Bright Lights, Big Christmas(11)
“Uh-oh, time to get these monkeys home for their naps,” Taryn said.
“Wait!” Kerry pulled her phone from her pocket and snapped off a series of photos of both the boys.
“Hope you don’t mind,” she told their mother. “They’re so cute, I was thinking I’d love to sketch them.”
“You’re an artist?” Taryn didn’t bother to hide her surprise.
“Oh no. Not really,” Kerry said quickly. “I mean, I went to art school, but my career has been in graphics. I haven’t drawn in ages, but since I’ve currently got time on my hands…”
Taryn sighed. “Time on your hands. What’s that like?”
* * *
Kerry studied the photo she’d taken of Oscar, curled up beside Queenie. She drew the curve of the little boy’s cheek, the long lashes, the cupid’s bow lips clamped tight around the pacifier. She leaned backward, sighed, and applied the pencil’s eraser to the pacifier. It was a jarring note. She worked for another hour, drawing, erasing, shading, finally giving up and returning to the sketch of Queenie.
She’d gotten really rusty at something that had once come so easily. Growing up, Kerry always had a sketchpad, pencils, watercolors, and brushes at hand.
She had few friends, preferring to spend time drawing, or reading the art books her mother checked out for her from Tarburton’s small public library. Her classmates weren’t mean to her, they just didn’t understand a kid like Kerry. Her family didn’t really understand her either.
“You need to get outside in the sunshine,” Jock would say, on her infrequent visits to the farm. “It ain’t right to spend all your time with your nose stuck in a book.”
Kerry knew better than to argue, so she’d retreat to the barn, where she’d climb up into the hayloft and retrieve the sketch pad she kept hidden there, along with her treasured copy of E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web. Although she loved the story, she was actually more fascinated with Garth Williams’s entrancing ink-and-graphite illustrations of Wilbur, Charlotte, Fern, and even Templeton the rat. She’d spend hours stretched out in the hay, studying the way the artist managed to convey emotion on the face of a pig.
Now she looked over again at Queenie, and back at her sketch, attacking it again with her eraser.
A man’s voice interrupted her concentration. “You’re not bad at drawing dogs, but you really don’t know anything about drawing people, do you?”
She glanced up. She’d been so absorbed in her drawing she hadn’t noticed the old man who stood looking down at her steno pad. Kerry instinctively covered it with her free hand.
“What? You ashamed?”
The man was enveloped in a dusty-looking heavy wool overcoat that buttoned up to his chin. A red wool scarf wrapped around his throat, and he wore a battered tweed fedora. His face was a mass of wrinkles and he had a scruffy white mustache and goatee. He was thin, almost to the point of emaciation, and his shoulders were rounded into a permanent stoop.
“It’s just a doodle,” Kerry said, closing the cardboard cover of the notebook.
“Eh,” he said, his tone dismissive. “Doodle is too nice a word for this.”
“Were you interested in finding a Christmas tree?” she asked.
“Just passing by.” His voice was gravelly, with a hint of an accent. He touched his hand to the brim of his hat. “Keep trying.” He walked away, his steps halting, a brass-tipped cane tapping at the pavement.
chapter 7
Kerry studied her sketch again. She sighed. The annoying geezer’s criticism was annoyingly valid. She’d succeeded in capturing the essence of Queenie, but her depiction of little Oscar was awkward, even clunky. He looked stiff and inhuman, more like a toy than a child.
She’d always struggled with drawing people, barely making passing grades when she studied figure drawing back in her art school days. She flipped the steno pad to a blank page and started over, blocking in the figure of the child first this time.
“Whatcha doing?”
It was Austin, Patrick’s son. He was dressed in a private school uniform; blue blazer with an embroidered patch on the breast pocket, a somewhat wrinkled white shirt, and khaki pants. He had a red backpack slung over his shoulder and was sipping from a juice box.
“I’m trying to draw a picture,” Kerry said. She was instantly fascinated with the child’s face. His dark blue eyes were fringed by long, dark lashes and a tiny constellation of freckles was scattered across his snub nose and pale cheeks. He had dark-blond hair cut short to the scalp, with bangs that had been carefully gelled back from his forehead.
Kerry gazed around the stand. They were alone. “Are you supposed to be down here by yourself?”
Austin pointed to the building just to the left of Lombardi’s. “I’m not alone. My dad is upstairs. He watches me through the window. I’m not allowed to cross the street or talk to strangers.”
“Aren’t I a stranger?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“No. My dad says you’re nice.”
Kerry felt herself blushing.
“Because you’re Murphy’s sister,” the boy added. He pointed at the trailer, where Kerry’s brother was just emerging. His serious face brightened. “Hi, Murphy!”