Father Formula. Muriel Jensen

floors. The white walls had grown dingy, but two ornate light fixtures, each with half a dozen crenellated tulip shades, hung from the ceiling, obviously left over from the building’s earlier employment.

      Alexis seemed to like it. She walked into the middle of the room, looked up at the chandeliers and smiled, doing a tight turn under one of them as though imagining herself in a performance.

      “The chandeliers lend a lot of charm,” she said, then glanced at him with a smile before going to the wall that connected the shop to the next one. “And people who are charmed undoubtedly show it in their faces when they pose.”

      Now that was an angle that hadn’t occurred to him.

      She rubbed her fingertips gently over the wall.

      “It’s ten feet high and thirty feet long. It’s going to be a decorating problem, I know. I guess my only recourse will be to hang portraits all over it.”

      She considered that, then turned and wandered along the other two walls. The front had a large display window, but the other had light switches, a fuse box, a wall telephone and built-in shelves. “Wouldn’t they be better in the window? And your counter will have to go here where the phone is. You still have quite a bit of wall space to display portraits and customers can admire your work while they’re asking for information.”

      She looked avid, he thought. As though she were really interested in what he planned to do. But her eyes kept going back to the long blank wall.

      “You told me you weren’t much of a decorator,” he teased, “yet you’re thinking like one.”

      She put the flat of her hand to the wall as though feeling for something. “No, I’m not,” she said, giving him a glance over her shoulder. “I’m thinking like a muralist.”

      A mural. Another angle he hadn’t considered.

      He went to where she stood and tried to imagine the wall painted with…what?

      “You mean like one of those trompe l’oeil things you see in Architectural Digest?”

      “No.” She took a step back and ran her eyes the length of the wall. He guessed she was seeing images. “I’m not sure. Something appropriate to a photo studio. Maybe old scenes of Dancer’s Beach. Certainly someone must have some. Or a sort of montage of portraits interspersed with landmarks. Or maybe just the stretch of beach.” She took a few steps along the wall and stopped. “The dancers just walking on the beach in white lace and parasols.” She smiled, apparently warming to her own idea. “You know, to represent a time when they knew they were safe, maybe already falling in love.”

      He couldn’t quite picture it, but he liked the idea. “And you can do this?” he asked.

      She came out of the trance the wall had inspired suddenly and looked at him in surprise. “Me?”

      He shifted his weight and folded his arms. “I don’t imagine there are too many muralists in Dancer’s Beach.”

      “But we’d be confined in the same space,” she argued, “and you hate me.” Then she frowned as though she hadn’t intended to say that aloud.

      He laughed softly. “Not all the time,” he said, knowing an outright denial would not have rung true. They’d had some fairly combative moments since their unfortunate meeting in the dark kitchen. “Or are you afraid you can’t coexist with me long enough to get it done?”

      “I am,” she admitted candidly. “Half the time I want to kill you, and the other half…”

      She stopped, apparently thinking better of whatever she’d been about to say. For an instant, he wanted to know what that was more than he wanted anything.

      “And the other half?” he asked.

      She met his gaze and held it. She made no sound, but he swore he could almost hear the words forming in her mind.