“Art night. On the patio. Twenty-three people painting the sunset.”
Pause. “How many?”
“Twenty-three. At thirty-five each.”
“That’s—” Meg doing math. “Anna, that’s over eight hundred dollars.”
“I know.”
“In onenight?”
“I know.”
“I can’t wait to hear what Michael says about the numbers.”
Anna stopped. She stood behind the register and thought about the evening—Michael at the easel, the salsa on the patio, “I believe in you,” the painting with warm windows.
“He didn’t say anything,” Anna said.
“You already told him?”
“I didn’t have to. He was here.” She looked at the painting leaning against the register. “He just showed up. With an easel. And salsa.”
Meg was quiet for a long time. Then, softly: “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Anna.”
“I know.”
“That’s—” Another pause. “Oh.”
Anna smiled in the dark restaurant.
“I need you to come next Wednesday. Bring Luke. See it for yourself.”
“I’ll be there.”
Then, because Meg was Meg, “And I’m bringing a calculator since apparently Michael forgot his.”
Anna laughed and hung up and turned off the lights and walked home through the October dark. For the first time in a long time, the fear in her heart had been replaced by something else entirely.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Tyler changed his shirt three times.
Stella sat on the kitchen counter eating a Tim Tam and watched him come out in the blue linen, stand in the hallway for four seconds, go back in, and come out in the grey henley. He looked at himself in the hall mirror. Touched the collar. Went back in.
“The flannel,” Stella called.
“What?”
“The one she liked. From the coffee shop.”
Silence. Closet opening. Tyler in the doorway wearing the flannel with the sleeves pushed up, looking like he was about to give a speech he hadn’t written.
“This is fine,” he said.
