With my wicker purse hooked across my body bandolier-style, my hands are free to grab the plastic case of sidewalk chalk I brought. I pop open my door to the warm kiss of late afternoon sunshine and the smokey scent of barbecue. A magical combination.
I really hope we’re having steak tonight, though my stomach might be too nauseous to enjoy it. If Jewel is grilling T-bones, I suspect she’ll try to use them to get something from me. I mean, Jacob used a pot of stew to swindle Esau out of his birthright. Though I really don’t have much left for her to take.
I’d originally wanted revenge for stealing my homecoming crown and tried to get her suspended from school, so she’d graduated early and took off for college. She came back with these babies, and I put up with her for them. Though if she’d been as repentant as Jacob when meeting with Esau again, she would have sent gifts and called me “my lord,” or at least “your highness.”
I slide my sunglasses atop my head before stepping into the modern alcove entry and ringing the doorbell.
When bare feet slap against tile flooring, my shoulders finally relax.
“It’s me. Aunt Gemma,” I call to the kids, so they know they’re safe to let me in. If we have to wait for my sister to climb two flights of stairs, we are going to be here a while.
“Aunt Gemma,” Forrest echoes. Followed by, “Awesome!” He’s three.
“Did you bring books?” Daisy wants to know. I’d brought her a book when I’d attended Forrest’s baby shower, so she wouldn’t feel left out, and even though she’d only been two at the time, she now expects a book every time I visit. Which is, as Forrest would say, awesome.
I smile at the black door still closed between us. “I brought something better. We’re going to make our own book tonight. You two will be the heroes.” I can’t wait to ignite their imaginations. I try the pewter door handle, but it’s locked.
“Can I ride a dragon in the book?” Forrest yells.
I’ll need to look up how to draw a dragon, but … “Sure.”
“I want to wear a tiara like a princess,” Daisy shouts.
I can relate. “That’s a great idea.” It’s so cute that they don’t even question the possibility of me putting them into a story. They simply believe I have the power to do it. I wish movie producers had that kind of faith. “You’re going to have to let me in first.”
“We can’t,” Forrest shouts.
“Mom said,” Daisy explains.
I suppose that’s a smart rule. It just seems like there could be exceptions for family. There probably would be if my parents hadn’t moved to Utah to take care of Opa and Oma. “Is she coming?”
“Gemma, I’m down here.” My sister’s voice comes from the side of the house. It sounds a lot like mine, just with an annoyed-at-the-world tone. “Would you quit yelling for all my neighbors to hear?”
I press my lips together. I haven’t even stepped inside her house, and I’ve already done something wrong. I wonder whether or not to yell to the kids that I’ll meet them on the patio, but their foot slaps tell me the race is already on.
I open a gate hidden behind shrubbery and take the stairs diagonally down the hill to the second level, where a door leads out from Jewel’s room. At that point, there’s a couple of chaise lounges and a switchback that continues around levels of plants and bushes down to the firepit and barbecue under a pergola. This is my favorite part of her home, but instead of enjoying the landscape design, I’m checking out the flat cement areas. If we use the driveway too, we might have enough space for all the art I plan to draw.
Jewel glances up from where she’s flipping T-bones. She may be my identical twin, but she wears glasses and cuts her hair shorter. Basically, if I were to film a makeover scene in a movie, she’d be the before version of the character. This wouldn’t be a bad thing except for the way she resents me for being the after version.
She glances up and takes in the plastic tub in my hands. “Did you bring a side dish? Because I stopped at the deli on my way home and picked up plenty of food.”
It’s totally not fair that she didn’t develop my lactose intolerance and gluten allergy, and even more unfair that my diet bothers her. She hates it when I bring food, as if she thinks I don’t rate her food as good enough. So I don’t ever offer anymore. Especially when I’m already dreading offending her with the arrest warrant thing.
I hold up the tub. “It’s chalk.”
The sliding door to the living room glides wide, and the cutest kids in the universe charge out to hug me. Their little bodies press against my leg.
“Chalk,” Forrest repeats. “Awesome!”
“Can I draw a hopscotch?” Daisy reaches for the tub.
“You could.” I set the tub on a side table and unhook the purse from my shoulder to lay it on a seat cushion. “But there’s something else I want to draw first.”
Jewel points her tongs at me. “You’re spraying the cement clean afterward.”
“Sure.” I pull my phone out of my purse to open images of my chalk-art idea. In the first photograph, there’s a drawing of balloons floating into the sky with a little girl posed laying on the ground as though she is holding onto the strings and being lifted toward chalk clouds. I turn my phone screen to show the kids. “We can draw you two right into the story. I’ll take pictures, then put them together in a book.”
Daisy claps and dances. She appears to be doing the potty jig, but I think she’s just excited.
