"We'll be the old ladies causing trouble in the nursing home."

~Anonymous

~~~~~~~~

I push open the door to the art classroom. I might as well get it over with. "Finn--"

"Beverly!" Finn immediately stands up from his desk, a lopsided smile on his face. His hazel eyes are sparkling with joy as he comes over to me and takes my hand. "I finished it, come see."

I allow myself to be taken over to the mural, where the paint stretches from one end of the wall to the other. I'm still rehearsing my speech in my head.

The golden-gilded wallpaper covers a good bit of the scene behind it, with several rips of varying sizes allowing glimpses of the ballroom inside.

Men and women are dancing together, their feet seeming to glide over the polished floor. And it's not like a cheesy wall mural like the ones in downtown Chestnut Ridge. The people's teeth aren't too big and white and their hair doesn't have different colored streaks going through them.

It looks real. Like a Renaissance painting.

I step closer to absorb every detail, but stop when I come to the center.

I almost miss it, but amongst the crowds of people, there's a woman in an emerald green dress, swinging around three little girls, smiling wide like she's having the time of her life.

I blink and look over to Finn. "Is that...?"

"I had to," he says softly like it's an apology.

I tilt my head in confusion. "What? Why?"

Finn takes a step back to look at his work. "Well, if no one could see beyond this wall, they'd have no clue what's going on in the next room. It's like you, Beverly. You had a whole different world on the other side of the wall, but you never knew it until the paper began to peel back. See?"

His eyes search mine expectantly and I smile, though it feels strained. "That's really sweet of you, man." I laugh nervously. "The only nice thing a guy's ever done for me was let me have the chocolate part at the bottom of a Drumstick ice cream cone. But...I haven't really been one-hundred percent honest about me and the girls."

I cast my eyes downward, not wanting to see his disappointment. "Aimee offered me thirty-thousand dollars to watch the girls for six months, and that's why I took them in."

I can't resist sneaking a peek at his expression. It isn't disappointed, which is a relief. But his brow lowers in deep concern.

I spill the whole story. How it was about the money at first, but now it's not, and I don't even know if I'll take the money now, even though I've told the entire PTO that I won't. I even tell him that Aimee's coming on Wednesday, but his expression doesn't change.

I fold my arms uncomfortably and sigh. "Just say I'm the worst person ever or something."

"You are far from the worst person," he says gravely. "I'm just worried."

I lift an eyebrow. "About what? Me taking the money?"

"No, nevermind the money," he says, and I hear the slightest bit of frustration in his tone, which is more than I've ever heard from him before. "What will you do now?"

I've asked myself the same question, and it still unsettles me.

Finn begins to pace back and forth across the room.

Now I'm confused. "What's wrong?"

"I just don't understand how she can come back so suddenly. Isn't it so very difficult for you?"

I nod. "Well, yeah. I hate it. I thought I had two whole months left."

"It's like taking infinity away from a person. When you think you have all the time in the world and suddenly something happens and you're balancing off the edge of a cliff." He sighs deeply. "It seems rather unfair."

"Okay...but what's really wrong?"

His eyes glance up at me and he rubs the back of his neck. "You've come such a long way, Beverly. When the girls leave and the house is empty; when you don't have to take them to school or cook them dinner or go on field trips, what happens then?"

I bite my lip. "I don't know," I say quietly. "I don't really want to think about it."

"You'll figure it out," he says simply.

I shift my gaze away. "I don't know." A long moment of silence passes between us. Thoughts cram up in my mind and it takes a while for them to become clear. "Are you afraid that I'll go back to being like I was before?"

"No," he says with a small laugh. "I liked you the way you were, remember?" His eyes wander to the painting, where the woman dancing with the three girls is laughing. "I just know they make you so happy."

A pit forms in my stomach. He's right. But something inside tells me that he's wrong, too.

"I have an idea," he says brightly.

His idea is much better than the one I have (which is to drown my sorrows in a neverending bucket of ice cream and drink a bottle of chocolate syrup from a champagne glass).

"Why don't you take the girls on a date?" he says. "To get your mind off of them leaving?"

I tap my chin. I almost say that we have too much to do before Aimee comes, but, really, I just want to be sad.

The door of the classroom opens, and a herd of fifth graders come storming through the door.

Finn kisses my forehead and whispers, "It'll be alright. I won't worry so much if you don't."

I sigh. "Thanks, Oprah."

I straighten and go over to my little desk, where a stack of coloring pages have been set up for me to cut out.

This is not how I expected this conversation to go. Now I have more questions that move the money issue far from my mind.

~~~~~~~~~

I sit in the empty cafeteria, staring at the salad in front of me with disdain. This is an ice cream sundae with chocolate brownie diabetes moment. Not a cold lettuce moment.

Things quickly turn into a bury-your-head-into-a-cake moment when I see Barb walking towards me. She looks timid, like she's scared of coming near me.

I groan inwardly. "Hey, Barb."

She sits down across from me. "Hey..."

I slide my salad away from me and fold my arms on the table. "So...."

"So." She rubs her arm and doesn't meet my eye. I notice she doesn't have her coffee with her, which is a first.

"Remember when you got my fingers stuck in your window?" she asks.

"You mean when you wouldn't let go as I tried to roll it up?"

"....yeah." She sits up. "I kinda thought you were a psycho."

"The feeling was mutual."

"But then I got to know you, and..." she shrugs, "you treated me like I was some queen of parenting."

"You are," I say, "to me."

Barb gives a half-hearted chuckle. "I don't think you're in it for the money. Not anymore. It just...surprised me. And the way Kristen said it..."

"I can imagine," I mutter. "Look man, I know I was a jerk, okay? I'm weird and selfish and I tend to think I'm either the worst person in the universe or the lovechild of Beyonce and Fergie. There's not an in-between. But anyway, I'm sorry." I give a lopsided smile. "Friends again?"

Barb grins. "We were never not friends, girl, what're you talking about?"

I slide over my salad. "Hungry?"

Barb unzips her diaper bag and pulls out a stainless steel water bottle that is undoubtedly filled with cold brew. "Coffee?"