The next morning dawned early. She’d forgotten to close the curtains and the morning sun splashed through the window straight into her eyes. She slammed the offending things shut and tried to go back to sleep, but she couldn’t. Instead, she rose and paced, wondering what to do. TV was an option, but she hadn’t heard a sound above her since he stormed off, and she didn’t want to wake him.
She decided to take a lap around the circular path of the bottom floor, and ended up in the kitchen. He’d said something about breakfast, right? Opening the fridge, she took a look at her options. Egg and cheese omelets stuck out to her first, so she pulled out the necessary ingredients and started cutting. At the same time, she realized how little she knew about him. If it was in his fridge, he probably liked it, right? Basing her decision on that thought, she prepared what she would need and stored the rest. Heating the stove, she mixed up the eggs, pouring them into two skillets, and added the ingredients on top.
As they finished a few minutes later, William walked in with a book in one hand. “That smells good.”
He walked in behind her and stared over her shoulder at the food. “Mmm, you hit my Sampson’s Hair. I love omelets.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” She looked over her shoulder and tried to ignore how close he was to her. She could smell the mint on his breath and felt concern that she hadn’t yet brushed her own teeth.
“You know the story of Sampson? From the bible?”
“Nope.”
“Ah. Well, he was super powerful, kind of like Hercules or the Hulk, except real. He’d been granted extra strength by God, and no one could harm him. His enemies were so angry that he had such power that they managed to coerce his wife to find his weakness from him. That weakness was his hair. As soon as they cut his hair, he was powerless and they were able to capture and destroy him.”
“So, you’re likening me to a wicked wife that’s willing to sell you out?”
William laughed. “No, I’m just saying you’re in on the secret now. What you do with it is up to you.”
He stared into her eyes for a long moment while the eggs sizzled, then broke the gaze. “I’ll grab plates?”
“Thanks.” She busied herself flipping and folding their food, then slid them onto the proffered plates.
As they ate, they kept the conversation light. Toward the end, William brought up their project for the day. “I’ll get changed and then start pulling everything out of the garage, I figured outside was probably the easiest place to do it? It’s supposed to be sunny today.”
“That sounds perfect.” She cleared the plates.
She’d just finished setting them to dry when the doorbell rang.
“William?” She called up the stairs. “Should I answer that?”
“Sure” came the faint reply.
Lilly opened the door and peeked out. An older couple stood outside, eyes widening to take her in. “Hi.”
“Who are you?” The woman said, too flustered to say it any other way. She gave Lilly a look, traveling down to her sleeping boxers and back up to the spaghetti strap nightshirt.
“I’m Lilly. Sorry, did you need William? He’s up getting dressed. I’m sure he’ll be down in a minute.”
“We’re William’s parents.” The man started again. “Can we come in?”
Lilly moved aside, “Sorry, of course, yes please.” She closed the door behind the pair. “Well, you know this place better than I do, I’ve only been in the house for a few months, so just go wherever you want to and I’ll let him know you’re here.”
She took the stairs two at a time and hurried down the correct hall. She listened at each of the closed doors until she heard movement. “William? It was your parents. They didn’t look very happy to see me.”
“My parents? That’s not good. Okay, thanks Lilly. I’ll be out in just a second.”
Lilly walked back down and smiled politely to the pair who still stood stiffly in the entryway. “He says he’ll be right out.” Torn between escape and hosting them, she decided on escape and hurried to the far living room to retrieve her clothes. If they did have a misunderstanding, her pajamas probably hadn’t helped anything.
In record time, she returned to the main room hair pulled up in a ponytail, and a pair of stained shorts on. She had originally intended to wear a stained shirt as well, but it had a few holes and she didn’t want to worsen her impression any more than she already had. “Still not out?” she joked, “men take so long sometimes.”
They both eyed her. “What was your name again?” William’s father asked.
“Lilly.” She tried to figure out the best way to follow that up. “William and I are on the committee for the carnival together. My apartment’s power turned off yesterday and there was no water either, so William said I could crash here for the night—since we had a project to work on this morning.”
“Mom, Dad!” William hopped off the last step to relieve her. “Welcome! To what do I owe the honor? You usually text or call first.”
“We thought we’d surprise you and take you to breakfast.”
“That’s so thoughtful.” He gave them each a hardy hug. “Lilly woke up early and made omelets for us both though, so I’m not hungry, but I really appreciate the thought. Are you staying long?”
“Can I have a word with you, son?”
“Of course, dad.” William tapped Lilly’s arm. “Can you start dragging out the stands? You can’t miss them. The paint is in bags on the workbench out there. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”
Lilly nodded, glad to escape the hostile atmosphere.
By the time William and his parents appeared, she had both huge stands out on the driveway and spread the paint cans out in front. He’d rough-stenciled the images on them, cutting out the heads already. It reminded her of a color by number, except without the numbers. In the top corner of each he had the concept colored in crayon.
She popped the first lid and tried to pick out the color blue within the attached image.
As the three approached, Lilly debated on keeping busy, or turning to face them. Her delay chose for her. “William, you should spend the day with your parents. It sounds like you don’t get to see them very often.”
“We’re actually headed down to Arizona, so we weren’t planning on staying long anyway.” The man reached out a hand in a shake. “It was nice to meet you, Lilly.”
When she accepted his hand, he grabbed onto it, shaking firmly and then just holding it there. Lilly stared at it a moment, then into his eyes, trying to understand the test. He wasn’t squeezing, so what was he waiting for? His penetrating eyes were the same golden-brown as his son’s, though filled with much more wisdom. The moment drew out before he finally released her. “It really is great to meet you.”
That seemed to be some sort of pass-phrase because William’s shoulders dropped and his mother’s eyes widened. She stepped forward as well, pulling Lilly into a hug. “A pleasure, dear. Keep him on the straight and narrow.”
Lilly agreed, uncomfortable with a perfect stranger giving her this sort of intimate hug. After another hug for their son, the pair loaded into a Buick and pulled out of the drive. They both waved as they drove past.
“What did you tell them?” She watched them turn the corner and disappear.
William laughed. “Nothing much. I explained who you were and why you’d stayed the night, they warned me that my soul was in jeopardy and I could go to hell. You know, a good parent-child chat and all that.” He laughed as if it were funny.
“I don’t think I understand. My mother said something similar to me and I didn’t find it funny at all.”
“Well, we kind of have a cheat to recognize when something is truth or a lie, so when I explained to them that you were special and they didn’t need to worry so much, they got the hint and calmed down.”
Lilly tried to puzzle it out while they worked, laying out the rest of the paint and labeling the paint-by-number to keep it all straight. About the time they started the actual work, a horn honk interrupted them.
William turned and waved. Rob leaned across his seat and manually rolled down the window of an old, beat-up, workhorse truck. “Hey William, hello again young lady. Octavia rode by here a few minutes ago and she said a young woman was struggling to pull out some boards from your garage. Do you need any help?”
“We’re just painting now.” William saluted him with his brush.
“Painting? Well, why didn’t you say so?”
William leaned over toward Lilly. “He’s a professional artist. I didn’t even think to call him.”
“Give me five minutes to go pick up the boys and we’ll head back to you. What are you using as the undercoat?”
“Undercoat?” William lifted his voice. “We don’t need an undercoat, they only have to last a day.”
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. Painting on bare wood is going to make this a nasty mess. I’ll bring some with me.”
“Come on now, I already drew on the designs.”
Rob didn’t bother rolling the window back up and the engine thundered down the street and deeper into the neighborhood.
“So—do we just wait for him to come back?” She’d already dipped her brush in blue, but painting now seemed like it might be counted as a crime by Rob. “Who is this guy?”
“He’s my home te—minister, guy, I’m not quite sure what to call him, actually. His job is to watch out for me and make sure that I’m doing alright mentally and spiritually.”
“He’s from your church? I thought for sure mafia.”
“Well, our church and the mafia do have a few similarities.” He held up his hands at her shocked expression. “The good parts. We have the good parts. Like the entire church tries to see itself as one giant family, and we look out for each other.”
“Do you kill people and bury the bodies?”
“No.” He laughed good-naturedly. “but we do watch out for trouble and set up networks to warn each other in case of issues. We try to be prepared and maintain our homes and families in the best possible shape.”
“And cap people if they don’t pay their debts?” She mimed knocking his knee backward with a brutal swipe of her brush.
“We try not to have debt at all, in fact.”
She could feel the change in his voice, something that told her he was about to start preaching. Luckily, the thunder of a returning engine interrupted. Rob came loaded with a large bucket of white undercoat, and two strapping boys who looked more capable of wrestling than painting. To Lilly’s surprise, they took over the job. The undercoat dried quickly, and each young man took a board turning the miniature sketch into a masterpiece. They went so far as to add dimension to the flat image. Rob took in their limited stock of color options, then hurried back home and returned with a much larger pallet.
He and his sons assigned Lilly and William the largest spaces while they took the small details. After Lilly accidentally colored outside the line the young man in control of her board told her to give herself an inch margin and he’d clean up the edges. Chagrinned at watching a seventeen and eighteen-year-old outshine her, Lilly tried to keep pace.
Her board-master, Kyle, grinned as he watched her efforts. “There you go! That’s right, keep a steady rhythm to the strokes so they’re even. Watch the overlap or you’ll end up with more paint in some spots than in others. On a project like this that’s not a huge problem, but good habits on every job mean better results in everything you do.”
The lecture irked her for some reason. “How long have you been painting?”
“Most of my life. My dad used to own his own painting business and he’d recruit us to help him as soon as we could lift a roller. As we got older, he’d start assigning us the edging and detail work, and then we finally graduated to the extra-hard stuff. He actually handed over the reins of the business to Darin and I last year, so I guess it’s ours now.”
Darin nodded. “And for two years it’ll be yours alone, so you’d better not screw it up.”
“Two years? Why such a definitive time? Does the next sibling get old enough then?” She looked between them.
“Nah, Darin’s going on his mission soon.”
William leaned over. “A mission is dedicating two years of life completely to the church. We go where we’re told, and do what we’re told for that time, completely forgetting ourselves so we can serve. It’s the hardest, but most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.”
Lilly felt her stomach twist. The look of bliss in his eyes when he said it didn’t seem natural. “That sounds fun. I hope you enjoy it.” She focused back on her brush.
Rob broke the silence next. “So, Lilly, are you from around here?”
“Born and raised. My mother too.”
“Where did you go to high school?”
“North Valleys. You from around here?”
“Born and raised.” He grinned. “I wasn’t in North Valley though. We lived in East Reno.”
“Really?” She couldn’t hide her surprise. She couldn’t fathom someone growing up in her neighborhood and making it to this neighborhood.
He chuckled. “I put my head down and worked hard, similar to you, from what I hear.”
“You’ve heard about me?” She glared at William.
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