The painting crew turned out to be four young men in their twenties or early thirties, all of them in paint-splattered coveralls, and all of them with long hair tied back in ponytails and piercings in one place or another. They looked more like a rock band than a team of professional painters. She hoped David knew what he was doing as she gave them her list, walked them around the place, then waited for the bad news she had begun to expect.
“So,” she asked when they’d completed their inspection of the place. “Can you do it? And for how much?”
She held her breath in anticipation of the bad news.
The tallest of the young men shrugged his shoulders and gave a little snort. “Well, it’s a challenge, ma’am, no doubt about that. But, sure we can do it. Hell, yes. As for how much, as far as I know right now, you’ll just have to pay for the paint. We’re all on the clock over at the Marquis, so we get paid one way or another. Over here. Over there. It doesn’t matter.”
Libby was still holding her breath, waiting for the bottom line.
“I’m guessing seven hundred dollars ought to cover the supplies,” he said. “Give or take a few bucks.”
Then he pulled a fold-out palette of paint colors from his back pocket. “If you want to choose the main color and the trim right now, ma’am, we can pick it up and get started after lunch.”
Libby was still a few beats behind him, still celebrating the seven hundred dollars, give or take, as if she’d just won the lottery. Things were suddenly, terrifically back on track, she thought, after this morning’s horrible derailment.
“Ma’am?” He fanned open the color chart in front of her.
“Oh. Sorry.” She looked at the chart. “Well, this won’t be too hard. I’ve had these colors in my head for weeks. I want a rich, creamy ivory for the walls. This one. Right here.” She pointed to a swatch. “And I want a deep, deep, wonderful green for the doors and the trim. There. That’s it exactly. It’s perfect.”
“Cool,” the painter said, then turned to his crew. “We’re all set. Mount up, boys. Let’s hit the road.”
Libby hit the road, too, right after her ever reliable front-desk replacement, Douglas Porter, arrived. She’d known him since she was two years old, and if her aunt Elizabeth was the mother figure in Libby’s life, then Doug was most definitely her stand-in father after all these years. His nearly religious attendance at dozens of school plays and concerts and teacher’s meetings, and his presence at every major event in her life more than qualified him for a special kind of parenthood. Plus, it was Doug who’d given her her very first camera on her tenth birthday, then spent hours showing her how to use it properly, not to mention forking over a small fortune for film, filters, lenses and often staggering developing costs.
But he wasn’t really her uncle. He’d been the best man at Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Joe’s wedding and after Uncle Joe went missing in Korea over half a century ago, Doug simply stayed around. It was clear to anyone with eyes that he loved her aunt, and it never failed to sadden Libby that the two of them hadn’t married.
“Elizabeth’s pretty chipper today, Lib,” he had announced when he entered the office. “You’ll be glad to see that, I know. So what’s going on around here? How many guests do we have?”
It had become a running joke between the two of them, about the guests, and she had offered the standard reply. “No more than you can handle, Doug.”
She’d paused on her way out the door. “Oh, I’m expecting some painters this afternoon. They know their way around so you won’t have to do anything.”
“Painters?” His white eyebrows climbed practically up to his scalp. “Why on earth…?”
“No big deal,” she said nonchalantly. “I’m just having them do a few touch-ups.”
As she closed the office door she could hear him muttering something about throwing good money after bad, silk purses and sows’ ears.
Libby was still smiling about that when she parked her car at the nursing home’s rehab facility and walked down the long glossy hallway to her aunt’s room. She knocked softly, then opened the door, happy to see that the crabby roommate wasn’t there at the moment, but not so happy to see the sour expression on Aunt Elizabeth’s face.
“Painters, Libby? You’ve hired painters? What on earth are you thinking, child?”
Libby sighed. “I guess Doug called.” She should have figured on that, she thought, as she pulled a chair close to the bed. “I wish he hadn’t done that. I wanted to surprise you, Aunt Elizabeth.”
“I am surprised,” she said, rearranging the sheet that covered her. “And not all that pleasantly, my girl. You shouldn’t be throwing your money away…”
“Wait. Just wait a minute.” Libby held up her hand like a traffic cop. Sometimes it was the only way to stop this woman from going on and on. “I got a very special deal on the labor, so the job really isn’t costing much at all. Trust me.”
Her aunt narrowed her eyes. “How much?”
“Seven, eight hundred tops.”
“I don’t believe you,” she snapped.
“It’s true, Aunt Elizabeth. Cross my heart. I’ll even show you the canceled check when I get it.”
The elderly woman clucked her tongue. “And I suppose it’s already too late to stop this painting nonsense?”
“Yes,” Libby said stubbornly.
Her aunt, equally stubborn, glared out the window for a moment before she snapped, “Well, then tell me what colors you picked out. You know very well that I don’t like change, Libby, and when your Uncle Joe gets home he’ll expect the place to look just as it did when he left for Korea.”
After half a century he’s not coming home, Libby wanted to scream at the top of her lungs, but she didn’t. Aunt Elizabeth was an absolutely sane and reasonable woman, and likely a lot sharper than most folks her age, except for her complete and utter denial of her husband’s death.
If you started to argue with her, if you tried to convince her the man was dead, she’d snap, “Well, then. Show me his death certificate.” And of course there wasn’t one since he’d gone missing in action, so her aunt always won the argument. And that was that.
When Libby was a little girl, she honestly believed her Uncle Joe would be coming home any day. She couldn’t recall how old she was when Doug told her that the man had been missing in action since the 1950s. And he wasn’t coming home. Ever. Now, this is just between you and me, sweetie, he had said.
Over the years, Aunt Elizabeth’s friends and acquaintances tolerated this little lapse of sanity, this unreasonableness, or whatever it was. Doug, bless his heart, seemed to accept it completely. Libby did, too, she supposed, after all this time. When the subject arose, they’d all give her aunt the usual sympathetic nod or a brief tsk-tsk before quickly moving on to another topic of conversation.
Was she crazy? Perhaps. But the craziness was quite specific and limited to Uncle Joe and his imminent return. Aside from that particular bat in her belfry, Aunt Elizabeth was completely normal.
“Tell me the colors, Libby,” her aunt demanded now.
“You’re going to love them,” she said. “I tried really hard to duplicate the original cream and green of the Haven View. I knew that’s what you’d want.”
“I must say that if I’d been in the mood to paint, honey, that’s precisely what I would’ve chosen. And now I can’t wait to come home