Page 13

“Why, may I ask? I brought towels.”

“Hands can be washed, and color is meant to be worn.”

I’m not entirely sure what she means, yet it feels oddly poetic. Although her hands may be able to be easily washed, her face is splattered with paint as well, and I doubt she plans to take a whole-body shower in the sink.

“Here, you have some…” I trail off, bringing the towels up to her face. I pause, hand clutching the towels, hovering over her face. Is this too close? Too intimate?

Surprisingly, she ducks her head down, bringing her cheek over to my hand and giving me a slight nod of approval. My eyes widen at her openness, considering we don’t know each other that well yet.

Despite my reservations, I start wiping paint off her left cheek, careful not to breathe too close to her face. I hold my breath, and I can tell she is too. She scrubs away at her hands and eventually up her arms, and I realize I need to get her forehead.

Unsure of how to signal that I need her to face me directly to wipe her forehead, I pull her face toward me with my dry hand and gently scrub her forehead. She laughs, which is the first time since our awkward encounter that she seems to be fully comfortable, unafraid of my reaction.

As soon as we finish cleaning up, she walks to her workstation. Naturally, I follow. On the table lies a sketchbook with an outline of a woman’s body from the side. It’s exactly how she described it, and it makes me wonder if that’s an artist thing or just a Laine thing. Can artists capture their work into words that easily and accurately? Or does Laine’s talent with pencils go beyond shapes, dipping into wordsmithing as well?

“Are you also an artist?” She looks up at me from her stool, and her eyes feel genuinely curious.

I laugh. “I can’t do art to save my life. But I can admire work from others.”

“Well, you sure knew which brushes to get.” She’s beaming now, almost as if she finds this entertaining.

“Ms. Bardot gave me a list; I’m just the errand girl. Same goes for the paints. I have no clue what those mean.” I point to an assortment of letters and numbers on the paint tubes she’s grabbed from my shopping bag.

“Ah, I see. So more of a looker than a doer…”

“Exactly!”

“How did you become Ms. Bardot’s errand girl if you don’t dabble in art at least a little?”

“Well, I’m more musically inclined, but I met Ms. Bardot on my first day of sophomore year. She was carrying fourteen variety packs of different paint brushes with bristle shapes I didn’t even know existed, and seven paint palettes. I remember that day so vividly.

“I was in the art hall on my way to music appreciation class when I noticed she was struggling to open the door to her room, so Iopened it for her and asked her about the different types of brushes she was carrying. She wrote me a pass to skip music appreciation and taught me about each brush as well as some basic color theory.

“I’ve never really attempted to do art, but Ms. Bardot, always dressed to the nines, said it was important to know at least the basics of color theory so you never walk out of the house wearing black pants with a brown top. And well, the rest is history, and now I’m her top errand girl. ”

“Wait, that’s like,soon brand for those cliché inspirational stories where a kid becomes unlikely best friends with an elderly person who finds life in the kid during their last dying days. Except Ms. Bardot isn’t elderly, and no one is dying.”

“Wow, that’s really specific,” I say through a raised eyebrow at her teasingly. “Also, Ms. Bardot is in her sixties. But you got part of it right; she’s definitelynotin her last dying days. That woman can throw it back like she’s still a teenager in the 70s.”

“Ms. Bardot is sixty?!”

“Yeah, I know, she looks very young for her age. But yeah, she’s got grandkids and everything.”

“I refuse to believe that.”

“Well, it’s true!”

We laugh, followed by another comfortable silence.

“So, how long have you been coming to the art room after school like this?” I ask her, curious to see if she’s made a home in the same room I have for years.

“Honestly, I found it pretty quickly after coming back to school. I’m taking an advanced-level art course with Ms. Bardot and got to know her in the time I’ve been here. She said I could come by in the afternoons to work on my personal project as needed.”

“So you’ve been working in here for a while now.”

“Mhm. I love the ambiance in this room. It’s calming, which is what I come here for. You know, to clear my mind.”

Of what? I wonder, but I don’t ask.