Page 36 of Hello Stranger

“Yeah?” I asked, smiling big.

“I know you don’t know who I am.”

My smile dropped.

She took a step closer. “You’d never be this nice if you had any idea.”

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Mom told me all about it—but, I don’t know… it was kind of too good to be true. I had to see for myself.”

“Mom”? Told her “all about it”?

And then I knew. Just as she leaned close and spoke into my ear, I knew.

It was my evil stepsister. Parker.

It wasn’t until I realized who she was that I noticed her signature perfume as well. She always wears—and I swear this is true—a perfume by Dior called Poison.

So on the nose.

“Hey, Sis,” she whispered, and then she patted me on the butt and strutted away.

And that, right there, settled it. Optimism canceled.

I’d find a dog-sized Pajanket for Peanut and never leave my apartment again.

Seven

WHEN I GOTback home, there was an email waiting for me from the North American Portrait Society, which reminded me I’d forgotten all about it. It had a big long to-do list of action items before the juried show, and another copy of the rules and guidelines, including:

Portraits must be on 30 inch × 40 inch canvas.

Portraits must feature only one subject.

Portraits must be of a live model—no work done from photographs.

Portraits may be either oil or acrylic, but no mixed media.

Portraits must be new work—painted within six weeks of the deadline.

Also there was a whole attachment about a component of the evening I’d evidently missed in the original email. Not only was the show a competition that would be judged in real time, it was also a silent auction. Our portraits would be bid on over the course of the evening andsold to the highest bidder—with the proceeds going to fund classes and education.

My first thought wasThat sounds nice.

Eclipsed immediately byOh god. What if no one bids on my portrait?

It was, shall we say, a pretty good reminder to get my ass in gear.

I counted back through my calendar, and I’d frittered away fourteen days since learning I was a finalist. True, I’d had a lot going on. But the North American Portrait Society wouldn’t be left waiting. The portrait submissions for finalists were due three days before the actual show, and even though other people had to crate and ship theirs, and I could just Uber mine over to the gallery, I still had just over three weeks left to get this done.

Three weeks.

Not nearly enough time for myold, fully functioning fusiform face gyrus—not to mention that I hadn’t even started painting. Or even really thought about it.

Time to pull it together. If I was well enough to marry Peanut’s veterinarian, I was well enough to paint one portrait.

But…how?

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