How to Be Luminous
Page 21
“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: info@nami.org. 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
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eISBN 9781626723764
First hardcover edition, 2019
eBook edition, April 2019