by Susan Juby
I sat beside Zinnia in one of the fabric-covered chairs stained with the tears of a hundred distraught art students. The waiting room wasn’t very big, but Ms. Fowler had made it pretty with lots of delicate paper mobiles and quotes and poems that weren’t stupid but rather thoughtful and sensitive.
“Chairs are pretty comfortable,” I said.
Zinnia nodded her head, which in profile looked enormous because she’d tucked her abundant hair and perhaps someone else’s entire head into a crocheted hat.
“Are you here because of our questions?” I asked.
“You sped it up,” she said. “I’d been avoiding the truth for a long time. Taking it on. My bra is not the reason my sister got bullied. And that bullshit with the webcam and the morons in her school isn’t the whole story. She could have come to this school. But she didn’t want to.”
I nodded. Questions tumbled through my brain. How was a person supposed to figure out her sister? Learn to live with her, no matter what?
“Also, I didn’t tell you guys the complete truth.”
That got my attention.
“I told you most of the truth. But not all.”
I waited.
“After the bullying thing, maybe even before, my sister was getting into some high-risk stuff.”
I visualized the white noise tumbling out of the machine.
“Getting high. Hanging around with the wrong people. A few of the girls in her school were already mad at her. Something happened with some other girl’s boyfriend. Stupid shit went down at parties. I wanted to blame everything on those people who picked on her. But the story is more complicated than that.”
“So you’re saying she was partly to blame?”
“No. See, that’s not it, either. No one deserves what happened to my sister. But it’s not all good and evil and straightforward like that. The situation was a mess. It’s way easier when you have someone to blame. We want a victim and a villain and a simple story and for everyone to play their role.”
I wasn’t quite sure what Zinnia was telling me.
She saw my expression and continued. “Our brains put situations and people into categories because it’s too much work to let things stay unclear. I know mine does. Messes are psychologically displeasing.”
I nodded slowly. That much was true.
“I’ve been talking to my sister more since you guys asked me about what happened. Before that, we weren’t talking at all. She hates my march. But she thought the riot was cool. She likes Edmonton. Likes living with my dad.”
“That’s good,” I said.
“My art is so out of control right now,” said Zinnia. “You wouldn’t believe. Abstraction is the only thing that comes close to doing the job.”
I felt sad at that, because Zinnia’s hyperrealistic figurative work was so great.
“I love your stuff,” I said.
She smiled and I thought that maybe her visits to the guidance counselor were working. Her face looked less pinched.
“I’m glad you and Dusk and Neil asked me the truth. You started a process that needed to happen. But you need to be careful with it. You know?”
Oh, did I know. I took a deep breath. “I asked myself some truths just recently. Then I asked some about my sister. And you’re right. We need to be careful.”
It was her turn to wait for me to continue.
I ran my hands along the edges of my big fake-leather portfolio. “My sister’s not doing so great. I was the only one who knew. But I couldn’t handle it. So now I’m asking for help. Because I don’t know what else to do.”
Zinnia nodded. “I wish I’d asked for help for me and my sister earlier. Can I do anything? For you?”
Sitting there in the white-noise waiting room with the paper mobiles twisting almost imperceptibly overhead, I sketched the outlines of the story. Told her that my sister had a trauma at school. That she kept disappearing. That we were looking for her new place. I described my sister’s car.
Zinnia was a very active listener, nodding and agreeing. “My skater friends and I will look, too. But I won’t tell any of the others whose car it is or why we’re looking. They might know. Quite a few of them worship your sister.”
Of course every skateboarder in town would worship her. So would every gamer and every illustrator and writer. As a cult comic-book artist, it was Keira’s lot in life to be loved best by people who didn’t know her.
“I think you’re an amazing writer,” said Zinnia. “That story you had in Careless Whispers last year shook me.109 The illustrations rocked. Also, I love your stitching.”
Warm feeling flooded me, and I let it.
“Sisters are hard,” said Zinnia. “So are parents, friends, and teachers. Art’s hard, and so is school. I’m just trying to be present for it all. Not to look away.”
“Don’t look away,” I repeated softly, thinking that would make a good mantra for life.110
Discerning Pixels
When I met Neil and Dusk in the parking lot after school, there were other people there. Quite a few of them.
I slowed my pace, my keys dangling from my free hand, and tried to figure out what Aimee Danes, Zinnia McFarland, and Prema Hardwick were doing standing next to Nancy.
“We want to help,” announced Aimee, to whom I’d never spoken directly.
“I’m missing a workout because I think this is important,” said Prema.
I looked from Neil to Dusk and I couldn’t decide whether to feel betrayed or not.
There was a shuffling noise behind me, and I saw Brian Forbes emerge from between two cars. He looked marginally better. Not been-through-rehab-and-reborn-into-a-clean-and-sober-lifestyle better, but like he’d at least eaten in the last day or so. I had a brief, disorienting moment of wondering when Mrs. Dekker or the gorgeous Tyler Jones would show up.
Brian nodded and smiled his sad, wry smile.
“Look, as a result of your very direct questions, we have a bond. Like it or not. And information has to flow both ways,” said Aimee, who obviously had hidden depths that were going to make her a terrific reporter. “I know I’ve been leaning on Neil pretty heavily for the past while. I want to give back. If not to him, then to his girlfriend.”
I was startled to hear myself described that way, and I felt stripped bare that all these people knew things about me. Private things about my life and my family. Then again, I was hardly in a position to protest.
“We don’t know any specifics,” said Prema. “We just know you’re looking for a car. We’re going to help you look. We won’t say anything about it.”
“You kept my secrets,” added Zinnia. “Or you would have, if I hadn’t told them to everyone during a public action.”
“My secrets are staying safe with the professionals,” said Brian. Which was funny, because his secrets were etched into every line of his face and in the set of his shoulders.
“I hope it’s okay,” said Dusk, for once cautious and considerate.
“It’s fine,” I said. “Thank you.”
Neil described my sister’s white Crown Victoria. “Has she come home yet?” he asked me.
For obvious reasons, I couldn’t call and ask my dad if Keira had returned while I was at school. “I’ll swing by and check.”
“Call us when you know, and we’ll start looking,” said the truthers.
“Four of us can go in my car,” said Aimee. Which was a good thing, because Zinnia rode a crappy bike and Brian’s mode of transport was his feet. Prema might have had a car, but I’d never seen it because her two boyfriends usually chauffeured her around.
My mind boggled at what the four of them would talk about as they cruised the mean streets of Nanaimo looking for my sister’s Crown Vic.
“Okay, well, thank you all very much,” I said inadequately.
Then, suddenly, we
were all doing these spontaneous bonding handshakes: half gang members greeting each other, half secret order of the Masons. Short grip, half hug and some finger flapping. And here’s an embarrassing thing: my eyes welled up. I was turning into an easy weeper.
“You want me to drive?” Dusk asked. Brian and Prema and Zinnia headed for Aimee’s gleaming wine-colored BMW, like lost members of The Breakfast Club.
I nodded.
She climbed in behind Nancy’s steering wheel, and Neil got in the middle and I sat in the passenger seat. Neil and I didn’t hold hands or snuggle, because sometimes you need to lay off that stuff around your friends.
Dusk drove, and I stared out the window and tried not to think. I’d spent what felt like my entire life not talking about my sister. Not talking about how it felt to be portrayed as an inconsequential, helpless blob in her comics, how it felt to have to work around her moods and whims, how it felt to admire her so much even though I kind of hated her at the same time. I hadn’t talked about how much of a struggle it was to make sure nothing I did stressed out my overburdened parents, who always seemed poised on the razor’s edge between catastrophic disappointment and long-awaited reward for their efforts. Now half the world knew there was a problem at home. Well, half of my world anyway.
I’d betrayed my sister’s confidence. Where was that piece of knowledge going to fit into the strange stew of pride and resentment and fear and insecurity that bubbled in me every time I thought of her? And how would she react when she found out? Maybe getting to the bottom of her situation would help us. We’d get closer. Be more honest with each other.
As though he could read my thoughts, Neil bumped my shoulder, which I interpreted to mean that everything would be fine.
My sister’s car wasn’t in the driveway. She hadn’t been home for over a week. My parents were half-dead with anxiety, and still they never breathed a word about it to each other or to me.
Dusk kept Nancy idling. No easy feat.
“So now we go looking?” asked Dusk.
“I’m just going to go inside for a second,” I said. “I need to check something.”
Dusk turned off the engine and she and Neil settled in to wait.
There was no one home. Our modest house, with its short dark hallways, tired paint, uninspired furnishings (with the exception of the German art chair), rested.
I made my way to my bedroom and logged onto my laptop. Sure enough, there was a Facebook message from Roberta Heller II.
I can’t believe he did what she said he did, but read these and draw your own conclusions. Check these out.
This was followed by two links.
How did she know which teacher I meant? Also, I wasn’t ready to click through. Tracking down Keira was scary enough; I couldn’t handle knowing the rest of the story right now.
Instead, I shut the computer and ran back outside, and Dusk drove us around in another fruitless search for three hours. Probably forty minutes was taken up with stalls, during which time we sat in companionable silence and no one asked any questions about how things got so screwed up in my family. Twice we spotted Aimee and the other truthers in her gleaming BMW. It made me feel like we were in a gang, but one that generated more confusion than profit.
We finally packed it in, and dropped off Neil at around seven p.m. He gave me a kiss before he got out, and Dusk said, “Awww.” Then we went to Shoppers Drug Mart to buy some minutes for my phone, and then to her house.
“We’ll get her next time,” Dusk said as she turned off the ignition. Realizing that sounded a little aggressive, she amended, “I mean, we’ll find her. Get this sorted out.”
I tried to see past the tightly packed houses to the lagoon beyond, but could only make out slivers of gray evening sea between them.
“Are you still okay with all this? Do you believe that figuring out the truth will help?” Dusk’s face was made all the more serious by its haunting symmetry in the car’s interior light.
“I hope so,” I said. “Not knowing hasn’t worked out so great. Then again, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do when we find out what’s going on. Where she’s been staying.”
“You’ll know when the time comes,” she said.
“You sure?”
Dusk looked into my eyes like someone trying to discern pixels on a high-definition television. “You really haven’t spent much time in the real, have you?” Not a dig, not a judgment. A statement of fact.
“That’s not the Pale way,” I said.
“Once you know what’s true for you, it’ll all get clearer.”
Only with Dusk could I have a conversation that was so vague and yet so completely clear. I thought about what it must take for her to disappoint her family every day in order to pursue her art. In order to be herself. The effort had made her a little bitter and sharp-edged, but there was no phony in Dusk, just like there is no lying in Tony Montana. (Scarface is another of Neil’s favorite movies. He’s all about the down and dirty.) But the Weintraub-Lees were strong. They weren’t going to fall apart if one of their three kids turned into an artist. Dusk would probably be the biggest, best, and most successful artist imaginable, and all would be forgiven.
Pushing against expectations in a family that was held together by shreds of hope and strands of willful blindness was different. Riskier.
“I hope so,” I said.
Dusk blew me a kiss. “I’m glad about you and Neil. He’s a catch.”
I blew the kiss back. When she was safely in her house, I drove back to my own.
Willing the World Right Side Up
I finally clicked on the links Roberta Heller II sent and I felt the world flip upside down.
In Memory of Jackson Reid, Animator and Award-Winning Instructor
With heavy hearts the CIAD community said good-bye to one of its most talented and beloved instructors on Thursday. Jackson Reid passed away March 24 in a tragic hiking accident.
He joined the CIAD faculty in 2010 when he was twenty-six years old. He’d established himself as an artist through his contributions to film, television, and graphic novels, including the blockbuster film Zeus and the Small Ones and his cult comic series, Silt Gets in My Eyes. He brought that same spirit of passion and innovation to his work with students.
His celebration of life was held at the Comica Galleria and was attended by his family, friends, students, and many of the most influential people in the animation and entertainment world.
Good-bye, J. R. You will be missed.
I stared at the article, which had been published in CIAD’s online student newspaper.
He’d died. In a hiking accident. The article was accompanied by a photo of a man with a broad smile. His was the face I’d seen in my sister’s drawings. He sat on the steps of a building, surrounded by students. They were all grinning. Except one.
I peered more closely.
My sister was in the third row. Her face was impassive in the shadow cast by a tall guy sitting in front of her.
It took me a minute or two to realize that I was barely breathing. I thought of the last drawing in her book. The one of the man falling.
The conclusion was too awful to consider. It was too awful to avoid. Had the teacher, this Jackson Reid person, jumped off a cliff because he felt bad about what he’d done to my sister? Has she pushed him?
Then I remembered Roberta’s message. I can’t believe he did what she said he did.
I clicked on the second link.
It was a clip from a cable newscast. The announcer, a polished young Asian-American woman, spoke into the camera.
“Today students and faculty from the California Institute of Art and Design held a celebration of life for well-known artist Jackson Reid.
“Fans and industry leaders crowded CIAD’s theatre to say good-bye to popular instructor and top animation artist J
ackson Reid. Gordon Holbeck, head of Animation Nation, told the capacity crowd that Reid was one of the most talented animators in California. CIAD President Marjorie Philiponi spoke about Reid’s commitment to teaching.
“Jackson Reid is survived by his husband, Todd Gursky, an agent at William Morris Endeavor; his sister, Lindy; and his parents.”
A wedding photo flashed on-screen of two men in suits with their arms around each other. Blue sky. White party tents. Flowers. One was Jackson Reid. The other, presumably, was his husband.
The announcer went on to show clips of Jackson Reid’s work from film and television and screen shots of his books.
I could barely focus. Husband?
I clicked the windows closed and shut my computer. Then I let myself slide onto the floor and sat with my back against my bed, willing the world to straighten.
Explain That to a Non-Pale
I’m aware it’s not groundbreaking news, but allow me to badly paraphrase a little writer I like to call Leo Tolstoy: all happy families are the same (boring) and all unhappy families are unique (and best viewed from the safe distance of fiction).111 I would give Mr. Tolstoy the assist and add that all deeply weird and secretive families are baffling to outsiders.
It’s nearly impossible to explain to a non-Pale how it is that none of us ever said anything to Keira about the fact that her entire fortune rested on our backs, since she turned us into comic-book characters. We never objected, which is sort of the same as agreeing.
How do members of families survive any number of strange situations? Usually, someone in the family knows the truth, but doesn’t say anything. Sometimes, everyone is aware that little Gina has a drug problem and can’t be trusted not to sell all the home electronics, but they hope she’ll just grow out of it. Sometimes Dad comes home from work and confesses he accidentally slept with a nineteen-year-old checkout girl, and then Mom and Dad tell the kids they’re probably going to split up because of the affair. The kids don’t know what an affair is, so Mom and Dad explain it. But then Dad gets a job in a new grocery store and never sees the girl again, and Mom acts hard done-by for the rest of her life, and life goes on. Families work around the fact that sometimes members hate each other and only stick around for the free food and shelter. Families are too adaptable, if you ask me.