YOU ARE AT BLUE STOP ~ LM PRESTON's HOUSE
YASH SCAVENGER HUNT
ARE YOU READY For the DEETS?
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Teaser and Excerpt
EXCLUSIVE CONTENT
It’s only five-thirty, and her eyes are as sharp as they are
at mid-afternoon. Sister Mo is
already sipping coffee at the long wooden table marred with
a thousand nicks and gouges,
surrounded by twelve chairs on with side and three at each
end. The kitchen is also at the ready:
frying pans on the stove, tower of plates stacked on the
counter, eggs and bread and butter
waiting to be lovingly-transformed into breakfast for the
kids of St. Catherine’s.
“Out all night again, you,” Sister Mo says in her thick,
Kingston lilt.
I drop my canvas bag on the well-worn but impeccably clean,
linoleum floor. “You know
I can’t paint during the day.” We’ve had this discussion,
like, a few hundred times.
“The devil prowls at night,” she says, rising to her
six-foot height. “You need breakfast.”
“Thanks, but I’m not hungry, Sister,” I try. Even though she
doesn’t like me out all night,
she supports my obsession, my need to tell a story through
paint.
“Nonsense.” Sister Mo springs to the ancient gas stove and
clicks on the gas burner. She
slices and tosses three pats of butter into a hot pan before
cracking three eggs in. Pops and
sputters fill the room.
I blurt out what I’ve wanted to say from the start. What I
want the world to know. “I
really did it. I captured The Last Supper!”
She drops a couple scoops of hash browns next to the eggs,
and then lets out a long,
disapproving sigh. This is as close to a curse as Sister Mo
ever gets.
“Sister, I know it’s good. Better than good. And mixing the
New York Rangers with The
Last Supper may not be Guernica, but you can’t say it isn’t
creative, and it just might make
someone’s day.”
“Kevin, you think you’re doing something meaningful with
your alley pictures, but it’s temporary. Fleeting.” Sister Mo drops two slices
of bread into the eight-slice toaster. “You could paint something that lasts.
Something people will see for hundreds of years.”
“I want people to see it now. Not only old, rich people with
a lot of money to go to fancy
museums and buy million-dollar art for their living rooms.
Everybody. Where they live so they
can see it every day—”
She dismisses my words with a wave. “You work all night, and
it’s gone in months,
sometimes days. You should go to art school. Really learn.”
“I’ve studied in my own way,” I say.
“You don’t know what
you think you know.” She slickly retrieves the toast, brushes the
slices with butter, slides the eggs onto a plate, adds
mountain of hash browns, and sets the
overwhelming breakfast in front of me.
Her deep-set brown eyes pin me in time. She stabs a long,
thick finger at me. “Eat
something, you.”
I’m exhausted and not the least bit hungry, but when Sister
Mo says eat, you eat.
“Anyone see you?” she asks, surprisingly casual for someone
who five seconds ago was
arguing that I was wasting my talent.
I cram a piece of toast into my mouth and hold up a finger
to buy some time. I don’t want
to tell her about Rosa, but there’s no lying to Sister
Moses, there’s only delaying the inevitable.
Her eyes are glued to me until I swallow.
“Just a girl.”
“A girl? What about ’dis girl?” Her voice is a mix of whimsy
and concern.
My brain needs three days of sleep before I’m ready to have
this conversation, but there’s
no escaping her now. She’s given me a huge plate of food,
enough for a hockey player the night
before a game. Nobody wastes food at St. Catherine’s. I’m
not leaving this table until it’s gone,
and until Sister Mo has squeezed every last detail out of
me.
“Her mom was working, so she hung out on the fire escape
while I painted.” I don’t tell
Sister Mo that we talked all night, or that Rosa took a
photo of Take This Cup. I also don’t tell
her what Rosa’s mom does for a living. “Don’t worry. She
doesn’t know my real name or how to
find me.”
Sister Mo studies me, and I swear she’s been aware of every
thought I’ve ever had. “She
see the painting?”
“Yeah.” I recall Rosa’s face when I unveiled it. “She saw
it.”
Sister Mo leans forward. “She like it?” It feels like she’s
cataloging my every inflection,
every nervous twitch.
I can’t contain my excitement, and a huge grin breaks across
my face. “She really liked
it.”
“Good, then.” Sister Mo smiles, eases back in her chair, and
lets out that wonderful laugh
that always makes me feel like all is good with the world.
Also, I'm having a little giveaway of my own for FREE $5 Amazon Gift card and copy of Colliding Souls: CLICK HERE
CONTINUE ON THE HUNT
NEXT STOP ON THE HUNT IS at KELLY DEVOS' HOUSE
