I shrug. “Maybe? Time, trust, love. The things that come as the story gets told. The things that the beginning can’t offer. It’s like with me, trying to find the answer to your question—trying to turn my red flag gold. Part of it is the effort, but clearly that’s not all that my story needs. The time that passes and the things that happen in that passing time benefit me. The love you give me as you patiently wait. The trust you exhibit by letting me try. These are all things that are necessary, but don’t satisfy our desire for instant gratification. Maybe your painting needs the same things that I need, and in the meantime, you have to trust that it will bring joy in the end.”
She frowns up at me. “I hate that answer.”
I smile ruefully. “Becuase it means you can’t finish your painting yet?”
“Obviously,” she puffs. “How inconvenient.”
I sigh and kiss her temple, careful not to drip sweat on her pretty dress or her pretty skin. “I’ll try to experience life-changing introspection very quickly for you, my rosy Maple, so that we can get past the beginning. You’ll be able to finish your painting soon, and then I’ll hang it in our house so that it may herald you home.” I link my pinky with hers, scraping my nail against the cover of her sketchbook as I squeeze between it and her skin to claim the digit. “I have the perfect spot in mind for it. The copies can go all over, but this? The original? I’ll hang it over our bed so that we can fall asleep under the stars of our love for the rest of our post-beginning lives.”
Her cheeks bloom at the mention ofourbed, and I soften like putty. She’s so… Maple. Rosy, rosy Maple.Myrosy Maple. Bashful and blushing and talented and patient and more beautiful than all the paintings in the world. She brings color to my life. She highlights the good and softens the dark. She is every stroke of joy I have ever known, and every speck of love I have ever wished for.
I love her more than I will ever know how to show her.
I love her enough to meditate, and journal, andrun. Maybe even all at once, if I have to. I love her enough to figure out the answer to this question.
I love her enough to mix red with yellow, and brown, and white, until all that’s left is a pure, shining gold.
Chapter Twenty
?
Maple
“There’s real gold in these?” Mary asks for the fourth time, gazing at herself in the mirror with big, blue, amazed eyes. “Like,actualreal gold?”
I shrug, painting a matching layer of mask onto Etta’s face. “That’s what the package says.”
Etta twitches like she might open her eyes, so I bop her with my brush handle. “Don’t move,” I order. “I don’t want to accidentally get this on your cornea.”
Mary pulls herself away from the mirror to rejoin the huddle at the bed, where she primly situates herself beside her boss. “I can’t believe you’re doing this,” she says. “I can’t believeI’mdoing this. I don’t think I’ve ever had a girls’ day before.”
I glance at her and frown. “Not ever?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Not ever.”
I blink. “That’s crazy. I have girls’ days with Birch all the time.”
“Birch?” Etta asks, eliciting a tsked warning from me.
“Staystill,” I huff. “Birch is my brother.”
Etta does not stay still. Etta shoos my hand away from her face so that she can open her eyes and glare at me. “You can’t have a girls’ day with a boy.”
“Sure you can,” I disagree. “Especially if that boy is Birch.”
“Do you have any other siblings?” Mary asks.
“No, just the one. Unless you count Malcolm, Ivy’s brother, but he’s not the sort to participate in girls’ day shenanigans with me.”
“That’s a shame,” Mary says. “He’s missing out. This face mask is divine, and I haven’t had this much fun inever.”
Etta sniffs, shifting out of my reach when I try to add more gold to her face. “I haven’t done this in ages,” she comments. “I suppose it’s fun enough.”
“Oh, you love it and you know it,” I accuse. “You don’t fool me. You wouldn’t have agreed to come here if you didn’t like me. We’refriends, Etta. Face the facts with grace and honor.”
“Are Grace and Honor here?” she asks. “I’d love to meet them. They sound much less annoying than my present company.”
I grin and poke her cheek with the soft end of my brush, pushing a flower into the wet mask. “See? You’d never talk to us like that if we weren’t friends. Me because I’m a guest, and Mary because she could sue you for workplace abuse or something.”
