Everything for sale had been discarded at least once and would be again. That was Kevin’s opinion of thrift stores. He preferred shopping online at electronics outlets with lenient exchange policies but he indulged his wife, Rachel, who loved browsing the cluttered aisles. Repurposing made her happy. The proceeds supported third world elementary schools and she believed she was saving the world.
‘I adore this easel,’ she said. It was a sturdy beechwood A-frame, with three adjustable legs and a ledge for paints and brushes.
‘Neither of us can paint.’
‘Imagine it next to the bookshelf in the study, displaying the Barbados landscape your mother got us last Christmas. It’ll brighten the entire room.’
Kevin squinted and imagined. He preferred the painting above the sofa, where it dominated the living room, the way the imposing rock formations it depicted prevailed over the beach at Bathsheba, where Kevin and Rachel were married fifteen years earlier, as the minister’s booming voice rose above the rolling surf. ‘It seems pretentious,’ he said. ‘And where would we put your Peloton?’
Rachel pouted. Shrugged. She unbuttoned her winter coat and reached for a Soundgarden CD. ‘Two dollars,’ she squealed. ‘I paid six or seven times as much for this the summer before university.’ Flipping it over, she added, ‘I eventually wore mine out.’
Kevin scanned the black shelving and noted several Pearl Jam CDs. He’d kept his after uploading them onto a laptop. A black and white pitch pipe, on a wobbly wooden end table, caught his eye. He lacked the boldness to test it. ‘I haven’t seen one of these in thirty-five years. Mrs. Bamberger owned one. I can still hear those wheezing single notes.’ He pictured the silver treble clef brooch his grade school music teacher always wore. ‘She wouldn’t let me sing in the Christmas pageant.’
Rachel crossed the aisle to kitchenware. She squeezed a garlic press, sniffed it, wrinkled her nose, then returned it to the table. ‘Why not?’
‘We needed more reindeer.’
‘I guess it takes nine to do it right.’
‘I was the tenth.’ Kevin laughed but the smile faded. ‘I memorized ‘O Holy Night’ for nothing.’
Rachel considered ceramic teapots on a shelf – steel blue, mustard, sunset orange, and cold canyon grey – while Kevin rummaged through a sports-equipment bin. Digging past two soccer balls and a basketball, he retrieved a large, deep burgundy, textured playground ball. He bounced it and chuckled at the twangy thud as it hit the floor. ‘Remember these?’
‘Absolutely.’ Rachel grinned. ‘I was dodgeball queen.’
‘Overachiever.’ Kevin plopped the ball into the bin. ‘I was always picked last for kickball.’
‘Who cares about kickball? It’s a kindergarten game.’
‘I was picked last in ball hockey, too. I liked hockey. I tried out for a novice league at the arena but was told I lacked confidence. No one picked last has any hope in the confidence department.’
Rachel flipped through dusty picture frames – solid black, chipped beige, mirrored, and wicker. ‘Now you’re a systems security engineer – a freaking genius, earning six figures a year.’
Kevin moved behind Rachel, put a hand on each shoulder and kissed the back of her head. ‘Wait a minute. Go back.’
‘This one? That’s the ugliest frame of the lot.’
‘Not the frame. The Van Gogh.’
‘It’s a worthless print.’
Kevin stepped forward, raised the work to eye level, and angled it to catch more light. ‘I’m not saying I want it but look at these swirling lines. The thickness of the paint. It takes me back to second grade and Miss Jourdain’s art class.’ He frowned and returned the frame to the floor. ‘We were finger painting and had to keep one hand clean.’ He recalled the gluey, soggy oatmeal smell, the texture of cold, lumpy baby food. ‘That was her rule. No idea why.’
‘In case you had an itch?’
‘I put both hands in. There was a mirror image effect I was trying to achieve. It was impossible with one hand. She took away my art and gave me a math assignment as punishment.’
‘And an engineer was born.’
‘I liked math better anyway but . . .’ Kevin froze. Nothing moved except his widening eyes. His vision stretched inward and outward, simultaneously.
Rachel knew the look of Kevin’s life changing direction. She first saw it the day they reunited after grad school, when she confided having ditched her law school boyfriend. It was on his face again the morning the email arrived from a rival firm, offering Kevin nearly double his salary. Another time was walking through their old Victoria Park neighbourhood, when they discovered a for sale sign on the lawn of the house they’d once agreed was their favourite. They moved in less than three months later.
‘You know what?’ Without waiting for a response, Kevin retraced his steps.
Rachel followed him to the beechwood easel. He lifted it with both arms and strode toward the cash register. ‘There’s an arts supply store two blocks down.’
‘You want to finger paint?’
His eyes refocused and blazed with determination. ‘I want to create art.’
Dave Gregory is a Canadian writer, a retired sailor, and an associate editor with the Los Angeles-based Exposition Review. His work has most recently appeared in Ellipsis Zine, Write City Magazine, & Literally Stories. Find Dave at @CourtlandAvenue and courtlandavenue.wordpress.com.
