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"This one." Ivy looked up at the painting her brother pointed at. It was, true to its name, a painting of apples. Just apples. Like hundreds of other artists had done before and still do. Certainly it wasn't Ivy's personal favorite, but she and Zack made a deal. She picked the location, he picked the object. Of course, Ivy didn't exactly want their first real theft to be a of regular old painting no one cares about. And no part of the deal said she couldn't try to change his mind.
"Really?" She said, maybe he'd second guess himself.
"Yes, this one."
"This is your pick? Out of all of the paintings we've seen, this is it?"
"Yes."
"Out of hundreds of paintings, you want to steal-" she stopped herself, looking around in case anyone heard or became suspicious. "your favorite painting is this piece of sh–"
"Hey!" Zack noticed the slip up, she could tell because he was looking around as well. "What's wrong with it?" He asked.
"Well… it's boring." She didn't really care that it was boring, she just wanted to understand how her brother would pick this over the series of paintings they saw earlier about dogs playing poker. She really thought that'd be his first choice-but instead they were looking at rotting apples. Great.
"You're missing the point, then." She was, absolutely.
"We've been walking around, passing statues of angels and portraits of kings!" She said. Zack raised an eyebrow, as if saying, "so?"
"So you could pick anyone and we're standing in front of this? Even the name is dumb!"
"But it's pretty, isn't it?"
"No. It's lame."
"I guess part of the bet is I get to show you why I picked it, then." Zack moved to stand in front of the painting, grabbing his chin to make an act of thinking deeply.
It was Ivy's turn to roll her eyes, "Here we go."
"So this is a painting of what?" Zack asked, gesturing towards the painting. Ivy decided to play along.
"It's a painting of apples."
"Correct you are, Ivy. And what does the artist have us looking at?"
"Boring everyday things." She said, sarcastically, rolling her eyes again.
"Well, yes."
"And the point?" Zack looked frustrated at that, as if there was something he wanted to say but didn't know how to articulate into words. He wasn't the most eloquent person Ivy knew.
"The point is-" Zack paused, his brows furrowing in thought. Whoa, her brother, thinking? What a shocker. It looked like he was seriously contemplating. "Okay- things aren't pretty all on their own, Ives. You gotta- make a connection. Y'know what I mean? For it to be beautiful, you gotta see it." That made no sense at all. But still, while Zack was talking, Ivy got another good look at the painting. It made her nostalgic and she couldn't exactly put her finger on why. Maybe it was because she'd seen a pail like that before, years ago. When she and Zack went apple picking with their Pa. When their Ma helped them make apple cider and apple pie, and Zack put would put jimmies on everything. Or when they'd run around the Commons with bowls on their heads throwing apples at each other. Come to think of it, the color of those apples was comforting too. It brought Ivy to a familiar woman with a head of that color peeling apples on a similar, wooden table. Oh. Maybe Zack was making sense.
"Okay." She said, "I like that shade of red." Zack knew what she meant. She didn't need to point. "It's simple, familiar,"
"And full of feeling." Zack finished for her.
"Don't interrupt me, doofus." Ivy joked, lightly punching his shoulder. Zack chuckled and pushed her away, and the two kept play fighting a good five minutes, until Zack stopped hitting back and looked at the painting again.
"It's the color of feeling that life is okay."
"Whoa bro, you're getting cheesy again." Ivy grinned, but looking at the painting, she saw the same thing. "The color of a slushy from Dunkie's?" She added, looking at her brother, who nodded.
"You bet!"
The two ended up running out of the museum, both at the same pace. As they tried to go inside at the side time, the door swung open and they tumbled in, getting annoyed glances from people in the shop, exhausted looks from the workers and an amused chuckle from a random lady in red sitting by the window. They just couldn't get away from the color.