Quickening by Laura Catherine Brown

Author:Laura Catherine Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307416469
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-18T00:00:00+00:00

THE NEXT DAY, I walked up Steinway Street to a hardware store, where I bought cans of white paint, plaster, spackle, scraper, brushes, and a drop cloth. Dad would’ve been proud. I also found, in a discount clearance bin, long beaded curtains. I carried it all ten blocks and started to scrape the bathroom walls as soon as I got home. Just a little prep work and then I’d take a couple days to paint it.

Huge chunks of plaster dropped off, only to reveal another layer of paint. Then a chunk three layers thick fell off, which meant I would have to scrape even further down. Cockroaches scurried in and out of the cracks. It was going to take more than just a little prep work before I got to the painting part. I thought of the bathroom at home, unfinished, all prepped and waiting to be painted.

I gulped down tears. But I didn’t stop scraping. I could cry all I wanted here. There was space, and no one I had to squelch my tears in front of. My grief was mine like my camera was mine like my limbs were mine. No, it was more mine than anything I owned, and I nursed it like a little life, crying as I worked, sobbing over the wall and the gritty, grindingly endless layers of ugliness.

At about two in the afternoon, I began to feel the now-familiar urgency of preparing for Booner’s arrival and I had to call it a day on the prep work. I had completed only a portion of the wall above the bathtub. There it was, like a wound on a homely person. I cleaned the tub again, rinsing off paint chips and plaster.

When Booner came home and headed right for the shower, I waited until he came out. He didn’t mention the scraped wall above the bathtub or the cans of paint under the sink. “Hey, Booner, did you notice anything different in there?”

“Looks like you have plans.” He gave a guarded smile.

“See what I bought?” I spread the beaded curtains out on the kitchen floor.

“What the hell is that?”

“Curtains. For the bedroom.”

“Shit. Some curtains.”

“I thought we could screw them in over the bedroom doorway. Don’t you think they’ll look cool?”

“I don’t know.” Booner scowled. “Why do girls always gotta do this kinda stuff?” I pictured Dad’s power drill and coffee cans filled with screws and wall fasteners cluttering his worktable in the basement. He would approach the mess and find what he needed in a second. Let’s go, Mandy girl, he would say, no time like the present.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “What kind of stuff?”

“You know.” Booner kneeled down on one leg and picked up a strand of the round plastic beads as though they were going to sting him.

“C’mon. They’re cool.” I felt sort of desperate. I hadn’t even considered that he might not like them. They were a hippie item that Barb would have loved. “Okay, Booner. You don’t have to do anything.

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