Page 28 of Rosie and the Beast Next Door

“Sure!” I’d have to shut the shop down in the middle of the afternoon, but it was worth it to see Dad.

“And you’ll bring some money then?” he nudged.

“Of course,” I said with confidence. That hundred dollars I had set aside for new paints was going to have to go do Dad.

After we hung up, I was feeling too wired to fall asleep. Especially on that futon. Double-especially with a bruised tailbone (and ego) and the guilt of giving Dad the tip money from Bennett. Which meant … Secret project time.

My secret project was born from an unhealthy lack of respect for proper sleeping hours and a deep-rooted desire to hide from responsibility. And since I currently needed to fix up the spare apartment for Dylan and get some sleep, it was the perfect time to unlock the bedroom door (the one Dylan had been so curious about) and step into my lair.

Across the entire wall was a painting unlike anything I’d done before.

I’d learned quickly that people liked to buy realistic paintings to remember their Alaskan trip: seascapes, animals, beachy images, snow-capped mountains, sea-tossed ships, sunsets, and any combination of all of those things. They were extremelycommercial and didn’t require a lot from me other than time and inspiration.

And luckily for me, Alaska had an obscene wealth of inspiration.

While I enjoyed those paintings, and I truly did, it felt satisfyingly deviant to paint something completely different. A passion project. One that was probably terrible and wouldn’t earn me any money and would reveal me to be the impostor I suspected I really was.

Because my great work of art? The one I kept hidden away in a room where no one else could see it?

It was the opposite of realism.

It was complete, utter fantasy.

But, like, cartoon fantasy. Adorable animals painted in bright colors they’d never actually have. Like zebras with rainbow stripes and pastel green sloths hanging from swirling candy cane vines. Their eyes were animated-princess huge and not proportionate to the rest of their face. Some of them were painted in costumes of other animals—like an elephant in a mouse costume at a masquerade in an underwater library, dancing the waltz with a tiny mouse in an elephant costume. The underwater masquerade scene took up almost half of the bedroom wall.

How did all these animals breathe at this undersea masquerade ball? Magic.

That’s what every inch of this was to me. Absolute magic.

But also juvenile and embarrassing.

I could only imagine what a psychoanalyst might say about it as they peered through their reading glasses to the paper scribbled with copious notes:This is her desperate attempt to reclaim her lost childhood, and it proves her immaturity and unwillingness to embrace adulthood. Rosie can’t even take the medium she loves most in the world seriously.

Monet. Rembrandt. Degas. They didn’t paint pretend worlds with made-up characters. They analyzed culture with their paintings. Or they brought beautiful spaces to life that evoked strong emotions in our souls.

This? This was cotton candy. Fluff. Without substance. Dissolvable. A reflection of my inability to deeply delve into the trenches of humanity and suss out something significant. An entire room of evidence of how I could take a talent I’d been gifted with and somehow turn it into a lemon.

All the time spent here could be spent on something substantial. Meaningful. Worthy. Art that would make a difference in society and culture.

Instead, an idea for a sphinx cat, with a shell-studded monocle, dressed like a mermaid wouldn’t leave me alone. My fingersitchedto paint her.

I sighed. Rosie Forrester, the failure who kept on failin’ (but with colorful paint!).

I started with a pencil outline on the wall, deciding to place Catocles (cat + monocle + sparkles; my brilliance knew no bounds) beside Bob, the otter dressed like a walrus doing the wobble (we didn’t need an official psychoanalysis of that one).

People were out in the world writing masterpieces likeShrubs of Fog, and I was creating hybrid animals with elaborate back stories only I knew about.

But regardless of all the reasons I shouldn’t … I was in love with this wall. Like Kathleen Kelly loving her bookstore level of love. When I painted it, I didn’t think about making enough money to keep my store open or worry about Dad living in Winterhaven again. Every single character represented a bright spark of joy straight from my soul.

A bright,secretspark of joy no one couldeverknow about.

I was in thezone when I heard Dylan’s voice explode through the wall.

“I need back on the team!”

It wasn’t yelling, exactly, but these walls were about as thick as the layer of paint separating them. A thump against the wall made it sound like maybe he pressed his back to it, right near where I was painting the sparkly finishing touches on Catocles.

I didn’t want to listen. Mostly.

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