Chapter 19 #2
She snorts before she can stop herself. Clapping a hand over her mouth, Summer’s eyes go round, clearly horrified she laughed at me, but I just grin, strangely pleased.
“I’ll take that as a no, then.” She giggles, shaking her head in amusement when it becomes clear I can take a joke.
“It’s really not that hard. I’ll show you what to do. ”
Stooping down, Summer retrieves a toilet brush from beneath the sink and straightens up, offering it to me.
My expression must reflect some of my sudden panic, because Summer’s expression softens. “You don’t have to do this, you know. It’s my job, not yours.”
“I know.” With a renewed sense of determination, I steel myself and step forward to take the toilet brush. “But I’m committed now.”
As it turns out, “not that hard” is a bit of an overestimation for someone who has never cleaned anything in her life.
In the split second Summer turns her back, I squirt half a bottle of toilet cleaner directly into the water.
Then, after she shows me the correct way to distribute a smaller amount around the edge—which does seem more logical when I stop to think about it—I sort of jab at the blue liquid with the brush held as far away from my body as it can go.
I am one hundred percent certain I look like an idiot, but Summer is patient with me. After my clumsy attempts to help in the first bathroom, we move on to another. By the fourth, I seem to be getting the hang of it.
It takes hours, but we talk as we work—about Port Briar, Summer’s terrible roommate, and how she hates night shifts at the bar because drunk people think tipping is optional.
I don’t exactly have a lot going on, but tell her about the estate, and this guy who tried to pick me up at a club in Denmark wearing only a banana-printed G-string, and the friends whose calls have faded away as my time away stretched from days to weeks.
I don’t mention Mallory, or my parents, or why I’m here all alone.
Summer doesn’t ask.
“What are you going to school for?” I ask as we finish up the final bathroom on the ground floor and start back toward the kitchens, walking side by side.
Summer hesitates. “Art,” she tells me at last, tucking a wayward lock of hair back behind her ear. “My focus is mainly on classical form.”
My eyebrows lift in surprise. “You must be really good to have gotten into Orwick for that. Can I see some of your stuff?” We’ve reached the kitchen, and Summer sets her bucket down on the tile floor, her cheeks pink.
“I’m still learning,” she cautions me, reaching into her back pocket to retrieve her phone. I step closer and watch as she pulls up her camera roll, scrolling until she finds what she’s looking for.
All the air goes out of me as I stare at the tiny screen. “You did that?” I demand, leaning in closer to see.
In the picture, an unfinished canvas is sitting on the floor, its moody palette of grays and blues standing out vividly against the plain white wall behind it.
The man in the painting isn’t distinct, but isn’t quite a silhouette, either, more shifting color than actual form.
He has his collar pulled up to his ears, and it looks like he’s walking, his eyes on the ground.
If I lift my focus to one corner, the others seem to change, as though my eyes are dragging the light with them.
I think I could look at it for an hour and still be discovering different ways to see it.
“Summer, it’s remarkable. You’re so talented.”
“Thank you,” she replies softly, slipping the phone away, and casts me a quick, sideways look. “I’m here on a scholarship, so I always feel like I need to…” She trails off, waving away the statement with a dismissive little laugh. “Never mind. Let me get all this put away.”
Summer heads off to the supply closet, but I stay where I am, probing the sharp ache which appeared in my chest when I first laid eyes on the painting.
The feeling is strange—like admiration threaded with shame—and after the past few months, it isn’t difficult to deduce why I’m having this reaction to such an innocuous piece of information.
I’ve never earned anything like that. My education was probably decided before I could spell my own name. I went to the very best schools, had the finest tutors, and was handed opportunities someone like Summer probably had to fight tooth and nail for.
And, worst of all, I didn’t deserve a single one of them.
“Thank you for letting me tag along,” I tell Summer when she reemerges, shoving aside my feelings of inadequacy. “I know I wasn’t exactly helpful.”
She casts a quick, reassuring smile over her shoulder as she crosses to retrieve her purse from the hook beside the door. “Don’t be silly. You got the hang of it in no time.”
I linger awkwardly as I watch her prepare to leave, wondering if she was just being polite or really meant it.
When Summer finally turns to say goodbye, though, I think her smile is genuine.
“This was fun,” she tells me with an embarrassed little laugh.
“To be honest, I thought this job was going to suck. No offense. Will you still be here when I come back on Tuesday?” Her cheeks go pink yet again.
“Not that I’m expecting you to clean with me or anything. Which I’m definitely not.”
The ache which appeared so suddenly in my chest eases a little.
“I’ll be here.”
Summer leaves with a wave, and I watch through the kitchen window as she crosses toward the staff parking lot and out of sight.
I think I just made a friend, and as the looming prospect of coursework threatens to puncture the full, happy feeling that’s risen inside me at this realization, I decide the classes can wait.