Glass Girl (A Young Adult Novel)
Page 26
“I think I gave you the wrong impression,” I called from the drive. “The thing is, I need a creative mentor and you’re the best. I want to write about you on my application for UW because I’m trying to get into a graduate creative writing program as an undergraduate. I’m not qualified but I want it.”
This time she didn’t shut me down or argue. I gathered steam. “Did you have help when you became an artist?”
Jo raised one eyebrow, picked at a scab on her forearm, and stepped down from her porch to examine my Jeep.
“I know this Jeep. From Wind River Books.”
“I work there after school. I want to work with you, though. I admire your paintings a lot.”
A deep chuckle rumbled in her chest, along with a raspy wheeze. “Yeah, I bet.” She lifted her face to the sky. “You ever heard the phrase suck up before?”
My face burned. Because it was sort of true.
“What’s your favorite one then?” She turned her back to me and peered through my Jeep windows.
“The one of the old rancher. The man with freckles.”
“Sun spots. That’s Clifton Weatherby. I don’t know what people see in that painting. It’s not any good. He couldn’t hold still or he’d go stiff from arthritis.”
“It’s his eyes.” I’d studied this painting in a book at our library for so long one day, I could call it up in my mind at will. “I think he looks lost.”
“He was lost, poor old Clifton. He was a week from expiring when he sat for me. Already stank with decomposition.” She watched my face and dared me to react.
Stepping toward her, I raised a hand, mitten palm up, the way my former counselor, Robin, did when she thought I’d had a breakthrough. “I’m sure he was a friend.”
She closed her eyes. “I couldn’t stand him.”
She started toward a shed behind her house. I followed her, not sure if I’d been dismissed.
“You’re Whitmire’s girl, aren’t you?”
I trotted along at her heels like an eager dog. “Yes…Henry’s my…we’re dating.”
She entered the shed and rummaged through a stack of tools, finally picking an old broom to hold out to me. I took it and waited for instructions.
“Where is he? In college?”
I cleared my throat. “No, ma’am. He’s living in Nicaragua, helping with the orphanage that his sister and her husband run. He’ll be there for a year.”
“A year?” she scoffed. “Being a humanitarian? What kind of teenage boy does that? He oughta be tomcatting around on some college campus.”
I felt my spine stiffen, ready to defend Henry’s choices. “He graduated last May and he wanted to do something important before he went to college.”
“Important.” She rolled that word around in her mouth, testing it.
“Yes. Important.”
She shrugged. “Well, I guess an orphanage in a dirt poor country fits that bill.”
I nodded. “After that, he’ll be going to the University of Wyoming. With me, hopefully.”
“He’s got a nice family,” she said, like it answered any lingering questions in her mind. “Known them a long time.” She turned back to a shelf along the wall and started stacking rusted coffee cans full of nails and screws. “If the Whitmires think you’re good enough, I suppose you can tidy up my work shed. My tools are scattered everywhere and half the yard blew in here last week during the storm.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I assume you’ll want me to sign something for your school.”
“I don’t think so. I’ll just write an essay later about my experiences with you. You know, what I’ve learned from our time together.”
She snorted at that. “It’ll be a short essay.”
Jo walked through the yard to her back porch and disappeared, a purple door banging closed behind her. She stared at me through a window for a minute before she closed the curtains.
I glanced at the sky. Rain was moving in so I might have an hour before I’d be sweeping mud out instead of dirt. When I was sure Jo wasn’t sneaking glances out the window, I eased into a perfect warrior pose, because, according to my old Yoga teacher in Pittsburgh, it promoted patience and strong thighs.
Holding it, holding it, holding it, I whispered my mantra, “Aum…Henry Porter Whitmire.”
The purple door creaked open and Jo poked her head out.
“Do that on your own time!”
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