Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
The first child to enter the east gallery asked where the paintings were. Sophie crouched beside him, pointed toward the doors they had just come through, and explained that this room was for making things. He looked suspiciously at the paper on the table, then asked whether he could use all of it.
“Start with one,” Sophie said. She slid a sheet toward him. “You can have another when you need it.”
By half past one, the room smelled of glue and wet coats. One volunteer had failed to arrive, the tables rocked on the uneven floor, and Sophie had paint on the side of her wrist from a bottle she had opened with her teeth. She was kneeling beside a chair when she saw Jesse through the doorway.
He carried a toolbox and stood speaking with the facilities manager.
Sophie had known his company was coming; she had seen the work order the previous week and left it with the manager without changing the assignment.
Now she wished she had worn something other than the old pants with the loose hem.
Jesse looked into the room. His gaze found her on the floor, and he smiled so quickly that she smiled back before standing.
“You got the tables,” he said when she came to the door. He looked past her at the children.
“Borrowed them.” Sophie wiped her wrist on a rag. “One of them rocks if anyone breathes.”
He crouched beside the empty table and pressed opposite corners. The loose foot tapped against the floor.
“This one?” he asked. He put a hand underneath. “The rubber end’s gone.”
“I tried cardboard.” Sophie pointed to the folded label beside his boot. “Then someone needed to know whether the glue was edible.”
He folded the label once more. “Can I?”
She moved aside. He worked the folded card under the foot while a little girl at the next table explained that they were making places they wanted to go. He asked where hers was, and she showed him a sheet entirely covered in blue paint.
“Pool,” she said. She held up the brush. “A big one.”
“Good plan,” Jesse said. He looked at the sleeves of her apron. “Looks deep.”
The girl laughed. Jesse put the toolbox by the corridor door and went back to speak to the facilities manager, while Sophie found another clean brush for the table.
By the second activity she’d stopped listening for his drill. A boy had spilled water over the samples, the teacher needed a spare apron, and somebody had painted the underside of a chair. Sophie moved the wet samples out of reach and tried to remember where she’d put the cloths.
She’d made a finished example of the little paper houses at home.
It had windows cut with a craft knife and a roof that lifted off, and she’d been pleased with it until she saw the children trying to copy it with blunt scissors.
One boy had already crushed two sheets of card into balls under his chair.
“Show me what you’re trying to do,” Sophie told the boy. She pulled up a chair and sat in paint before she saw it.
He covered his paper with both arms. The girl beside him pushed her house toward Sophie and asked her to cut the windows because she’d made them crooked.
Sophie did three windows before the teacher came over. “Let her have another go,” the woman said, and gave the girl a second sheet before Sophie could explain that the first one was nearly finished.
The girl made a large hole in the new sheet. She poked two fingers through it, then put the whole thing over her face and peered at Sophie through the opening.
“Can we tear it?” the teacher asked. She was holding a sheet above the boy’s bent head, waiting for him to look up.
“If you like,” Sophie said. She moved her finished example behind the supplies, annoyed with the teacher for asking in front of the children. At the next table she found a brush abandoned in the glue and went to wash it before it hardened.
By the time the bus arrived, half the children had made vehicles and one had made a swimming pool with no house attached. Sophie helped carry the wet work to the racks while the teacher fastened coats, trying to stop looking at the paint smeared along the rented table.
The director appeared in the doorway before the last child left. He waited while Sophie gave the teacher a bag of spare card, then pointed at the seat of her pants.
“You’ve got blue on you,” he said. He looked around the room. “The reception crew are coming at four.”
“It’ll be ready.” Sophie picked up a cloth and tested the paint on the table. It came away, though she had to rub harder than she wanted him to see.
He asked whether the teacher had been pleased. Sophie said yes, then went back to scrubbing the paint because he was still looking at it.
The boy’s work was gone when she finished cleaning. She found two crumpled sheets beneath his chair and wondered whether he’d put the final one in the bin too. The teacher had left her scarf on a hook, and Sophie hung it in the office without sending the reminder she’d meant to write.
After the group left, she found him packing the truck. She had a plate of sandwiches left from the volunteers’ lunch and held it out before she could think of a reason not to.
“There are too many.” The wind lifted the plastic wrap, and she caught it with her thumb.
Jesse looked at the sandwiches, then at her. “Have you eaten?” he asked.
“I’m about to. In the loading bay. Very glamorous.”
He closed the toolbox. “I’ve had lunch in worse places,” he said. He waited until she turned back before following.
They sat on folded packing blankets beside a crate marked for another exhibition. Sophie ate half a sandwich in three bites, and Jesse pushed the plate closer before choosing one for himself. She took another without asking which filling he’d wanted.
“What?” she asked when she caught him watching.
“You’ve got paint in your hair,” Jesse said. He pointed above her ear, and she rubbed the wrong place with her wrist.
“I know about my pants.” She found the stiff patch of paint in her hair and gave up. “I’m going to need turpentine.”
“Please don’t.” He put the plate on the crate, then reached toward her temple. “Hold still.”
She let him work the dried fleck free. His other hand settled against her shoulder to steady her, and she could smell the soap he’d used in the museum washroom on his fingers.
“The teacher kept changing things,” she said. She hadn’t meant to tell him that part. “I’d spent hours making the sample. She could’ve told me earlier if she didn’t like it.”
“Did the kids like it?” Jesse brushed paint from his fingers onto the blanket.
“They made pools and buses.” Sophie took another sandwich, although she wasn’t hungry now. “The boy in the red sweater wouldn’t show me anything.”
Jesse waited for her to finish eating. He’d kept the crust from his sandwich on the edge of the plate, and she picked it up automatically, then put it back when she realized what she was doing.
“You used to eat those,” he said. He looked at the crust, then at her mouth.
“I still do.” Sophie took it again. He smiled and gave her a drink of his water, holding the bottle while she drank because she had both hands full.
Sophie brushed a crumb off Jesse’s sleeve. He turned his wrist toward her hand, and she asked about the studio before he could touch her.
“Still small,” he said. He folded the plastic wrap over the remaining sandwiches. “The neighbor’s learning a trumpet.”
“Really?” She could almost hear it and began smiling.
“Badly,” he said. He took another drink of water, then tightened the cap. “Would you have dinner with me sometime?”
Sophie folded the blanket edge over her knee. She’d brought enough sandwiches for both of them and hadn’t asked when he needed to get back to work.
“Coffee,” she said. “Somewhere else. Saturday.”
“Saturday,” he repeated, and reached for his phone before he’d finished saying it. Sophie smiled at the eagerness he hadn’t managed to hide.
“Coffee,” he said. He got up and collected the plate. “I’ll find somewhere.”
“I’ll choose. You’ll pick the place with the good parking and terrible coffee.”
He laughed and waited while she shook out the blanket. The facilities manager called from the corridor, and Jesse went back through the loading doors carrying the sandwiches he’d meant to take to his truck.
At home that evening, Sophie told Kelly about Saturday. Her sister asked which cafe, then went quiet when Sophie said she hadn’t chosen yet.
“You think it’s a bad idea.” Sophie began taking things out of her bag that she’d already unpacked at work.
“I think I’d like to get through my interview tomorrow.” Kelly sounded farther from the phone for a moment. “I can’t keep looking at questions about where I see myself in five years and talking about Jesse.”
Sophie stopped with a packet of wipes in her hand. She’d remembered the interview that morning, then forgotten it during the class.
“I thought you’d want to know.”
“I do want to know.” Her sister let out a breath. “I just don’t know what you want me to say.”
Sophie offered to come over with dinner. Kelly said she had food, but asked whether Sophie still had her blue jacket, and Sophie promised to bring it.
They spent the evening looking at the interview questions.
Sophie interrupted too often until Kelly asked her to let her finish an answer; after that she read the questions from the sheet and kept her own suggested wording to herself.
When she left, Kelly was hanging the jacket on the wardrobe door and muttering the name of the manager she’d have to pretend she respected.