BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
“Apple green?”
Hopper stood back and, paint roller angled in one hand so it wouldn’t drip, tilted his head as he regarded what represented the last hour of work on the bedroom wall. He’d done a good job, and he knew it—painting a wall was hardly the most difficult challenge he’d faced in his life, but he had wanted to get it right and, crucially, he and Diane had agreed to redecorate their new apartment themselves, rather than hire professionals. The move from Hawkins had been easy in the planning but harder in the execution, their bank account absorbing most of the damage. Hopper had only been working his beat a month—having started literally the day after they’d arrived at the start of May—and the couple were very much looking forward to his first paycheck.
But now, as he watched, quite literally, the paint dry on the wall, he wondered if they should have perhaps splashed out a little more on some better paint.
“Hey, how’s it going in here?”
Hopper looked over his shoulder as Diane crept in, their fourteen-month-old daughter draped over her shoulder in a deep slumber. Diane carefully stepped around the bunched up ground sheets by the door and joined her husband in the middle of the room. He gave Sara a gentle kiss on the cheek, and his wife a more direct kiss on the mouth, before gesturing to the wall with the roller.
“The tin said apple green.”
Diane nodded. Hopper glanced sideways at her.
“Is that frown one of quiet appreciation of my skills as an artisan painter,” he asked, “or are you wondering what the hell kind of apples are that kind of color?”
Diane laughed and drew herself closer to her husband, but as she reached one arm around his waist, he held up the paint roller, and she paused.
“Hold on,” he said. He ducked over to the paint tray on the floor by the wall, and rested the roller in it, then turned to return to his wife and child when Diane held a hand up. He froze on the spot.
“Oh, Jim!”
“What?”
Diane shook her head and pointed at him. He looked down at his chest, at the yellow Jim Croce T-shirt he’d picked up at a show last year. The folk singer’s smiling face was now spattered with green paint.
“Oh, dammit.”
Diane retracted her hand to cup her mouth. On her shoulder, Sara began to stir, and Diane instinctively swayed gently from side to side to keep her daughter comfortable.
Hopper looked up, his eyes narrow.
“Are you laughing?”
Diane dropped her hand, her mouth split into a wide grin. “Oh, Jim, you loved that shirt.”
He sighed. “I did love this shirt.” He watched as his wife’s shoulders shook as she tried to control her amusement. “I’m glad one of us finds this funny.”
But he couldn’t help himself. A moment later his own laughter bubbled up from his chest. As he moved back to join Diane, their noise woke Sara and she shifted on her mother’s shoulder.
Hopper moved in to Diane’s side, and together they managed a side-by-side embrace that cradled Sara between them. As their daughter yawned and looked around, the two parents regarded Hopper’s handiwork again.
“Well, you did say you wanted a change,” said Diane. “New city, new start—that was what you said, right?”
“Oh, sure,” said Hopper. “New city, new start, new lesson in never to buy paint made by…who did make this paint, anyway?” He craned his head around, trying to see the discarded pail.
Diane smiled, and twisted around to give Hopper another kiss.
“Well, I think it looks great,” she said. “We wanted green and we got green.”
Hopper grinned. “We sure did.” He looked down at Sara, who yawned again and was now clearly back in the land of the living. “Hey, sweetie, what do you think? Do you like the color, huh? Did your daddy do an excellent job, huh?”
He lifted Sara off Diane’s shoulder, and balancing the child on his hip, he took her closer to the wall. Gently squeezing Sara’s hand, he bounced her lightly and nodded at the wall.
“Look, this is apparently what apples look like in New York City.”
From the middle of the room, Diane laughed. Hopper turned in a circle to face his wife, then, as he adjusted his hold on Sara, he felt her small hands on his face as she balanced herself.
Small…wet hands.
“Uh-oh,” he said, looking down. Sara had found the patches of paint on his T-shirt, and was now busy transferring that paint from his chest to his face—and to her own.
“Apples!” she said, and giggled.
Shaking her head, Diane joined them and carefully extracted Sara from Hopper’s custody.
“Okay, how about we leave daddy to it now. He’s got a lot of work to do.” She glanced at her husband. “And we all know better than to disturb a master at work.”
Hopper laughed and waved her away. As Diane and Sara vanished through the bedroom door, he looked down at his chest again, tugging at the edge of his T-shirt, seeing if it was possibly salvageable.
It seemed unlikely.
With a sigh, Hopper picked up the roller and got back to work.