On the next one, the one where she was performing a Julie Andrews twirl and trailing a scarf, the scarf had been transformed into what appeared to be a boa constrictor, which was devouring her arm. Rebecca’s mouth had been turned into a little “O” of distress and she appeared to be trying to shake it off. The boa was wearing a big smile.
Rebecca muttered something unintelligible that ended with a furious, “atrocity.”
The last bench was the coup de grâce, though. The one where her head was tilted back and she was aiming an ecstatic smile upward.
She hadn’t been transformed into anything.
But the artist had given her a single, huge, erupting zit.
Rebecca made a low, feral sound in her throat. Like a cornered badger.
J. T. pulled up in front of the Truth and Beauty. “Here we are!” he said cheerfully. “You’ll feel better after you’ve had a blow-out.”
She flounced out of the truck and slammed the door so hard it should have caused an earthquake in the next county.
And he sat still for a moment, thinking furiously.
The funny part, the sweet part, the part that all but broke his heart right then and there: that Britt couldn’t even be truly mean when she was trying to be mean.
All of those pictures were adorable.
He hesitated.
And then, for God’s sake, even if he waded into the face of her cold rage and rejection, he just had to know if she was okay.
He performed an illegal U-turn in the middle of the street and headed up to Britt’s house.
Britt finally, tentatively, slid one foot out from under the covers and put it on the floor. And the cool floor against her bare foot felt so good to her sore head, she just lay there like that for an indeterminate number of minutes.
She got the rest of her body up in cautious increments in a similar fashion, and inched across the floor with shuffling steps, as if she were carrying a live grenade, careful not to jostle her head or her stomach. She made it to the kitchen and discovered about two inches of old, cold coffee left in yesterday’s pot. She dumped it in a cup with shaking hands and put it in the microwave.
Feeding Phillip about did her in. She gagged at least four times when his little column of meat slithered out of the can and splooped onto his dish.
And then she took the coffee outside and very, very carefully, in tenderly careful increments, stretched out on a lawn chair.
The morning sun was on her toes, and she was pretty certain that lying motionless like that was all she was fit for today.
That was how J. T. found her about fifteen minutes later.
She’d closed her eyes for a little while, and she was never certain whether she fell asleep again.
But when she opened them, J. T. standing over her, peering down.
She stared at him for what seemed like an inordinately long time.
Her heart leaped up like a puppy.
And then it crash-landed when she remembered he was the reason she had a vicious hangover.
“Did you spend thenightout here, Britt?” He touched her arm as if to test whether it was clammy. He sounded worried.
“No,” she said. “I just got here.”
She said it as though she’d been traveling with a passport for days.
He settled back against the railing to study her. His face was a veritable lantern of suppressed glee all shot through with concern.
“So you’re back from Napa.”