The Angel in the House Attends a Bob Ross Paint Night

Debbie is not accustomed to spending money on activities for herself.
It was forty-five dollars, but for a good cause— a school fundraiser.
It’s not really for me, she reasons, it’s for the children.

The parking lot is dark and it’s raining— an autumn rain that would chill a colder woman.
Somehow, her nurse-white New Balances
resist the water and the muck.

The school gym smacks of youth— vinyl, body odor, rubber soled shoes.
She crinkles her nose at the rawness of it
and remembers.

Reigning supreme
as the cheerleader or the prom queen
or both— it gets mixed in her memory these days.

She chats feebly with the women nearby
meaningless hellos about happy little accidents
until she identifies a kindred.

Her name is Allison.
Her Instagram handle is AllisThreeBoys.
She has dandruff and a slight potbelly.

“I’m not much of an artist,” Debbie confesses
as she carefully coats her canvas in liquid white.
Allison smiles. “Me either.”

Debbie may not be much at art
but she follows directions
with the alacrity of an assassin.

Allison, she learns, is a military wife.
When Jerry proposed
Her mother told her to take him, for god’s sake.

She may not find another man
who wants a girl
whose ass is two axe handles wide.

They mix alizarin crimson and phalo blue to create a sky.
Debbie continuously tells Allison how beautiful, how precise, how imaginative
her painting is in comparison to her own.

They notice another woman, several seats down
who is not following along at all
and they laugh together.

Their mutual admiration and deprecation
becomes like a contest— “Your trees look so real.”
“Are you sure you didn’t major in art?”

“My sky is nothing compared to yours.”
“Stop— I can’t even get the lake right.”
“Yours is lovely, I just want to jump right in and move there.”

The teacher reminds them—
“Don’t compare— as Bob says—
It’s your world; you can make it how you want.”

Debbie wonders for a moment or two
how that world would look
and the possibilities frighten her.

“Look at this,” she says to Allison
pointing with her brush,
“My happy little rock is just a sad little blob.”

They giggle and pose
for an Instagram photo
together in front of the banner of Bob Ross.

Debbie signs her painting “Debet”
like “Monet”
and Allison grins at her cleverness.

Debbie thinks of hanging it
or giving it as a gift.
She cannot decide which and places it on a shelf in the closet.

She will find it after the season changes
when she searches for her flannel bed linens,
her nose full of must and Tide.

She will gaze at it for a few moments.
My world, she will think
placing the painting back on the shelf
next to expertly folded fitted sheets.