“Doing what I do best. Let’s get you inside to take a look.”
“Isn’t that trespassing?”
“Yep.”
“Emmalyn!”
Emmalyn tuned out Daisy as she made her way around the building searching for a way in.
Daisy came to stop right beside her as she eyed the small, high bathroom window. “Bet it’s open,” Emmalyn said.
“Want a boost?” Daisy asked.
Emmalyn glanced toward her questioningly.
Daisy shrugged. “Might as well help you. You’re not going to stop until you get us inside.”
“You know me so well,” Emmalyn said. “Come on, give me that boost up.”
Five minutes later Emmalyn was opening the front door to let Daisy walk into the space properly. “How nice of you to visit, come on in,” Emmalyn said formally.
Daisy giggled. “Oh, I love it in here. I love the feeling. The sunlight coming in the windows.”
“The way the floor sags in the middle,” Emmalyn said.
“It’s old. It needs some love.”
“It needs to be replaced.”
“It’s got good bones, Emmalyn.”
Emmalyn looked around, trying to see it through Daisy’s eyes. It had a single room you stepped into when walking through the front door, two bedrooms just beyond that, and at the back of the house, it had a small kitchen and a bathroom. To the untrained eye, it looked like the place would fall in at any given moment. “I guess I can see why the artist in you is drawn toward it.”
“You have an artist in you, too. It’s in your blood.”
“Eh, kind of.”
“I can already see it,” Daisy said, walking through the front room of the house to the small hallway that separated the bedrooms from the bathroom and kitchen.
“Daisy, it’s so in need of work. And it’s not centrally located to the schools in town. They’re all on the other side of everything. Another block or so and it’s not even in town,” Emmalyn said as she walked over and looked out of one of the windows. “And the whole damn thing is surrounded by cement. What idiot cements over an entire lot?”
“The people who used it last sold portable buildings. They cemented everything to put up all the buildings they were trying to sell.”
“Well, that explains it,” Emmalyn said. “Might want to break some of it up and give the land a chance to breathe.”
“I think so, too. Maybe I could put down a little gravel for a few parking spaces instead.”
“While the land would appreciate it, aesthetically, I really don’t think it would matter. Have I said it’s dilapidated?”
“It’s not! It’s just in need of a little love.”
“How are the kids going to get here? They won’t be able to just walk over after school.”
“I think it’s good that it’s not near the school. I don’t want it to be just another class kids have to take before they can go home. I want it to be something extra. Something fun they look forward to, you know? A place they can go and allow their imaginations to blossom without criticism. No matter what they imagine, they can create it here.”
“But this one would be a lot of work to get ready. And there were at least two we looked at that wouldn’t need anything but you to move in your supplies.”
“I don’t feel inspired in those.”
