Page 46 of Tilly in Technicolor
After double-checking my color master chart, I apply color so her nails are a brilliant red, everything else in black and white. I tilt my head, studying the final result.
Tilly looks like an old Hollywood starlet. Her head isthrown back, wide mouth in a smile that’s impossibly bright, hands halfway to her mouth in a half-hearted attempt to dim the effect of her joy.
I took this picture during our quick stop in Amsterdam. We’d all finished dinner and were walking along the canal back toward the train for an overnight trip, the summer evening cool with the tiniest hints of dusk touching everything with a soft light. Out of the blue, Tilly had made some perverse joke about taking me to the Red Light District, and my subsequent look of alarm and embarrassment caused her to burst out in her endearing screech of giggles and snorts.
I didn’t have my camera ready, but the way she looked, the way happiness radiated out of her like she held the sun in her heart, had me frantic to capture the moment, whipping out my phone and snapping away countless blurry pictures.
They all turned out beautifully.
I’m putting the finishing touches on the color balance when I feel a soft puff of air on my cheek. As she turns, Tilly’s face is centimeters from mine, our noses almost brushing. We stare at each other for a moment in cross-eyed confusion, then Tilly jerks back and away from me.
“Sorry!” Tilly says (yells). “I didn’t mean to get so close to you and, uh, breathe on your neck… Ohmygod. I mean, I got sucked into watching you work. I’m not a creep. I promise. At least, if I am a creep… it’s in like… a safe way? What? Okay no please forget I said that. Anyway.”
At this point, she’s so frazzled her arms shoot out from her sides, hitting both our laptops and knocking over my stack of color charts and Pantone samples.
We watch in silence as color chips rain onto the floor like confetti.
“Shit,” Tilly says at last, slithering out from her seat andunder the desk then crawling around the floor, reaching every which way to collect the papers. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not a big deal,” I say, moving around the desk and kneeling to help her. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m such a mess. I’m sorry. Did some go under the dresser? Let me…”
She lies down on her stomach, pressing her cheek against the carpet and reaching her arm into the tiny crack under the chest.
“Honestly, Tilly, it’s not a big deal. You can leave it. Or I’ll—”
“Got it!” Tilly says, rolling her neck so she’s looking at me. The movement reminds me of the terrifying way Cubby used to turn her doll heads all the way around.
“Shit,” she says again, eyes going wide.
“What’s wrong?”
“My arm’s stuck!” She jerks her body toward me while her arm stays firmly lodged beneath the furniture. “Holy fuck, it’s super stuck.”
“Okay. Wait. Um. Maybe stop doing that jerking thing?” I say, my voice rising an octave. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
“Ollie, holy shit. It’s really stuck. I don’t mean to freak out, but I’m kind of freaking out.” Her free hand claws at the carpeting.
“What should I do?” I say, like the completely useless git I am.
“I don’t know!” Tilly screeches, her panic flaming my own. “Can you get… I don’t know, some butter?”
“Butter?”
“To rub on my arm and help slide it out?”
“Where am I going to get butter?”
“I literally can’t solve all your problems for you, Oliver! My arm is stuck and I’ll probably die on this nasty-ass carpeting!”
“Hold on,” I say, scrambling to my feet and rushing toward the bathroom.
“It’s not like I can go anywhere!” Tilly yells after me.
I grab the little bottles of hotel shampoo and soap, then dart back to her, kneeling by the dresser. Tilly does that horrifying head swivel thing again.
“This might work,” I say, unscrewing the caps and squeezing out the goop from the bottles onto her arm.
