“Are you looking for anything in particular?” she asked.
“A purple Christmas tree, I believe.”
“Ah . . .” Her smile got bigger as she pointed in the direction of several paintings a little farther down the breezeway, a forest of purple Christmas trees, grouped together under the sign KINDERGARTEN.
“I take it you know one of Claire’s students?” she said.
“Two, actually.”
“I do the best I can with them, but, this year, I got the kindergarteners in to see me twenty-four hours after they were shown Barney’s Great Adventure. What can I say?”
I laughed. “So you must be the incredible art teacher that Claire was just telling me about?”
“Art teacher, home ec teacher, currently going crazy teacher,” she said, pushing her hair behind her ears. “But I’ll gladly take Claire’s description in place of that. And who are you?”
“Annie,” I said. “Annie Adams. I just moved to town.”
“Welcome!” she said. “I had a couple of clues that you’re not from here, actually. You know, in addition to my having lived here my entire life, and the not-knowing-you part.”
“What were those?”
She pointed at my Converse sneakers, and then at my fleece. “You can get pretty sick dressed like that,” she said.
“I’m getting that idea,” I said. “I recently got married and my husband’s from here. Grew up here, actually. But, except for a work trip to the Berkshires last summer, I haven’t spent any time in the area to speak of. So I guess I’m still figuring out what it’s going to be like.”
“Cold.”
“And pretty,” I said, hopefully.
“And cold.”
Then she reached for another painting, started to pull at it. It had a blue ribbon underneath it. First prize written in gold on the front. Which was when I noticed every one of the paintings had a blue ribbon underneath it. First prize gold on all of them.
She shrugged. “There was supposed to be one winner, but I’m not a big one for competition,” she said. “So I made it a two hundred–way tie.”
“Sounds like a good solution,” I said.
“It became less of one when all of the kids began asking me which one of them won the most.” She shook her head in disbelief. “What are you going to do?”
Then, as she deposited another drawing on the dolly, I looked at the long wall, completely covered with artwork.
“You know what? I’m not in any rush. Can I give you a hand with some of these?”
She shined her smile at me, happily. “Really? You sure that you wouldn’t mind?” she said. “I was going to ask the janitor to give me a hand, then I remembered we don’t have one.”
I laughed, reaching for the painting in front of me—of two stick figures hitting turkey drumsticks—gently pulling at the tape on the corners.
“It’d be my pleasure to help out.”
She took her scarf off her neck, handed it over. “Well, please wear this while you do. I made it myself, lots of wool.”
“It’s so soft,” I said, wrapping the scarf around my neck and instantly feeling better, the cool starting to seep out of me.
“Excellent, because I cannot look at you all exposed like that,” she said. “And I’ll give you some more lessons in fin
ding warmth in Williamsburg while we work.”
“Don’t I just get more clothing?” I asked.