by Sheri Duff
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Jack and I meet with Benny to finish our vases. Well, I work at finishing my vase. Jack is working on some printmaking thing with clay. He won’t show me. I don’t know much about it. Maybe I should take an art class. Benny paints slowly and deliberately on his work. The outside of his mug has a coat of cream paint. He has painted a thin black line around the rim and is now working on a flower that is black with an orange eye. The green stem swirls around the handle of the cup.
Since we don’t have school today because of some teacher in-service, we spend most of the day at Bianca’s shop. Bianca’s crush on Benny is more than obvious. He doesn’t show any interest back. He should totally go for her. He has a long life ahead of him. It doesn’t make sense that he spends those years alone.
I decide to paint an abstract on my vase. This allows me to focus more on the colors than the design. It’s hard for me to paint. I lack the talent or the patience. Jack can do it all. Jack painted palm trees on his vase. He sketched the beach and shells into the clay while it was still wet.
Benny watches Jack sketch into the eight-by-ten clay stamp. “That’s amazing, Jack.”
“I want to see.” I try to sneak a peek.
“You just mind your business, girl.” Jack pulls the stamp closer to him. I don’t know what he’s doing, but his eyes dart from me to his sketch all morning. It makes me nervous.
Benny looks at me then at Jack. “She’s pretty, isn’t she?”
Jack nods. I blush.
“I don’t know how you concentrate on anything with that woman gazing at ya all day.” Jack raises his head, catching Bianca’s eye. Then he looks to me and winks.
I’m still pink but so is Bianca.
“No more women for me,” Benny says. ”I’ve had the love of my life, and I’ve lived in hell. I don’t need anyone.”
Bianca drops her head. I feel so bad for her.
“Ya ain’t glue bait yet. Don’t ya wanna be happy?”
“And who says I’m not happy, young man?”
“The look on your face when Bianca walks into a room tells it all. It gives you away. The way you strain to read her soul. Your eyes meet and you can’t break away. I see it. You can deny it all you want, but I see it. I saw it with my daddy when he met Sissy. I see it when Mr. Trask looks at your daughter.”
“Who’s Sissy?” I ask.
“My stepmom. Lily’s mamma.” Jack says.
Bianca stalls. She’s listening. She acts like she’s organizing brushes but she’s listening. I only know this because I do it, too.
“I’m scared of the dragons. What do you think, Mazzie?” Benny asks me.
“I think you should do what makes you happy,” I say.
“But do I deserve to be happy?” Benny asks.
I look over to Bianca. She’s so pretty. Her large deep brown eyes make me feel safe. And when Benny looks at those same eyes, they make him jolt. I’ve seen it. “Everyone deserves happiness,” I say. Then I grin at Bianca.
“Do you really believe that?” Benny asks.
I know he is asking more than the simple question. I turn to the man that once annoyed me. “I know one thing. Alicia isn’t the dragon,” I say.
Poor Jack, he’s thoroughly confused. Benny, on the other hand, isn’t.
This man that I spent the last three weeks with has figured me out. He’s mutated into my brain like my mother does. He has that way of making me look inside myself. But I can also see inside him.
“When you look inside yourself without hiding, you find your demons. Then you must decide what to do with them,” I say.
He shakes his head. But he’s not mad. Along with the shake is a smile that reaches his eyes. We see inside of each other. We know our dragons. And I believe he knows that I have found mine, and I plan on dealing with the big scary monster, or at least I’ll try to.
I’m not mad at Alicia. I’m mad at my father. And I don’t think my father deserves happiness. He cheated on my mom, he left me. He started a new life without us. But now I’m supposed to fit into his new world without questioning it. I can’t. I won’t. But I see. And I see the difference between me and my friends. Rule number nine, we don’t have the same experiences and we can’t make our miseries others’.
Natalie and Vianna fathers didn’t cheat on their mothers. Natalie desperately wants, needs, and longs for her father’s love and approval. Natalie and her brother were adopted; her mom couldn’t have kids. Natalie was worried that her father would love Annabelle more, but now Natalie loves her baby sister more than she loves her own brother, and this makes her feel guilty.
Vianna’s parents divorced the year she started middle school. Her dad couldn’t live alone. He had a new girlfriend every week. Those women never compared to Vianna’s mom, though. In the beginning, Vianna’s mom took care of her husband. He barely lifted a finger. She cooked, she cleaned, and she supported her husband. But she grew bored so she decided to write. Why not? She hadn’t received a journalism degree for nothing.
But what Vianna’s dad wanted for Vianna, he didn’t want for his wife. Vianna’s dad wanted a wife that would stay at home and take care of him. In return, he would provide. He felt like less of a provider when Vianna’s mom’s fourth book sold and she opened her own checking account.
Vianna and Natalie are mad at the women who took away their fathers because now my friends are forced to compete with these women. I’m mad at my father for making me feel like I need to compete, when I don’t.