authenticity (2)
“Thalia,” Urania raised her brows. “Do we have a better photo? This one has part of a word cut-off.”
“I don’t,” Tal sighed. “I’ve decided it’s okay though… People are sharp enough to fill in the missing letters.”
“I suppose you’re right. Where’s Calliope this morning?” Urania poured herself a cinnamon spiked coffee and took the last piece of toffee from the pantry.
“Before breakfast?” Thalia squinted at the Muse of Determination. “She’s in the studio looking at that book about writing novels… said she’s coming around to the idea… wants us to learn the rules before we make them our own.”
Paige sat on the floor of her grandmother’s sewing room. Her frustration at trying to thread a frayed end through a tiny needle was written all over her slumped posture. Her thoughts drifted out the window and across town to the career counseling class she’d attended that morning.
“Gran? How’d you know you wanted to sew dresses?”
“Well… Let me think a minute Paige. That’s quite a question.” Gran turned away from an intricate bead pattern she’d been working on for days. What kept her going was a vision of the bride’s beaming smile. “Feeling troubled by a world pushing you to choose what you’ll be when you grow up? There’s quite a lot of pressure on the shoulders of the young these days.”
Paige poked her needle into a red apple pin cushion and uncrossed her legs.
Gran continued, “I suppose it was my interest in fabrics and hemlines… models, billboards, and fashion magazines. Your great grandpa threatened to call the magazine companies to cut off my subscriptions when I failed biology. I think there’s a seed inside each of us. If we give it our attention… feed and water it… it grows.”