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or any other place—is different. Alan, as dirty as the rest of them when he’s in the middle of a project, is as careful as those other men are crazed. When he reaches out to pull a box of screws from the shelves, Beatrix can see the authority in his movements, understands that he knows exactly how to use the equipment he selects. With Alan, she doesn’t worry that he will pull the bathroom sink off the wall and leave it that way for the next year and a half. She doesn’t fear that the washing machine he installed himself will suddenly and without warning vomit up gallons of soapy water onto the basement floor.
    For Beatrix, the home improvement store has become a place where one sees one’s future and buys the materials with which to build it. Beatrix pulls her hair into a ponytail, dons her overalls, and feels young and uncomplicated and adorable.
    Today, they are shopping for paint. They have a pillow from their new couch, and they’re trying to select the right color for the walls. There’s just one problem. Well, two.
    “You’re going to paint it red?” says Problem One. “Walls are not red.
Meat
is red.”
    “Whatever,” says Problem Two.
    Problem One is small, thin, and perfect, long dark hair shiny and straight, smoky eyes glittering with contempt. She hates red. Pink reminds her of the insides of mouths. Beige is the color of an old man’s teeth. Purple makes her want to puke. Yellow, she says, yellow is so over it’s o-
ver.
    Problem Two is also thin, but shaggy haired, tall, and lanky, his arms hanging off his shoulders at odd angles like the limbs of paper dolls. Two doesn’t speak much, and when he does, it is to express his utter lack of concern for home improvement and the middle-aged couples who value it.
    Beatrix and Alan are standing in front of the Glidden paint display, holding the color swatches against the new pillow. It’s the beginning of Memorial Day weekend, the ideal weekend for a project such as this one. The living room is already prepared—washed and spackled and sanded. They have to buy painter’s tape, some tarps, new brushes, and the paint itself. It should have been simple, it should have been a pleasure, it should have been one of those mornings that Beatrix would recount to her incredulous friends: “I know! The hardware store! I haven’t had so much fun since we went to get the new tires!”
    But Beatrix hasn’t counted on Liv, Alan’s only child, and Devin, her oldest son, the two of them taking truculence to new depths. Though they are not exactly Pollyannas, Beatrix and Alan do believe in the power of teamwork, believe that something like painting a room can instill group pride and positive feelings. But so far, the Problems are interested only in being bigger problems. The two of them stand as far away from each other and from their respective parents as they can while still remaining in the same aisle.
    “What do you think of this?” Beatrix asks, holding up a swatch of green, more sage than moss.
    In response, Problem Two lifts his T-shirt and examines his rippled abdomen.
    “It’s nice,” Problem One offers, “if you like snot.”
    “You’re the snot,” Alan says mildly. Beatrix believes she detects a hint of fondness in his voice and is once again amazed at his ability to remain sanguine around his daughter, who she believes would inspire thoughts of homicide in the pope.
    “Alan,” Beatrix says, “what do you think?”
    He looks at the swatch. “I think it’s green.”
    “But do you like it?”
    Materials, Alan cares about. Colors, not so much. “Do
you
like it?”
    “Of all that we’ve looked at, this matches best,” Beatrix says, tapping the green swatch with her fingernail.
    “Snot. Mucus. Phlegm,” says One, pronouncing the “g.”
    Beatrix tries to ignore her. “I like this one.”
    “Just pick a color so we can get out of here,” Two mumbles.
    One tosses her hair. “You cannot like that color.”
    “I do,” says Beatrix.