Days Of Us

16 - Day The Seventeenth -

-Day The Seventeenth-

Saturday, week 6

Lydia had been quite pissed when she had woken up to find that her house- that is, her landlord's house- had been graffitied at some time in the night. Inartistically- and quite detailedly, Lydia thought- spray painted across the side wall of the house was the male genitalia and the tag "WacKo" in fancy writing. the once mediocre paint job was now completely ruined and her landlord Josef insisted that they repaint the house as soon as possible. He already had the paint bought (an orange-cream colour that Lydia wasn't all too fond of but she kept her mouth shut nonetheless) and had began to paint the house.

Lydia stood outside in her pyjama shorts and T-shirt beside her housemate, Jan.

"I think we should help," Jan suggested in her perpetually concerned voice. "I've got some old clothes inside, do you want to wear some?"

Lydia looked up at the darkened sky, the threat of rain was present, Josef was struggling in the dead warmth and he was muscly. There'd be no point in her helping, she was strong for her size but the house was big and she'd just get in the way of everyone else.

"No, I have other things to do," she lied casually, turning away from Jan and walking towards the front door of the house. It was kind of true, but mostly not. She could tidy her room but she never messed it up in the first place, she could wash some of her clothes but there probably wouldn't be enough, she could practice some new makeup techniques but she didn't really need to- she wasn't even working as a beautician.

"Are you serious?!" Jan called, her voice switching from perpetually concerned to strangely angry.

Lydia stopped in her tracks, turning her head back to look at Jan who was stomping towards her. "What?" She snapped.

"Do you expect us to paint this whole house ourselves? We need you to help- and we need some more people too if we want to finish it today. So go get a paintbrush, call someone to help us and get working right now."

Lydia's mouth dropped open. She barely spoke to Jan, and from what she noticed, she was quite a reserved person. This, Lydia had not expected from her.

"I'm calling Nick," Jan said, walking by Lydia into the house before she had a chance to recover from the shock and talk back to Jan. Nick was Jan's boyfriend and, just like her, Lydia had barely spoken to him before. He seemed a lot like Jan, quiet and kind, but maybe he wasn't, people so often turned out to be different to how Lydia saw them. Lydia shook her head and restarted her walk inside. She would help, but not just because of what Jan said to her, she really had nothing better to do and, besides, they'd never get it done by themselves.

Once inside, she clothed herself and twisted her hair up in a knot quickly. Then she picked up a paintbrush downstairs and stopped beside where the phone sat on the hallway table. She pulled a slip of paper from the pocket of her old oversized jeans and smoothed out the creases in it. She hesitated, examining the uneven, messy scribble of numbers. If she thought about it, there probably was someone else she could call, but she couldn't bear to spend more than a few minutes with most of the people that she knew.

She picked up the phone and dialled the numbers.

He owed her anyway.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Ray laughed when he saw the painting. It was pretty neat, he'd give the artist that, and it even had the different shades of colour for each part.

Lydia looked up at him. "You're not gonna find it as funny in a few hours when your arm's about to fall off," she said, handing the paintbrush to him with what Ray thought was a satisfied smirk.