How to Be Luminous

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How to Be Luminous Page 21

by Harriet Reuter Hapgood


  “We should invite the Professor round more often,” muses Niko. “I think he’s lonely.”

  “Agreed,” I sign. Since the night he came to find me in Meadow Park, I’ve forgiven him his bumbling. If not his cooking. “But not tonight, though.”

  “Of course not.” Niko smiles, stretching her arms above her head, revealing more-feminist-than-you armpit fuzz. She drops them to add, “And tonight’s the last time we’re having pizza, okay? We’re going to learn how to cook. With vegetables.”

  “But pizza every night is the dream life, it’s Andy Warholian.” Guess who.

  “I wish it was pizza every night,” I sign. “Emmy-Kate, your Alphabetti Spaghetti Surprise yesterday was revolting.”

  Niko has started divvying up the chores, relaxing her grip on the guardianship. So far I’ve broken the vacuum, Salvador Dalí has hidden in the shed, and Emmy-Kate has served up an almost entirely sugar-based diet. Yesterday was her first attempt at savory food.

  “Shuddup.” She giggles, then pouts. “Ash can cook. Remember that one time he made turmeric eggs, last year? He could teach us…”

  Niko and I exchange uneasy glances. I haven’t spoken to or seen Ash since that day at his house. Our story has ended; he’s a chapter in my life, not the whole book. I don’t know if Niko ever dared to ask him out. It might be enough for her that I’m no longer with him.

  “Okay, enough stalling,” Niko declares, changing the subject. “Ready?”

  Emmy-Kate slips her hand into mine and squeezes, lets go. “Three, two, o—”

  She jumps before her own signal, and Niko follows her, then in I go—one, two, three Sloe sisters; splish, splash, splosh.

  The water punches me or I punch it—either way I gasp, lungs filling, a stream of bubbles emerging with my cough. I watch them bob to the surface and break. Time is on my side; gravity too, because this is all happening in slow motion: three balled-up sisters reverse-floating, landing on the bottom of the pool. My contact lenses float out, making my vision blurry, but it doesn’t matter. When I look up, everything is light.

  * * *

  Afterward we walk through the park with damp hair and hot chocolate. The sun is turning the trees extra-green against the bruised sky. Everything shines and I can’t stand it.

  “La Passeggiata by Marc Chagall,” announces Emmy-Kate, fingerspelling the title.

  A cubist painting with a green landscape, a blue tree, and a pink house. A Professor-ish man stands beside a red picnic blanket, filled with flowers the same way the backpacks we’re wearing are filled with the tiny shards of clay from the studio. And in the sky, there’s a woman dressed in purple.

  “You know, I don’t think she fell?” signs Niko. “I think she floated.”

  “Yeah.” Emmy-Kate, who knows by now that missing is more or less a euphemism, is on cloud nine with this idea. “Like a Mum-balloon.”

  We climb and climb and climb the hill. As we get higher, the sky opens up like the sail of a boat, billowing forward. My pockets don’t have rocks in them anymore. Correction: I’m a little weighed down, but at this precise moment my sadness weighs pebbles, not continents.

  Thumping our backpacks down in the walled garden, we capture the attention of stray tourists near the sign. Go away, I think, and magically—they do. This might also have something to do with Emmy-Kate’s glare and Niko’s aggressive hand jiving.

  Whatever, we’re alone now.

  We’re never alone. Memories can’t be deleted, can’t be scrubbed out the way graffiti can, can’t be smashed to pieces like stoneware. And the permanence of Mum’s presence is comforting. She’s not falling from the sky over and over again anymore: Like Niko said, she’s floating. She’s flipping us heart-shaped pancakes every day. She’ll never not be winning the Turner Prize, having three daughters, laughing at the Professor, making microwave meals, learning to sign, buying a rabbit, drinking tea, descending into a sinkhole, emerging like a supernova, working too hard; ignoring us, sometimes; dancing to the Beatles, always.

  Speaking of which …

  Emmy-Kate navigates to a YouTube video on her phone and presses PLAY, and a tinny, subtitled version of the Beatles song “In My Life” blares forth. The lyrics talk about memories, and people, and love, and thinking about the past—but ultimately, moving on. It’s right. It would be better if Ash were here to play it on his guitar, but it is what it is. She props the phone up on the bench.

  “Let’s do it,” Niko commands. And so we do.

  Accompanied by John, Paul, George, and Ringo, we unzip our backpacks. Inside, we each have one third of the shattered clay pieces from the studio. Without her, this is what we have to bury. And I discover a small, secret part of me likes it this way. The not-knowing.

  I go walking among the bubbles and the bare, thorny roses, tipping The Rachael Sloe Retrospective onto the flower bed, mulching the roots for winter. This is my idea. I haven’t told Niko that the clay will probably create an impenetrable soil barrier, syphon off the rain, destroy the entire park’s ecosystem, kill all the bees, and create an environmental catastrophe …

  But isn’t that art? Isn’t that what life and love is all about? Taking risks. Looking death right in the face, with your heart wide open.

  No joy without sorrow, remember (and vice versa).

  Can’t die unless you’ve already lived.

  Love goes hand in hand with loss.

  Sun streams down as dust chokes the soil. Most of it is gray. But dotted here and there are tiny scraps of sharp, shiny glaze. They catch the light, turning red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet, becoming luminous.

  Ultraviolet

  (An Ongoing List of Every Color I Have Lost Found)

  Sometimes life is like looking directly into the sun.

  THE END

  Author’s Note

  If you’re struggling with suicidal thoughts and feelings, it’s important to tell someone.

  There is help and support available. There are also free and confidential help lines for you to call to talk to someone about your mental health and any issues you’re having. In addition to these numbers, you can ask your GP for an appointment, go to the emergency room at a local hospital, or visit the counseling center at your school or college. If you feel that you want to end your life, please seek immediate help from the emergency services on 911.

  NATIONAL ALLIANCE ON MENTAL ILLNESS

  Website: nami.org

  Telephone: 1-800-950-NAMI. Monday–Friday,

  10 am–6 pm EST

  Email: [email protected]. Monday–Friday, 10 am–6 pm EST

  NATIONAL CRISIS TEXT LINE

  Text: text HOME to 741741.

  NATIONAL SUICIDE PREVENTION LIFELINE

  The Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals.

  Website: suicidepreventionlifeline.org

  Telephone: 1-800-273-8255

  Telephone for the d(D)eaf and hard of hearing: 1-800-799-4889

  Teléfono en Español: 1-888-628-9454

  THE TREVOR PROJECT

  The leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) young people under 25.

  Website: thetrevorproject.org—online chat available

  every day, 3 pm–10 pm EST/noon–7 pm PT.

  Telephone: 1-866-488-7386.

  Lines open 24 hours a day all year.

  Text: text TREVOR to 1-202-304-1200.

  Monday–Friday, 3 pm–10 pm EST/noon–7 pm PT.

  Also by Harriet Reuter Hapgood

  The Square Root of Summer

  About the Author

  Harriet Reuter Hapgood is a freelance journalist who has worked with Marie Claire, ELLE, and InStyle in the U.K. Her debut novel, The Square Root of Summer, was inspired by her German mathematician grandfather and her lifelong obsession with YA rom
ance, which includes an MA thesis on Dawson’s Creek from London College of Fashion, and a dissertation on romantic comedies at Newcastle University. She lives in Brighton, England. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Part One. The Dictionary of Color

  Chapter 1. Life in Monochrome

  Chapter 2. The Color of Limestone

  Chapter 3. Everything’s White

  Chapter 4. The Color of Paper Cutouts

  Chapter 5. Not Fade Away

  Chapter 6. The White Album

  Chapter 7. A Whiter Shade of Pale

  Chapter 8. Just Like a Dream

  Chapter 9. When Clay Dries, That Color

  Chapter 10. The Sun Is Bleaching Everything in Sight

  Chapter 11. Much Longer Without Color, Minnie Will Freeze

  Chapter 12. The Color of Alabaster

  Chapter 13. The Color of Newsprint

  Chapter 14. The Color of Marble

  Chapter 15. The Color of Pigeons

  Chapter 16. Blanc de Blanc

  Chapter 17. The Color of Moonstone

  Chapter 18. The Color of Chalk

  Chapter 19. The Color of Snow

  Chapter 20. The Color of Milk

  Chapter 21. Tombstones Are Gray

  Chapter 22. The Color of Shadows

  Chapter 23. Clouds, Gathering

  Chapter 24. The Color of Shrouds

  Chapter 25. Every Single Color in the Universe at the Same Time

  Part Two. A Mad Girl’s Love Song

  Chapter 26. The Color of Starlessness

  Chapter 27. The Color of Smoke

  Chapter 28. The Color of Night

  Chapter 29. All the Colors in the World at the Same Time (Again)

  Chapter 30. The Color of Sloes

  Chapter 31. One Hundred and Twenty Crayola Colors

  Chapter 32. Metallic Gold Marker Pen

  Chapter 33. Let’s Fill This Town with Artists

  Author’s Note

  Also by Harriet Reuter Hapgood

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2019 by Harriet Reuter Hapgood

  Published by Roaring Brook Press

  Roaring Brook Press is a division of Holtzbrinck Publishing Holdings Limited Partnership

  175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010

  fiercereads.com

  All rights reserved

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018955863

  Our eBooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945 ext. 5442 or by email at [email protected].

  eISBN 9781626723764

  First hardcover edition, 2019

  eBook edition, April 2019

 

 

 


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