All in Good Time

"Yeah, you got the right idea. Now try to go like this." Zac took her hand and guided it along the paper. Grace looked up at him and smiled.

"Thanks," She said, watching her hand in his as they moved gracefully across the paper.

"Anytime," He said, smiling back. "Yeah. Just keep along that road and you’ll do great." He took a step back and took a sip from the red plastic cup he held in his right hand. He cocked his head slightly to one side as he watched his friend struggle with the drawing pencil, her worst enemy. He couldn’t help but grin a bit as she erased yet another perfect line. "How come you erased that?" He asked. "It looked fine." She gave him a funny look.

"That line," Grace said, as if it had been totally apparent the whole time. "was awful. It was out of place and crooked and-"

"You’ve got to stop putting yourself down," He interrupted. She smiled a tiny smile.

"Okay, okay, you win. I’ll shut up about my awful artistic skills." She paused, and Zac saw that as an opportunity to jump in.

"Better."

"I still don’t see why you keep on trying to teach me to draw when you know very well that I can’t," She called to him, in the next room.

"Sure you can," He insisted, refilling his cup from a pitcher of blue Kool-Aid that was resting, along with a multitude of other food items, on a long table. "You just have to teach your hands that." There was a long pause as she put the finishing touches on her picture of a geranium plant, which was sitting comfortably on a footstool across from her. Zac walked back across the "cafeteria" and into the "leisure" room, where everyone normally went to hang out backstage when they were sick of eating. Every venue had one.

He peered over her shoulder as she stared forlornly at her finished product. Then she looked up at him.

"Now you know why I write the books, not illustrate them." He clicked his tongue.

"Oh, it looks fine! Sign it," he insisted.

"Why? It sucks and I’ll probably just shove it in some box back home anyway."

"It doesn’t suck! It’s good, and I should know, ‘cause I’ve drawn that same plant zillions of times." She shot him a look, with a slight tinge of bemusement. He acknowledged it by smiling. "Sign it." She smiled, and gave in, signing ‘Grace K. Morgan’ in her familiar unreadable cursive handwriting. He smiled proudly. "Good." He took it and held it up. "You’ve learned well, grasshopper."

"Grasshopper, am I? I’m seven months older than you!" She said, trying to sound angry and failing miserably.

"So? I’m the one who taught you, dinnit I?" He challenged playfully, walking in a circle around her chair.

"Yeah, well…" She tried desperately to think up a comeback. Unfortunately, she wasn’t fast enough for Zac.

"Ha! Gotcha with that one!" He exclaimed. "Now you’ve gotta teach me to write, Mrs. Hot-Shot author," He concluded in a softer tone. Grace smirked, then softened her expression to a smile.

"All in good time." She picked his drumsticks up off the table. "But right now, you’ve got a packed house of screaming girls to rock down." She handed him his sticks. He smiled and took them, boldly kissing her cheek as he ran out the door after Taylor and Isaac, headed for the stage.

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