Counting Colors, Part III

The entrance had a big arch with the name on top, a small ticket booth on one side, and “Entrance” and “Exit” gates leading to the cars still on the ground. Everything was either clean white or absolutely unpainted, waiting patiently for someone or something to give them color. In my head, I scanned the cars and arch and counted the colors I wanted to paint for each part. Purple letters, blue gate, red cars, yellow stripe. Someone once told me that if you’re trying not to cry you should recite in your head the colors of everything around you. I don’t think I’ll ever need to use that trick. I haven’t cried since Dad died six years ago when I was ten.

Finally, Will arrived. “So I thought we’d start with the cars. They’re the easiest,” I said. “The manager of the park said the paint’s around back.”

“What color were you thinking?” he asked as we made our way around the rollercoaster.

“Red,” I replied.

“Of course,” he said with a sly smile. Once we got the paint and brushes we started to make our way back. Will opened the first can of red and splashed it onto the ground, barely missing my green Converse.

“Smooth!” I jeered at him, and he kicked the red dust up at me. We painted our first coat of red on the cars and were almost finished within a couple hours. The quiet swishes of the brush relaxed me, each bright red stroke bringing pizzazz to the dreary grey cars. Will and I worked in almost silence on different ones. I loved painting on a canvas, but sometimes just filling something with color was as satisfying, if not more. “I think they need something more,” I said, “like a yellow stripe or something.”

Will replied, “No, I like the simplicity.” We argued for a bit before I agreed to wait and see what it looked like with the rest of it painted.

The next session, 2 days later, Will blew me off. I got a lame-o text from him that morning saying “Hey sry, I cant make painting. Talk to u later.” He did the same thing the next day. I started to freak out, because I was so sure we hit it off again that first day. Was I not important to him at all? Did I flirt too much? What could he possibly have that was better to do, or at least more fun? I tried to convince myself to calm down and just forget him for a while. Or at least until the end of the week, because we had to be done with the rollercoaster in three.

So then, the Andrews arrived. I met them at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport, per my mom’s orders. First I saw Erica, the petite blonde with an unfailing sense of fashion but shockingly strong and in shape. And then there’s Aiden. Dreamy, in my opinion, and a complete opposite of Erica: tall, muscular, dark haired. After the initial greetings, Aiden surprised me by saying, “I can’t wait for you to come back out to London, We’ve made so many changes to our home—it looks completely different!”

The way he said “home” in his accent made me feel all warm inside.

“Maybe we can all go have lunch in the city,” Erica suggested. I thought of what Mom had said: You need to spend time with them. Unconvinced, I thought of the painting session in half an hour I had planned with Will to make up for the ones he had missed. The ones he had missed.

“Sure,” I said to them. “Let’s go. I’m free for the afternoon.”

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