Page 114 of Jesse's Girl

She laughs. “What? I’m just saying, wear a cond?—”

“Mommy!” Sam calls out, running into the kitchen, paper flapping in his little hand like a battle flag.

Claire throws me a wide-eyed glance and puts her coffee on the counter, stooping down to meet him.

“Look at the dragon Ada drew!” He thrusts the drawing in front of Claire’s face.

“Okay, lemme see,” she says, backing away slightly so she can focus on the picture. She takes the paper in her hands and stands up to her full height. “Whoa,” she says in a low voice. “This is…”

“She did it rainbow!”

“I can see that…” Claire turns the paper around to show me.

Ada’s artistic skill shouldn’t still shock me, but I can’t help but gape at the picture. It’s fucking good. Not only did she draw a dragon better than any I could produce, but it has individual scales, each shaded to appear almost iridescent. How did she do that? And how long did that take her? Ten minutes? It would take me hours, maybe days, to even attempt something half as good as hers.

I turn at Ada’s voice and see her piggybacking Hazel into the kitchen.

“Ada, I had no idea you were an artist!” Claire exclaims, holding up the dragon picture before Sam’s grabby hands reclaim it.

“Oh, yeah,” she breathes with a scrunch of her nose, crouching down to let Hazel off her back. “Alright. Down you go, Hazelnut.”

Hazel grabs at Claire’s legs. “Mama, I’m hungry.”

Claire crouches down and reminds Hazel to use her manners. Once the required please and thank you have been uttered, Claire guides Hazel to the kitchen table, placing the apples alongside some other snacks for the kids.

Ada puts her hands on her hips, smiling at Claire. “Cute kids.”

“Thank you,” Claire says distractedly, her gaze fixed on Ada. “Sorry—I’m not over that dragon picture.” She gestures over her shoulder toward where Sam ran off with it.

“Oh, uh… I dunno,” Ada says, brushing it off. “I was just messing around.”

“Uh, no. You’ve got serious skill,” Claire presses.

Ada rakes a hand through her hair and shifts on her feet.

I try to rescue her, painfully aware the subject of Ada’s art didn’t exactly go well for us earlier. “Claire, maybe she?—”

I’m cut off when Sam runs back into the room and heads for the table, sidling up beside the chair Hazel’s kneeling on. A squabble about Hazel being in Sam’s chair immediately erupts and Claire gets pulled away to intervene, heroically saving the bowl of goldfish crackers before it hits the floor.

My sister returns to join us and takes a sip of her coffee. “What do you do for work, Ada?”

“Bartending,” Ada replies, cutting a glance my way.

“She makes a mean Blue Hawaiian,” I say, hoping to steer the subject to safer territory. I throw Ada a tentative smile, relieved when her lips twist with a hint of amusement.

Claire turns to me, steering us right back into the rocks. “Jess, did you know she could draw like that?”

“Yeah. I did.” I want to say that’s why I keep saying she should apply for art school, but I figure it’s wise to keep my mouth shut.

Ada’s smile fades slightly as the unspoken tension thickens once more.

Claire zeroes in on her once again. “So, do you make art to sell, or…?”

Ada stuffs her hands in her pockets. “Uh, yeah. Not too successfully, but yeah.”

“Do you have a portfolio or something?”

Oh, God, Claire. Drop it already.

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