I yawned loudly enough for her to hear.
“Okay, I’ll let you go. You can thank me later. Why don’t we have lunch this week so you can fill me in?”
“The lunch part sounds good, but there’s not much more to tell.” The interrogation was over, and I was glad I hadn’t revealed too much. Usually, I couldn’t keep my blabbering mouth shut and later regretted spouting off too much personal information to my well-meaning friends. They always pounced like cats after a ball of twine, trying to help me or fix me or solve my dilemmas. Susan was probably bragging to Bob right now about her matchmaking skills. Yet I had to admit, Tim was everything she said he was, and more.
On my way to bed, I passed Rob’s room and lingered at his doorway. I’d complained for years that I needed space for a home office and this bedroom would work perfectly. But it occurred to me Henry would tell me to convert it into a studio instead, and erect an easel against the far wall to give me plenty of room to step back to view my canvas.
That wouldn’t work. I would have to move everything when Rob came home for Christmas, then again in the summer. The room would smell of paint, and I’d probably get it on the rug. What was I thinking? I couldn’t even draw for twenty minutes a day, let alone finish a whole painting.
Finally ready for bed, I tugged back the covers, slid between the cold sheets, and rubbed my feet together for warmth. Then I opened Unearthing Your Childhood Dreams at the bookmark.
The author suggested recording the answers to various questions in a journal. “List twenty-five things you liked to do as a child. Describe your favorite color, fairy tale, and song at age six. What common thread did they hold?”
The drills seemed like too much work, but I grabbed a small notepad and a pen, and started writing.
I lifted the whistling kettle off the burner, then poured boiling water over two tea bags resting at the bottom of my prewarmed Blue Willow pot, the way Mom taught me. I placed it on the tray next to the creamer and a china teacup, usually reserved for company.
I had Laurie to thank for this small act of self-indulgence. As I set the timer for four minutes to steep the tea, I remembered her describing an article in a magazine that stated women should pamper themselves more rather than lavishing all their attention on others, who rarely appreciated the fuss and sometimes even resented it. The article suggested getting a massage and a facial, or spending a week in a spa “because you deserve it.”
I envisioned Laurie flitting about town getting pedicures and having her hair styled at the most expensive salons in town. She had asked me to join her, but I rarely allowed myself such extravagancies. A facial and a massage sounded fun, but as a single mother I’d always looked after Rob’s needs. I was stingy with myself and would stay that way until he got through college. Or maybe forever.
The tea bags needed two more minutes. I stared at the treasured teapot, which had somehow remained in one piece for more than fifty years of family use. To fill the time, I brought out my sketchpad and with a pencil outlined the pot, cup, and creamer. Next, I drew the pot’s intricate design, but something looked wrong. Lifting the pencil from the page, I considered how to best depict a busy pattern on a shiny surface.
I decided color might help. I trotted to the basement and located an old set of pastel crayons. With broken stubs of white and blue, I filled in areas of my drawing and did my best to capture the sparkle of the teapot’s surface and its old-fashioned pattern. Still, the picture lacked something, and I wasn’t sure what. Then I recalled Henry telling the class, during an exercise, to let our eyes drink in the information. I breathed deeply, relaxed my vision, and noticed the shaded edge of the teapot, which was farthest from the window, now looked hard. The other side appeared so soft and transparent it almost vanished, the way the horizon melds into the sky. The white parts now ranged from buttermilk to light lavender.
I added more color, layer upon layer. A few minutes later, I admired my finished product from across the room. The creamer looked a bit lopsided. I grabbed the white crayon, then dropped it back into the box. Remembering how I’d ruined my cloud drawing, I resisted the tantalizing urge to fix anything. Just to be safe, I wrapped a rubber band around the pastel crayon box to keep the lid tightly shut.
Like a wave folding over on itself, more than an hour had elapsed. The timer must have gone off, but I hadn’t heard its beeping. Nor had I poured the tea, which would now be lukewarm and taste bitter because the tea bags had been left in so long.
My mind started plotting the rest of my day; I felt a ripple of guilt for still being home. At eleven o’clock in the morning, I knew Lois would be poised at her desk and impatiently tapping her foot, with an offer for the Henricks’ old house in hand. Lois had worked her magic again. How did that woman manage to sell so much?
I left the tea tray on the kitchen counter and hurried to work. As I strode through the front door of the office, I waved hello to Stephanie, the receptionist who’d worked there as long as I, then made a beeline for Lois’s desk.
“Have a seat,” Lois said, pointing an index finger at the chair across from her. “You’re going to love these buyers.” Holding reading glasses to her eyes, she looked over the papers for several minutes.
She finally folded her glasses and tossed them into a desk
