not so black and white

The painter had left hours earlier, so he wouldn't mind if I borrowed his brush. I chose a spot where sunlight still washed down the wall. I dipped the brush in the bucket once and scraped off each side on the edge of the can. I skipped the drop cloth altogether. Stepping onto the freshly refinished wood floors I reached up. With slow, even strokes I brushed on one coat, then two. It went on like butter. When it dried, it was the color of vanilla pudding, and not at all what I had imagined. I picked up the other can of paint.

* * *

Walking into the kitchen, that familiar smell hit my nose. Strange how you can be away from a place for so long only to return and feel right at home, like you never left. Light bathed the island. The marble sparkled like sunshine on water in the late afternoon. We'd both forgotten to remove our shoes at the door. I slipped my two red shoes under a bar stool as he walked towards the basket with the day-old paper. He spread it wide and began to study it like a map. I wandered over to the family recipe book which lay open on the counter. His mom had a grading system, a way to keep track of the real crowd-pleasers. "Great!" she wrote. "Good" for those that pleased all but a few, and "Fine" for the mediocre ones. Without looking up he asked what I wanted to make. I thumbed through all the main dish "Greats!" (surprised that meatloaf made the list), skipped the salads and side dishes, and went straight for desserts. Choosing one with only four ingredients, I took it over to the island and put it right on top of what he was reading. "Really?" he said. "But I thought you hated..." I pointed to his mom's writing. A few minutes later we sat at the island licking the spoons that had scraped our two bowls clean. His mom was right. For vanilla pudding, it was pretty great.

* * *

The red button on my phone flashed. It was nearly ten last night when they finally settled on a color. Parchment. Bone. Ski Slope. I had left post-its under each and locked the door on my way out. We like the third one. We'll go with it. Happy it wasn't the vanilla pudding color, I typed "Great!"