Page 13 of The Slapshot and the Single Mom
Jack smiles at me, his fingers covering mine. “Good. I don’t want to pressure you into anything you don’t want to do. I do, however, want you to learn how to have fun again. It seems like you need that.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Jack
Maggie’s lips part,and she stares at me for a moment. If we were just about anywhere else, I’d be tempted to kiss her right now.
But not here with Mrs. Can’t-Mind-Her-Own-Business over there trying to murder me with her glares for the high crimes and misdemeanors of getting my date some wine and, I dunno, showing up late, I guess?
She can deal with it, though, because tonight, what Maggie wants, Maggie gets. And what she wants is to paint some dreadful landscape while we drink. I always assumed the point was to get a little buzzed while you did it—something about it lowering your inhibitions and being more open to trying a new activity or broadening your artistic horizons. Or maybe it’s just an excuse to waste money, do something goofy, and have fun.
The lady running this little event interrupts the moment, saving me from probably doing or saying something stupid and making a fool of myself, bringing our canvases and easels, setting aplastic disposable pallet between us and squeezing paint onto it. “Now,” she says, “here’s what you need to know.” And she launches into an explanation of what everyone else has done already, which is really only two steps—painting the big background colors and then the clouds that we walked in during. Once we’re set up, she heads back to the front of the class and walks everyone through the next steps, even though Maggie and I are still trying to catch up on getting started.
“Shit!” Maggie hisses, covering her mouth with her hand and darting a look at the judgy old lady in the back corner, but that lady seems to be focused on her own work and is ignoring us. For now, at least.
“What’s wrong?” I whisper, leaning over to look at her canvas. She has a big glob of paint that I think is supposed to be a cloud.
“How am I so terrible at painting clouds?” she whispers. “Maybe I do need the wine. At least if I’m tipsy, I won’t care so much that my clouds look like misshapen sheep.”
I study her blob thoughtfully for a moment. “Well, people are always talking about how clouds look like other things, right? So it’s normal to have a sheep-shaped cloud.”
She laughs, reaching for her wine and taking a hefty gulp. I raise my eyebrows. So much for drinking it slowly, I guess. I sip my wine more moderately, eyeing my own masterpiece. My clouds are pretty blobby, too. I guess the difference is that I don’t have any expectation for them to be better than that.
I can’t see very many people’s paintings, but I have my doubts anyone’s looks as good as the example at the front. And even ifsomeone’sdoes, I doubt we’re the only ones with weird blobs instead of the postcard-perfect version up front. It’s not like thisis a class that actually teaches you technique. It’s a lady standing in front going, “See? Like this. Isn’t that easy?”
And the answer is a resounding,No. No, Janet, it’s not that easy. It’s only easy for you because you’ve done this a million times.
Despite my personal ineptitude at painting, Maggie and I have a good time, making friends with the couple on her other side—two women who told us they were here to celebrate their thirty-seventh anniversary. “Shannon’s always wanted to do this,” Amanda confided to me at the bar about halfway through, rolling her eyes. “I always thought it sounded silly. I’m a mechanical engineer! What do I know about painting?” She shrugs. “But doing things the other person likes is key to keeping a relationship going. She cheers me on when I run half-marathons, even though she’d rather die than run one herself.” She nods toward Maggie, who’s hard at work on her painting, though it seems like every time she touches it with the brush, it gets exponentially worse. I’m not sure how it’s possible that she’s worse at this than I am, but she is. “Remember that,” Shannon tells me, her voice suddenly serious. “Doing things she likes will keep the relationship strong.”
I open my mouth to object—this is just one night, after all. Maggie doesn’t want to date me for a whole host of reasons known only to her, and lord knows I don’t have time to date either. That’s why I’ve always stuck to one-night-only relationships, as much as the termrelationshipcould possibly apply. Women are a distraction—right, Dad?
Does it matter that it’s a distraction I might welcome at this point? Not really. Not with Brock Savage’s hit piece hanging over my head.
If I can convince Maggie to go out with me a few times in the off season so I’m not too bored and so I can clean up my reputation a little by being seen with the same woman several times, that’ll be awesome. If not?
Well, I guess I’m no worse off than before. And at least I got to make sure she had a good time for once doing something she wanted to do, even if the result is more tragic than she’d like to admit.
Despite her initial gulping of the wine, Maggie drinks the rest slowly over the course of the evening, adding in the soda she grabbed initially as well as water during the three hours we spend at the class.
We walk out carrying our canvases, and she regards hers with a mixture of dismay and horror. “God. I think my ten-year-old is a better artist than me.” She looks at me, eyes wide. “How did that happen? I took painting one semester in high school, and I was never amazing, but I certainly wasn’tthisterrible.”
Laughing, I shake my head. “And how long ago was that? And have you painted anything at all since then?”
With a groan, she covers her face with her free hand, letting the canvas drop to her side. “We’re not going to talk about that. Let’s find a dumpster so I can toss this before we get back to the car.”
“What? No! You can’t do that!”
She looks at me, surprised, a laugh bubbling out of her. “Why not? It’s terrible. Yours is way better.”
“Still. You shouldn’t just throw it away. You worked hard on it.”
She shakes her head. “Fat lot of good that did. The harder I worked, the worse it got.”
I laugh, unable to help myself.
“You know it’s true!” she crows, pointing a finger at me. “That’s why you’re laughing.”
Holding up a hand in surrender, I nod. “Okay, fine. I still say you shouldn’t throw it away. If you don’t want to keep it, I will.”
