Wrapped in a white sweater and pale gray jeans, her body like a brushstroke, long and lean and bright against the backdrop of the darkened roof. Her hair is longer now, wild blond curls escaping a messy bun. Streaks of red paint dab her forearms where the sleeves are pushed up, and Cindy wonders, almost absently, what she’s working on. She is a painter. Abstracts, mostly. Her place, already small, made smaller by the stacks of canvas propped against the walls. Her name, crisp and easy, only Samantha on her finished work, or when traced across a spine in the middle of the night.
The other four move in a huddle of noise across the roof, one of the guys in the middle of a story, but Sam lags behind a step, head tipped back to savor the crisp night air, and Cindy wishes she had something else
