Contessa Read Online Free

pigments in tubes and jars. I ’ m sure my eyes were as wide as saucers.
    “ Oh, Daddy! I want one of everything! ” I ’ d exclaimed with pleading eyes and folded hands. “ Please? ”
    “ Contessa, you could paint our house with all of this paint. It ’ s way too much. ” He was always very reasonable, rational. “ What would you recommend? ” he again deflected to the woman.
    “ Primary colors, ” she said as she picked up tubes of red, yellow and blue. “ Did you know you can make almost any color out of just these three? ” she asked me.
    “ Really? ”
    “ Really. ”
    “ How? ”
    She demonstrated how red and yellow could make orange, blue and yellow could make green. I was fascinated, but didn ’ t believe her, remembering the one standard brown color I always seemed to end up with. That said, I still couldn ’ t wait to try it out at home.
    We ended up getting more than what Dad had intended to buy, I ’ m sure, but he wanted to make sure I had everything I might need. “ I don ’ t want your mom to come home and tell me what I did wrong, ” he ’ d explained. “ I want this to be a surprise, and I don ’ t want her to have to worry about a thing. ”
    When we got home, Dad set up an easel in the corner of the casual dining room, covering the tile floor around it with a cloth we had picked up on the way out. I broke open the packaging for the paintbrushes and the palette and ran my fingers through the fine hairs of the bristles.
    “ Where do brushes come from? ” I asked him.
    “ I don ’ t know, ” he answered honestly. “ Horses, I think? Or maybe pigs? ”
    “ They kill horsies for these? ” I ’ d dropped all the brushes on the floor, startled. He turned around and smiled at me, leaning down to pick up the tools now strewn across the tile.
    “ Livvy, hon, they don ’ t kill the horses. They just use their hair. It grows back, just like yours. ” He tugged on my pigtail and chuckled, handing me the brushes.
    “ Promise? ”
    “ I wouldn ’ t lie, Tessa. ”
    “ Okay, ” I ’ d said with a sigh of relief. “ Daddy, can I have a horsie? ”
    “ No, ” he said quickly, shaking his head and grinning at me. He stood back to survey the new workspace as I started to uncap a tube of paint. “ Livvy, your mom will be so angry if you get paint on your clothes. I think she ’ s got a smock in the closet upstairs. Don ’ t start painting yet, okay? Can you wait for me to come back down? ”
    “ Okay, Daddy. ” He wasn ’ t gone long before he carried the black smock into the kitchen. It was wrinkled, but had ruffles on it and a belt that tied in a ribbon around the waist. He put it on me, and even though he bunched up the smock and tied the belt around it to shorten the length, the garment dragged the floor.
    “ Good, it even covers your boots. You ’ ll grow into it, right? ” he ’ d asked with a self-satisfied grin. I nodded, feeling spots on the smock that were already dirty with dried paint.
    “ Is this Mommy ’ s? ”
    “ Yes, it is, ” he said. “ Okay, it ’ s getting close to bedtime, so why don ’ t you pick a little square on the canvas and just focus on that. Mom should be home in a half hour for bath time. ”
    I nodded happily and got to work. Just as Dad had predicted, my mom had returned home from work thirty minutes later, as I was putting the finishing touches on a small painting of our dog, Ruby. Our fox terrier wouldn ’ t sit still to model for me, so I had to do most of the work from memory.
    “ Where ’ s my family? ” Mom had yelled from the front door.
    “ In here, Poppet, ” Dad answered, calling her by the nickname he ’ d given her the first time they met in college. Apparently, she looked like a doll to him, with her fair skin and denim overalls and red hair in two pigtails. To this day, Mom doesn ’ t know what he saw in her that night. “ Come see what our daughter is doing. ” His voice was proud, and I could hear the