Fan Art

by Tregay, Sarah

“Yeah,” I assure her. It’s not her fault I sent her these files and not, well, the ones I was supposed to send.

  “Okay, so look everything over and have your adviser sign here.” She points to a sheet of paper labeled PROOF APPROVAL.

  My stomach spins as if I just stepped off a Tilt-A-Whirl. “Does Dr. Taylor have to sign this?”

  “It gives us the go-ahead to print the magazine. It’s a contract.”

  “I’m eighteen,” I tell her. “So I can sign it, right?”

  She isn’t expecting this question. “I think Dr. Taylor signed off on it last year, but maybe just because it was new. So whatever your editor says, okay?”

  Crap. I’m not the editor, either. Damn it. Why didn’t I think of this?

  “I’ve got the cover on press Thursday. Last job of the day—I wanted you to come press check. So four thirtyish?”

  “Yeah!” I say, psyched about seeing my work on an honest-to-goodness-sheet-fed-offset printing press.

  “Call me if you have any changes—or if we’re ready to print—and I’ll come get the proofs.” She smiles at me.

  I pull my lips into a smile and nod. The gesture brings back the tilt-o-swirl feeling—or maybe it’s because I am holding in my hand proof that I am an idiot.

  I duck into the bathroom, find a stall, and lock myself in. I set the rolled-up color proof on end and open the dummy. I sit on the toilet and spread the pages on my lap. With a car key, I pry open the staples and then ease out the offending pages.

  They’re only coming out now so that they can be in there later—without Michel and Lia censoring them. I can’t let them do it. Gumshoe isn’t theirs and only theirs. It belongs to all of us, the football players and the marching band, the chess club and the cheerleading squad, the brainiacs and the dorkestra. Even the art-geek girls, and maybe especially the art-geek girls because they each submitted something.

  I page through the proof and feel a little distant. Maybe because I haven’t see it in a few days, or maybe because it seems to have a life all its own, as if the artwork grew roots and the poems grew branches with little e and o leaves. And, even as the designer, I can’t smother it. Can’t stop it from growing. Can’t force it to be something it isn’t. Gumshoe just has to be. Even if it drags me kicking and screaming from the safety of my closet.

  My eyes catch on a poem that Kellen submitted months ago—before Hailey Beth Johnson became his other half. Holland insisted we put it in. And Lia had whispered, “Proof he’s single.” It was about breaking up with his previous girlfriend after she had made out with some other guy. I read it and wonder how he could walk away when he still loved her. Wonder if I’d ever get over Mason and Bahti and that kiss.

  Evidence removed, I press the staples closed again with the flat edge of my key. I slide the pages between the screen and keyboard of my computer and head back to the office for a late pass to my last morning class before lunch.

  A Million Things

  by Kellen Zabala

  It was a bonfire summer night.

  It was a million stars in her eyes.

  It was her skin warm on mine,

  the taste of lemonade on her lips.

  Then it wasn’t a text on my phone.

  It wasn’t sweet nothings in my ear.

  It wasn’t her hand warm in mine,

  but the taste of his beer on her lips.

  It was a bitter winter’s night.

  It was a million sorry excuses.

  It was the end of our relationship,

  the taste of our last kiss on my lips.

  It wasn’t that I couldn’t forgive.

  It wasn’t that I was jealous.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t love her,

  but the taste of his beer on her lips.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  TWENTY-TWO

  “We should go to McCall,” Mason says over school pizza and french fries. He has his geektastic day planner open and his glasses in his hair as if he’s seventeen going on forty-two.

  I thought I’d talked him out of this. We went to prom instead.

  “Just for the day—your mom won’t kill you if it’s just for the day,” he says. “We won’t set foot in Frank’s precious condo.”

  “But when? We have exams coming up.”

  I watch Mason’s lips as he says a single word. “Friday.”

  Mesmerized, I fall speechless. When I recover, I ask, “Friday? This week, Friday?”

  Mason taps the day on his calendar as if it’s already planned.

  Thursday is the senior prank and Friday is senior skip day, so I tell him, “No one will want to go, not after being up all night with the prank.”

  “Not everyone,” Mason says. “Just us.”

  And the way he says it, with his voice soft and his brown eyes both molasses and serious at the same time, has my heart expanding like a balloon filling with air; one dub beats louder than the others. “Okay,” I say, not because my brain thinks it’s a good idea, but because my heart tells me to.

  Mason flashes me a grin and flips his glasses down onto his nose.

  I catch myself before I fall off my chair then hold my ground. “If it’s just for the day and not in Frank’s condo, my mom will be cool with it.”

  “But we’re not going to tell her,” Mason says. “Remember?”

  I nod, even though I thought we weren’t telling them because of the overnight aspect, and the possible kegger. But now? I’m not sure I get it.

  “It’ll be our thing,” Mason says. “A trial run on getting out of here.”

  And I like the sound of that.

  We hash out the plan over a plate-size puddle of ketchup and the rest of our fries. It’s pretty simple, really: A) Tell our parents that we won’t be going to school because it’s senior skip day. B) Say that Gabe and Londa invited us out on a friend’s boat and we’ll be out at Lucky Peak—and yes, we’ll have life jackets, and no there won’t be any beer. This is the perfect lie. Because if they find wet towels, a cooler of soda and sandwiches, and sand in my car—it’ll all be explainable. And Gabe and Londa will totally back us up—except for the fact that Gabe will be working at the garage and Londa will be buried nose-deep in schoolwork.

  I’m calm, cool, and collected at the Gumshoe meeting after school, but then again, I have removed the evidence from the proofs. No one suspects a thing. Michael even thanks me for all of my hard work while Holland gushes over the layout and DeMarco points out my illustrations of a pipe, magnifying glass, and footprint that I’ve put in the short stories to indicate time skips. “Looks awesome,” he says.

  “Yes, Jamie,” Dr. Taylor says, handing me the signed proof approval sheet. “It looks good. Lincoln High will be proud.”

  I smile weakly, knowing that after I put the offending pages back in, he’ll probably have something else to say to me.

  “Jamie,” Lia calls to me as I scoot toward the door, hoping to leave the meeting before I meet my end. Damn it.

  “Wait up,” she says. “I’ve got prom pictures.”

  So I turn and walk back to where she and Holland are sitting.

  She has a stack of prints in her hand and she lays them out on a desk as if they are tarot cards. “Oh my God,” she says to Holland. “DeMarco looks sooo cute in this one!”

  I peek at the picture. He does look cute, even upside down.

  “You are so lucky that DeMarco is tall. I mean, you got to wear those amazing heels and everything,” Lia gushes. “I mean, with a shorter guy . . .” Her voice drops to a whisper and then silence, as if the rest of her sentence was too horrible to mention.

  “I know!” Holland says, taking the cute DeMarco photo from Lia.

  I don’t get it. What does she know? But I don’t ask. Nope. I am too busy salivating at the next photo. I mean, trying not to salivate.

  “I always thought Mason Viveros wa
s such a dork,” Lia says, turning the photo of Mason toward Holland. “But he dresses up nice.”

  I have to stop myself from grabbing it from her hand. I stuff my hands in my pockets.

  “Brainiac, maybe,” Holland says. “Did you know he has the second-highest class rank?”

  Huh?

  “Bahti is so pretty,” Lia says, ignoring Holland, and talking about the next photo. “She should wear makeup more often.”

  “God,” Holland says. “She looks great in that dress. I could never wear that—I am way too fat.”

  Holland isn’t fat.

  “Yeah, me neither,” Lia agrees, flipping to another photo.

  Eden is in it and Lia doesn’t make a comment; she just adds the photo to a small stack off to one side. When she’s through sorting, she takes the stack with my friends’ pictures in it and presses it into my hands, as if she wants me to destroy the evidence that she ever went anywhere with Eden. I figure it’s for the best. Because after she sees Gumshoe, I’m sure the pictures of me will be used for target practice.

  Stopping by my locker, I pull a picture of Mason and me from the pile. We’re smiling at the camera with our arms around each other’s shoulders. He looks happy and I look dazed. I hang it in my locker—proof that we were once friends. Because after Gumshoe is printed-folded-stapled-trimmed with those pages in the centerfold; and after Mason opens it and reads Challis’s comic about the boys falling in love he’ll look at me. And wonder. Wonder why I put it in—I’m sure no one will conceal that fact—and he’ll know all about me and my secret. The secret I’m not sure I can tell him because I’m afraid he’ll drift out of my life, leaving me with only pixilated memories.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  TWENTY-THREE

  It’s after midnight on a school night and I can’t sleep. Rain is pounding on the roof, and I’d like to think that is what is keeping me up, but it isn’t. My smooth move with Gumshoe is gnawing a hole in my stomach and turning me into an insomniac, not to mention lying to my parents about my upcoming whereabouts on Friday, the recent Mason-kissing-Bahti tragedy, or Mason forgetting to tell me that he is the runner-up to the valedictorian.

  A ping sounds from my window, and I nearly tumble from my desk chair.

  Tap, tap.

  I peer out into the rain, where a shivering figure hugs himself, standing among the rosebushes—his dark hair plastered to his head and his glasses reflecting squares of light from my window.

  I pull on a T-shirt before I race downstairs, jump the baby gate, and open the door.

  Mason steps into the foyer without at word. He stands there, dripping rainwater like tears on the tile, until it occurs to me to fetch him a towel. He rubs his face, then his hair, then attempts to dry his glasses. But the moisture smears across the lenses, eliciting a swear word, said—to my surprise—in Spanish.

  I lead the way through the dark house and up to my room. Mason sits cross-legged on the floor, the damp towel around his shoulders like a blanket.

  “. . . comes into mine and Gabe’s room,” Mason begins midsentence. “Starts goin’ through our stuff, saying we lost the keys to his truck.”

  I sit on the floor too, lean in, and try to catch up.

  “. . . starts asking me about my prom picture. Who the girl is and if she’s Latina.”

  I think he’s talking about his dad. And the pictures I gave him—the ones where Lia and Holland commented on how pretty Bahti looked. I figured he’d like those.

  “I say no. And he acts all offended—asks me ‘What? You too good for Latina girls?’”

  “What’d you say?”

  “Nothin’. I just let him go on. Told me all about his conquistador days. About how when he was my age he had a baby already—like that’s something to be proud of!” He’s talking about Clara and his father’s other family—the one in Mexico that he went to visit that summer in junior high.

  “I sorta lost it,” Mason admits, wiping his nose on the towel. “Told him I wasn’t like that. Never wanted to be like that. Never wanted to be him.”

  I wince.

  “Said it in Spanish. So he’d be sure to understand.”

  Holy crap.

  “He slapped me so hard I saw stars.” Mason hugs his knees, gives into the tears. “Damn it! He hit me! Hasn’t done that since I was a kid.”

  “Sucks,” I say.

  “I almost hit him back. I’m taller. Bigger.” Mason’s lip quivers, he leans forward, hides his face in his hands. “I almost hit my own father, Jamie.”

  I don’t know what to say, so I just scoot closer and put my hand on his arm, even though I want to wrap my arms around him, hold him until everything feels okay again, protect him from his father and everything that is wrong in the world.

  I think of Eden and how I can hold her through a million Parachute songs, how I can thread my fingers into hers for support, how she can kiss my cheek and leave a mark, and it’s all okay. And we’re just friends. But I’ve known Mason longer—since elementary school—and I can’t do any of those things just because we’re both male. So I just touch his arm, even though I want to do so much more.

  He rests his head on my collarbone as if it’s too heavy to hold up alone.

  We stay like that until he’s all cried out. Then I offer him a pair of pajama bottoms, a dry T-shirt, and a sleeping bag on the floor. I send Londa a text, so someone knows where Mason is and that he is all right.

  I lay awake for a long time, listening to Mason breathe. Slow and even, peaceful. And so unlike his relationship with his father—filled with obligatory questions and one-word answers, the first asked in Spanish, the reply in English, “Fine.” When it goes any deeper than that, Mason pretends he doesn’t understand—even though he can translate the entire exchange to me at lunch the next day. They’re exactly alike. Mason and his dad, stubborn as goat heads—those weeds with thumbtack-sharp seeds that live for seven years without water—neither one giving ground.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  TWENTY-FOUR

  After school on Thursday, I stop in the band room to pick up my trumpet. The end-of-year concert is coming up, and I need to practice outside of class. I consider practicing at home, but since I have to be at the printer in an hour, I decide to stay here instead. I pull out the sheet music for “I Remember Clifford” and start to play.

  I’m lost in the music, in the sweet sadness of the song, so I don’t see her right away. I look up, and Eden makes a loop with her finger to indicate that I should continue, but I stop playing. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” she says back. “I was, um, wondering if you could drive me to church.”

  “Now?” I ask.

  “In a few,” she says with a shrug. “Keep playing.”

  “Cool, I have somewhere to be at four thirty. I’ll drop you off on the way.”

  I go back to my music and wonder why Eden seems different. It isn’t her clothes or her glasses or even her red-gold hair. She looks the same. But there’s something about how she asked me the very same favor as she did two weeks ago. I figure it out. It’s how she asked. She asked nicely, as if I might say no. And the timing? It’s not last-minute. She’d have time to walk, maybe even catch the city bus. Again, maybe in case I said no. I finish the song, and start to pack up my music and my trumpet.

  “That’s a great piece,” she says. “Not all oompah oompah like the band usually plays.”

  This makes me think of German guys in lederhosen, and I laugh. “It’s jazz. That’s why.”

  “I just might like jazz,” she says.

  “Well, you’re in good company.” I gather my things.

  Eden falls in step beside me as we walk down the hall. “I haven’t seen much of you this week.”


  “Yeah. It’s been just art class, hasn’t it?” Rhetorical. I know. “I’ve been busy. We’ve got this concert, then my AP exam. And my stepdad is out of town—which means I’m promoted to lawn boy.”

  “So it’s not me?” she asks.

  “What? No.”

  “I mean, since prom is over and everything.”

  “No,” I say again. “We’re still friends.”

  But she doesn’t answer.

  Huh? I thought we were friends. I turn my head and bend down so I can see her face. “I wasn’t just using you for a prom date.”

  She stops walking, and I see her smile for a second, but she frowns again.

  “What?”

  She swipes a finger under her glasses. “I’m so stupid. I dunno, Nick said—I thought—”

  I wait, because I hate when I can’t get the words out and people interrupt me.

  “I thought that maybe—since prom was over—you didn’t want to, um, hang out anymore.”

  “I’d love to hang out,” I say.

  “You would?”

  “On one condition,” I tell her in mock sincerity.

  “What’s that?”

  “You teach me how to kill zombies. I want to kick Mason’s butt.”

  “Dunno,” she says, suppressing a smile. “That might take a while.” Now the smile is out. “’Cause you suck eggs.”

  “Duh,” I tell her. “That’s why I need you.”

  “You need me?”

  “Need you,” I say, and slip my empty hand into hers.