Page 47 of Just Say Christmas
He frowned at her. Marko had a pretty effective frown. “When was the last time you ate?”
She waved the brush. “Lunch. Something like that. Oh, wait. I had a protein bar sometime in there, too, and some dried apricots, so I’m fine. Feeding the bub. Please go away. You’re disturbing my focus. I’ve still got the rest of the castle and the cliff to do, with gnomes popping up out of holes, maybe, and the sky, and horses, and a few other things. Horses are going to take time. I need to do some sketches. Also, I want to wrap around this other wall a bit, and go up onto the ceiling, sort of a Sistine Chapel effect. If I stayed here until midnight or so tonight, and worked through tomorrow, too . . . I might not be quite done, but I’d be close enough to finish Thursday, probably. Maybe. Could you check with Rhys and Zora if that would be OK?”
“No.” He took the brush out of her hand. It took her by surprise, is why she let him do it. “I’m staging an intervention. Wash your hands and come up to the lounge.”
“I can’t . . .” she started to say again, but he was giving her his most intense stare, which meant she could either spend time arguing with him, and probably lose, or get it over with. She tried, “Besides, I’m covered with paint.”
“I mentioned that to them. We put down a towel. Come on. Now.”
She was still complaining when she came upstairs, at least in her mind. Therewasa towel on one of the leather couches, though, and Marko handed her an enormous glass of water, which she drank down, and which made her realize she’d been thirsty. Rhys and Zora were sitting on the other couch with the kids. They’d been reading a book, because Rhys was still holding it.Charlotte’s Web.That was nice. She said, “We shouldn’t interrupt your family time.”
“Never mind,” Rhys said. He was probably scary to some people. Rugby coach, former hard-man All Black flanker, outsized arms and chest, more than your average share of facial scars and furrows carved by sun, concentration, and collisions, and, of course, Maori tattoo. Since Nyree was marrying a hard-man All Black flanker herself, though, and her stepfather was a rugby coach, she was fairly immune. Zora and the kids didn’t seem intimidated, either. Of course, Rhysdidhave a little girl on his lap, and hewasreading a book about a talking pig. Zora’s bare feet were also resting against his hip, so there was that. And that Rhys was indigo, the deepest blue, strong and . . . restful, maybe, in the way a boulder was restful, when you’d been unwittingly coerced into the kind of straight-uphill tramp that Marko invariably called a “walk,” and you needed to catch your breath.
Rhys confirmed his color by saying, “Marko tells us you have an issue. Let’s see how we can solve it.”
“I don’t . . .” she started.
“Like I said,” Marko told her, “it’s an intervention.” He shoved a cushion behind her back. Oh. She’d had her hand there. Itwasa bit achy. Standing all day, that was all.
“What’s a ninter . . . ninter . . . ?” Casey asked.
“Intervention,” Isaiah said. “It’s when somebody’s an alcoholic or takes drugs, and their family gets together and sits down in the lounge with them and tells them they’re worried, because the person could die, and the person has to go stay in hospital to learn how to change. They call it a treatment program instead of hospital, though, so the person feels better about going there.”
“How do you know all that?” Rhys asked.
“It was in a book,” Isaiah said.
“Ah,” Rhys said. “Of course. An alcoholic,” he told Casey, “is somebody who drinks too much alcohol. Wine or beer, for example. Just to forestall your next question. Although that’s not what Marko’s saying about Nyree. It’s a different kind of intervention.”
“You and Auntie Zora drink wine, though,” she said. “You drink beer, too. Are we supposed to do a nintervention? I don’t want you to die.”
“Toomuchalcohol,” Rhys said. “When they get drunk every day. Auntie Zora and I are OK.”
“Oh,” Casey said. “I don’t think Nyree gets drunk, either. People who get drunk have lots of beers in the fridge, and she didn’t bring any beers. My mom had a boyfriend once who got drunk. He yelled a lot, and my mom broke up. Nyree’s quiet, so I don’t think she needs a nintervention.”
“It’s not that kind of intervention,” Marko told her. The corner of his mouth was twitching, as hard-nosed as he was trying to be. “It’s a painting intervention. A time-and-effort intervention. We’re working out a new plan for how Nyree can get your mural done and still get married,andstill take care of herself and the baby.” That last part had been said with his hand up, which made Nyree shut her mouth. She couldn’t exactly argue with him there. She was pretty tired.
“Normally,” she explained to Rhys and Zora, “I have energy reserves. My time management isn’t necessarily the best, but I always catch up. Using the energy reserves.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” Marko said. “But at the moment, you’re growing a new person who’s taking your energy reserves. You’re also meant to be marrying me in five days, though I’d put the new person ahead in importance.”
“What do you think,” Nyree asked Rhys and Zora, since again, Marko was unfortunately correct, “about extending the painting timetable until, say, Friday night at the outside? I realize it’s more nights for you sleeping on Isaiah’s bottom bunk,” she told Casey, “but it’ll be worth it, I promise. It’s just more beautiful than I expected it to be,” she tried to explain. “It’s just . . . more. I keep thinking of other things, and it keeps getting better.”
“Which happens,” Marko said. “But the answer on Friday night is—no. We’re getting married on Sunday. We’re driving to Northland on Saturday morning, leaving at eleven A.M. precisely, because I’m setting an alarm, and we’re going to be with both our families, including your grandmother and my grandmother, both of whom want to see you very much, and neither of whom is going to be around forever. After that, there’s this little matter of making you my wife, and taking you on a honeymoon. I may not be the most artistic fella, but I have my own priorities.”
“How am I going to enjoy my honeymoon,” she asked him, “with Casey’s Christmas present unfinished? Or if I don’t make it the best it can possibly be?” She added to Rhys and Zora, “I shouldn’t say that at all, of course. I’m not the best at painting for money. Customer management, whatever. You never express any doubt about the perfection of your effort, that’s the idea. Which is why I’m so happy to have a gallery doing my show, and why I may have to tape my mouth shut on opening night to keep myself from blurting out what’s wrong with every piece somebody takes a second look at.”
“How’s that going?” Zora asked. “The show?”
“Everything’s done on my end, fortunately,” Nyree said. “Or I wouldn’t have taken this on, because whatever Marko says, Idohave some primitive sense of how many hours there are in the day. But,” she told Marko, “I’m not working at the café this week,orforthe next three weeks. If I take meal breaks, and maybe—all right, maybe take a nap, if I can find a place to take a nap . . .”
“You can take a nap here,” Zora said. “Of course you can. But it doesn’t sound like that will be enough.”
“How about teamwork?” Rhys asked. “You had Kane and Tom here helping out the other day. That seemed to work out OK.”
“It was better than I thought,” Isaiah said. “I didn’t think Kane was going to do the stars well enough, but you did the star part instead, and you got them mostly right.”
“Thank you,” she said gravely. “I studied.”
