Page 10 of Summer Swoon

“She’s such a sweet girl,” she said. “You did a good job raising her.”

I smiled at her compliment and turned my attention to her painting.

“That’s so beautiful.” I looked around at all her finished works. “They all are. How is it

that you can create this, and I can’t draw a straight line with a ruler?”

“We all have our own talents. You’re an artist with words and I paint.” She looked at the

work in front of her and frowned. “Of course, I don’t paint faces. They never turn out quite the way I want them to.”

The beach scene she’s working on depicts a family having a picnic in the near distance,

but none of the people’s faces have features. Yet somehow, she manages to portray their happiness.

“What you do works.” I studied the painting again, then turned to face her. “I’m going to take a walk on the beach and pray for inspiration.”

Standing, she wrapped her arm around my shoulder and squeezed.

“The words will come. Just relax and enjoy being here.” She pulled back to look me in the eye. “Maybe find a young man to spend time with. You do write romance after all. Having a romantic encounter might help with that.”

That’s the second time in ten minutes I’ve been told to find a man. Am I that pathetic?

“I don’t know about that last thing, but I will relax and enjoy being here.”

“You know, Max Corbin is single. And in case you didn’t notice, he’s good looking. He’s also very sweet.”

“I’d have to be dead to not notice Max’s good looks, but I think he’s a little young for me. How old is he anyway?”

“I have no idea,” she said. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Age is just a number.”

“Aunt Winnie, I’m here to spend time with you and get my writing back on track, not have my ownHow Stella Got Her Groove Backexperience.”

“Who says you can’t do all three?”

* * *

Max

Pop inventoriedour remaining supplies while I set the batteries for our cordless tools into their chargers. We had a busy day building stages and structures at the festival grounds and tomorrow will be more of the same.

“This’ll get us started tomorrow. We can figure out what else we need once we know exactly what we still have to do. They keep changing their minds.”

What is usually a cookie-cutter job has turned into something a bit more complicated. The committee decided to change some things for this year’s festival so we’re playing it by ear.

“Sounds good,” I said. “If there’s nothing else to do down here, I’m going to take a shower to cool off.”

“It was kinda warm today.”

“That it was.”

Plus, I worked double-time so Pop didn’t have to walk around too much. His limp isn’t as pronounced as it was a couple days ago, but I still don’t want him to overdo it.

“No, we’re done for the day,” he said and I followed him to the door. “We’ll have breakfast at the diner at six, then head over?”

“Sounds good.”

That said, he walked across the yard to the house. I closed the workshop door and headed upstairs to my apartment. When I first moved here, I lived over there with him, but a few years later asked Pop if I could renovate the space above the workshop. I must have been getting on his nerves in the house because he immediately agreed. I could have bought my own place, but I like being close to Pop, just not under the same roof.

---