We Were Beautiful

by Heather Hepler

  Sarah grabs one of them and I grab the other. We follow Fig to the other side of the steps that lead up into the museum. I have to force myself not to look at the fountain. I can remember standing there and throwing in a penny the last time I was here. I have no idea what I wished for. If I’d have known what was going to happen, I would have wished for something else.

  Fig directs us to put the duffle bags near the wall of the museum. She bends and unzips one, drawing T-shirts from its depths and dropping them onto the ground. She tosses one to Sarah and starts tugging a large white bundle free from the bag. Sarah pulls one of the T-shirts over her head. ART ATTACK is scrawled across the front in heavy black script.

  “What’s Art Attack?” I ask.

  “Art Attack,” Fig says, “is us.” She points at herself and Sarah and waves her hand over to Sebastian and Cooper, who are standing off to one side while people look at his drawing and drop coins into an upturned fedora resting on the sidewalk.

  Fig begins unrolling the big white bundle, which turns out to be one of those canvas drop cloths that painters use to protect floors when they’re working. I have to force down another memory, one of my mother painting over a bright orange wall with white paint.

  Next, Fig pulls duct tape out of her bag. She secures two corners of the drop cloth and tosses the tape to Sarah, who secures the corners on her side.

  Fig stands up and motions for me to come over. She unzips the other bag, the one she was carrying, and starts pulling out big tubes of paint and a box of wet wipes. “Art Attack is something we started doing a couple of months ago,” she explains. “We do spontaneous art.” Then she looks at the paint tubes she’s holding. “There’s a surprisingly large amount of planning that goes into the spontaneous part.”

  I look over at Cooper and Sebastian, who are starting to pack away their things. “What do you do with the money?” I ask, watching as another person drops a folded bill into the fedora.

  “We buy supplies with some, but we donate most of it to the local schools to support their art programs.” She smiles at the look on my face. “I know,” she says. “We’re so altruistic.” She laughs when she says it. “Here, I’ll trade you.”

  She reaches for my camera, but I pull back, a little unsure. “Just to keep it safe while we work.” I nod and hand it over. She tucks it into the bag, out of sight, and hands me half a dozen tubes of paint and a big roll of paper towels.

  Sarah, Fig, and I haul everything over to where we’ve taped down the giant drop cloth. There’s already a crowd gathering. Sarah takes off her Yankees hat and puts it upside down right at the front.

  Fig pulls gloves out of her pocket and puts them on. She tosses a pair to me and another to Sarah. “We call this one All Walks of Life,” she says. “Who’s first?” Fig asks the crowd.

  Several little kids and one adult raise their hands. I’m surprised, because she doesn’t offer any explanation. She picks a small boy who is right in front. “Take your shoes off,” she says. He looks at the woman holding his hand. She nods. He immediately drops and pulls off his sneakers and socks, revealing very pale feet that don’t match his sun-browned legs.

  Sarah brings over a couple of tubes of paint. “Pick one,” she says, holding them toward the boy. He thinks for a moment before pointing to the tube of red. Sarah unscrews the top of the tube and instructs the boy to hold his foot still. “It’s going to tickle a little.”

  The boy braces himself, half excited, half nervous. Sarah squirts a big blob of paint into one hand and starts spreading it all over the bottom of his foot. Now I know what the gloves are for. The boy has his eyes shut tight, trying as hard as he can to be still while she finishes that foot and begins working on the other, this time using blue on her other hand.

  “Okay,” Fig says, coming over and helping him stand up on the tarp. “Walk around.” He takes a tentative step forward and then another. He looks back to see his footprint on the tarp, then takes a few more steps, looking back each time. Step. Look. Step. Look. The paint wears off about halfway across the canvas. Fig leads the boy back to his mother, who accepts several wet wipes. The boy is smiling and pointing at his footprints, while his mother attempts to wipe the paint out from between his toes.

  “Who’s next?” Fig asks.

  We spend the next hour painting feet and letting people walk across the canvas. Cooper and Sebastian come over at some point to help us roll out another drop cloth when the first one is full. Mostly kids volunteer, but there are a few brave adults. We discover one of the adults is a curator at the museum. Cooper sits and talks with him while the man cleans off his feet. Every once in a while, a member of ART ATTACK will talk to the gathered crowd and tell them why we’re here and what the money is going toward. Sarah says things like appreciation of the arts and creative energy while Cooper uses words like the power of expression and artistic anarchy. Fig just tells everyone that the paint smooshing through your toes feels cool.

  It isn’t until I’m squatting beside a little girl with blonde hair and trying to help her wipe green paint off her foot that anyone says anything about my face. “What happened to you?” the little girl asks, reaching out to touch my cheek. I jerk my face away. No one, other than a few doctors, has touched my face in almost a year. I look down and see the girl’s eyes welling up with tears. “I’m sorry,” she says, her voice trembling.

  “It’s okay,” I say. She looks at me and I force a smile. “Really. You just surprised me.” She nods and tries for a smile herself, but it’s small, barely a tenth of the one she had earlier.

  “Does it hurt?” she asks softly.

  “Sometimes,” I say. It’s the truth, but not in the way she means. And really, it hurts all the time, just some times more than others. She looks at me for a long moment, then holds out her hand.

  “My brother slammed my finger in the door,” she says, showing me her finger that’s wrapped in a Disney Princesses bandage.

  “I’ll bet it was an accident,” Cooper says from beside me. I didn’t even know he was listening. The little girl looks at him for a moment before she nods and smiles. He said the exact right thing. Something I wouldn’t even think to say.

  “It was,” she says. “He’d never do that on purpose.” She pulls on her sandals and stands up. I notice that her feet are still slightly green. She runs off to where a woman and a little boy are standing, looking at Cooper’s drawing. She’s back in a few moments, clutching a ten-dollar bill, which she hands to Cooper. “You’re nice,” she says before running off again.

  Cooper looks my way, and for a second I almost feel like he can see inside of me. And I wonder how I would feel if he really could. Relieved that I didn’t have to hide anymore. But also devastated at what he’d think. Then Cooper is up and moving away to help someone else.

  We keep working. Every so often, I’ll look up and catch Cooper watching me, but mostly it’s just paint and wipe and paint and wipe.

  “I’m out,” Sarah says, holding up a spent tube of paint. The ground around her is littered with empty tubes in all the colors of the rainbow.

  “Me too,” Fig says, holding up her own flattened tube. They both look at me.

  “I have a little,” I say, holding up the tube of purple I was using. “Maybe enough for one more.”

  “Good,” Fig says. She turns and faces the crowd that is gathered, still watching us. “Thank you, everyone,” she says, loudly. “We’re all finished for today.” There are a few groans from the crowd. “But look for us around the city,” she says. “We’ll be where you least expect it.”

  “In front of an art museum is not exactly where I’d least expect to see us,” Sebastian says from where he’s standing beside me. Fig points at him and pantomimes a zipping motion across her lips. This makes him laugh. “She’s got ears like a bat,” he tells me.

  The crowd starts to filter away as Cooper and Sebastian roll up the first canvas, which has had a chance to dry. Sarah dumps the money from her hat into the backpa
ck. I swear the sides of it are bulging a little, although that seems hard to believe.

  “You,” Fig says, pointing at me. “Shoes off.”

  I hold up one of my still-gloved hands and shake my head. “I don’t think I want paint smooshing between my toes.” I look around at the others, hoping to find someone to agree with me, but everyone suddenly pretends to be way too busy to jump to my aid. Fig stands there, watching me with one eyebrow raised. I take a breath. “Okay,” I say. I sit on the sidewalk and yank off my Chucks and my socks. I squirt a blob of purple on one foot and then the other. It feels cold against the soles of my feet. I smear it around and then stand up on a clean spot on the canvas.

  “Move around,” Sarah says. I look over at all of them staring at me. Sure, now they’re paying attention. I take a step forward and then another.

  “Boring!” Sebastian says.

  “What do you want me to do?” I ask.

  “Something interesting,” Fig says.

  I take a deep breath and close my eyes. I think of Fig’s skirt that she bought for a dollar, and then I think of Rachel and me spinning in our yard faster and faster until we’d fall onto the grass laughing. I put my arms over my head and twirl in a circle like a ballerina. I feel foolish and brave in equal measure. Sebastian yells his approval.

  Spinning with my eyes closed makes me dizzy. I stop and open my eyes, feeling lightheaded. I look down and realize I’m almost out of paint anyway. When they all clap for me, I curtsy while holding out an imaginary skirt, figuring I can’t possibly make any more of a fool of myself. I step off the canvas and wipe the paint from my feet. I can’t quite get it all, leaving my toes faintly violet. As I step back into my socks and shoes, I decide I’m not sure Fig was right about the smooshy feeling. My feet feel sort of clammy and yucky. I help clean up, dropping the spent tubes of paint into the duffle (Fig says you can recycle those) and tossing the wads of wipes and paper towels into the nearby trash can.

  Soon everything but the final canvas is put away. Sebastian scrawls Art Attack and a web address across the top of the tarp with a thick black marker. The handwriting matches the writing on their T-shirts.

  “Now we just wait,” Fig says. She looks up at the museum.

  “The curator who gave us permission to do this is coming back to pick it up. He’s going to hang it in the lobby,” Sarah says.

  “Wow,” I say. I spot my camera peeking out of the duffle and retrieve it.

  “What kind of photographs do you take?” Sarah asks.

  “Mostly people,” I say. “Faces.” I think about the photo on my camera. The one I never look at. I thought I wanted to be an artist once, but that was a long time ago. And that was a different me.

  The same curator who was brave enough to walk across our canvas is walking toward us and smiling. “Good news,” he says when he reaches us. “The director says we can put up a collection box below the installation.” I see Fig grin at the word installation.

  “Awesome,” Fig says. Sebastian and Cooper bump fists and Sarah does a little dance. We all help him roll up the canvas, careful not to smear the paint. Cooper tells Sarah she should head over to Fig’s, that he’ll meet her after they finish hanging the canvas. Sarah nods and she and Fig each shoulder a bag. Sarah hands my camera back to me.

  “Good to meet you, Mia,” Sebastian says. Cooper nods slightly, and I’m surprised at how that small gesture makes my heart beat a little faster. Cooper and Sebastian each take an end of the canvas and begin following the curator up the steps.

  “Coming, Mia?” Fig calls from behind me.

  “Yeah,” I say. I start down the sidewalk to where Fig and Sarah are waiting for me. I sneak a look at Cooper, but he and Sebastian have already started walking inside.

  I follow Fig and Sarah. We all ride the subway back downtown, talking and laughing about nothing. We take turns carrying the mostly empty bags after we climb out of the subway. We pause at the entrance to Brunelli’s. I learned this morning that Fig’s whole family lives in the apartments above the restaurant. “Guess I’ll see you bright and early,” Fig says, making a face.

  “Except that it’s still dark at four,” I say, smiling.

  “Just early then,” Fig says. Sarah repeats Sebastian’s assertion that it was good to meet me. Joey, Fig’s uncle, opens the door for Sarah and Fig, making me wonder if he was assigned to watch for their arrival. He gives me a nod before letting the door shut behind them.

  The sky is just starting to darken when I reach Veronica’s building. I pull out my keys, but I needn’t have bothered. The doorman is holding the door wide for me by the time I make it to the top of the steps. “Thank you,” I say, wondering if I could ever get used to having someone in my life whose sole purpose was to open the door for me.

  I ride up in the elevator with a man who smells strongly of either cheese or feet. He bids me a good night as I step off onto the fourth floor. Veronica left me a note, saying she’ll be out late and that I should get to bed early so I’ll “be on time for work in the morning.” I frown at the note, wondering if that was part of what made my mother crazy. Veronica’s implication that I wasn’t on time this morning peeks out from between the lines of her perfect penmanship.

  I take a long shower, letting the cool water wash away big-city grime that seems to cling to everything. I forgo the covered plate of chicken and rice Veronica left in the refrigerator and eat a dinner of apple and peanut butter standing at the sink.

  I drop into bed early, not because Veronica told me to but because I’m wiped. Just before I turn out the light, my phone vibrates, announcing an incoming text. I pick it up off the stack of books I’m using for a nightstand. It’s from my dad. There aren’t any words; just an image attached. I click on it, and it fills the screen.

  A single perfect sand dollar rests on wet sand. My dad’s Bean boot has snuck into the corner of the shot. That bit makes me smile more than the sand dollar. My dad can’t seem to keep himself from spilling into every photo he takes. His thumb. His shadow. A low-hanging fishing lure. I start to respond with a smiley face emoji. Then I remember the ride in the truck and the dozens of silent breakfasts and the endless evenings filled with old movies and too much jazz music. I click my phone off without responding. One photo doesn’t mean much stacked against all of that.

  I feel anger welling up in me again and try to tamp it down. I am not allowed that emotion. Sadness, grief, regret, and despair are all available to me, but my mother’s departure followed soon after by my father’s announcement that he was going to take the summer to re-up his rescue diver certification made it clear that whatever kindness I am offered is more than I deserve.

  I replace my phone on my makeshift bedside table. I think for once I might actually have a good night’s sleep, but I don’t. I have the same dream I always have. But this time instead of just sound, there’s Rachel. A still shot of her, like a photograph. Then there’s the sound of squealing tires and glass breaking and the sound of screaming. And then it’s silent.

  Chapter Five

  The alarm on my phone starts beeping at 3:30. I push myself up to sitting and rub at my eyes. I dress, brush my teeth, pull on my shoes, all with the lights off. When I finish, the door to Veronica’s room is still closed. I raise my hand to knock and say goodbye, but stop before my knuckles hit the door. Somehow, instead of commiseration about the early hour or even a simple have a good day, an interaction with her would likely mean more scrutiny, more suggestions for how I might improve myself.

  I hurry down the stairs and outside. Brunelli’s is only two blocks away from my grandmother’s apartment. The city is almost quiet this early in the morning. Even the cabs seemed hushed as they slide by. A truck, with its bed filled with roses, rolls past. The smell is like the cliffs above Farseer Cove in Maine, where Rachel and I used to pick rosehips to make tea that neither of us would ever drink.

  I hurry across the street. I can see Brunelli’s glowing sign from the corner. It alternates between
reading “Hot Soup” and “Air-Conditioned.” Joey opens the door at my knock, smiling and bobbing his head to whatever is coming out of the earbuds that seem permanently stuck in his ears.

  “Morning!” he says way too loudly.

  I start to respond, but he’s already turned his back to me so he can lock the door. Nonna comes out of the back, her glasses perched on the end of her nose. She smiles when she sees me, but keeps talking into the phone she has wedged between her ear and her shoulder.

  “You’re killing me here,” she says as she walks past. She looks at the clipboard in her hand. “Three dollars a pound!” Nonna listens for a moment. “You’ll be sorry that you weren’t kinder to me when I’m dead.” Nonna winks at me.

  “She always tells them that,” Fig says, sliding up beside me.

  “Two twenty,” Nonna says. She listens, and the sides of her mouth inch upward. Apparently, she got her price.

  “And they always fall for it,” Fig says, shaking her head. “Come on.” I follow her into the kitchen. Fig pulls open the door of one of the refrigerators and rummages inside for a moment before extracting a carton of orange juice. She pulls two mugs down from the hooks that hang from the underside of all the cabinets and pours juice into both of them. She slides one toward me and lifts the other.

  “Cheers,” she says. She tips the mug to her mouth and takes a long drink. “So,” she says, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “After work, I want you to come somewhere with me.”

  “Where?” I ask.

  “It’s a secret.”

  “Another one?” This girl is full of secrets, whether or not she keeps them.

  She grins and then takes another drink before lowering the mug to look at me across its rim. “And nothing you can say will pry it from me.”

  Nonna comes back into the kitchen, slapping the clipboard against her leg and smiling. “Guess what Saturday is.”

  Fig shrugs. “No idea.” Nonna swats her arm lightly with the clipboard. Fig tilts her head to the side, as if thinking. “Arbor Day?” I can tell she knows what Saturday is, but she’s enjoying teasing Nonna.