by Elle Rush
“I’ll be waiting.”
Chapter 13
Two pieces of cloth fluttered like semaphore flags as Brooke held one shirt in front of her and then replaced it with another. “Do I want the red or the blue?”
“Blue,” Jordan said.
“Okay.”
“Speaking of okay, are you good with me and Aaron officially dating? We haven’t really talked about it.”
“Duh, Mom. You’ve been dancing around it for, like, a month already. Trevor and I think you two might be the only ones in town who don’t know it’s official. If I had a problem, you know I would have said something before now.”
“That’s true.” Teaching her daughter to be vocal had its downsides on occasion. She was glad this wasn’t one of them. “So, blue?”
“If you want to match. Like those old couples on the internet who always wear the same colors.”
“What are you talking about?” She was more concerned about the old remark than she was about matching.
“Sheriff Gillespie. He almost always wears blue. It’ll be like you coordinated in advance. It’ll be cute.”
Brooke threw the blue shirt onto the bed. “Red it is, then.”
“What are you doing tonight? Dinner out? Oh, is he taking you to Colombo’s? I know you love your Italian.”
“No, we’re doing Paint Night at the Starlight Gallery.”
“Very cool. Are you going to trade paintings when you’re done?” Jordan asked.
Brooke paused. “Is that a thing?” She’d hung her own paintings in her bedroom from two previous girls’ night out experiences. The cherry blossom tree on a hill, and the wheat field at sunset weren’t going to be displayed on a collector’s wall anytime soon, but she’d been impressed with herself by the time she was done.
“It’s a souvenir from your date.”
She liked that idea. “I’ll ask Aaron.”
“Do it soon because he’s here.”
“I’ll be home by ten,” Brooke said. “You mentioned homework?”
“I have to keep those grades up to get my extra shifts.”
Brooke tugged the red shirt over her head. She’d already done her hair and makeup, a little fancier than usual, since she’d only had one real chance to look good for Aaron, and the corn maze was a disaster she wanted to make up for. She thought she was doing pretty well, and her hair cooperated by not exploding into a staticky frizz-ball.
“Have fun!” Jordan shouted as Brooke skipped out the door.
Aaron was waiting outside his truck and offered her a hand as she hopped into the cab. “They’ve finished hanging the Halloween decorations on Main Street, and we have time. Do you want to see them before we go to the art gallery?” he asked.
“Definitely.”
Most towns decorated their downtown for Christmas. A few did it for Independence Day as well. What Brooke loved about Holiday Beach was that they celebrated holidays all year round. The Chamber of Commerce had turned Holiday Beach’s name into a marketing opportunity, and now all the businesses, and several neighborhoods, got in on the celebrations.
Halloween was lots of fun. Paper jack-o’-lanterns stared out from storefronts and would be replaced by fresh pumpkin faces later in the month. Little ghosts hung from light poles and floated in the breeze. Silhouettes of back cats lurked in corners of door windows.
That didn’t include the costumes. Business owners ran the gamut from nothing at all to fully decked out for the season with makeup and prostheses and costumes that would put Hollywood to shame. Brooke didn’t know how this year was going to play out at the Dew Drop Inn since it was now under new management. In the years she’d been there, the hotel had stuck to a ceramic jack-o’-lantern on the check-in desk and had banned costumes among the staff. They hadn’t even participated in the safe trick-or-treat program where businesses gave candy to little boos and ghouls in the afternoon, so they didn’t have to go out after dark.
“Does the police station do any holiday decorating?” Brooke asked. She’d never been inside the building, and she didn’t remember ever seeing anything on the outside either.
“Not really.”
“Would you like one? I didn’t know this, but Jordan was telling me it’s customary for people who participate in Paint Night to exchange pictures. You take my painting of whatever fall theme Mina has chosen, and I’ll take yours. We can display them for the month of October.”
His grin said he approved of the idea. “Deal.”
The street in front of the Starlight Gallery was full of cars, so they parked a block away. Brooke was surprised to see all the seats filled but two. “We aren’t late, are we?”
“We’re right on time.”
Mina greeted them and ushered them to the two empty chairs at the end of one of the four folding tables she’d scattered around the room. They joined Josh Huntington and his date, and Charlie and Josie Franklin. Each table had six small wooden easels, six blank white canvases, six jars holding a variety of paint brushes, and six plastic glasses half-filled with water.
“Aren’t you all a bunch of eager artists?” Mina said loudly, drawing everyone’s attention. Her dark hair and leopard print sweater suited their surroundings of colorful paintings and pottery. The black and orange polka-dotted cat ears on her head band were a nod to the holiday of the month. “I think you all know me, but in case you don’t, my name is Mina Blackburn, and I own the Starlight Gallery. I’m thrilled to welcome you to our October art night. This month we will be making…” She paused for effect, then drew a white cloth off an easel. “A scarecrow at sunrise.”
It was a happy, inoffensive design of a yellow scarecrow wearing blue overalls. It sat on a brown pole in front of a brown fence, and the sun was rising in the corner over a green field.
“I can’t do that!” Aaron exclaimed. “Especially not in two hours.”
“You can,” Brooke assured him. “Just wait.”
“You might want to start with your drink,” Josh said, indicating the complimentary glass of wine Mina provided for each participant.
The tension eased from his face as Mina explained what was going to happen. They each took a wide brush from their jar and began wetting the canvas as instructed.
Mina came over table holding half a dozen paper plates with six colored blobs on them. “Are these all the colors we get?” Aaron asked.
“Red, yellow, blue, green, brown, and white are more than enough for this painting,” Mina assured him. “Trust me.”
Brooke nudged his shoulder with hers. “Relax. This’ll be fun, I promise.”
Aaron gave her an indulgent look, took another gulp from his wineglass, then waited for instruction.
Mina talked them through the background first. Aaron’s horizon was as flat as a prairie landscape. Brooke’s looked like she was painting the side of a hill. When Mina came around, she assured her that painting the scarecrow over it would even it out. The worried stress lines on Aaron’s face were gone by the time he dipped his brush in the yellow paint for the first time and began painting his sun in the corner of the canvas.
They took a break after the first hour, letting their backgrounds dry and taking the opportunity to stretch and wander around the gallery. The door to Samuel French’s stained glass studio was locked, but he had left a half-finished piece on display on his workbench. The overhead light spotlighted most of a Tiffany-style lamp shade.
Brooke pointed at it. “Art,” she said. Then she pointed at her own painting. “Not art.”
“Don’t be discouraged. You still have the whole scarecrow to do,” Aaron said.
She appreciated the encouragement. “Yours looks great already.”
“I’m having a really good time. Especially since I’ve never done this before.”
Jean and Gene Wyatt, a white-haired couple sitting at another table, called them over to chat. “She’s in my study group and she’s very helpful, so be nice,” Brooke whispered.
“How’s it going?” Jean ask
ed.
“My painting works in the sense that it will scare birds away. I almost wish I was calculating depreciation,” Brooke replied.
The men laughed. “Have fun with it,” Gene advised. “This style is my forte.”
“How so?” Aaron asked.
“All I can draw is stick people, so a scarecrow is perfect for me,” the senior replied with a laugh.
When they returned to their seats, it was time to start on the scarecrow. Brooke’s round, scarecrow face was a little uneven, so she added some paint to correct it. Then it grew into an oval. “How do I fix this?” she asked Aaron.
“Put a hat on it?” he suggested. “Mina encouraged us to improvise.” Meanwhile, his scarecrow had a perfectly shaped head, with bits of brown straw sticking out artfully.
“That’ll teach me to bring Minnesota’s Michelangelo with me to Paint Night,” she muttered.
The boatman hat didn’t add anything to the general look of her painting, but it hid the lopsided head. Brooke had to admit that her coveralls were well painted, and the hands and feet looked scarecrow-like. Even Gene at the next table complimented them.
“It’s time to start the face,” Mina announced from the head of the room. “I want you to mix some blue and brown together. It should turn blackish. Then add the eyes.” She showed them where to place them on the face, and how to twist the brush to make a small circle. “Then the smile.”
“That doesn’t look so hard,” Brooke said to Aaron.
First, she sneezed, and her brush swooped across the paper, leaving a single eyebrow. She painted an eye directly below it and was grateful to see it was in the correct place. The other eye was narrower than the first. “I think the eyebrow is throwing off the perspective,” she said, mostly to herself.
Then she added a matching one.
“Oh, no.”
Beside her, Aaron set down his brush “What’s the ma— What did you do?” he exclaimed.
“It was an accident.”
“That’s a very angry scarecrow. Why did you make him so mad?”
“He’s not mad. He’s got character,” she said in defense of her art.
“Those are definitely angry eyebrows,” Aaron argued. Meanwhile, his scarecrow’s eyes twinkled on the canvas with a white dot in the center. Somehow he’d even managed to give it laugh lines in the creases and make it look like it was smiling.
“It’ll be fine once I paint his mouth,” she insisted.
It was not fine.
Aaron made a noise that sounded like he was trying not to laugh.
“My hand shook. I can fix it,” she said defensively. The small black curve on the canvas became a thick curl threatening to split his head in half. She dropped her brush into the water cup in disgust. “I suck at this.”
Aaron went and got a fresh glass of wine for her. “I asked Mina what she could do to help. She gave me this. She also said that you should let your paint dry before you try to make any more fixes.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “I’m sorry you’re getting frustrated. Were you having a good time at all?” he asked.
His concern was touching, which made her feel slightly ridiculous. “I was, and I am. It’s silly to get so upset over something like…” She waved at her canvas. “I wanted you to have a nice painting in your office from me.”
“Your painting is still coming to the office with me. I’ll hang it with pride.”
If he still intended to put it up, she wasn’t going to give up on it. “There’s still time to fix it.”
Under Mina’s direction, she was able to turn the wonky mouth into a stern smile. Then, before Mina cleared the paint from the table, Brooke copied Aaron’s idea of adding a couple dots of white to the eyes to give them some depth and sparkle.
Charlie Franklin offered to take pictures of them with their paintings. Aaron held his proudly, while Brooke knew she wore a more rueful smile. Charlie gave them a thumbs-up, then gasped when he saw the photo on Aaron’s phone screen. “It’s watching me,” he said.
“What is?” Aaron asked.
“Brooke’s painting.” He moved the phone back and forth, then handed it to Aaron. Then he looked at Brooke’s canvas, took a couple steps to the left, and stared again. “Yep, those scarecrow eyes follow you.”
“He’s joking, right?” she asked Aaron.
“Of course he is.”
She turned the painting around. The eyes were a bit weird, but they looked like scarecrow eyes as far as she was concerned. Brooke squinted. “The hat makes him look like a detective from the thirties. He’s a Depression era private eye.”
“He’s going to be hanging in my office,” Aaron said.
“That’s cool,” Charlie said. “As long as he won’t be haunting one of my apartment buildings. I’ve got to get back to my wife. Enjoy your picture.”
The evening breeze off the lake had gone from chilly to cold. Aaron laid the paintings faceup on the back seat. “That was fun, paint disaster notwithstanding. Thanks for doing it with me,” Brooke said. It had been a long time since she’d done a strictly grown-up activity on a date. Girls’ nights were fun, but it was nice having someone to dress up for. Especially someone who encouraged her when she made a mess and laughed with her when she threw up her hands and made the best of it.
“Thank you for suggesting it. Does Mina do one every month?”
“She does something.”
“I’ll have to keep that in mind in the future.”
The ride home ended much too quickly. She could have hopped out when he pulled to the curb, but she lingered in the warm cab. Aaron had calmed her, and had brought her humiliation down to manageable levels, but she still didn’t want to go into the apartment.
“So next time is my turn to pick something, right?” Aaron asked.
“Next time it is,” she agreed.
“You’ll have to give me a couple days to think of something. Not a Monday or Tuesday night, right?”
“Right.” She hesitated. “I guess I should go.”
Aaron reached across the console dividing their seats and caught her coat collar between his fingers. She let him pull her closer.
He kissed her gently on the lips, then let her go, even though she didn’t want him to.
“Wave from the window when you get upstairs, okay?”
“Okay,” she agreed breathlessly.
He was pulling away when she realized she’d left her painting in his truck.
Chapter 14
It felt like the opening to a horror movie. A low mist covered the ground, and the sunrise looked redder than normal, casting an eerie glow over everything. Then there was the dialogue. “Dad, it’s watching me.” Trevor glanced over his shoulder, then sat straight in his seat, eyes staring dead ahead.
“Throw my sweater over it.” The dawn of a new day did nothing to improve Brooke’s painting. If anything, the eyebrows looked even angrier now that he saw every brush stroke in the bright sunlight. “Next time you’ll check to make sure your trunk is properly closed so the battery doesn’t die.”
“Trust me, I’ve learned that lesson. Are you really going to hang that in your office?”
“That was the deal,” he said.
“You must like her.”
“I do.” Aaron glanced at his son while they were stopped at a red light. Every date they’d had had shown them to be more compatible than he’d originally thought. That, and he was learning that Brooke was funnier and smarter than he’d ever imagined. He was picturing her being in the picture for a long time. “Are you okay with that?”
“Yeah. It’s not like she’s moving in next week. Is she?” There was a tone in Trevor’s voice that sounded a little worried.
“No chance. We’re just dating.”
“I think Ms. Portman must like you too,” Trevor said when they were moving again.
“How’s that?”
“She made you something that will cause people to confess if they’re in the same room with it for more th
an five minutes.”
Aaron’s eyes flickered to the rearview mirror. “I wonder if that would work. Do you have anything to confess?”
“I threw three of my socks in your laundry basket because I found them on the floor after I cleaned my room and I’d already done my laundry.”
“I think we can let that slide. Nothing else?”
“Not that I’m willing to admit.”
“Maybe I should hang Detective Hayseed in your locker,” Aaron teased. “See what else you remember.”
“Dad, if I opened my locker and found that thing in there, I’d confess to anything you wanted.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. I’ll pick you up after school.”
“It’s okay. I want to talk to Mr. Schuler. I’ll walk.”
After dropping Trevor off at school, Aaron headed to work. The parking lot at the station was remarkably full for first thing in the morning. Excluding the staff’s cars, Aaron counted three vehicles he recognized by sight. “This should be fun,” he mumbled to himself as he strode to the door carrying Brooke’s painting in one hand, his sweater still covering it.
Neil Dempsey was the first in line at the counter, and Aaron could hear him before he could see him. He was surprised to see Mac Mackenzie as one of the other people behind Neil.
“Neil, if you don’t stop screaming at our receptionist, we’re going to have words you will not enjoy.” Aaron’s voice was as cold, and he was not faking his displeasure. “That is unacceptable behavior, and you know it. Now, calmly and at a regular volume, tell me what’s going on, starting with whether or not the three of you are here together or have different complaints.”
“We are all here together to file a complaint against you for dereliction of duty and to demand an investigation into the robberies along Shakespeare Drive.”
Aaron leaned over the counter. “Poppy, can you get me the reports from last week?” he asked the blonde-and-gray-haired administrative assistant. “Would you all like to discuss these here, or shall we move to an interview room?”
