Red Sun at Night

  The blue-green waves crashed on the shore as Gemma took it all in: the sea; the wet, sticky sand; the gulls screeching overhead.  It was overcast, and the weatherman on Channel 8 had predicted a storm for that day, but lately Gemma found that she liked the rain.
  She closed her eyes and inhaled the crisp, salty air.  There was no scent she loved more, not even that of acrylic paints or turpentine or clay.  Thinking of her art supplies reminded Gemma what she had come there for, so she opened her eyes.  She dipped a paintbrush in slate grey watercolor paint and set to work on her canvas.
  By the time she finished, the first drops of rain had begun to fall.  She quickly carried her painting into the beach house her sister was letting her use for a few weeks and set it on the table to dry.  When she examined it, she saw that had she made the sky darker than it should be and the water murkier, but it was one of her better paintings.  She grinned, satisfied, and then yawned.  She wished she could go back to bed, but she had to be at her internship at a local bakery in half an hour.  Sighing, she went to her room to change.
  Throughout the day, her mind kept drifting back to the beach and her painting.  Unfortunately, her boss noticed her lack of piecrust.  “Hey, what are you doing?” he yelled.  “Get to work.  You’ve been like this all week, and I don’t pay you to stand around.”
  “You don’t pay me at all,” she muttered.
  Her boss’s face flushed crimson with anger.  “And now I’ll never have to.  You’re fired,” he said.
  That afternoon, the rain subsided and Gemma sat out on the beach again.  It was mostly empty but for a few joggers and a couple with their dog.  As she watched them, the clouds parted, revealing a grapefruit red sun in a tangerine sky.
  “Red sun at night, artist’s delight,” Gemma whispered.  She went to get her paints.