Chapter 26
Chance
Since moving back to America, I’ve painted two apartments. My San Diego apartment got a full treatment of Betty’s Linen, and Austin’s got a wash of Santa’s Beard. Each time, I pored over dozens of paint chips, all shades of white, no two alike. I’m familiar with paint finishes and brands and viscosities, that’s why when Danni says she wants to go with the cheap DIYDepot brand in gloss, I set her straight right away.
“You should go with satin,” I say as we stare at an array of paint chips, all colors of the rainbow, but we’re focused on the blacks. “Gloss highlights all the bumps and imperfections on the wall.”
“The black is going on the bookshelves.”
“And it will highlight every imperfection and make them look cheap. Trust me. You want satin. It cleans easily and hides defects.”
“My bookshelves don’t have defects. I put them together myself.”
“You’d be surprised.”
Danni reaches for a black. I intercept her hand.
“Wait. We need to choose the right shade.”
She overrides my pause and grabs the paint chip she was after. “Black is black.”
“But it isn’t, though.” I rifle through the options. “You could go with Noir, Very Black, Night, Ebony.”
She props her hand on her hip and eyes me dully. “Those are all shades of black.”
“Exactly. Black comes in different shades.”
I pull out four options and hold them out for her. “This one is blacker. This one has a hint of green. This has undertones of gray.”
“You’re serious. Like, you’re really not joking right now.”
“I don’t joke about paint colors.”
She grabs Noir and then sidesteps to the pink. We go through a similar spiel, but she’s more open to suggestions since the pink comes in a much wider range of shades. She digs through her purse and pulls out a white pen with a pink cap topped by a Hello Kitty holding a starfish, waves it in front of the paint chips, and selects the closest match. Then she reiterates her belief that all paint brands are basically the same because they mix them in the same factory.
“No. This isn’t like generic food. They’re different. Very different. Mid-range is fine but DIYDepot is a no go. You’ll be able to scratch that stuff off with your fingernail. Especially on your bookshelves, and especially if we don’t prime them.”
“We’re priming the bookshelves?”
“The paint needs something to grip onto.”
“What does the primer grip onto?”
“The bookshelf.”
“How does the primer grip when there’s nothing to grip onto?”
I rest my hand on her shoulder. “Trust me. I Googled it.”
“Can I buy DIYDepot primer?”
“At your own peril.”
We go to the primers and choose a solid mid-range brand and then we stop at the mixing desk to put in our order. After that’s taken care of, we browse for accessories, she drops the cheapest rollers into the cart, and I grab them and put them back on the shelf.
“What now?” she asks.
“Those will leave lint on your walls. These are better. Plus you can rinse and reuse them.”
“I’m never painting again.”
I detect annoyance in her voice so I don’t question her choice of masking tape even though I know it might cause the paint to bleed beneath it. I’ll just make sure I run a fingernail over the edge before we start.
Her mood lifts after we pay and I suggest a stop at Maharaja’s for samosas, batata vada and chutney, and bubble tea. We get it to go and she digs in before we reach Wild Oaks. “Where has this been all my life?” she says after devouring a samosa and following it with brown sugar boba.
“India and Taiwan.”
“You’re so literal.” She smirks at me and then rolls up the end of the sack to keep in the heat. I let her carry the light stuff while I transport the Noir and Perfect Pink. She unlocks her door and ushers me inside. I quickly assess the worksite: two very full bookshelves, a chaise lounge, couch, dining table and chairs.
“I expected more,” I say, cans of paint still in my hands.
“Sorry. I’m not fancy.”
“Where are the Hello Kitties?”
“Oh. I have my expensive collectables on the bookshelf. The rest is mostly in my bedroom. Enter at your own risk.”
“Mind if I peek?”
“Nope.”
We set our DIYDepot haul onto the table, she digs into the food again, and I poke my head into her bedroom where everything is pink and white and Hello Kitty, from the pillows on her bed, to the decor on the walls, to the rug on the floor, and the blankets, all of it, surprisingly, tastefully done. I feel like I stepped through a portal into a bedroom in Tokyo.
“What do you think?” she asks when I join her at the table.
I grab a napkin and two samosas and go to work. “I actually like it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“One day I might decide to grow up.”
“Don’t.”
We eat and drink and talk about work, mostly about Christopher leaving and how a crappy boss can wreck the entire vibe of an office. We agree that Bruce should apply for the position and turn the big conference room into a permanent Skittle Pong court.
With our stomachs full, we’re ready to start clearing the bookshelves. Heavy stuff first. Then medium. Then light. That way, nothing gets squashed. I pull the chaise lounge out of the way and then grab a couple of large hardbacks on the bottom shelf. Danni goes straight for her collection of Hello Kitty figurines.
“We should do those last,” I say. “Heavy stuff first.”
“Why?”
“Because stacking things by weight, heaviest first, makes the most sense.”
Her right eyebrow springs up. “I’m putting these in my bedroom on my dresser.”
“Oh. Yeah. You could do that.”
“I know I can.”
She transports the figurines two at a time while I clear the bottom shelves. She moves on to the second shelf but I suggest we do the top next.
“Why?”
“Because we don’t want the bookshelves to get top heavy.”
“You started with the bottom shelf.”
“Because you wisely placed the heaviest stuff on the bottom.”
“And the heaviest stuff goes first.”
I tap the end of her nose. “Bingo.”
Danni grabs her phone and scrolls for some music. She settles on Tom Petty, which is a wise compromise, and then we make good progress on the top two shelves. When we hit the middle shelf, I decide to speed things along by placing several books, notepads, and binders in a pile to carry over to the couch. As I’m headed that way, a binder slides off the top and splays open.
Hearing the thud, Danni glances my way. She runs over, grabs the binder, thwaps it closed, and hugs it to her chest.
“Is that where you keep the recipes for your potions?” I ask.
She hugs the binder tighter. “More embarrassing than that.”
Now I’m curious. “You keep your diary in a three ring binder?”
“No.”
“It’s not your diary?”
“More embarrassing than that.”
I set my books down and approach her cautiously. “You don’t have to tell me what’s in it.”
“Good.”
“But now I won’t be able to stop thinking about it.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to assume it’s full of your boudoir photos.”
Danni steps back, her cheeks glowing red. She’s stifling a laugh. “You won’t be able to stop thinking about my boudoir photos?”
My cheeks heat up. “That’s not what I meant.”
She tucks the binder under her arm and points at me. “That’s exactly what you meant.”
“Um.” I claw at my hair. “Should we get back to work?” I grab a few more books and carry them to the couch.
“It’s a manuscript.”
Now I’m curious again.
She lowers herself to the carpet and sits cross-legged with the binder in her lap and begins flipping through the pages. I join her on the floor.
“What kind of manuscript?” I ask.
“A dumb one.”
I laugh at her statement, not at her. “I doubt that.”
“It’s also a bunch of worldbuilding. All written by hand.”
“It sounds interesting.” I hope my encouragement will give her the confidence to tell me more.
It does. “I made up a steampunk world with a detective who fights crime. I wrote half of the first book, got stuck, and quit. Now it’s just a bunch of handwritten gobbledygook that I can’t manage to throw away.”
I grab it out of her hand. “You can’t throw it away.”
She eyes me warily. “You haven’t read it,” she says, and then grabs it back. “Maybe I should keep it, though, to remind me why I gave up my dream as a writer.”
I snatch the binder out of her hands again. “You can’t give up.”
“Yes.” She tugs at it, but I won’t let go. “I can.”
“You just said it was your dream. You can’t give up on your dream.”
“I’ve had a lot of dreams, including learning the trapeze and traveling with the circus. Granted, I was little and that dream didn’t last.”
“Exactly. You cared enough about this dream to handwrite an entire binder full of words. That means it’s important to you.”
“I read better than I write.”
“I walk better than I run, but if I practiced, I could run a marathon.”
She frowns at me.
“What? It was a good metaphor.” My grip on the binder relaxes and she takes the opportunity to pull it out of my hands.
“I’ll stick to coding for now. It’s a form of writing for an audience of one. Or more, depending on how many servers it’s deployed to over the course of its lifetime. So what about you? Do you have any dreams?”
Her voice goes funny on the last sentence. “Why did you say it like that?”
“I’m all alone. I’m rolling a big donut,” she says in a different, much goofier voice, “and this snake wearing a vest…” When I fail to comment, she says, “Pee Wee Herman?”
I shake my head.
“Pee Wee’s Big Adventure?”
My face says nope.
“You haven’t seen it?” she says incredulously.
“No. That one was never on my radar.”
“My sister and I watched it on VHS over and over when we were kids. I have the entire movie memorized.”
“You guys must have been really bored.”
“We have to watch it sometime.”
I don’t argue because sitting on a couch next to Danni, possibly holding hands, possibly snuggling would be worth watching the dumbest movie on the planet.
“Well do you?” Danni asks.
“I forget where we were going with this.”
“I told you my dumb dream, now you have to tell me yours.”
“I don’t have any dumb dreams. They’re all smart.”
“Well, tell me one of your smart dreams, then.”
I rest my elbow on my knee while I ponder her request. I dream of sitting on a couch next to Danni while watching a movie. I dream about running my hand through her silky hair and kissing her for hours. Last night I dreamed that Dadi arranged our marriage.
“I’ve thought about starting an IT consulting business.”
“I guess that is pretty smart,” Danni says after a slight hesitation.
“You think so?”
“You could make a lot of money doing that.”
“Yeah…well, I’d have to tell my dad I don’t want to work for the family business and that might not go over so well.”
She asks me about Dad’s business. I give her a brief history of BTI Capital, explaining that he wants me to keep the family dream alive. But it’s not my dream.
“So you’d go back to India to work with him?”
“That’s what he wants.”
Danni rests her chin on her hand and looks down at the carpet. I can’t read her expression from this angle. And then, she makes an abrupt shift. “We should probably get back to work.”
I glance over at the bookshelves. They still need clearing. Drop cloths need to be laid, the shelves need to be pulled to the center of the room, and then we need to tape off the wall. I don’t think we’re going to get it all done today. I wonder if she’ll invite me back tomorrow?
She stands and places her binder on top of a pile of books. We silently get back to work talking only when we need to iron out logistics. An hour and a half later, we’ve primed both bookshelves. As they dry, we work on the wall. Danni pours Perfect Pink into two paint trays. She starts at one end of the wall, and I start at the other.
Painting with a roller isn’t difficult, but it does require some technique. Don’t grab too much paint, start in the middle, make “W” motions, watch out for paint runs. Danni dips her roller into the paint, doesn’t roll off the excess, starts at the top, and I can’t tell from here, but I suspect she has paint runs.
I tighten my jaw and try to focus on my side.
“Oops,” Danni says.
I look over and she has pink streaks on her sweat pants.
“I think you’re grabbing too much paint.” I set down my roller and walk over.
“You’re about to tell me all the things I’m doing wrong, aren’t you?”
“No, I was just going to give you a little training lesson.”
“That involves telling me everything I’m doing wrong.”
I back off a little. “Am I that bad?”
She crosses her arms and lets her paint roller flop, which makes me want to tell her to hold it more carefully or she’s going to get paint all over herself. But I don’t.
“What do I need to improve?”
Well, since she asked. “You have too much paint on your roller and it’s causing the paint to go on unevenly. See that dribble?” I point to one of many.
“I wasn’t done yet.”
“Here.” I hold out my hand. She jabs the roller at me, and then flips the handle around. I kneel. “Okay, watch.” I dip the roller into the paint and roll it along the pan several times, then I place the handle back in her hand with mine wrapped around hers. I ease her to the wall and guide her roller through a few “W’s” but I lose interest as the scent of her shampoo overtakes me.
I step closer until my chest touches her back, her silky hair inches from my face, my heart thumping so hard I know she can feel it. I run my free hand down her hair before pushing it aside to reveal her neck.
The roller hangs limply at our sides, drops to the floor as I lightly kiss her skin and breathe her in. She turns around, searches my face with her eyes. When she finally presses her lips to mine, my mind whirls with every touch and taste, the sensations stopping time. I’m left with her, like it will always be this way, Danni and I connected and sinking into each other.
She weakens in my arms. I adjust my stance to catch her, but she falls and catches herself with the wall, her back against the wet Perfect Pink.
“Oh no,” I say.
She looks drunk and giddy. “Aren’t natural hair brushes the best?”
“Not when it’s your hair.”
She picks herself up and I assess the damage. It’s not too bad, a little paint in her hair, a lot on her shirt.
“You better shower quick. The paint is water soluble as long as you don’t let it dry.”
“Do I still owe you for this lesson, or are you going to give me a refund?”
“I’ll take your payment now,” I murmur before stealing another long, slow kiss. Afterward, she looks up at me with her big brown eyes. “Go shower,” I whisper.
I watch her leave, and then I get back to work, buzzing with excitement while I coat the wall in Perfect Hello Kitty Pink.