But it’s what I meant. Eat your steak, and go away.”
“I don’t want you to miss me. Come on, Lia. I’m not cold enough to leave you hanging like that, wishing for me to show up.”
“Not wishing for you. For him.” I pointed at Chief.
Aidan reached down to scratch behind the dog’s ears. “Chief might be the only reason I ever even get dates. Do you get tired of women using you to get to me, boy?”
“I’m going to refill your coffee now, but you should know it’s the second time today I’ve considered serving a drink over someone’s head.”
“Sounds like you could use a break. How about you take one with me, like later today over dinner?”
“Do you ever give up?”
“Nope. I’m kind of relentless in a nonstalker way.”
“If by relentless you mean annoying, I guess I can’t argue.” I rested my hand on his table and leaned toward him, lowering my voice in my best guess of what sultry-voice was supposed to sound like. His eyes darkened, and I smirked. “I’ll tell you what. I won’t give you a date, but I’ll give you something even better.” I turned. “Tom?”
“Yeah?”
I straightened. “Get Aidan an extra side of bacon, please.” I patted the table as Aidan laughed. “Don’t you feel better already?”
“You seem to. Better than last week, anyway. What’s the secret?”
You showing up when it’s not Saturday. But I wasn’t going to say that, so I gave him another true answer. “Daffodils.”
“Your secret is daffodils?”
I nodded at the window, where the bright-yellow heads of daffodils peered over the ledge from the window boxes Ramona insisted on keeping there. Ours at home had bloomed two days before, and Chloe and I had spotted them in several neighbors’ yards on our walk yesterday evening. “Haven’t you been seeing them everywhere you go?”
“Yeah, I’ve seen them, but they’re not mood altering.”
“Then you’re broken.”
“No, I depend on a different substance: bacon. Didn’t you promise me some?”
“Don’t get all demanding about free bacon,” Tom warned from the grill. “Order’s up.”
I deposited it in front of Aidan. “I’m going to ignore you for the rest of your breakfast. I have work to do.”
He tapped his iPad. Yep, he was reading the Times. “I’ll entertain myself.”
I made the next circuit of tables on autopilot, more interested in the daffodils than the customers. The flowers were beautiful, especially against the weathered wood of the window boxes Tom refused to repaint. The urge to capture the blossoms, pushy upstarts glowing against their banged-up backdrop, squeezed me like an ache, and I caught my breath as the painting formed in my mind. It was a quiet picture, unlike any of the work the New York galleries had flipped out over when I’d been married to Donovan Beckman, the artsy novelty in my in-laws’ circle of socialites and power brokers.
The feeling pushed against my stomach like hunger in the morning and out to my fingers and toes like a good stretch after a run. Muscle memory made my right hand twitch in anticipation of touching my brushes.
Except I had none. I’d sold or donated every last bit of my supplies when I’d run away from New York. And suddenly that was Shakespeare-level tragic.
So now what?
Chapter 2
I counted my tips. Twenty dollars more than usual, thanks to Aidan. Guess he liked free bacon. I could take Friday morning off if I needed to. But as I passed the window box on the way to my car, I checked my watch. I could squeeze in a trip to McGill’s Art and Frame if I hurried.
I slid my phone out of my pocket and hesitated before pushing my sister’s number. Did I really want this? I’d passed McGill’s going home hundreds of times in the last three years and had never once felt the urge to stop and check it out. Now, suddenly, I was Juliet to its Romeo, irresistibly drawn to it despite knowing how badly painting had ended for me last time. How did this make sense? But I kind of didn’t care.
I tapped out a quick text. Need to do errand. 1:30 ok?
I pulled out onto the road when Dani’s reply came back. No prob.
All the way to McGill’s, I thought about the daffodils. If this were five years ago, I’d have painted them pushing up through the broken concrete of a Manhattan sidewalk, stalks nearly the size of trees serving as a commentary on the inability of cities to pave over nature no matter how hard they tried. It would have been a huge canvas, saturated in color and priced at the Van Exel gallery in the low five figures, maybe more.
My hands clenched the steering wheel like it was trying to escape me. Even though I’d been happy with twenty unexpected bucks in tip money after lunch, I couldn’t make myself miss the ten thousand–dollar paydays on those pieces from my old life. Every stupid cent I’d earned from my work had come to me tied up in strings.
I’d been over it all way before I’d actually gotten myself together to walk out. I didn’t want to make that art anymore. I hadn’t wanted anything to do with art, period, since I’d left. Yet here I sat, wanting to make something so badly that my car was trying to drive itself to the paints for me.
Six months ago the thought of trying to paint had squeezed my chest so tightly it had strangled my breath. Today a ticklish excitement fluttered inside me instead. The daffodils appeared in my mind’s eye exactly as they were, perfect in their imperfect planters.
I pulled into the parking lot and separated fifty dollars from my tip money before stepping out of my car. When I opened McGill’s door, it broke open the dam of memory, and I grabbed the doorframe to keep my balance in the flood of scents that carried me right back to being young, stupid, poor, and utterly happy to even wander the aisles of the art store near school.
A deep breath helped, and I followed the signs to
the paint aisle. If I could have hugged the tubes of paint without scaring the middle-aged man examining the acrylics, I might have.
I stopped in front of the oils and took another deep breath, not to steady myself, but to absorb the experience through more of my senses. The tubes of pigment were slick and familiar beneath my fingertips. Cadmium yellow, ultramarine blue, viridian green.
I picked up the burnt sienna and turned it over and over. I’d created countless mountains out of this color mixed with violet, built them up and then carved windows into their sides with ivory black and titanium white. That had been my most popular motif, the idea that the man-made towers of commerce dotting the Manhattan skyline were urban mountains, precisely engineered modern versions of what God had made forever ago. I loved staring up at the skyscrapers, from the Chrysler Building to the Empire State Building, but they didn’t move me inside—reach in and hollow me out and leave me bigger—the way a hike through the Uintas did.
I touched the yellow. It was a tube of daffodils if I added some white. I pictured it on the canvas. I’d need to carve through it with my palette knife to get the right texture on the petals.
I dropped my hand. The picture was wrong. I moved farther down the aisle, assessing the selection. Nothing could beat my favorite SoHo art supply store in New York, but McGill’s understood quality; all the best brands were represented here. They had everything I needed.
Not oils.
The thought thrummed through me, and I stepped back from the shelf. Not oils? I’d made a small fortune over a four-year period by working in oils, had retreated into the astringent smell of linseed oil and turpentine. The sharp scents were as comforting to me as the smell of rising bread. When things had fallen apart with Donovan, the bite of the linseed oil was one of the few things that had cut through the gray haze in my head and snapped the world into sharp, painful focus. Which was why I’d gotten rid of it all. I hadn’t needed clarity that demanded more from me than I’d had to give.
I stood six feet from the end of the aisle, and I should have been smart enough to take the three steps toward that exit.
When I’d given everything up, the hunger to splash all I had inside me across a canvas, to give visual shape to the chaos in my brain . . . had disappeared. Died. Faded. I didn’t know. I just hadn’t wanted to paint. But the chaos itself had disappeared too. And that had been good. And I hadn’t missed any of it. The constant hum of ideas or the painting.
Until the daffodils. And for them, I didn’t want oils.
The facing shelf housed all the watercolors. I hadn’t done watercolors since my first year in art school. I’d done plenty in high school before I’d had the cash—or confidence—to invest in oils. Some of my truly wretched early work had hung in my parents’ house before they’d packed it all to move to Saudi Arabia for my dad’s job. But now I itched to try again, to see if I could do something more than portraits of our family cat. The oils overwhelmed me—they were staring a hole into my back—but the challenge of doing a crazy, bright daffodil in delicate watercolors and still making it shine? I couldn’t resist.
I fingered the fifty dollars in my pocket and laughed. The other man in the aisle didn’t even look up. He was obviously used to artists. I knew better than to think my extra tip money would be enough to get me out the door with even the basics to do a simple watercolor. I should have cared more about blowing the cash. But I didn’t. I’d been squeezing pennies until they screamed, and my biggest splurge in a year had been premium chocolate. Every week. Twice. Twice every week.
Besides, this went beyond a splurge. This wasn’t an indulgence. The itch was so bad that the urge to paint had ballooned from want to need; there was no other way to stop it except to do it.
A basic color kit from the brand I’d seen in the studios at the art school found its way into my hands. I’d have to start with cheap synthetic brushes, but they’d get the job done. It wasn’t like my daffodils would be going into Van Exel’s. I picked up the nicest watercolor paper. Couldn’t skimp there.
I flinched when the cashier read off my total, but as I settled into my car with my bag of new supplies riding shotgun, I didn’t care. It would be worth it.
Chapter 3
I smiled all the way home, and it only grew bigger when the front door to the condo flew open and Chloe barreled out, a crown of dandelions hanging halfway off her head. I braced myself for impact, and she threw her arms around my legs.
“I wuv you so much, Wia!”
“I love you too, sweet pea. How was your day?”
“Great!” Chloe hollered before taking off at a run for the house again.
“Get your errand done?” Dani asked, leaning against the doorway. She still had two classes and a shift at work to get through, but her eyeliner had already smudged faintly under her eyes. Or maybe those were circles of exhaustion. I wished I could mix up some yellow ochre and rose madder and paint them away, eliminate her constant tiredness with a few strokes.
“I got it done,” I said. “Hope it didn’t stress you out.”
She grimaced and pushed herself upright. “If anything, it made me feel better. You shouldn’t—”
“Nope.” I held up both hands to stop the words about to come out of her mouth. “I’m not having this conversation again. I’m doing exactly what I want to. Stop with the stressing.” That almost got a smile. When it didn’t come, I got my chest knot. It was hard, dark, and fist-sized and lodged itself behind my sternum every time something bad was about to go down. As harbingers of doom go, it was painfully accurate and therefore handy. I exhaled like I did every time I got the knot, always in the hope that it would loosen up enough that I could breathe. It never helped. “What’s wrong?”
She almost told me. Her mouth opened to say the words, but she paused and smiled. It would have eased the knot if it hadn’t looked like a superhuman effort had gone into making the corner of her lips turn up. “Nothing’s wrong. Just tired. We can’t all have glamorous jobs in roadside diners.”
“Shut up. I’ll make you a sandwich before class.” Maybe I could weasel the truth out of her with food.
I herded her into the kitchen and pressed her down into a chair before pulling together the fixings for her favorite turkey-and-avocado sandwich. She took a bite, and the chest fist loosened the tiniest bit, even though I was never convinced she was eating as much as she should. She caught me staring, and I flicked my gaze out to watch Chloe run around the tiny backyard. “What’s she doing?”
“Chasing a butterfly.” Dani set her sandwich down. “I hate leaving her.”
I pushed her plate closer. “Eat. And she’s fine. I swear I keep a good eye on her other than most of the time when I leave her to forage for wild plants in the backyard while I lock myself in my room for Real Housewives marathons.”
She nudged my foot. “Stop. You know I’m glad I can leave her with you, but I don’t like being away from her.”
“You’re doing the right thing.”
“I guess.”
“I know. Nursing school would be hard for anyone, but for a single, working mom? You’re my hero.”
“You’re going to make me puke.”
“Don’t. It took me almost two minutes to make that sandwich.”
She didn’t laugh. “She’ll start preschool in the fall. It’ll free up more time for you.” She teared up.
The fist tightened so fast I had to stifle a gasp. Dani didn’t cry. Tendrils of dread spread out from my chest, creeping down toward my stomach. I shoved the plate out of the way and took her hands, careful not to let the weight of my worry squeeze them too tightly. “Talk to me.”
“We were at the park this morning. The other moms were talking about preschool, where their kids are going, which teachers to try to get. I can’t afford any of the private ones around here. And because my schedule is as tight as it is, Chloe either has to attend right by the house or right by work. But that would make you have to drive so far out of your way to get her. I do
n’t know what to do. Move?” That sent her tears over the brink, and she pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes to stop them.
“I’m sure there are a ton of programs to help moms like you,” I said. Dani had refused any kind of public assistance for herself beyond loans to pay for her tuition at the U, but she’d been fierce in giving Chloe every advantage she could. Dani wouldn’t reject a handout if it meant taking care of her daughter.
“Sure. But none of them are for any of the private schools around here. And that was the whole point of being here—to give her a good start.”
We’d found a condo on the border of the elementary school district with the highest test scores in the state. When I’d threatened Donovan’s parents with going public about exactly how much money their son had stolen from the sales of my work, they’d written a check to cover a massive down payment on the condo without blinking. I could have probably wrangled a check five times the size and bought a McMansion, but I hadn’t wanted to be under their thumb.
I squeezed Dani’s hands. “I’m sure we’ll find something great for her. We still have three months before preschool will even start, right?”
She pulled her hands from mine and wiped her cheeks, but more tears fell. “Sorry,” she said on a shaky sigh. “This is what I’ve been so scared of ever since I had her. I know I’m never going to dress her in Janie and Jack, but I thought I could give her the important things. Like a good school.”
“You can still give her a good school. She’ll be at Aspen Heights, starting in kindergarten, and we’ll stay in this condo as long as you guys want. I promise you, there’s nothing to worry about.”
“There’s everything to worry about,” she said, dropping her head to her hands. “All the kids starting at Aspen Heights will already have two years together at schools where the teachers smell like lilacs and all their snacks are prepared fresh by stuck-up chefs.”
“They smell like lilacs?” I repeated, trying not to laugh when her distress was as thick as tar.
“The point is that the preschools by my work probably smell like asbestos and desperation.” The defeat in her expression killed my amusement. “This is the first major thing I was determined to do for her, and I can’t. How am I supposed to get anything else right if I can’t do this? Did you know most of these people put their kids on the waiting lists for these places when the kids were babies? I’m in over my head, and Chloe’s going to pay for it.”
Painting Kisses Page 2