The Other Side of Blue by Valerie O. Patterson Read Free Book Online Page B

“I’m sure Mrs. Walters will be happy to show you some hints, but today is not so good. Mrs. Walters, she is very busy. She has a big commission to finish.”
    Martia is capable of lying. For the first time, I know for certain she’s told a lie. Mother has no commission. She isn’t busy. As of yesterday, the canvases stood empty. Some pencil lines suggested Mother might be starting something, but it’s hard to tell.
    Kammi’s face falls. She hasn’t learned yet to hide the things that matter most.
    â€œI have just the good idea, what you should do,” Martia said, serving Kammi her crepes. “I make you a picnic lunch, and you can take it to Boca Roja Beach. Miss Cyan, she knows the way.” Martia bustles around the kitchen. She lines a cooler with blue plastic ice packs, the ones Mother brought from home years ago, handling them as if they possess magic. She packs waxed-paper packets of food inside, along with a bottle of water and two lemon-lime sodas.
    Kammi cuts into her crepes and looks at me. Maybe she’s judging whether the beach with me is a good alternative to art lessons. Or maybe she’s thinking about what happened and whether being with me will cost her another chance to talk to Mother.
    I don’t want to go, either, but I’d rather be away from the house. I don’t want to listen to Mother’s pacing in her studio, or catch the smell of paint thinner creeping downstairs like a poisonous gas.
    Â 
    â€œA hat, too.” Martia has found a straw hat somewhere. As we stand in the shade of the porch, she places the hat on Kammi’s head, frames her face with it, and pushes the brim down. That way the sun can’t find Kammi’s fair skin so easily, but then she can’t see very far ahead, either.
    All I can see of her face is a nose dabbed with zinc oxide. She walks with the brim angled low, so she can see the
ground just in front of her. A pad of heavy paper sticks out of her beach bag. From the rattling sound, I know there’s a tin of drawing pencils in there, too.
    I’m weighted down with the ice chest, the sun tent, and my own towel.
    Kammi trudges behind me, the wind snatching away the sound of her sandals flapping against the soles of her feet. When we pass the boathouse, I know without looking that she has stopped in front of it. I keep going. If I don’t look back, I can count on her following me like a puppy.
    At the far end of the beach, just around the curve where Mother can no longer see us, even with binoculars, I stop. I turn around. Sure enough, Kammi’s following me, and I wait for her to catch up.

Chapter Eight
    W HEN KAMMI reaches me, she says, “I want to paint that boat.” The wind flips her cover-up across her thighs. Her straw hat threatens to fly away, and she forces it down on her head.
    I know the boat she means. I ignore her.
    â€œThis is just the shade of blue,” she says, holding up a watercolor pencil in her fist, not giving up.
    â€œNo, it isn’t.” Her pencil is delft blue. The blue of the boat is more vibrant, richer in tone. More like ultramarine. The name even sounds like it should mean the ultimate or the perfect sea, but it doesn’t. To medieval Italians,
oltramarino
meant “from beyond the seas.” Maybe that’s more accurate. A blue not of this world.
    â€œCome on, it’s farther.” I start to walk again.
    â€œHow much farther?”
    â€œThe next beach over. Not far.” We cut across inland through scrub and cacti. Lizard tracks weave through the hot sand. I like the way the heat feels, the way it sinks over my head, anchoring me to the ground. Kammi falls behind, the art supply bag over her shoulder. At least she’s given up on the leather shoes and opted for plastic beach slides.
    Down a long hill, the path opens up to another beach, a tucked-away cove. Too shallow for most boats, Boca Roja invites only swimmers who walk from