“Exactly what I said: What is it?”

“Well, can’t you see what it is?”

“A paintin’.”

“Yeah,” Dave said. It was obviously a painting.

Rhonda propped the painting up against an old milk crate that had some old glass electrical insulators and a Nerf football and some softballs and some ball gloves and some Frisbees in it.

And she stared at the painting.

For a while.

And then she asked, “Where’d you get this, it looks homemade?”

Dave’s painting was homemade. That’s what made it special, he thought. But the way Rhonda said that it “looked homemade” made it seem like she didn’t think it was very special. Or of any quality. And that hurt. “What do you mean it looks homemade?” Dave asked, trying not to whimper.

“It looks like someone really painted it.”

“Well, someone really did paint it!”

Rhonda looked at Dave. And wondered if he was the someone who had painted it for her and asked, “Did you paint this?”

“Yeah.”

“For me?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” Rhonda stared at the painting and asked bluntly, “Why?” Because she really couldn’t understand why Dave would have painted something for her.

“Well…” Dave tried to answer Rhonda’s question—but couldn’t.

And Rhonda sensed that his feelings were hurt and tried to make him feel better and said, “I mean, thanks, thank you,” and didn’t much sound like she meant it.

“You’re welcome,” muttered Dave, hurt—but still eager to see what Rhonda thought of his painting.

“So, Dave,” said Rhonda sardonically, “I didn’t know you painted.”

“Well, I do.” Dave did a lot of things. He cooked. He played the piano. He gardened. He built ham radios. He read.

And he painted.

“I paint,” continued Dave. “See, I’m takin’”—Dave interrupted himself and went over to the painting and turned it right side up, because Rhonda had propped it up upside down when she had set it against the old milk crate. And then he continued, “I’m takin’ this painting class on Tuesdays at the Rec Center—this artist from Allagash is teaching it—it’s real good—and this is my version of one of those stare-at-it-till-you-see-the-thing things. You ever seen one of those?”

“A stare-at-it-till-you-see-the-thing thing?”

“Yeah, you’ve seen ’em, right?”

“No, I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

“Yeah, you do, you know what they are.”

“I don’t think I do, Dave.” Rhonda hated it when people—especially guys—decided what she knew and didn’t know.

“Yeah, you do: You know those picture books with the illustrations that take up the whole page and just look like rows and rows of a bunch of little repeating images—like little stars or birds or umbrellas or whatever—anything, I guess? Anyway, if you don’t focus on the little images and kinda cross your eyes and stare at the whole page for long enough, you can eventually make out a 3-D image that’s hidden inside all the little repeating images. It’ll appear to you—from out of the 2-D patterns you’ve been starin’ at.”

“Okay, yeah, I’ve seen those but—”

“Told ya!”