Frowning in concentration, working that tongue tip at the corner of her mouth. Justin thought she probably wasn’t even aware of doing it. Amazing, all the little habits that characterize us that for years go unrealized. Sometimes even to the grave. He enjoyed watching her work, tried to be unobtrusive. Just sat in a chair several feet away, a Killian’s sweating on the hardwood floor beside his chair leg. Can’t leave the bottles alone, can I? he thought. But I’m handling it, it’s okay, it’s not out of control. April was doing some cartoonish graphics for a plant rental and maintenance firm. Big business down here, he gathered—expert foliators for office space, for execs too busy to worry about their own green thumbs. Or lack of them. With as many plants as he had sent to an early mulch-grave, Justin figured his own thumb was brown. April worked in sporadic bursts. A flurry of lines and strokes, then periods of appraisal and contemplation.
