“Like, you make sculptures?” Noelle was intrigued now, in spite of herself. The idea of turning unloved antiques into art pieces appealed to her, keeping the past but reinventing it.

“Hmm, sometimes, but more often I decoupage a piece with interesting paper I think relates to it in some way, or I disassemble things and make them into shadow boxes, or take furniture with very classic silhouettes and paint it neon eighties colors,” Miriam explained, moving her arms as she spoke. “I’m not sure what these gestures are supposed to mean—maybe ‘I glue this weird thing to this other weird thing, then voila I sell it!’

“Plus a lot of kitschy, craft show kind of stuff. Aunt Cass used to have a bunch of them actually. There was an elephant lamp I covered in pages from The Jungle Book and old tracts I found about the Indian Independence Movement and modern indictments of Orientalism.” She looked over at Noelle. “It was pink. It used to live in the front hallway, years ago. Cass sent me pictures.”

“You did Dumbo?” Noelle was stunned. “I love that thing.”

“It’s actually the first-ever Miriam Blum original, from before I started doing upcycling as a career.” Miriam tucked a curl behind her ear, looking sheepish. “I took a lit class in college where the prof taught Kipling without any context, and I turned it in as my final project. I called it ‘The Elephant in the Room.’ The professor was unamused, but Cass loved it. You really like it?”

Noelle nodded. “I stole it. It’s in my room. Is all the stuff up in the attic yours, too? The haunted doll maypole statue?”

Miriam hid her face in one hand and nodded. She took an embarrassed sip.

“Ah yes,” Miriam said, “some of my earliest work. Back when I was just messing around, before I became the Manic Pixie Dream Bisexual of the estate sale scene.” She vogued her hands around her face, and Noelle bit back a laugh.

“Your stuff is awesome,” Noelle said truthfully. “I’m really into the detail work you put into everything.” Noelle had loved Miriam’s art the whole time she’d lived here. She’d asked Cass about the pieces, but Cass had been cagey about where she’d gotten them.

“An up-and-coming young artist I want to support,” she’d said.

Knowing that Miriam had made all those pieces forced her to re-evaluate her assumptions. The flighty, thoughtless Miriam of her imagination who wasn’t serious about anything could not be the same person who had made that art.

Damn it, she was going to have to admit she’d judged too quickly.