Same Difference

by Siobhan Vivian

  But I have no idea what Fiona’s drawing on me. Some lines are smooth and long, while others are short and impatient. And she keeps jumping around from spot to spot, like she wants to trick me, like she doesn’t want me to catch up with her. I take deep breaths of the peppery smell of permanent marker ink.

  “Nicely done,” Adrian says.

  The point lifts up off my skin. “Are you finished?” I ask her, eyes still closed, just in case.

  Fiona pinches me awake. “You have been officially branded,” she says with a grin.

  I twist my arm around and check it out. She’s drawn a red outline of a heart — big and thick with the side of the marker. Then, with the tip, she surrounded it with delicate doily-like scalloping and small polka dots, so it looks like an old-fashioned Valentine’s Day card. Inside, she’s written my name in black, in a variety of letter styles — some in capital letters, some in bubble letters, and the tail of the Y looks crooked and crazy, like lightning.

  “This is your reminder to wear your heart on your sleeve more often.” Fiona winks.

  I like the sound of that.

  Dr. Tobin paces the sidewalk in front of the stairs and claps her hands a few times to get everyone’s attention. There will be no buses, because today’s field trip is a sculpture walk around Center City. We set off down the sidewalk like a meandering, indifferent parade of weird kids. I am so glad I have a group of people to walk with, unlike last week. Friends just make everything more fun.

  “So, tell us something about yourself, Emily,” Robyn says to me, and not in the most inviting tone of voice.

  It feels like an interview, a chance to prove that I’m cool enough to hang out with them. A test I want to pass. “What do you want to know?” I ask, trying to sound indifferent.

  “What’s your hometown like?” Robyn keeps even pace with me, but her eyes stay straight ahead. “Does it have a huge mall?”

  Her question is a trick. It’s obvious someone like Robyn thinks malls are stupid. And I doubt there’s a store at Cherry Grove Mall that sells saddle shoes like the scuffed ones loosely covering her bare feet. “Yeah, we do. But it’s not like I hang out there.” I mean, I have hung out there, but only when I was already shopping, which doesn’t seem like it should count.

  Robyn smiles. It’s wide and suspicious and shows all her teeth, even the ones way in back. “What about a football team? Does your school have a football team? Do you and your friends go to all the games and cheer for your boyfriends?”

  Adrian rolls his eyes at Robyn. “Every high school has a football team.”

  My face gets hot. I know Robyn is making fun of me. Adrian and Fiona must, too. Maybe they don’t really have any intention of letting me hang out with them. Maybe I’m just some big joke.

  Fiona speeds up so that she’s a few steps ahead of us. Then she turns around and walks backward, so she can stare right at me. “Emily doesn’t have a boyfriend. Am I right?”

  My eyes drop to the sidewalk. I step on all the cracks. “Yeah.”

  “Come on.” The snark from Robyn’s voice is replaced with genuine surprise. She actually stops walking, and Adrian almost bumps into her. “You’re not, like, dating the captain or something?”

  “No,” I repeat. Not me. My best friend.

  “Of course she’s not,” Fiona says. “Jocks don’t date girls who draw dead kitties on tank tops or freak out over Duchamp. Unless they put out. But you don’t put out, do you, Emily?”

  I’d normally be embarrassed by this question, especially with Adrian around. I mean, it’s hard enough for me to hear from Meg about all the makeouts she has with Rick, and though they aren’t close to having sex yet, I feel like I’m years behind them. But something about the way Fiona asks makes me feel like it’s okay. Or, not just okay, but the right answer. So I shake my head.

  Fiona falls back into line with us. “Good. Stupid high school boys aren’t worth it.” She throws an arm over my shoulder. “They’re trained to like a certain type of girl, with highlights and pretty nails — the kind who are good at remembering to put on lotion every morning after they shower.” She smiles like she’s got a dirty secret. “And let’s face it … sluts.”

  I grin, because Fiona’s describing Jenessa to a T, without sugar-coating it the way Meg always does.

  Adrian thrashes his head so his hair lifts off his eyes for a second. “Not all high school guys like girls like that,” he says.

  “And that’s why I love you, Mr. Mustache,” Fiona says, and kisses his cheek. Adrian explodes into a blush. Fiona laughs and kisses him again, tiny pecks all over his face.

  As we round the west corner of City Hall, the parkway stretches out before us — a six-lane street lined with hundreds of international flags fluttering in a summer breeze I wish I felt.

  Off to the side of City Hall is a small patch of cement called Love Park. It’s named that, I guess, because of this one particular sculpture — the L-O-V-E letters in a square shape that you always see printed on Valentine’s Day coffee mugs.

  As Dr. Tobin talks, Fiona leans into my ear and whispers: “This place used to be a big skater hangout, but the stupid mayor made it illegal.” She points down to the edge of a stone bench. Streaks of silver are gouged in the pale stone where wheels and skateboard decks ground against them. “I used to hang out here, but not anymore. Now it’s lame.”

  “What’d you just say?” Robyn sidles up next to us, looking kind of annoyed that we’re talking without her.

  “I said this park is lame now, since they chased all the punks and skate rats away.” Fiona crouches down and does a rubbing in her sketchbook of the scratches in the stone.

  “Oh.” Robyn pouts. “My ex used to skate. He tried to teach me, but I have the worst balance.”

  “Yeah, you do,” Fiona snorts. “You almost took me out in the stairwell that first day of class!”

  “Shut up!” Robyn squeals and smacks Fiona on the butt. “You were the one trying to slide down the banister and almost killed that old lady with the box full of ceramics.”

  They laugh like old friends even though they’ve only known each other eight days. I can’t help but feel jealous of the way they connect, and that Robyn is throwing it in my face. I look away and see Mr. Frank watching us. I am the only one who doesn’t have a sketchbook out. I fish mine from my bag and open it. But the thought of drawing here, in front of all these kids and also the people just walking around, makes me feel totally embarrassed, like I’m some kind of phony.

  Dr. Tobin calls for our attention and raises her hands over her head in YMCA fashion.

  “Claes Oldenburg gifted this sculpture to Philadelphia in 1976.”

  It’s a huge metal clothespin, at least seven stories high, like a mini skyscraper, and the warmest shade of rust, glistening metallic in the sunshine. It’s totally bizarre and out of place, in an interesting way.

  “Isn’t that insane?” Fiona says. “I heart me some Claes. He made all kinds of weird crap like this, and just dropped them where they’d mess with people’s heads.”

  I nod, silently thrilled that I recognize the name. Though not from some art textbook. From Clueless, which is Meg’s all-time favorite movie. Whatever, though. I’ll take what I can get.

  “Insane,” Robyn says quickly, like she was buzzing into a game show or something.

  A thought pops into my mind. I think about not saying anything, but then I lean close to Fiona’s ear. “This actually reminds me of Duchamp. Sort of. But instead of just putting ordinary objects in a museum, this guy took ordinary objects and made them massive. Which is kind of more special.”

  “Go you!” Fiona taps my sketchbook and laughs. “Seriously, though, it’s so cool when artists take other people’s ideas and run with them. I’m trying to soak up the entire world for my art. You should draw it in your sketchbook to celebrate this achievement in critical thought.”

  I look around at all the students. Even though their heads are down and sketching, I still feel like
they are watching me.

  Fiona laughs. “What? You think some art cop in a black beret is going to ask you for your artistic license?”

  “No!” I say, laughing. Fiona bumps me with her hip. I open up a page and start drawing it as tiny as I can. The lines are all crooked, since I’m trying to steady my sketchbook in my free hand. It just might be my worst drawing ever. I rub my fingertips on the edge of the page, so that it comes up into my grip.

  “Wait!” Fiona says, lunging at me. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m ripping it out.”

  “Are you nuts?” Fiona grabs my sketchbook from my hands. “You NEVER rip pages out of your sketchbook! It’s, like, sacrilegious.”

  I smile, remembering that Yates did exactly that for me, at the art museum last week. But there are more pressing matters at hand. “Oh God, please don’t look,” I plead as I try to get it back from her. But Fiona runs away from me, sits on the edge of the fountain, and flips through.

  “Umm … these are seriously good, you idiot,” she says.

  Only Fiona could pair up the words good and idiot in a compliment and have it sound more sincere than anything I’ve ever heard. I slide next to her.

  She flips through the rest of my drawings until she gets to a blank page. Then she returns it to me. “Even bad drawings are lessons. If you throw that drawing away, you won’t learn anything from it.”

  “Really?” I’m embarrassed because I can still see the lines of my bad sketch carved into the next blank sheet. I wish I didn’t press so hard. I wouldn’t have to see my mistakes, and I wouldn’t have the ugly callus on my hand either.

  “You haven’t taken many of these kinds of classes before, have you?” Robyn asks.

  “Just one high school class, and that was kind of a joke.” It sounds like I’m apologizing.

  “Art is always a joke in high school,” Fiona says.

  Adrian nods. “Do you ever wonder why every single art teacher in high school is an old woman who only knows how to make potato stamps and paper snowflakes?”

  I smile and think of Ms. Kay. “Yeah.” Even though she’s an art teacher, I never thought of her as a real artist.

  “And Mr. Hack.” Fiona fake-coughs. “I mean, Mr. Frank. If he were really any good, do you think he’d be spending his summer teaching high school kids?” She shakes her head. “Listen, Emily, I think you’re insanely good for a beginner. You obviously have talent. But it’s not like you can be a superstar right off the bat. Especially when you’ve only just opened your eyes. I mean, I’ve been doing this for years and years. My mom had me taking art classes when I was, like, two. She’s an artist herself, so that kind of stuff is important to her.” I can’t even imagine what Fiona’s mom looks like. She’s probably so cool. When Fiona dyed her hair pink, her mom probably loved it. Any other mom, like my mom, would freak for sure. “Becoming an artist is a huge thing that takes over your whole life. It’s not something you can shut off just because you’re scared and embarrassed of what other people might think about you or say about you. You have to own it.”

  “Own it,” Robyn says, “but not make it up. The worst thing in the world is to be a poseur.”

  I’m getting tired of Robyn’s attacks on me, but this time, Fiona rolls her eyes and faces her down. “Actually, I think it’s the best thing ever that Emily’s here in Philly, that she’s trying to go outside of things that she’s used to. I mean, no one cares or gets shocked with what I wear, but for her, it’s a big deal. So I think she’s actually pretty brave.” Fiona’s face lights up with an idea. It’s amazing, how visible it is on her face. She turns to me. “What are you doing tomorrow? For Fourth of July? You should totally come see the fireworks with us!”

  I want to, but there’s no way. “I can’t. I have to go someplace with my family.” We go to Meg’s family barbecue every year. I’m not going to tell Fiona about Meg. She’d eat someone like Meg alive.

  “Bummer.” She thinks. “Well, do you want to go to First Friday with us instead?”

  “What’s First Friday?” I regret the words immediately, because Robyn laughs under her breath and walks away from us, pulling Adrian with her.

  “They open all the galleries in the city to show new artwork for sale. There’s wine or champagne and cheese plates and it’s all free,” she says, itching the red scratches on her arms. “It’s suuuuuper fun and totally inspiring.”

  Rick is throwing a party on Friday night. His parents are going to the shore, and Jimmy’s uncle said he’d buy the keg, so long as he could drink it with everyone. I already promised Meg I’d go, but maybe I can get out of it. “You sure Robyn won’t mind me tagging along?” I whisper.

  “Who cares what she thinks? I’m asking you. So … will you come?”

  A swell of something builds in my chest — and fighting the current would be worthless. “Yeah. I will. Thanks.”

  “Isn’t this the life?” Meg says, smiling over at me from her lounge chair.

  “I don’t think I’ve gotten any color,” I say, staring down at my pasty stomach.

  “That’s what you get for spending all those beautiful sunny days stuck indoors.” Meg gives herself a misting of coconut oil and then tosses the bottle at me. “Here. You need to catch up.”

  Since classes were canceled for the Fourth of July, I slept over at Meg’s house last night. We went straight from our pajamas into our bikinis and lay out by the pool all morning, while Meg’s parents got the backyard ready.

  Every year, Meg’s family throws a huge barbecue. Mr. Mundy is a pro on his big gas grill. He even has a stamp to sear his initials on the steaks he buys from the butcher. He makes his own barbecue sauce from scratch. It’s the darkest, sappy color brown, rich and sticky, and it tastes sweet and sour at the same time. He brushes it on real thick and cooks the meat slowly on a low heat, so it stays juicy. They serve summer corn and homemade mustard coleslaw and burgers with sautéed mushrooms and fancy imported cheeses from Whole Foods. They set out about fifteen different bowls of flavored potato chips.

  My parents and Claire come over around noon, along with a bunch of other families from Blossom Manor. Meg and I stay lazy on the lounge chairs while Claire does goofy dives into the deep end of the pool to try and make us laugh. The parents all stay on the deck, playing cards. Eventually, Meg and I go up there for some food.

  “Emily, are you enjoying your art classes?” Mrs. Mundy asks me.

  “Oh yeah,” I say, heading over to the burger table. “They’re great.”

  Meg hands me a crisp white paper plate, the heavy kind that you can pile food on and not worry about it seeping through. “You know, you haven’t told me much about your classes since you talked about quitting,” she says. She’s got her bathing suit on underneath a pink terry cloth tube dress, and her long hair dangles down her back in a loose braid. “What are they like?”

  “Well, Mixed Media, the class I would have had today, is my favorite, I think,” I say, cracking open a cold can of Coke.

  “What’s Mixed Media?” Meg asks, reaching for some lettuce.

  “Wait!” Mom shouts. She tosses down her hand of cards and springs up from her seat at the table. “I want to hear all about it. Emily, you’ve barely told me anything about your classes!”

  I shake my head and Meg laughs. “It’s sort of like collage,” I say, and start layering the toppings on my burger. “You take images and drawings and stuff and arrange them in an interesting, thoughtful way. Last week, each of us got an envelope full of random slips of paper, and we had to paste them down in a new shape. I got all these yellow pieces — like a picture of a baby chick, some lemons from a supermarket circular, stuff like that. I ripped them all into pieces and pasted them down in the shape of a sun.” My teachers really seemed to like it. And for the first time ever, I had an idea, and instead of letting myself get all worried about it not being good enough, I just went with it. That was definitely Fiona’s influence.

  “Emily,” my dad says in a frowny
way, as he chases a slippery pasta salad noodle with his fork. “Wait for your mother. You’re going to hurt her feelings.”

  Meg bounces on the balls of her feet. “That’s awesome! You and I are going to have the best friendship page in the senior year-book! I’m already collecting good pictures of us. I found one the other day of me and you jumping into the pool hand in hand, in matching bathing suits. It’s so cute!” Meg smiles at me in the way you do when you’re waiting for someone to take your picture. The kind you don’t blink, and it hangs on your face.

  “Yeah, sure,” I say, even though she’s got it all wrong. Mixed Media isn’t about cutting pictures out and sticking them on poster board. It’s more about taking things out of their normal context and giving them new meaning somewhere else.

  Kind of like what’s happening to me.

  “So, Emily,” Mom says, joining us at the food table. “Have you made any new friends in your classes?”

  Meg stands up a little straighter as she picks the tomatoes out of her salad.

  “Sort of,” I say, dodging the question. I know that I’m going to have to tell Meg about First Friday at some point, and that I won’t be able to make it to Rick’s party after all. But I’m kind of dreading it.

  “Come on. I’m sure you made at least one friend!” Mom says with a laugh. “A beautiful girl like you.” She beams a smile at all the neighbors, like they’re supposed to agree.

  I hate when Mom gets like this, saying things in a backhanded way, using compliments to cover up the truth. She knows I’m not that pretty, especially standing next to Meg. She has no idea what my life is like. “There’s this one girl I met who’s pretty cool. And she’s the best in our drawing class. Her mom’s an artist, so I guess that’s where she gets it from.”

  “Well, you come from creative parents, too,” Mom says. “So don’t sell yourself short. Your father has to be extremely creative in his job.”

  “He’s a salesman, Mom.” I shake my head. “Sales is not creative.”

  “Hey,” Dad whines.

  “Theater is art,” Mom says. She takes the wine that Mr. Mundy offers her and clinks her fork against her glass like she’s made some incredible point. “Every property requires a new performance.”