Page 53 of The Version You Hide

“Hmm. This one is interesting though,” Betty muses. “What inspired it?”

I look down at the drawing she refers to. It’s one I’d started the day after the snorkel tour but since abandoned. So far, I’d outlined the turtles and some fish, pencilled in the rays of sunshine, leaving an expanse of blue in the centre. “Oh, that. I went on this snorkel tour, and I guess I was moved by the colours, the ocean, you know? But it’s not very good and I haven’t finished it.”

“Oh, that sounds lovely. Who did you go with?” she asks, her eyes twinkling with wonder.

“No one,” I reply flatly. “I was meant to go with a friend, but her son got sick, and she had to cancel.”

“So, there were no other people there?” the old woman’s eyes crinkle as she squints at me suspiciously.

“Well, not exactly,” I answer. “There were other people in the group, but I didn’t know them.”

“You didn’t know any of them?” May asks dubiously.

A smile makes its way across my face. “What is this? An interrogation?”

“Just answer the question, girly,” May demands.

“Okay. Okay.” I resign with my palms raised, then dropping them back into my lap I say, “Well, I knew this one guy, I guess.”

“Ah ha! There it is!” Betty shouts, a finger pointed in the air. “That’s what these drawings are lacking.”

“What do you mean?” I laugh. “They’re lacking a guy?”

“No dear. They’re lacking a real subject. Passion!” she slams a hand down on the table, letting those of us in the room know that this is something she herself is clearly passionate about.

“Oh.” I’m not really sure how else to respond. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t slightly weirded out by her blatant display.

“This man you speak of. Maybe he belongs in your drawing,” she suggests.

“Pfft. No.” I shake my head at her out-of-left-field notion. “It’s not really like that. He’s no one. He was just one of the instructors.”

Just one of the instructors that I fake-dated last night who turned out to be an ex-billionaire and who is also my boss.

I attempt to pull the book away from May’s grasp, but she tightens her fists around it. She’s got a solid grip on her for an old lady.

“He’s important enough that you mentioned him,” Betty argues.

I scoff at her statement. “I only mentioned him because you asked me who was there with me!” I reef the book away from her, smoothing out its pages. “Let’s all critique your work then, shall we, Betty?”

“Go right on ahead. I have nothing to hide,” Betty retaliates.

“Whatever,” I sigh.

Getting into an argument with an eighty-year-old woman had not been my intention today.

I turn to Grace, who has been quietly watching my interaction with the group from the corner of the room. She wanders over to the table now, her arms laden with art supplies.

“Now, now, ladies. Mackenzie has inspired me to show you a different activity today,” she says, placing a set of watercolour pencils in the centre of the table.

After laying down an A3 sheet of watercolour paper in front of each of us, she takes a seat beside me. “Let’s see you work your magic with these, Mackenzie. They’re great for drawing seascapes.”

“Yes, Mackenzie,” Betty agrees. Then she picks up a cyan pencil and lays it across the top of my page. “Perhaps you could draw the boy from the ocean for us.”

I squint at the old woman, wondering why she won’t let this go. My reply comes out through gritted teeth. “Why, thank you for the suggestion, Betty. Maybe I will.”

Grace stifles a soft laugh beside me, a small smile lighting up her face. It has the corners of my mouth tugging upwards too. Of all the ways this day could have gone, this is definitely not how I’d pictured it, but I have to admit that despite these feisty women, I am enjoying myself.

I pick up the cyan blue. Then, hoping to translate the picture forming in my mind to paper, I drag it across the middle of the page. An image of the sea turtles floating so gracefully in the ocean’s depths. Only this time, Dylan is there, gliding seamlessly below, his black wetsuit and dive gear a stark contrast to the white, sandy ocean floor.

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