Same Difference

by Siobhan Vivian

  “Emily thought you might want T.G.I. Friday’s for lunch, Fiona,” Mom says.

  “Not that it’s good or anything,” I clarify. “I just thought it would be funny.”

  “Oooh!” Fiona says. “I’ve never had T.G.I. Friday’s before. My mom is going to flip when she hears. She’s very anti the whole chain fast food thing.”

  Even though we’re obviously not nine years old, we force the hostess at the podium to give us red balloons and goody bags. Inside are crayons and a coloring book. Fiona and I draw madly on it, ignoring the cartoon burgers and dancing sodas by blackening the pages with tracings of our hands. Then we draw each other’s faces without looking down. They look squiggly and weird and wonderful.

  Mom peers over the top of her menu, trying not to obviously look at what we’re doing. But she is looking.

  When we’re done eating, the waitress brings my mom the bill. Suddenly, Fiona’s face gets tight. She kicks me under the table.

  “I don’t have any money to give your mom for lunch,” she whispers.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I say. “She wouldn’t take your money anyhow. It’s our treat. Welcome to Cherry Grove.”

  Fiona looks relieved and then her face suddenly lights up. “So guess what? My mom sold a whole bunch of her new paintings to a gallery owner she knows.”

  “Wow! That’s great!” I say.

  “I know. She really wants to meet you, by the way. She feels bad that she’s been working so hard on her paintings this summer. But now that everything’s sold, she should be around more often.”

  When we drive into Blossom Manor, Fiona says, “This is where you live.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re loaded. You know that, right?”

  I shrug my shoulders.

  Mom turns onto our cul-de-sac and my stomach drops. Rick’s truck pulls away from Meg’s house and Meg is on her way up the front steps. When she sees my mom’s convertible, she starts walking over toward my house. Her pace slows and she stops halfway across the street, right on the manhole cover, when she sees Fiona in the back of the car.

  “Oh God,” I say under my breath.

  “What?” Fiona says. She looks over my shoulder at the girl in the middle of the road. “Who’s that?”

  “Nobody.” I don’t want this to happen right now. I unbuckle my seat belt the second Mom puts the car in park and leap out. “Just keep walking.”

  “You’re not going to say hello to Meg?” Mom interjects, with this look on her face like I am the worst friend, the worst person in history. She doesn’t know anything, though. She has no idea what’s been going on.

  “You never tell me about Meg!,” Fiona says. “Let’s go say hi.” I’m afraid of the smile she’s got on her face, like this is going to be fun.

  “Hey, Meg,” I say when we get to where she’s standing.

  “Hey,” she says back. “You must be Fiona. It’s nice to finally meet you.” She’s 100 percent happy, sweet Meg. There’s not a trace of the turmoil from yesterday.

  It makes me mad that Meg refuses to see what’s going on. But Fiona is a piece of undeniable proof. And I know with my new friend, I am daring her to say something. I am issuing a charge to her to try and overlook this one.

  Try to pretend that this isn’t happening, Meg.

  Fiona’s quiet for a second. I see her eyes jump from my E necklace to Meg’s M necklace and back again. A wry smile spreads across her mouth, and she says, “Charmed.”

  Meg’s smile doesn’t waiver. “Is Emily giving you the grand tour?”

  “Oh yeah,” Fiona snickers. “I’ve gotten all the highlights.”

  “Well, despite what Emily might say, it’s a really nice town,” Meg says, as if she needs to do damage control or something, to protect her beloved Cherry Grove from me tarnishing its image.

  “I didn’t say anything that bad,” I snap.

  Fiona slings an arm around my shoulder. “You can’t blame Emily for being disillusioned. I mean, she’s been practically living in a city now for the whole summer. She’s made new friends, she’s one of the best artists in class, and she’s got a new boyfriend. You should see Yates! Did she tell you that he’s in college?”

  Meg looks at me like she can’t even process what’s going on. She shakes her head, defiant. “I don’t think you know Emily at all. As much as you might want her to be like you, she’s just a regular girl.” Even though Meg’s still talking to Fiona, she moves her eyes over to me. “School is going to start in September and everything will be back to normal.”

  My mouth drops open. How could Meg say something like that? Something so humiliating in front of my new friend?

  I want to step forward. I want to fight back, take her on, show her that she doesn’t know me at all anymore. But the fire, the passion, and the confidence, isn’t in me. It’s in Fiona. And even though Fiona is right next to me, I’m aware that there will be a point when she won’t be.

  I run as fast as I can away from Meg. Knowing I can’t go far, that there’s really no escape, doesn’t slow me down at all.

  “Emily, wait!” Fiona calls after me.

  I sprint across the lawn, up the stairs, and straight to my room. Fiona’s footsteps pound behind me.

  The whole place feels like a cage.

  I want to get rid of everything in here, all the things that tie me to being a person I hate.

  I tear through my closet, ripping my clothes off the hangers. I jam them down inside my white wicker trash can. Of course they don’t all fit but I like the feeling of stuffing them inside, hearing the delicate wicker snap and pop from the force. I punch them down down down.

  Fiona stands in my doorway, watching. She doesn’t try to stop me.

  But it is completely unsatisfying, too. I know deep inside that this isn’t trash, and tomorrow the maid will come and do my laundry and all my clothes will be hanging back up where they once were. And the summer will eventually end and I’ll be back in Cherry Grove and everything will be like it used to be except much, much worse. I start to cry. I fall on my bed and smother my face with my stupid rosebud comforter.

  “She’s wrong about you, Emily.”

  “Is she?” I sound desperate and scared. I hate it. “Look at this place. This is who I really am. It’s pathetic.” Tears stream down my face.

  Fiona glances around. “I remember this. From your sketchbook,” she says. “But this isn’t you, Emily. Maybe it used to be, but not anymore. And you don’t have to pretend like it is.” Her hand runs over the wall and stops on a seam, where the rosebud wallpaper doesn’t exactly line up. “You’ve got to start fresh.” She slides her nail underneath and slowly rips a piece away from the wall. A long, lean strip.

  I walk over to my bookshelf, and though it takes a few jumps, I manage to grab hold of one of those ballerinas. It slips free from my hands — and I let it. It shatters on my floor.

  I finally feel a release.

  Three hours later, my room is unrecognizable, transformed to the sounds of Romero-on-repeat. Fiona’s done a bunch of shadow tracings on every available surface — doors, my dresser, the hardwood floor. I’ve reconstructed my ripped rosebud wallpaper into larger flower shapes and glued them to the rough walls. Now Fiona’s pulling stuff out of my closet. I’m holding a garbage bag open.

  The old Emily is officially gone.

  My parents keep walking by my closed door, mustering the courage to see what’s going on. When they finally knock, Fiona shouts, “Come in!”

  It swings open, and there’s Mom and Dad and Claire. Claire runs in and says, “Wow!” My parents, both absolutely stunned, stand in the doorway.

  “I, uh—” I stutter.

  “We did some redecorating,” Fiona explains.

  Dad starts nodding. Slow at first, and then faster and faster. “Okay, okay,” he says.

  “Emily,” Mom says, like she needs to make sure it’s still me. She looks around the room, frightened.

  I know that I have to sa
y something. I have to start speaking up for myself. “Mom, it just … didn’t feel like me in here.”

  “I want to redo my room!” Claire shouts.

  Mom moves past her, over to the trash can and sees the smashed ballerinas. She picks up one long, graceful, disembodied arm. And then she spins around and walks right back out.

  Dad leans against the doorframe. “We’ll talk.”

  He drags Claire out with him and closes the door.

  My heart finally starts beating again.

  “Holy shit, your parents just freaked out!”

  “Dad will be okay, but my mom.” I sigh. “I wish I had a mom like yours,” I say. “Someone who’d understand.”

  “Who cares if they understand? Artists can’t worry about what other people are going to say.”

  I nod, but the aftermath suddenly closes in on me. I know now that there’s no turning back.

  Not with my family, not with Meg.

  Fiona stands at the front of our class on Tuesday, holding a huge black poster board just to the side of her face. On it is mounted a piece of paper, her abstract shadow drawings, smudges creeping across the page. They look random, but I know they are painstakingly deliberate.

  “More of your shadows,” Mr. Frank says.

  “Yup,” Fiona says.

  “And what are these of?”

  “I’d rather not say. If you knew, my piece would be compromised.”

  The class thinks in silence. Or at least the polite ones do. The rest avert their eyes, or occupy themselves with something else. Fiona’s losing her grip on them, and it makes the whole room feel off center.

  “I’m concerned,” Mr. Frank says.

  “Concerned?” Fiona asks, genuinely confused.

  “I think you need to try a new approach. The problem with doing the shadows in such an abstract fashion is that they lose their power to inform. They don’t become shadows anymore. They become nothing.”

  Fiona drops her chin to her chest and gives Mr. Frank the look of death.

  “I agree,” Robyn says haughtily. “I think the artist needs to innovate more.”

  I shoot Robyn the same death stare. I know she’s pissed at Fiona, but it’s totally not cool to go after her like that.

  Fiona’s arms go limp, and her piece falls sloppily to the side.

  “Don’t get defensive,” Mr. Frank says.

  “How could I not get defensive?” Fiona walks back toward her stool. “You’re attacking me.”

  “I’m not attacking you, Fiona. I’m giving constructive criticism about your work.”

  “Same difference,” she says.

  I look at Yates, wishing there were some way to stop this from happening. “What does everyone else think?” he asks.

  “I really like these pieces,” I offer meekly. “And I think the abstract stuff works. It plays with audience expectations. You might not know what you’re looking at, and you might want to dismiss it, but you’re definitely looking at something, something that really does exist.”

  “I agree with your vision, Emily,” Mr. Frank says. “But I don’t think Fiona’s expressing that clearly enough.” He turns to her. “Fiona, I’m not saying there isn’t something to your shadows. I’ve enjoyed all of the pieces you’ve shared with the class. I’m just encouraging you to push yourself. I want you to solve the problem you’ve created here. Give us more than what’s on the surface.”

  Fiona walks back to her stool, shaking her head.

  “And as you all know, our closing gallery reception is on the horizon, and the selections for the juried portion of the show will take place in the next two weeks. You should be producing your best work now. Believe me, I am waiting for it.”

  Fiona won’t even look at me for the rest of class. I think she might be mad. Maybe I said the wrong thing about her piece. I wasn’t trying to side with Mr. Frank. I was trying to defend her. I love her work. It inspires me.

  At one point, Robyn corners me near the pencil sharpener. “You know Fiona only likes hanging out with you because she gets to be the star.”

  “Fiona and I are friends,” I tell her, unable to hide the bragging in my voice. “That’s why we hang out.”

  “Why do you think she tossed me to the side? Because I was too much competition. I’m just saying, be careful.”

  “Whatever, Robyn. Why do you care what happens to me? You never liked me in the first place.”

  “You’re right,” she admits. “I was wrong about you. And you know who else I was wrong about? Fiona. I bought into her whole schtick. But now I think her shadows are totally lame, and the whole thing is a cover for the fact that Fiona doesn’t have any real artistic talent. Sooner or later, everyone’s going to figure it out.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” I turn my back on her. But a part of me wonders why Fiona has done the same sort of piece again and again. It’s definitely her trademark, and I still think the pieces are great, but perhaps Mr. Frank is right that she needs to take it to the next level.

  When we break for lunch, I try to get Fiona to talk to me, but she’s doing what I used to do when I felt insecure — painstakingly cleaning up her supplies while the rest of the students file out. “Don’t worry,” I say. “Mr. Frank likes your stuff.”

  Fiona rolls her eyes. “Shadows are my thing. I mean, how does he not know that by now?”

  “I don’t think he meant to upset you, Fiona. He wanted to inspire you. You’ve only scratched the surface of what you’re capable of.”

  “I honestly couldn’t give a shit what that old idiot thinks. He’s a nobody. He’s nothing famous. He’s just a lame teacher at this lame school.”

  Unfortunately, Yates is still hanging around in the room, cleaning up the supplies. He must have heard Fiona trashing his idol. He walks over to us.

  “Seriously, Fiona,” he says, “don’t let it get to you. You know what you have in mind for your pieces. It’s a lesson every artist has to learn. You can’t please everyone.”

  I love that Yates is saying this. Any other person would take Mr. Frank’s side and give some condescending speech about how you need to bend to other people’s expectations.

  “Thanks,” Fiona tells him. I can’t tell if it resonates at all, but I hope it does. “Emily, do you want to go get a cheese steak with me for lunch? I seriously need greasy comfort food like a-sap.”

  “Sure,” I say. But a part of me wants to hang back with Yates. It’s like we have this conversation that’s been paused for days now, ever since the concert. A conversation where neither of us knows what to say. But Yates isn’t the one who needs me right now — Fiona is. Even if she’d never admit it.

  We don’t talk for a few blocks. I just follow Fiona and enjoy the view. Philadelphia is a beautiful city. One second we’re walking down a main street with stores and high-rise apartment buildings, and then we duck down an alley and find ourselves in a maze of tiny cobblestone side streets with tiny houses and hitching posts for horses from the old days. After a few of those, I’ve completely lost my sense of direction. But Fiona leads the way and before I know it, we hit South Street.

  On South Street, there are a bunch of shops you’d never see in the mall — like an incense store that blasts Bob Marley or a place that sells only condoms. There’s also a big comic book shop, lots of bars, and a record store that Fiona tells me is the spot where all the local DJs go to buy music.

  A few apartment buildings and alleyways we pass are covered in mosaics of glass and mirror and broken pottery that glitter like diamonds in the afternoon sun. Fiona explains they are done by a local artist named Isaiah Zagar.

  “He always puts the words ‘Art Is the Center of the Real World’ somewhere in his mosaics. Isn’t that badass?”

  I nod, unable to defocus from the jagged shards, until I am forced to completely spin around or fall flat on my face.

  We stop at Jim’s Steaks, a greasy-looking diner on a corner. The lunch line is reeeally long. Like out-the-doo
r-and-down-the-street long, full of all types of people, from traffic cops and construction workers to old ladies. I’m starving and the smell of steak and onions and gooey Cheez Whiz wafting down the street is brutal torture.

  “Should we wait? I think we should wait,” Fiona says.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Let’s definitely wait.”

  We walk to the back of the line. I turn to Fiona but she’s suddenly not there. She’s staring inside the window of a shop a few stores down from where the line actually ends.

  “Oh my God, Emily! C’mere!”

  I run over to her side and find her standing in front of a tattoo shop called Philadelphia Eddie’s. Inside, there are three tattoo stations and a huge wall of drawings you can choose from, like dragons and Chinese symbols and delicate fairies. I hear the buzzing through the glass window, a combination of the needles and the neon.

  Fiona fishes in her bag and pulls out her sketchbook. “Come on.”

  I’m nervous as I follow Fiona inside, like someone’s going to kick us out or call the cops because we’re not eighteen. I hang back by the boards while she steps up to the counter and talks with a guy who has literally every inch of his body covered in tattoos. Even his knuckles. Even his earlobes. And when he opens his mouth, even on the insides of his lips.

  “Do you have ID?”

  “Umm.” Fiona pats herself down, despite the fact that her tank and shorts don’t have pockets. “I must have forgotton it in the dorms. I have this, though,” she says, and pulls out the college ID from her owl tote bag.

  He glances at it dubiously. She curtseys. He breaks into a smile. “I’m not supposed to do this,” he says. “But my boss is away at a tattoo convention and that’s my alma mater. So today’s your lucky day.”

  The man opens the gate and ushers us in.