Sealed with a Kill by Lucy Lawrence Page A

always this abrasive or if it was just with her. She couldn’t imagine what she had done for Siobhan to dislike her so.
    Brenna started opening the leaf presses she’d put on the table. As she removed each layer, she gently took out the freshly pressed leaves in rich hues of burgundy and cinnamon and gold.
    “Those are lovely,” Paula said.
    “Thanks.” Brenna smiled at her. “We’re going to use them on these breakfast trays mixed in with some papers to give it a collage effect.”
    Brenna placed the tray she had made the week before for a different class on the table. She had painted the edges a deep chocolate brown and the bottom of the tray a mottled ecru; then she had taken an old yellowed piece of paper that she’d found in a cookbook she bought at a yard sale. It was a handwritten recipe for pumpkin bread. She glued the recipe along one side of the tray and then glued a variety of autumn leaves randomly across the tray, as if they’d been scattered by the wind. Once the glue had dried, she applied several coats of polyurethane.
    “This is just one way to use the leaves on the tray,” she said. “Feel free to use any papers out of our cutouts box. Tenley and I are here to assist if you need us. You should each have a tray, a glue pot and brush, a bowl of water, and a brayer. I’ll be working on this tray if you want to watch and apply the same techniques to your own tray.”
    Brenna took an empty seat at the table and began selecting her own leaves. Suede, the sullen teenager, put his earbuds from his iPod in and promptly slumped in his chair, shoved his hands in his pockets, and ignored the group. No budding Matisse there. His mother, Julie, frowned at him but then shrugged. In the pick-your-battles game, she was obviously not engaging in this one.
    Jan and Dan decided to work on one tray together. They debated the leaves and the layout, and then found a paper cutout of a male and female cardinal sitting on a nest together. They put that in the center and then worked on placing the leaves around it. Brenna was impressed, not only with how well they worked together but with how comfortable they were in their coupleness. The single girl inside of her wondered if she’d ever know that sort of connection with another person.
    “I’m not sure I’m doing this right,” Paula said. She was frowning at the tray in front of her. A gob of glue had puddled under one of her leaves, and it was beginning to wrinkle.
    “No problem,” Brenna said. “First, use a damp cloth to swab up the excess glue.”
    She handed Paula a rag, and the girl gently wiped up the glue around the leaf edges.
    “Next, use this brayer to roll over the leaf. It’ll flatten it and squeeze out more of the extra glue.”
    Paula did as instructed and then used the cloth to wipe up the glue again. She beamed at Brenna. “I love this.”
    Brenna smiled back. “I do, too.”
    “I don’t,” Siobhan snapped. “This is entirely too artsycraftsy for me. I thought you were a real artist. This is preschool stuff.”
    Brenna felt her back teeth set. She was trying to like her new neighbor, really, she was, but the woman had the social skills of a stampeding rhino, and Brenna found herself longing for a tranquilizer gun.
    It was on the tip of her tongue to ask Siobhan why she came to a decoupage class if she didn’t like arts and crafts, but as if Siobhan read her mind, she said, “There is nothing to do in this town.”
    Brenna glanced at Tenley. This was her hometown, named for her great-to-the-fifth-power grandfather, and she did not take slights to it lightly.
    “I guess that depends on what sorts of things you want to do,” Tenley said. Unless you knew her very well, it would be hard to detect the edge to her voice.
    “What sorts of things do you do?” Siobhan asked Paula.
    “I’m just here on vacation,” Paula said. Her voice was soft, and Brenna felt badly for her. “I really don’t have plans other than what the owners of the