•••
She wore a white T-shirt and shorts. Her hair was loose and floaty, and a large sketchbook was tucked under her arm. “Did you make it to your meeting on time this morning?”
“Yeah. It was fine.”
“I’m so sorry about getting your clothes messed up.” Her eyes were big tea-colored saucers of sincerity.
“Forget about it.”
Sophie and Zoey appeared beside me, bouncing up and down with excitement. “Are you here to paint our room?” Sophie asked.
“I’m here to start the process. The first step is showing you the sketches, and then you can tell me what you like and what you want changed.”
The girls shrieked with delight.
“Why don’t we go to your room,” Hope suggested. “That way I can point out what goes where.”
The girls scampered up the stairs. I motioned for Hope to precede me, thinking I was being polite. My chivalrous intentions morphed into lascivious thoughts as I gazed at her backside in those shorts. Good grief, but the woman was hot.
It was something of a relief when we reached the landing andheaded down the hall to the girls’ room. Hope stopped between the headboards of the twin beds and opened her sketchbook. “This is what I drew for this wall.”
We all gazed at it.
“Oh wow!” Sophie gasped.
“It’s perfect,” Zoey pronounced, eyes big and solemn.
I’m not a big fan of princess art, but even I thought it was pretty cool. Two enormous arched windows covered much of the wall. Out of one window, you could see a drawbridge and people on horses crossing it, with mountains and a village in the distance. The other window revealed a tower covered with a pink-blooming vine. “I thought these windows would be on either side of the beds,” Hope said.
“Awesome,” Sophie murmured. Zoey, usually the critic, nodded in agreement.
“And I thought we might make little canopies for each bed coming out from the wall.”
Hope flipped the page in her sketchbook and showed a drawing of the same windows, this time with the twin beds, each topped with little partial canopies.
The girls gasped.
“What would the canopies be made of?” I asked.
“Fabric, plant hangers, and curtain rods,” she said. “I made one for my first apartment.”
“Would you make them, or would we need to find someone to sew?” I asked.
“Oh, I can do it. Gran taught me how.” She grinned at the girls. “So what do you think?”
Zoey clasped her hands. “It’s splendid-did.”
I looked at Hope and saw her stifling a laugh. It felt good, enjoying a silent, isn’t-she-adorable moment with her.
“What about the other walls?” Sophie asked.
“Good question.” Hope motioned to the dormer window with the built-in window seat. “This wall really just needs drapes and acushion to match the canopies. We’d paint the wall to look like stone, so it would feel like we’re inside a castle room. We’d do the same on this wall over here...” She motioned to their bureaus. “And I thought we might also paint a tapestry on it.” She flipped her sketchbook to another page. “Like this.”
“Oooh,” Sophie breathed.
Hope motioned to the wall with the closet. “Over here, all we need to do is the stone treatment over, between, and around the doors.” She showed another sketch.
The girls oohed, aahed, and jumped up and down.
