to the green.” On the word we, she made a circular motion, as though some unseen committee had come to this conclusion.
Hannah copied the movement Jacqui had made with both hands but used only one finger in a very halfhearted whirl that ended with her finger pointed to herself. “We did?”
“Too institutional.” Jacqui bobbed her head as if nodding for the whole invisible team. “We opted for something that trended toward gold.”
Hannah struggled to recall such a discussion.
Flooring? She remembered that.
Window treatments? Yes. She’d even made a bad pun about needing treatments to get over the trauma of looking at all those window treatments.
But trending toward gold?
She tipped her head to one side and winced. “Gold?”
“Not Goldenrod or American Heritage Mustard, not that deep of a hue. More of a hint of gold. Kissed by gold, as it were.”
“Kissed?” Hannah rubbed her forehead.
“That’s what you wanted. A vibrant, warmer tone.”
“I did?”
“Yes, you did. You wanted a warmer color. So I brought warmer colors.” She raised the sample squares. “Now you tell me you can’t decide?”
Got it. Hannah exhaled. Message received. In Jacqui’s eyes, Hannah clearly had created all the problems. And she knew just how to fix that. “Okay, I can decide right now.”
“You can?”
“Yes.”
“Wonderful. So which is it? Kumquat? Or Canary?”
Hannah shimmied her shoulders in triumph and smiled, ready to accept her accolades as she said decisively, “Lemongrass.”
Jacqui threw up her hands.
The paint samples somersaulted through the air.
Kumquat, Canary and Lemongrass dotted the floor at her feet.
“What did I do?”
Jacqui shut her eyes. “Perhaps—”
Hannah licked her lips.
Jacqui cut herself off with a broad, slashing motion through the air between them.
Hannah cleared her throat.
“Hannah, I—” Jacqui pressed her lips together. She held her index finger over her mouth as if it took that measure of control to prevent a regrettable outburst on her part.
“What?”
“Excuse me a moment, would you please?” Jacqui spun on her heel to leave. Every last thing about her, from the soft click of the heels of her turquoise loafers to the swish of the dark curls at the back of her head, told of tightly reined-in fury.
But why? Clearly Jacqui had wanted the Lemongrass shade all along.
“I wanted to be accommodating,” Hannah told Tessa as she scooped her up from the baby seat.
A door slammed down the hallway.
Hannah jumped.
It opened again with a whoosh of air.
Crisp, clipped footsteps came toward her, then stopped cold.
The singing halted midphrase. Just “‘Rise and shine and give God—’”
Then nothing.
A quiet commotion next door followed, rapid-fire murmurings.
Hannah bristled. She clenched her jaw. “If I weren’t the world’s most accommodating person to work with, why would I even be here this afternoon? Much less have hauled you and Sam along? He only has another week until school starts—we should be out doing something fun.”
Tessa gurgled and slapped her hand lightly on Hannah’s cheek.
“Don’t you start in on me, young lady.” Hannah smiled and kissed the pudgy pink fingers. “At this point you and Sam are the only people in the whole world I know who without a doubt still think I am not a total disaster. And I’m not too sure about Sam.”
“Not too sure about me about what?”
“Not too sure if you saw that steam coming out of Mrs. Lafferty’s ears or not.” She motioned to the side of her head and hissed to lighten the moment.
Sam tiptoed fully into the room, whispering, “She sure is mad.”
“Sssssss.” Hannah drew more invisible heat waves in the air shooting from her ear and laughed, but inside she felt anything but jovial. Tears stung the rims of her eyes. She chewed her lower lip to keep from sniffling.
“Why is Mrs. Lafferty so mad?”
“Because…” Hannah had gotten herself into this because she couldn’t tell these sisters what she really thought. Did she dare share that unbecoming little tidbit with Sam? She gazed into his earnest, sympathetic eyes. “Oh, honey, I can’t say for sure why someone else feels what they feel. Or even if they feel what I feel they feel.”
“I feel dizzy.” He put his hand to his head and wobbled his way down to sit on the floor.
Hannah laughed. “Okay, let me try again. What I think happened is that Mrs. Lafferty thought I was not putting enough thought into her project. So I thought I’d try to make her happy by telling her what I thought she thought I ought to think was the right choice.”
He scratched the tip of his nose with the back of his hand. “You thought she thought