Lucy and I agreed about one thing. Headphones.

  Her folks loved to take long Sunday drives and headphones quickly excused us from the tedium of I Spy and The Alphabet Game. Though truth be told, I had my music turned low so I could still play along in my mind. I was hoping we’d soon pass a Dairy Queen so I could snag my Q when we turned into a parking lot.

  “Alright girls, quiet down, I know you’re very excited.” Mr. Murray winked at us in the rearview mirror.

  Lucy groaned and rolled her eyes. “Dad…”

  “Oh, come on Lucy-Bug.” Mr. Murray turned around and mussed his daughter's hair. She squirmed as far as the seat belt would allow.

  It was like watching one of those old black-and-white films on late-night TV. What I was seeing technically could happen, but… real life just wasn’t like that. If this kept up, I’d be checking the parking lot for the portal back to my own world.

  Lucy swatted her dad away, suppressing a smile as her hair flew every which way.

  “Alright, girls.” Her mom grinned big enough for me to see her if her wisdom teeth were still intact. “You ready?”

  Why are art museums so stale? My guess is they want you to focus on what’s inside the frames, but does that mean everything else has to be all gray and white? Even the benches were just big heavy blocks of stone.

  Would it have killed them to have a few arches or some crown molding? Anything to set the mood.

  “Okay, meet back here in…” Mrs. Murray eyed her phone and teetered her head back and forth. “– forty-five minutes.”

  We nodded, each of us with one bud in and the other dangling free.

  “And stay together.” Mr. Murray waggled one finger between us to drive the point home.

  “Yes sir...” Lucy groaned and I just nodded again.

  Once they were out of sight we each popped the free headphones in and walked along, pausing at paintings randomly. I couldn’t call the paint splatters artistic. The stale walls from which they hung were far more interesting.

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  We were standing before another large canvas covered in a rainbow of overlapping splatters and streaks. Movement caught the corner of my eye and I realized Lucy was talking. Surprised, I pulled a headphone out. “Sorry, what?”

  She jumped a little, her eyes wide. “Nothing, just talking to myself.”

  “Of course.” I nodded and moved to put the headphone back.

  “It’s just…”

  I left it dangling free, limp in the air between us.

  She sighed, her shoulders sagging heavily. “They think just because I do abstract art that I love all abstract art, ya know?”

  I nodded. “It’s definitely not the same as yours.”

  Lucy’s pour art never had a subject matter but they tended to come out with a lot of swirls and natural lines, similar to marble slab. There was something calm when you saw the finished canvas, like watching clouds roll over the sky. Nothing like the painted massacres that surrounded us.

  “Right?” She went to the nearest slab of bench and let herself fall into a sitting position. “They probably just thought we’d bond over” she waved her hand at the piece, “– this stuff.”

  I tilted my head, confused. “Why would they think that?”

  She flinched and bit her lip. “I might have seen your sketchbook yesterday.”

  I blinked several times.

  “You were in my room.” I didn’t yell, didn’t see the point. I was used to other girls invading my space.

  She still took it as an accusation, stiffening her spine. “You were in mine.”

  “Touché.” I sat next to her, both of us looking at the hideous painting ahead of us.

  We sat like that, our headphones dangling limply on our shoulders, quietly contemplating nothing for a couple minutes.

  “I liked the one with the birds.”

  I considered what I’d been working on yesterday or even the day before. “You flipped through the book.”

  “Hey, my art was all over the walls.” She hunched a little. “Only fair.”

  “I guess.” I finally looked directly at her.

  “So…” She wiggled her shoe this way and that.

  “What now?”

  “Yeah.” She nodded.

  “Not like either of us has a choice.”

  “True.” She bobbed her head. “But that means my parents will keep dragging us out of the house. Hoping we’ll get along.”

  I thought about it for a moment. “Unless…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well… I mean, we could just pretend.” I pointed at the canvas. “Then we wouldn’t have to look at this stuff.”

  Lucy bit her cheek and looked at me for a long moment, weighing something in her eyes. “Only to fool them.”

  “Of course.” I gave my most solemn nod, but a smile tugged the corners of my mouth.