And consulting would let her expand her horizons. So, fine, she had no real passion for fund-raising. Her passion. She’d never thought of herself as passionate. She chewed her pen and looked around at the drab, nothing-colored walls of her living room. The corner where the TV had been was empty and cobwebby. She wished she was back at McKay and Bill’s, lying on the couch and watching cable TV cooking shows. That, she could do all day. I have a passion for wasting time.
She couldn’t work in a room with such a dismal corner. She jumped up and grabbed a feather duster and began cleaning. Somehow the walls had gotten all scuffed up, probably when Rudy had hoisted the massive television up on its stand. Really, she should paint the living room. Preferably before Patsy came, on Friday. Her sister was very sensitive to her surroundings, and would surely have something to say about it, such as How like you, Pru, to live with nothing-colored walls.
Probably she should take the week and do the whole apartment before buckling down to work, she thought while walking through the rooms. With e-mail now, everything happened so quickly. She wouldn’t want to start painting only to get a job offer the very next day. Maybe she’d even get a break on the rent, for the new paint.
She grabbed her jacket and purse and headed out to the paint store on Seventeenth Street. That could be part of her consulting work! She could hire herself out to the other condo owners in the building, painting, spackling, doing whatever was needed. She could be a sort of Jill-of-all-trades, getting by on her sweat and her labor. Then she remembered that laborers worked hard, and she wasn’t sure she would like that very much.
Definitely, though, she’d paint the apartment, for Patsy.
SHE GOT RIGHT TO WORK. SHE WAS SO EXCITED TO SEE the pale lavender she’d chosen for the living room actually up on the walls that she didn’t even bother to prime them first. When McKay came to inspect her work, later, he scolded her for that. But then he helped her choose a soft sage green for the bedroom, and insisted on hand-mixing it himself. She spent the whole week painting. The days flew by. She loved doing the cutting-in around the trim and the ceiling, in particular. It required concentration and attention and she had plenty of that. She’d gotten an audiobook called The Voice of Winston Churchill, and she listened to it while she worked.
Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.
She didn’t give in, to boredom, to frustration, to the dizziness in her head when she was forced to stand on the top step of the ladder nearly upside down, to reach the molding. She didn’t give in to the stubborn patches of drywall that refused to absorb the paint. She didn’t give in to her impulses (many, many of them) to put the paintbrush down and go have a drink with McKay. While listening to Churchill, painting the walls of her apartment felt inspired, absorbingly religious. Sounds from the street below came in through her open windows. “Hey, chollo!” “I’m like, darling, we’re not going there, are we?” “Christopher Anthony, you get your butt back here this minute!”
She finished the last wall of the bedroom on Thursday afternoon. She cleaned the brushes and the paint trays and brought the ladder back to the basement. She put all the furniture back and swept the floor and looked around. The colors made her feel better. The colors, and Churchill’s speeches. Not happy, but better.
It was four o’clock in the afternoon. A time she hated. A time for nothing. The sun was setting, at an angle she found painful. It wasn’t time to eat. She didn’t feel like taking a walk. McKay was at work, all her friends were at work. It was a Thursday—not a party night, not a laundry night. She sat on her couch, looking at her newly painted walls, and feeling, slowly, the return of the bucket of water she’d been carrying.
PATSY WAS WEARING ONE OF HER OLD ARMY COATS AND a pair of white hairy yak boots, when Pru picked her up at National Airport the following day. She had a new piercing, in her right nostril, and her long, dirty-blond hair was piled on top of her head. It looked like it might have included some dread-locks. They went straight to Chinatown, stopping at Pru’s only long enough to drop off Patsy’s knapsack. Chinatown was Patsy’s favorite place to shop when she was in D.C. She liked the cheap straw hats and silk shirts and combs for her hair, anything that looked sparkly and pretty and not made in Ohio but, Pru couldn’t help pointing out, in some third-world sweatshop.
On the Metro, Patsy said, “What am I supposed to be feeling here? Grief? Relief? I never know where to stand with you.” She pulled back so she could look at Pru. Patsy was actually the taller one, although younger by four years. The fact that she mistakenly got pregnant out of wedlock added to Pru’s impression of Patsy being even younger. But now that
