Ms. Diamond laid a red-and-white YIELD triangle on top of one stack and said, “That’s the last one.” She fiddled with a cup attached to a double-helix sculpture made of fused forks, spoons, and knives, and then handed something to the delivery guy and something to Rick.
Rick took it automatically and opened his hand to find a blue-raspberry lollipop. At least he knew that the handing-stuff-to-people technique worked.
Yay! said his stomach. She’s nice. Unwrap that sucker.
Rick silently told it not yet and tucked the lollipop into his front pants pocket. He said, “Your sister is Mrs. Althea Torres, right? Is she ever going to deliver any signs here?”
“My little sister, Althea?” Ms. Diamond said. “Do you know her? No, if you knew her you wouldn’t ask if she’d be delivering signs. Chickadee, I may have convinced her to support this project, but that doesn’t mean she wants anything to do with it personally. She’s too busy for us. Plenty of fires to put out, plenty of things to yell ‘Nonsense!’ to. But she was nice enough to give us the signs and the help of a work crew from the Department of Transportation to put them up. You artists create your fabulous things, and my sister’s crew will make sure they’re hung up securely around the city.”
Rick turned to the delivery guy. “Could you deliver something to Mrs. Torres for me?”
“Sorry, kid. No unscheduled pickups or drop-offs. In fact, I’d better get to my next stop. You watch out for those purple alligators, now.” He chuckled and left.
Ms. Diamond said, “If you have something for my sister, add it to the thank-you cards. I’ll be mailing those to her sometime in the next couple of weeks.” She pointed to the thick, oversize envelope on the floor next to the as-yet-unpainted pile of signs.
“Oh. Okay.”
“Really makes you think of all the good you can do, doesn’t it?” Miss Diamond said, looking at the signs.
“Yes,” Rick agreed. He was pretty sure they weren’t talking about the same good, though.
She said gently, “I couldn’t help but notice that you haven’t painted anything since you arrived. I know it can be overwhelming. You think you have to do something perfectly the first time or you’ll be letting down the greatness you know is within you. Trust me, though—you simply need to take that first brushstroke and get out of your own way. ‘If you can dream it, you can do it.’”
Rick knew that quote from the Walt Disney poster outside the school gym. He shook his head. Both Ms. Diamond and Walt Disney were wrong. You couldn’t always do it if you could dream it. You had to have other people show up, willing to hear what you had to say.
“Try that first brushstroke,” Ms. Diamond encouraged him before going to get more purple paint for Alligator Girl.
Rick bent down and slid his folder into the oversize envelope. Then he turned and faced the room and gave a little shudder. All these poor signs being turned into oddly colored animals. And grinning basketballs. And—was that Scout painting cupcakes on a DO NOT ENTER sign? So many tools for potential Snarl Solutions, ruined.
Mila’s smiling face appeared in front of him. “Why aren’t you painting yet?” she said. “I picked something for you, I hope you don’t mind.” She led him over to a STOP sign with a palette of paint laid next to it. “See how mine came out?” she said, displaying her finished art. She’d made a valiant, chubby knight from the number 3 and twined together more dragons, a handful of unicorns, and one flaming orange fox to cover the words Speed Limit.
“Very colorful,” Rick said.
“Go ahead and do some of your own before Abuelita gets here,” she said, handing him a paintbrush.
Rick knelt half-heartedly in front of the STOP sign. There were a few scratches and stains on it, so he dipped his brush in red and carefully painted over them. It took real concentration not to get any on the white parts. The sign looked fresher—happier, even—when he was done. He picked up another brush and dipped it in white to clean up the edges and the letters. Minutes passed.
Someone tapped him on the arm. Abuelita, Ms. Diamond, and Mila were standing behind him, looking over his shoulder at his work. Apparently it was pickup time. Other parents were milling around the room, cooing at their daughters’ masterpieces.
“What do you think?” he asked the three of them.
“Hm,” said Abuelita. Mila scrunched her face.
Ms. Diamond said, “Well, well, well, look where that first brushstroke took you. Shades of Andy Warhol? Marcel Duchamp? I could tell you had depth. Now, don’t forget to sign it.” She moved on to the next group.
“Sign it?” Rick looked at Mila.
Mila said, “On the back with a permanent marker. Ms. Diamond says artists should always sign their work. She said we can use our real names or come up with nicknames if we want. I’m using my real name so I can tell people this is how I got my start when I’m a famous artist. You’re…done, right?”
Rick couldn’t see anything else to add to the bright STOP sign. “I am.” Mila went to go find him a marker as he tipped the sign on one edge. She handed him a black Sharpie.
Rick signed Richard Stanislav Rusek before lowering the marker. Then he picked it up again, and when he was sure no one was looking, he crossed out his name and wrote The Colossus of Roads. He liked the Colossus name but didn’t want to be teased about it.
“My darling chickadees!” Ms. Diamond raised her voice to get the attention of the girls and their parents. “All of the beauteousness you generously created today will be installed around LA to bring joy to those who need more art in their daily lives. Each sign that’s finished, please place in that corner. Once I see what we’ve got, I’ll be explaining to some fine employees from the Department of Transportation where to mount your art. So many communities want it! And there are so many signs to be painted that your troop leader and I decided we’ll meet not once but twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays over the next month, to complete the project. If you can’t make both sessions, that’s okay. I’ve also invited several more troops to participate. Help yourselves to lollies on your way out.”
Mila had Abuelita snap a picture of her mythical-creature sign with her phone. Abuelita took a shot of Rick’s STOP sign as well. Then he and Mila took the two signs and put them in the “finished” corner, and followed Abuelita to her car.
As he opened the rear door, Rick’s stomach asked him, Can you make sure she doesn’t swerve anymore? Before he could speak, Mila asked her grandmother point-blank, “Abuelita, are you going to drive home the way you normally do, or like a really good driver, the way you did on the way here?”
“I am always a really good driver, mi vida,” Abuelita replied patiently, putting on her gloves. “I can see our Ricardo needs me to drive a certain way, so I do that for him. Other times, the city needs me to drive a certain way, so I do that. You’ll understand when you are older.” Rick’s stomach was relieved to hear it was going to be treated to another paranormally gliding ride.
Feeling less panicked about the drive, Rick now noticed that there was a chunky, chrome-plated radio with a small microphone mounted on top of Abuelita’s dashboard and asked her about it.
“It’s a ham radio. You’ve seen the one I have at home, haven’t you?” He had. It was parked on a small doily-covered end table in the living room. That one was bigger, though, with knobs the size of hockey pucks and twice as many gauges and switches as this one. He’d heard her chatting on it a few times. “I use my radios to talk to my friends around the city. Right now, though, I’m in the mood for driving music.” She clicked on the car’s FM radio and electric guitar, bass, and drums filled the car.
It was smooth sailing again as Abuelita sang along with the Rolling Stones. When they got out of the car, Mila tugged on Rick’s shirtsleeve. “Something about having you in the car fixed Abuelita.”
He held up one arm and flexed his biceps. “In a world where cars need to be driven properly, Rick Rusek makes it happen,” he said. Then he unflexed. If only that were true.
All he’d done this afternoon was stick his Snarl Solutions in an envelope that would take weeks to reach the busy Mrs. Torres. That wasn’t going to protect the good things in his family’s life right now. He was back to square one.
That night at dinner, Dad asked how the Girl Scout meeting had gone. “What was Anna Diamond like? Did she seem legendary?”
“The meeting was okay, and Ms. Diamond was nice. She let everyone have lollipops,” Rick said. He took a mouthful of the lentil stew Mom had served and then wished he hadn’t. But he didn’t want to complain. Mom looked like she’d had the kind of day where a compliment would go over a lot better than a complaint. “Mmm, this is different,” he made himself say. “What is a lentil, anyway?”
Who cares what a lentil is—it’s awful! Tell her, or she’s going to make it again, his stomach said.
“It’s a legume, like a bean,” she said. “Do you like it? Each serving cost pennies to make.”
“Mmm,” Rick said again, swigging some water to get the stew down.
Dad ate a spoonful. Rick could tell by his face that his stomach was making similar comments to him. Dad said, “Anything to go with it? Some bread?”
“Nope, it’s a one-dish meal,” Mom said. “I got the idea to start making more one-dish vegetarian meals for us. Nutritious and cost-effective.” She put her own spoonful in her mouth. After she chewed, she said, “Too bad I started with this one. Are you two actually enjoying it, or trying to spare my feelings?”
“I love you, darling,” said Dad.
“I love you too, Mom. Best mom ever,” said Rick.
“There’s my answer,” Mom said. “Darn it. Maybe if I mixed in some leftover slices of kielbasa and cooked it a little longer?”
“Whatever you want to do,” Dad said. “Have I told you lately how much I love you? But I would also like to point out that we have cheese and tortilla chips and we could make some nachos out of that instead. Throw some olives on it and voilà, vegetarian one-dish meal. Did I mention that I can prepare this delicious meal while you put your feet up?”
Mom smiled at that, but it was a fleeting smile, chased right off her face by a sigh. “We can make it together,” she said. “Rick, go warm up the couch for us. It’s going to be a nachos-in-front-of-mindless-television night.”
The nachos were good. The night was not. While his parents cleaned up the dishes, Rick could hear their stressed whispers. Dad offered to look for another graphic design job. Mom said that without his help, she couldn’t run Smotch. Then they talked about how much they could cut back, using lots of words like cancel and eliminate and tighten. It sounded like legume-based meals were the beginning of lots of unwelcome changes.
YOU’LL BE SAFE WITH ME
THREE DAYS LATER, at the Herreras’ kitchen table, Mila asked, “You’re coming with me today, right?” Daniela was with them, singing a song mostly made up of the word no.
“Where?” Rick asked.
“To Ms. Diamond’s house. You had fun last time, didn’t you? And you being in the car will make Abuelita drive so well we’ll be on time again. Daniela, try singing this instead—Meeee-laaaa, I loooove youuuu.”
Daniela giggled and repeated, “Noooo-noooo, no nooooo noooo!” using the same tone and rhythm.
“No must be a fun word to learn to say,” Rick observed. “And no, I wasn’t planning on coming today.” He still hadn’t come up with any new ideas on how to help Smotch, so his mood was not the best.
“But look.” Mila had Abuelita’s phone and started swiping the screen. “Some of our signs are already up. Don’t they look amazing?” She showed him a series of smiling cupcakes, basketballs, and tigers lined up along a road median. Then she scrolled to a photo of a damaged park fence to which four painted street signs were affixed in a line—the purple alligator, Mila’s mythical creatures, a rainbow with pots of gold at either end, and Rick’s fresh STOP sign. Mila let out a happy squeak. Rick couldn’t help thinking his sign seemed mournfully out of place, stopping nobody and nothing.
“Please?” Mila said.
We’ve got less than three weeks to hang out with Mila, his stomach said. I’ll be brave again. Let’s go and keep her company.
“Fine,” Rick said. “I suppose I must use my Abuelita-
fixing power when called upon to do so.” He put his pencil to his forehead like an antenna and made a high-pitched oooo-oooo-OOOOO noise.
Daniela looked at his antenna-pencil with wide eyes and repeated “Oooo-oooo-OOOOO” over and over.
Rick called his mom to get permission. She said, “More painting? With Girl Scouts?” She muttered something about “raising boys” and “full of surprises” and then told him he could go.
Once in the carport, Rick’s stomach was not quite as confident as it had been inside Mila’s town house. It asked, What if we can’t do this? What if Abuelita’s driving last time was a fluke? Rick sent reassuring brain waves its way, but as he climbed with Mila into the giant red car’s backseat, he couldn’t help wondering: Was he about to embark on a journey with the best driver in LA, or with someone who might hold up traffic for days?
As he and Mila clicked their seat belts into place, he noticed Mila had crossed her fingers on both hands.
Abuelita reached for the glove compartment and snapped on her red leather driving gloves. Mila uncrossed her fingers and nodded at Rick.
“Okay, chamitos, here we go!” Abuelita announced.
“What’s a chamito?” Rick whispered to Mila as Abuelita turned on the ignition.
“Chamitos is a Venezuelan word. It means something like ‘kiddos,’” she whispered back. And away they went.
Rick’s stomach didn’t have any comments for him for the next six miles. When they pulled up to the curb in front of Ms. Diamond’s house, all it had to say was Whoa. Too bad there’s only one Abuelita.
They said goodbye to Abuelita and walked inside behind a pair of girls and a mom. Mila’s Girl Scout troop leader and assistant were waiting there, along with more adult volunteers and a whole lot more Scouts than last time. “These must be the other troops Ms. Diamond mentioned,” Mila said. “Brown vests are Brownies, khaki vests are Cadettes, and green vests are Juniors like me.”
Ms. Diamond was handing out smocks. “Should have had these last week, considering the depth and breadth and height of your enthusiasm. Darling chickadees, should you need a theme, your muse today could be ‘California Gold.’ What makes our state so splendid? You can continue working on individual road signs as we did last week. Or you can band together and collaborate on some monumental art. For something like this one”—she gestured to a green freeway interchange sign big enough for three Girl Scouts to lie down head to toe on it—“you’ll have to plan your work and then work your plan together. Now get ready, get set, get making art.”
Mila tugged Rick’s sleeve. “Want to work on one of the big ones?” she asked.
“No thanks,” he said.
“Oh, okay. Well, I want to work on the biggest one of all, so I’d better go grab a spot.” The largest road sign was already getting swarmed by keen artists.
Rick went over to the pile of small signs and picked up as many as he could carry. “You’ll be safe with me,” he told them.
Rick made his way to an unoccupied spot near the double helix of cutlery. He overheard some Scouts discussing whether they should make the state animal (California grizzly), the state bird (California quail), or the state sport (surfing) the center of one of the big signs. He found a Sharpie and wrote The Colossus of Roads on the back of each of his signs. Then he dabbed his brush in some black paint and started restoring a SPEED LIMIT 30.
Rick finished two SPEED LIMIT signs and a DO NOT ENTER. Then the girl behind him, who seemed to have a broken volume control, yelled to Ms. Diamond, “Look! What do you think of this fish taco holding a bouquet of California poppies?” Rick decided he wasn’t going to turn around to see which sign had given up its useful face for a taco and some poppies.
&nbs
p; Ms. Diamond made appreciative sounds. The girl yelled back, “How do you put these up when they’re dry? Glue? Duct tape?”
Rick laughed inwardly at the girl’s question, thinking about his ROAD WORK NEXT 5 MILES sign at home and the big nuts and bolts that had been used to secure it to its pole. If people could use duct tape to put up signs, anyone could put up any sign anywhere they wanted to. It’d be chaos.
His brain fizzed. He held his brush still.
Duct tape. It could do practically anything, right? Why couldn’t it be used to hang up road signs? Not by everyone in a chaotic, crazy way, no, but how about by a kid with potentially great ideas?
Oooh, he wanted to try it right now and find out. He had the signs. Now he just needed the tape. He looked around for Mila’s troop leader and asked her if she had any of the duct tape left from when Mila made her wallet. “I had, like, an…art…brainstorm,” he explained.
“A Scout leader always has duct tape,” she said, pointing to a plastic tub with a couple of first-aid kits, duct tape, and other craft supplies, like Elmer’s glue, markers, pipe cleaners, and empty toilet-paper rolls. Rick grabbed a roll of black tape and a roll of red, his mind racing. When he’d looked up Yum Num Donuts online, he thought he’d seen a few of the reasons why traffic so often got snarly here.
He slid the duct-tape rolls onto his arm like bracelets. He found Ms. Diamond and asked her, “Is it okay if I look around your backyard? For art inspiration?” Mila had told him that the fenced-in yard was way bigger than you could see from the road, a whole field of sculpture armadillos, sunflowers, cactuses, and windmills. He was sure he could make it down the street to Yum Num Donuts and duct-tape his signs in place in less time than it would take him to wander around this wonderland of weirdness.
The Colossus of Roads Page 5