A House to Build a Dream on chapter 7

A HOUSE TO BUILD A DREAM ON

CHAPTER SEVEN

Rose pushed back a stray piece of hair that escaped from her red bandana, managing to put a smattering of blue paint on her hair which totally defeated the purpose of the bandana. She backed off a few paces to view her work, bumping into Emily’s backside. Both of them quickly turned around with their paintbrushes in their hands and smacked each other’s face with the kitchen’s new complementary colors.

Once again, they both burst into fit of giggles. Rose took Emily’s brush covered with yellow paint from her, stuck it into a small bucket of water, then added her own brush. “So, what do you think?” she said a little nervously. Deciding on colors had been a much harder task than either of them originally thought. Emily would have painted the entire house in greens and yellows and Rose, well, she once would have done the entire house in blue but realized after seemingly endless hours of leafing through color samples that just since the weeks of moving out of her house and living solo to her new life with Emily and their upcoming bed and breakfast venture, that something inside her had changed. With every possibility of using one color with another, her world seemed to expand and for a while she went a little mad with potential color schemes.

“What if we painted Scarlet Red with Outrageous Orange in the bathroom?” she said when they’d first begun looking at paint and flashed the two strips of color in Emily’s face.

Emily stared at her friend for a few seconds before answering. “With those colors I don’t think we’d ever have need of a laxative.” She took the samples out of Rose’s hand. “You know, I think we’ve been cooped up inside the house for way too long. Tomorrow we’re going on a little outing. Jimmy will be starting on the garage tomorrow and there’s going to be a lot of noise. I think half the town is helping him finish the room by our deadline.” She smiled at the thought of little Jimmy Nelson, who had once been the terror of the town, being their contractor. In his late 30’s with a family of three he’d grown into a responsible, trustworthy contractor and that was a phrase not often associated with contractors. They’d lucked out when he’d agreed to take on their project. The Nelson Family Contractors were the best in the town, if not the state. And when she said half the town would be helping him, she meant that just about all of his crew were family, all with the same skillful workmanship and attention to detail that made them stand out above the rest.

“So where…..” Rose’s eyes were wide.

“Not telling,” Emily said with a grin. “You’ll just have to wait until tomorrow. I will tell you one thing. No casual clothes. We’ve been wearing paint smattered rags for weeks and we when we do go to town, we think we’re dressing up by wearing jeans. But for now, we’ll just clean up this mess we’ve created and order a pizza for supper.” “Okay, okay. Surprises are good.” Rose frowned for a second. “I guess.” She hesitated. “But you didn’t answer me. What do you think of our kitchen? You weren’t too keen on the French Country blue and yellow from day one. Are you sorry I talked you into it?”

Emily smiled. They’d come pretty close to an actual argument over color schemes. Because of the yellow and green dish set her Aunt Claudia gave her for a wedding present, and her favorite for lunches, she’d been adamant over “no blue whatsoever”, but when she discovered that these colors were to be the next project that she and Christopher planned for their kitchen before he died, she knew how important this was for Rose. And they could always use the dishes out on the porch.

“It’s absolutely perfect. I can hardly wait to go shopping for some new curtains, tablecloth and linens to match. All we need is someone singing “La Vie En Rose” and we’ve got it all.” And it really was perfect, she thought.

Rose laughed and picked up the bucket with the paint brushes to clean outside. For another hour, they wordlessly cleaned up all the newspapers, checked for any paint smears or smudges until they finally gave it a ‘thumbs up. “I’m going to myself clean up a bit. Order anything you like.”

She looked closely at Rose’s face and although she knew both of them were having a wonderful time with the renovations, the 30 year anniversary of Christopher’s death had been a struggle for her friend. She’d heard the quiet sobs at night, quite often at first, but gradually lessening until she seemed to have worked herself out of her grief, and she suspected, a depression of sorts. Rose was not afraid to shed tears, but she quickly would find something to laugh about and refuse to dwell on her feelings of sorrow for long. But Emily knew her friend too well not to know the signs. Her face looked tired and pinched. Work was a catharsis for both of them, but especially Rose. However, grief sometimes needed quiet contemplation before it would leave and her friend only worked herself from morning to night and then retired to her room. Tomorrow’s little adventure that she planned would be a welcome treat for both of them.

The next day Rose and Emily were up at 6 and both dressed and ready to go by 7. They ate a quick breakfast of granola, sprinkled with raspberries on the front porch.

“I don’t know what you have planned, Em, but just the thought of getting out of town…and I am pretty sure that we are going somewhere out of town…woke me up with a smile this morning.” Rose put down her coffee mug. “So am I dressed properly? See any runaway paint?” She got off the wicker chair and modeled her red and yellow floral skirt and matching yellow knit top. “And I decided I am going to start wearing my hats more often.” She picked up the wide brimmed straw hat with a red ribbon around the middle and put it on her head “Da Dah!”

Emily laughed. “Glad the hats are coming out of the closet. Missed them. And I haven’t seen that outfit in years.” She didn’t add that it was probably because of Rose’s weight loss. But she had to admit that she looked great. Diet by grief, always a winner.

“And you’re looking pretty spiffy,” Rose said. “I’ve always loved that mauve and pink skirt set. Definitely your color.”

Emily hustled Rose into the car before she could find a procrastinating project that would delay their trip into lunch time. She punched in the address into the GPS and what she thought was the best invention of the century. Between the two of them they couldn’t find their way out of a paper bag, but with modern technology, getting lost was a thing of the past.

Rose peeked over at the address. “The Boston Museum of Art! Oh, that’s absolutely perfect. I haven’t been there for years. Where will be have lunch? I’m not sure if…..”

“It’s all planned, lunch and dinner. Sit back and enjoy the ride.” Emily put a CD in, stepped on the gas and together they laughed and talked about everything, except the house. Emily said that today was their day off and she meant every word of it.

When they arrived in Boston, parked the car and walked up the many steps to the museum, it was not two 60 year old women that opened the doors, but two ageless friends who felt like the clock had been turned back that day and life was indeed an adventure.