Indigo
Indigo watched in an uncomfortable silence. He saw Rose's deep blue eyes flick critically from one end of the watercolor to the other. At last, Rose seemed to reach a satisfactory conclusion.
"Rotten! The worst one yet!" A triumphant Rose proudly told Bill. He laughed, a loud, fake laugh and said,
"You are right, Rosy Pose! I shall have to take it back to London and fix it up a bit!"
Indigo, along with everybody else in the living room, knew why Bill was taking Rose's opinion so lightly: he knew it was not true. Everyone could see that Rose loved the painting, loved it as she had never loved one of Bill's paintings before. In fact, it had come out as Bill Casson's best piece yet.
The watercolor was huge, painted on a 3ft. by 4ft. canvas. It depicted a dark- haired, pale girl with startlingly blue eyes, laughing, knocking shoulders with a small, grinning American boy with brown eyes and hair. The boy was playing a beautiful black guitar, and Bill had perfectly captured the effortless concentration that Tom used when he played.
Rose stroked the painting gently with her forefinger, and it so obviously and deeply pained her that Bill had suggested taking it back that Saffy and Sarah rolled their eyes and (none too gently) extracted Rose from the room.
There was a loud splash from the kitchen, and Indigo distinctly heard Sarah snap "Swallow your pride, Rosy Pose! You love the painting!"
"I have no pride! Let go of me, Saffy!" was Rose's shrill reply.
A moment later, Saffron returned to the living room, both with suspiciously wet hands. "Rose loves your painting, Bill. Do you need help mounting it on Rose's wall? Saffy and I would be happy to help." Offered Sarah.
"Yes, come help me, girls. Coming, Indy?" Bill asked.
"No, thank you." was Indigo's absentminded reply; he was craning his neck, trying to see what Saffron and Sarah had done to poor Rose. As soon as the others went upstairs, Indy cautiously went into the kitchen.
There was Rose, tied to a kitchen chair with Sarah's sweater, sopping wet with a huge puddle of water around the base of the chair.
"Untie me, Indy! I'm gonna kill Sarah and Saffy!" Indigo made to untie Rose, then hesitated; he thought that Sarah might kill him if he let Rose go.
Trying to get Rose's mind off Saffron and Sarah, Indigo tried to engage Rose in conversation.
"Why don't you like the painting, Rosy Pose?" He asked. Rose's face fell.
"The stupid painting! I wouldlike it, but it's horrible Daddy's!" Rose exclaimed.
"Oh Rose…" was Indigo's only reply, and he went upstairs, despite Rose's desperate calls of 'Let me go!'
Indigo went upstairs just as the girls were coming down. He heard snatches of their conversation:
"Bill paints a picture of Tom and Rose but none of anyone else. Loving or insulting, probably which?" was Sarah's question, to which Saffron replied
"A bit of both, I think. What do you think, Indy?"
After a long pause, Indigo answered "More loving, I think."
That Night
Rose
Rose was trying to sleep, but couldn't keep her eyes off the painting. It took up nearly a whole wall; Rose's room was far from large.
Rose kept looking at Tom's hair. It didn't look exactly the way Tom's did, and with Rose, everything had to be perfect. Rose soundlessly got up and took out her watercolors. She picked a perfect match for the brown Bill had used- or thought she had. It was not brown but actually purple (It was harder to pick colors in the dark!). Rose hurried away to turn on the light, and when she did she saw that the purple had trickled far down the painting. In Rose's eyes, it was ruined.
Rose drifted into an unsettling sleep, not being able to bear looking at the painting again. Her dreams were filled with drips of purple water and ruined paintings.
In the morning, Saffron was the first to notice the painting. She had come in to wake Rose up.
"Get up, Rose! Tom's plane gets here at 12:30 remember!" Saffy practically yelled in Rose's ear. Then she noticed the painting.
"Oh Rosy Pose, what have you done? Look at the painting!" She exclaimed.
"Shut up, Saffy." Was Rose's only response, and she buried herself under blankets once more.
Soon the word spread of Bill's ruined painting, but no one went into Rose's room; Saffron had advised them to stay away from her. So Rose talked to no one. Until Tom came.
He burst into the room with an air of excitement and said "Hello, Permanent Rose!"
"Tom!" Rose shouted, but then caught sight of the picture and turned away, apparently torn between excitement and shame.
Tom sat next to her and said, "You know, I really like it better that way."
"Really!" Exclaimed Rose, brightening immediately.
"Yes, really. Maybe I'll get purple highlights now. I have always wanted to." Tom said, and hugged her.
...