The Rule of Threes by Marcy Campbell

Author:Marcy Campbell [Marcy Campbell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chronicle Books LLC
Published: 2020-05-14T22:00:00+00:00

Watching Paint Dry

Tony was a pro with the primer. I admired the way he made clean, careful strokes with his paintbrush. Most kids would just make a mess of things. Come to think of it, most kids wouldn’t even know what primer is.

We took turns dipping our brushes into the can. “Where’d you learn how to paint?” I asked.

“My mom’s boyfriend.”

For a second, my dad’s face flashed into my head, but he couldn’t have meant him. They’d just met. Then I had another thought. Had Tony’s mom considered my dad to be her boyfriend once? What had Dad thought? Thinking about it felt really gross.

“Hey, watch what you’re doing,” Tony said.

A big white dollop of primer plopped from my brush onto the tarp.

“Oops!” I said. I was normally much more careful.

Tony went on. “She was dating this guy with a house painting business, and I worked for him in the summer.”

“That must have been kind of fun,” I said. I was picturing him out in the sunshine, building some arm muscles, daydreaming while he worked.

“Fun?” Tony said. “No. Not fun. Not unless you like to get up at the crack of dawn, and stand on a ladder in the boiling-hot sun while some hairy guy yells at you to work faster.” He stopped, his brush hovering for a minute like he was remembering something. “You know, he didn’t even pay me. He said me and my mom were costing him a ‘load of money,’ and I had to ‘earn my keep.’”

“Is he . . . at your house?” I asked. “I mean, you know, while your mom is in the rehab place?”

Tony laughed. “No, that guy is long gone.”

He carefully removed the shelves from the bookcase so he could paint behind them. I took them into the cool garage and got out my sandpaper. “Long gone,” I heard him say again, and then he whistled, a low, descending note, like the sound when you lose all your lives in an arcade game.

The primer stuck better if you roughed up the wood first with sandpaper. I went over all the surfaces a few times, watching the little pile of dust accumulate. Out in the driveway, the sun beat down on Tony. I saw him catch a white drip off a corner of the bookcase with his brush. He wiped the bristles across the top of the can.

He’d taken off his troublemaking T-shirt, and I could see the tan lines on his arms. He had the same shape as my dad, though skinnier, too skinny. Dad said he hadn’t been eating all that well at home, but he was sure eating here. Two servings at dinner, sometimes three, so maybe he’d fatten up a little bit.

“Why don’t we move that into the garage, where it’s cooler?”

“I’m almost done,” he answered, “then we can eat lunch.”

Oh yeah, lunch. I’d forgotten about that. I suddenly had a great idea. “I’ll make us a picnic!” I said.

I wiped the sawdust off the shelves and primed them.

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