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by Kristin Albright


  “Okay Dad,” I breathed, “I’m ready for dinner!”

  Chapter Eight

  Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.

  ~ James Bryant Conant

  Friday morning the school was all abuzz. Not only was there a big basketball game tonight against our rival, but with Valentine’s Day only a few days away, people were getting brave and making plans. Kat and I agreed to ask the boys in the morning – get it out of the way. Just a casual question, and that way if they said no, we could say, “That’s okay – it’s not a big deal. I just thought you might want to join us.” She was going to wait in the band hallway for Nolan to arrive, and I was sitting in the front foyer.

  As planned, James saw me and strolled over. “Hey Amy, where’s your twin?”

  I laughed, “Kat? She’s in the band hallway – had to take care of some band business this morning.” I smiled at how I worded it, it wasn’t a total exaggeration.

  “Ah I see,” James responded. “So how is your painting coming along?” he asked, nodding toward my portfolio.

  “It’s coming, although I’m having some issues with translucency.”

  “Translucency huh? What are you painting?” he pried.

  “Nope, no fair,” I laughed, “We can’t share anything till the Tuesday critique circle.”

  He laughed, “Amy, you are the rule follower.”

  I knew he wasn’t being mean, it was true – I was the only person I knew that would go out of my way to follow every rule. Like only entering through the “in” door and exiting only through the “out” door at the grocery store. I just couldn’t help myself; even if something was someone else's mistake, I had to fix it. I’ve even gone back to correct the lunch lady when she’s forgotten to charge me for my milk. I’ve always had a deep-seeded need for a clear conscience, even though it is often inconvenient.

  “The truth will set you free,” I smiled. “Besides, why would I show you my painting when you won’t let me see yours?”

  “Touché,” He responded, “I guess you shouldn’t…I’ll have to wait until Tuesday.” It was the perfect moment to transition. I cleared my throat.

  “Speaking of Tuesday,” I started.

  “Hmm?”

  “Kat and I are getting a group of people together to go down to the square downtown for ice skating. They are going to have a live band and everything; I was wondering if you’d like to come along?” I carefully placed each word and hoped it didn’t come off in the wrong way. And by the wrong way, I only mean whatever way that he wouldn’t want.

  He smiled and said, “I’d love to. However, I am no good at skating, so you will probably have to help me out.”

  “I guess that could be arranged.” I said feeling warm inside. It wasn’t fair that his smile made me so nervous. “We’re meeting at Kat’s at six and carpooling down. It will be us, her and some of the band kids.” Oops, I just said ‘us’; I wasn’t trying to imply that we were an item.

  “Band kids? Which ones?” he asked tipping his head to the side. “Wait, let me guess…Nolan?”

  I froze not knowing what to say, Kat would hate me for giving her up. “Um,” I said awkwardly.

  “Never mind you don’t have to confirm,” he waved his hand as if it were no big deal.

  “Why though? Why did you think Nolan?” I asked curiously. Besides as aghast as Kat would be that he asked, she would want details.

  “Call it…a moment of intuition,” he said eyes lit-up.

  “Liar,” I challenged. I had such a big smile on my face that I knew my dimples were sinking in.

  “He’s my cousin,” James confessed. “And lately he’s been talking a lot about a mutual friend of ours. So I’ll admit it, I was kind of hoping he was invited.”

  “Cousin?” I asked.

  “Yep - he’s all Mr. Baseball and whatnot, but we’re actually really close.”

  “Awesome,” I nodded.

  “Well great, it sounds like fun. I’ll see you in Art – History calls me.” The bell was ringing, and students were beginning to choke the narrow hallway.

  “Bye!” I yelled after him before turning the opposite direction. As I walked toward my dreaded calculus class, I caught Kat’s eye coming down the hall toward me. She smiled and reached up her hand to offer a high five. Our palms connected with a good pop, and without saying a word, we continued on our separate ways. We had plans.

  The rest of the day flew by, except for art. I was tired of this project. Usually art was the one class of the day where we could talk a bit with our friends and get advice on our projects. This light project required that we didn’t move, and I missed being able to spy on other people’s progress and getting the pats on the back I needed to know my project was going well. I especially missed visiting with James.

  I glanced at him from across the room; he was focused like always. I could see his hands making long careful strokes. I wondered what he was painting. He looked up at me. Blushing I turned toward my easel; I’d been caught. I looked back, and he shot me a smile. Feeling slightly embarrassed, I tucked my feet on the bar of my stool and leaned in toward my canvas. The tail of the fish was still my biggest hang-up. I had gotten the bowl, the water, the eyes, everything else exactly how I wanted it, but the tail was causing me a ridiculous amount of frustration. I painted, repainted and layered the gloss medium painstakingly; but when the bell rang, I wasn’t any closer than I had been at the start of class. I loaded up my palate with extra paint and slipped my brushes into their case. I would be painting this weekend.

  Kat was ecstatic on the bus heading home. She flung her hair over her shoulder as she said, “It was great – I didn’t even have to ask him. I just started talking about what we were doing on Tuesday and he was like ‘oh that sounds like so much fun’ and so I said ‘well do you want to join us?’ and he said ‘yeah I’d love to’ So yeah. Ames it was so easy!”

  I laughed at her babbling, “Well James was pretty easy too; I did have to ask, but he said he’d love to. And that he can’t really skate, so I’ll have to help him.”

  “Oooo,” Kat cooed, “That’s his way of saying that he wants to hold your hand.”

  I elbowed her giggling, “Shut up.”

  “Why? Are you afraid I’m right or afraid I’m wrong?” She raised the eyebrow at me.

  “Neither. I am afraid of nothing,” I stated sounding about as brave as I felt and then burst out laughing.

  “Liar,” She whispered.

  “Hey,” I said catching her attention. “Remember how we always said we’d love to marry brothers?”

  “Yeah?” she asked sounding confused.

  “Well…how would you feel about cousins?”

  …

  The weekend passed uneventfully except for a strange dream early Sunday morning. I woke up around three a.m. missing Lisa like crazy. I dreamed that she was supposed to come ice skating with us and got in the accident on the way. When we arrived at the hospital, she was alive but not able to talk. She looked at us with wide eyes and reached her hand toward me. James was there, and he kept trying to hug me and turn my face away from Lisa, but I wouldn’t; I faced her until she lay back down and closed her eyes. When the monitors stopped beeping I screamed, “No!” and awoke to my pillow drenched in sweat and tears. I knew I wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep, so I went out to the living room. Surprisingly enough, Dad was out there putting together a puzzle.

  I sat down across the table from him and started sorting the pieces by color – he picked them up and popped them into their places. We worked silently until five a.m. or so. I finally looked at him and said, “Well goodnight, or good morning I guess…I’m going back to bed.” I had so much painting to do and needed to catch a couple hours of sleep so I could be productive later.

  He stretched his back and rose to his feet. “I’m going to do the same. Goodnight Amy.”

  “Night Dad.”

  Knowing daylight was only a few hours away, I curled
up in my sheets praying sleep would find me; it did, and this time was uninterrupted by dreams.

  Chapter Nine

  Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do.

  ~ Edgar Degas

  Flecks of gold reflected in the curve of the bowl, and the sunlight streams streaked crookedly through the translucent tail of the goldfish. The scales had just the right amount of outside color reflecting upon them, and I was finally satisfied with my project. I stumbled toward the sink and gasped a bit reading the clock. Eleven forty-five — I’d been painting for six hours. I sighed; not only was I exhausted, but it was Monday night, and I hadn’t spent an ounce of energy preparing for Valentine’s Day. I never imagined that the night before I would be covered in turquoise paint and gloss medium.

  I stared intently at the football-sized goldfish and laughed. Unintentionally, he had morphed into something humorous and I liked it. He was most definitely the nerd in his school of fish - the one that never could keep his fin down in class.

  The next morning my quizzical fish and I went to school. An anxious energy hung in the air as I entered the building. Pink, red, and white streamers hung from the foyer ceiling, and oldies love songs were piped in over the PA system. If there was one thing I could say for the student counsel, they made sure to infuse every holiday with as much color and buoyancy as an otherwise drab school foyer could contain.

  When I arrived at my locker, a red sparkly heart was taped to the front. I smiled; Kat always made me feel special on holidays. I slid my afternoon books onto the bottom shelf and reached up for my lotion when I noticed a small silver gift bag on the top shelf. Nestled in baby pink tissue was a pair of mittens; they were grey with pink snowflakes knit into the pattern and lined with white fleecy material. My heart sunk as I realized that in my artistic frenzy the night before, I hadn’t so much as picked up a card for Kat.

  “Hey you!” I heard Kat’s voice behind me.

  “Hey,” I laughed back, and held up the mittens, “You shouldn’t have…now I feel like a bad friend.”

  “Well don’t feel bad – because I didn’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They’re not from me.”

  “But Kat, you are the only person in the school who knows my locker combination.”

  She smiled coyly. “I didn’t say I didn’t put the bag in your locker; I just said they weren’t from me. It looks like you got a Valentine’s Day gift! Now come on, let’s go to the cafeteria; they’ll have frosted Valentine’s Day cookies today.”

  I started to shut the door of my locker, but first reached deeper inside the bag. There was another paper heart; this one said, “Looking forward to learning how to ice-skate.” James. I grinned over at Kat who was already well on her way down the hall. I was still tired but smiling.

  Second hour was the moment of truth for us and our painting skills. Mrs. Ropert had gone all out. Sheets were draped over the canvases, which were now neatly lined up on easels across the front of the room. There were ten of us in class, and the only requirement of this project was that it had to include light. The first painting was by a junior who was applying for different art camps on the east coast. She had painted a scene from the Notre-Dame cathedral – it was a pair of praying hands illuminated solely by votive candles. The whole painting was in shades of grays, greens, yellows, and white. It was haunting the way the flame leapt off the canvas, looking white and hot and how the bulging veins in the hands cued one to interpret the worry in the prayer.

  On the other end of the spectrum, a senior boy who has never been in any of my classes before painted a cityscape of the skyline at sunset. In his own critique, he felt he had been unsuccessful in realistically blending the sunset with the lit-up buildings. The sky was gorgeous and the buildings were to scale and believable, but looked as though they were in front of a fake backdrop. James suggested that he downplay the light in the office building windows with some gloss-medium and black paint or add a reflection of the sunset on the dark windows. Other classmates offered their own suggestions, and he jotted notes on a piece of loose-leaf.

  It was my turn next – me and my inquisitive fish. When I pulled the sheet off my easel, the class chattered with laughter. I turned quickly to see their faces, but realized that they too were amused by the expression of the humongous gold fish. I started off explaining that the expression of the fish had just sort of happened; “organically” as Mrs. Ropert would have said. I didn’t get into my struggles with translucency because I wanted to see if my classmates would zero in on it or not.

  James offered the first critique. He loved that the fish’s scales reflected colors of the surroundings outside of the bowl: especially the purples and reds that were hinted at on the edge of the scales.

  Mrs. Ropert believed that the translucency of the fish tail was realistic and pointed out how the light was bent from going through the tail. I couldn’t help but grin; all that trial and error had been worth it. Another student said that it was realistic except the eyes - that goldfish have flatter eyes than mine did - so if I was going for comic effect then this was right, but otherwise I should flatten them out.

  It was strange; usually when we did critique circles on unfinished projects, I listened to other people’s suggestions and tailored my project to their advice. This time, because I was my only critic until the end, it turned out with a lot more of myself in it. Though it had been confusing and frustrating at times, I’d learned more from the fish than any other painting project.

  James was next. He unveiled an almost blinding image of shiny honey brown hair catching all sorts of light in its soft waves. The whole canvas was filled with hair, so the shape of the head and the rest of the details were left out.

  “Man, it looks so soft,” a junior whispered.

  “Like a Pantene Pro-V commercial,” another girl giggled.

  It was beautiful: the reflection, shine and intensity of color.

  “James, go ahead,” Mrs. Ropert said, always allowing the artist to start the critique with an explanation of their work.

  “Well, I got it pretty close to where I wanted it. I didn’t get the color exactly. See, I didn’t know what to paint, and when you asked us to paint anything that incorporated light, I chose to paint Amy’s hair. She always sits in front of the window, and the light always reflects off her hair. Of course some of the light in my painting is fictional because she didn’t sit in the exact same position each day…or wear her hair down each day…but overall it turned out like I planned.”

  I froze in my seat, feeling heat begin to flush my face.

  “It would be the reddish undertones that were hard to bring out?” Ms. Ropert asked.

  “Yes – because they were only visible when the sun reflected off her hair, but because it got faded out by the intensity of the light, I never accomplished the highlight.”

  I was stunned, speechless. For weeks James had been intently studying my hair and how light fell on it. How had I not noticed? I hadn’t felt eyes on the back of me like I usually do if someone is staring. I knew my cheeks were flushed, and I was relieved my classmates were staring at the painting and not at me.

  It was simple really; we did a study of light, and he picked a subject reflecting light. We discussed the use of light and the challenge of painting reflection. I was waiting for one of my classmates to tease either him or me, but they never once balked at the actual subject matter, and I was deeply grateful for the maturity of the advanced painting class.

  I was putting my supplies away when someone approached from behind me. I turned; James leaned up against the brick wall by my portfolio slot.

  “I loved your fish,” he said smiling.

  “I liked your painting too. You were kind to my hair – looked like a Pantene commercial according to Laura,” I giggled.

  “Just painting it the way I see it.” He smiled unapologetically and let his eyes linger on mine a few more moments. When the bell rang, he started towar
d the door. I grabbed my bag and trotted alongside him.

  “Hey, thanks for the mittens. That was really sweet of you.”

  “Well I know for a fact that I am going to fall on my butt tonight unless you help me – so I thought I’d butter you up before hand.”

  “No need to butter me up – I’m looking forward to helping you.” I smiled feeling my cheeks blush, but in the spirit of the holiday, I was feeling less self-conscious than usual. James’ intense brown eyes looked like melted chocolate, and I loved that they let me fall right into them. My skin tingled all over.

  “I was hoping you were,” he smiled, “I have to run upstairs for physics, but I’ll see you later?”

  “Six-o-clock at Kat’s.”

  “See you then!”

  I floated through the rest of the day. My critique had gone well. James painted me for his study. And I’d received the sweetest gift ever in my locker. I almost felt like I was on a family sitcom for the rest of the day. Seventeen and content with life, what could be better?

  Chapter Ten

  Is it really possible to tell someone else what one feels?

  ~ Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

  Later I decided what could be better, and that would be not freaking out every time I drove somewhere. I was driving down Maple Avenue on my way to Kat’s when I ran over a big bump. I started my routine of circling the block making sure everything was okay. The problem was that I didn’t know what I was looking for – someone’s dog? A busted-off side mirror? And what if I did see a car with damage…how would I know if it was from me? What would I do? Leave a note with my phone number? I hadn’t always felt this anxious when driving. I used to enjoy being alone in the car; it was great time for thinking. Now it provided too much time for thinking, and usually the thoughts weren’t good.

 

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