Page 34 of The Art of Us

Grace slid her feet off of the coffee table and patted the spotnext to her on the couch, waving her other hand to beckon Ireland forward, her several gold bracelets jangling together against her thin wrist. “Why don’t you come sit down by me, and we can get to know one another.”

Grace’s tone went a pitch higher than usual, as if she had just offered cotton candy and a pony ride to a small child—as if she’d offered something fun. The idea of getting to know each other being fun felt like a top-ten lie on Grace’s part. At least they wouldn’t be going over house rules again. They had done that before Ireland left to go to Geppetto’s to meet Kal. Mr. Wasden had been with her during the house rules part and while they took a tour of the house. But now it was just her and Grace and the get-to-know-you game. Since Grace was the new adult authority figure in her life, Ireland sat.

“So how was your date? It was with the Ellis boy, right?”

“Yes. His name is Kal. He plays in a band.” Of course, this was all information she had told Grace when she’d first shown up at her house with nothing but her insecurity and a duffel bag. Happily, Mara had been nowhere to be seen when Ireland first arrived to invade her home, and Grace assured Ireland that Mara knew about the move and was completely on board.

Grace’s tell was a tilt of her head. Not the curious kind of a tilt, but the kind where she looked off to the side as she tilted her head so she could avoid eye contact. The tilt felt like she was distancing herself from the lie she told.

Clearly, Mara wasnoton board with another teen moving in to her home. Plus, Mara hadn’t known it was actually Ireland. She would be less on board when she discovered the truth.

Grace closed the book and set it on the coffee table. “I think we’ve heard him play before. Is his band the only one at Geppetto’s?”

“I think so. I haven’t ever seen anyone else.”

“Well then, he was very good. So, tell me what sorts of thingsyou like.” The whole scenario struck Ireland as weird. Getting to know an adult like this. Being taken into somebody else’s home like this. Ireland had once believed that if the devil had offered to trade her soul for a warm bed and a hot meal, she would take the deal with no hesitation. She never imagined that she would find herself wishing she was at her bathroom in the woods. But here she was, wishing she was alone in her bathroom instead of playing the twenty-questions game about her life. Not that she didn’t like Grace. Grace was a nice lady. But it was hard not to hold it against her that Mara was her daughter. After all, how nice could Grace really be when she’d raised such an elitist snob?

“I like art.”

At this, Grace lit up like a Christmas tree festival with all its lights turning on for the first time of the season. “Me too!” She hopped to her feet. “Let me take you on a tour of my gallery.” She laughed as if she had told a joke. And then she explained her joke: “Sometimes I call my house a gallery because I buy so much art. I know you’ve seen all the rooms, but it was all new at the time, and how much attention could you have paid to the art on the walls? My husband tells me I have to stop buying art because we’re running out of wall space, but I just can’t make myself do that. So sometimes I rotate pieces, keeping some in storage so I can display others.”

There were people starving in the streets of her very own city, and this lady had enough money to rotate through pieces of expensive art? This explained the slippery slope of how Mara became such an elitist snob. Ireland stood up too because Grace was already across the room and turning to explain the picture above the fireplace. The image wasn’t very big compared to the rather intimidating solid, dark-wood frame that surrounded it. It was a piece by John Bauer—apparently Scandinavian ... Swedish. The image was of a ghostly woman with long, white curly hair. A crown of some sort with tall leaf-looking thingstopped her head. She wore a long white dress that ended at her ankles to reveal her bare feet. She walked between two terrifying-looking trolls, big, gnarly, knobby-looking things. It seemed like she was their prisoner. Yet she glowed—a bright shaft of sunlight compared to the shadows that were the trolls.

Grace explained that this particular piece had been incredibly hard to find. But she’d loved it from the moment she saw it at some art auction. She said it made her feel peaceful.

That was the thing about Grace and her art. Nothing about her explanations was anything to do with the price or the value of the piece but of the way it spoke to her soul or made her feel or made her think. Ireland found herself warming to the tour of the art in the home—each piece spooning a soothing trickle of hot cocoa into her soul.

Grace’s art spanned continents. She had some from South America and North America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. There wasn’t any from Australia or Antarctica. At least not that Grace specifically mentioned as such. But who knew? Maybe there were pieces from those places as well.

“How did you get all of these?” Ireland asked once they had come full circle and were seated back on the couch.

“Travel is one of my favorite hobbies. I try to buy something every time I go somewhere new. You would not believe the things that you can find in old thrift stores in other countries. It’s incredible. Really. I know maybe this looks like I spent a lot on it, but not really. All things considered, this represents a pretty low output of resources for acquiring new art.”

“I got my sleeping bag at a thrift store.” Ireland offered this as an example of something they had in common.

“Brilliant. I’m a huge fan of thrift store shopping. I think everybody should do it. It’s so much better for the environment than buying new things. And people donate some unique and incredible things. I got these pants at our Goodwill here intown.” She rubbed her hands over the thighs of her beige, pleated cotton-twill pants. Ireland didn’t know a lot about fashion and clothing, but she knew what expensive looked like.

The conversation was not one Ireland had expected to have with a woman who lived in a home that could only be described as palatial, especially when they only had four kids.

Ireland smirked inwardly at that thought. Only four kids? Four kids were a lot by today’s standards. Still, the house occupied a huge chunk of land for not very many people.

Regardless of how ostentatious the sprawling household was, Ireland found herself warming up to Grace. She wasn’t anything like Mara. Ireland had a hard time imagining people who shopped at thrift stores to be elitist snobs. Ireland was almost certain that Mara didn’t wear anything that didn’t come from designer boutiques.

Ireland, on the other hand, only had things that came from thrift finds. She was fine with that. That’s what she told herself, anyway. Sure, it might be a nice change to have something that was brand new and never worn by anybody else before, but Grace made a great point. Thrifting was doing her part to commit to an eco-friendly lifestyle. Instead of being sad about the whole thing, she could understand herself to be an environmental crusader.Thanks, Grace, she thought.

Mara came in and stopped short when she saw Ireland sitting next to her mom on the couch. Her mouth tightened into a slash and her arms crossed over her chest.

“Hey, honey.” Grace checked her watch. “Right on time tonight. Good.”

The way Grace emphasized “tonight” made it seem like Mara wasn’t always home on time.

“Is Daddy already in bed?” Mara asked her mom.

Wow.Daddy? As if Mara were a four-year-old. Ireland didn’t think she’d ever called her dad “daddy” even when shewasfour.She smirked. She was sure she didn’t scoff out loud, but Mara still shot her a sharp look of disapproval.

Maybe she had scoffed out loud.

“Yeah,” Grace said. “He’s got to be up at three. Which meansyou’vegot to be up at four, so you should go to bed too.”

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