Chapter Twelve
Frankie woke up at three a.m., which wasn’t unusual. Typically, she ran to the bathroom, then straight back to bed, where she fell back asleep pretty quickly.
Tonight wasn’t typical. Tonight, it was three forty-eight and she was still wide awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking way too much about her new life.
She wasn’t questioning it. She felt fairly confident she could do it. What she wasn’t confident about was the work continuing to come in. That was the real unknown.
So far, the work she’d gotten had been because of Lucas or, in the case of Jack Marsh, from being in the right place at the right time. If his commission actually materialized. She didn’t doubt his desire for the painting, but she’d done some research this evening and the price she was thinking about quoting him could kill that desire.
Based on the size of painting he wanted, along with the time and materials it would require, and what she’d seen other portrait artists charging, she was thinking about asking for six thousand. That price didn’t include a lot of cushion, either.
Taking on the commission meant giving up two weeks of other work. Sure, she could work a little at night, but she’dhave to be focused on the painting. Things like logos and T-shirt designs were quicker to come up with and create, and they made reasonably good money.
She would probably add a little to that figure when she presented it to Jack. But she wasn’t sure that he’d had that much in mind.
She continued to stare at the ceiling, getting more and more awake with each passing minute. With a sigh, she threw off the covers and got up. Lying here wasn’t getting anything done.
She traded her pajamas for leggings and a T-shirt, grabbed her phone, and went downstairs to the office. Her laptop and tablet were still there. She took her tablet with her to the loveseat and sat to do more work on Stacy’s logos. She planned to email the designs to Stacy in the morning.
Frankie sketched away, refining and tweaking the designs she’d been working on. After about half an hour, she started to feel sleepy again. But not sleepy enough to go back to bed.
What she really wanted was a cup of coffee. But if she had coffee now, that would definitely be the end of her sleep cycle. She supposed she could always nap during the day. Maybe even by the pool.
She smiled. That would be nice. And Lucas was going to be busy all day anyway. He had the show edits to work on and later in the day, his brother was due to arrive.
Frankie was curious about Lucas’s brother and looked forward to meeting him. Angie would probably have some great stories to share about their childhood.
She got up and went out to the kitchen, where she started a half-pot of coffee. While she waited for it to brew, she stood at the sliding glass doors looking out at the water. She could just see a little light reflected off the surface, moving and rippling. It was hypnotic.
Once again, she found it hard to believe that this was really where she was going to live. There would come a day, she imagined, when it would seem commonplace. But she hoped that day took a long time to arrive.
She never wanted to take this view, or this house, or her sister, for granted. She knew what a gift this place was, not just to her but to Harper. And for Harper to generously offer Frankie a place to live in this house, that wasn’t something that Frankie ever wanted to stop appreciating.
The coffee maker sputtered out its last few drops. Frankie went over and filled a big mug, the biggest one she could find. She emptied nearly the whole pot into it. She carried it down the hall to the office, noticing there were lights on in the guest house.
She paused in the hallway, staring out at those lights. She didn’t know what was going on with Jack, just that something was. Harper had been over to talk to him a few times. Frankie knew it wasn’t her business, but she was a helper by nature. It was hard not to at least wonder.
With a shake of her head, she went into the office, back to minding her own business, and picked up her tablet to work a little more. Finally, she’d done as much as she could on the logos. It was time to do the final polish on her computer. She sent them to the cloud, where she could easily download them.
Her coffee had started to kick in. She could feel herself becoming more alert as she moved to the desk. She turned on the angled lamp, then immediately turned it off. It was far too bright to be useful.
She stuck with the glow of her computer. For the future, she’d look at getting some softer lighting for late-night work sessions. She downloaded the logo files and opened them up in her graphics program.
The work progressed nicely, and by the time she was ready to warm up her coffee, she was nearly done. She returned to thekitchen. It was a few minutes after five in the morning. There was no way she was going back to bed.
She emptied what was left in the carafe into her cup, then set another pot, this time a full one, to brew before going to the office. Again, she stopped in the hall to look at the guest house. The lights were off. Maybe he was finally getting some sleep.
Another half an hour of work and she couldn’t find anything left to tweak with the logos. She sent them off to Stacy for review.
Frankie had been sitting for a while, even with her small breaks. And now her stomach was rumbling, but it was too early for breakfast. She’d been up long enough that her body probably didn’t know that.
The rumbling was sort of obnoxious, so she went in search of something small and breakfast-like. The result was an apple from the fridge, which she sliced up and plated with a fat tablespoon of almond butter for dipping.
Her preference would have been pancakes with a ton of syrup and butter, but that wasn’t the best thing to do for her body. She knew that. Didn’t mean she liked it. But the apple and almond butter would do. For now.
She sat at the kitchen table to eat, which gave her a direct view, through the screening on the back deck, to the ocean. Or would have, had it been light enough outside to see by.
Her thoughts turned to Lucas. He was playing racquetball with Mitch today. That should be fun. It made her think about how she kept meaning to reach out to Prisha and get back into that yoga class with her.
