2 Minute Read:
Rand flipped on the switch to the overhead light and one of the fluorescent tubes flickered and refused to light all the way. He flopped down in the chair and threw the stack on the desk. The letters splayed, and one of them caught his eye. He knew what it was by the return address and had no intention of opening it. He put his feet up on the desk and snatched a ball cap off the shelf behind him pulling it down over his eyes. He laced his fingers across his midsection and shut out the world.
***
Lily dragged a dining room stool out to the backyard where she’d already set up her watercolors on the plastic patio table. She clipped a canvas into her easel stand and sketched out a stone fountain with some birds and an almost grotesque version of their hedge that vanished into an exaggerated distance, and when she started filling in the colors, a pair of eyes appeared among the laurel leaves. The sky above the greenery was daytime blue but she graded and blended it to midnight indigo as it reached to the edge of the canvas. She’d included a full moon in the sketch and it mirrored the eyes in the shrubbery after she tinted them to match. She dabbed the three songbirds with gay colors, not particularly caring what kind of birds they might be, and she arranged them splashing and preening, oblivious to the concealed voyeur.
***
Early poked his head into the office and informed Rand that he was going to get some lunch. “Nice hat, man,” he added.
Rand moved slowly to pull the cap off his head and get to his feet while Early sneered at him. “Haven’t been sleeping much,” he said.
“Ah, sorry bud.”
Rand slipped out from behind the desk, one eye on the letter, brushed past Early and said, “I’ll hold down the fort. Get me a sandwich?”
“Yeah, you bet.”
