Joey chuckled to himself. “Ballets and boycotts and boobs. Oh my!”
I turned around. “What?”
“Nothing,” Joey said. “You just reminded me of The Wizard of Oz. You’re like Dorothy with all this stuff going on.”
“Yeah,” I said. “All this trouble because of a pair of red shoes.”
Paterson and Joey dropped me off at the entrance to the Oasis. “Stay in front of the theater for a while. I’ll park, and then Joey and I can watch you from behind a pole or something.”
“Great,” I said. “How wide do you think these poles are?”
“We’ll hold our stomachs in,” Joey said. “We’ll be cool. Don’t worry. Or do you want us to come with you?”
“No,” Paterson said. “That’ll ruin it. He’ll feel threatened, and he might not tell the truth.”
Paterson was right, but it didn’t make me feel any better as I got out of the car.
Once I was in front of the movie theater, I relaxed a little. There was no way he would try anything there. Too many people. Too much security. The same security I’d hated before.
Paterson and Joey were going to meet me in a half hour, so the whole plan seemed pretty safe. Still, part of me wondered why I was giving him a chance to explain at all. Hadn’t he already proven to be a major jerk? When I saw a couple waiting in the ticket line with their hands all over each other, I knew why I’d agreed to meet him. Hormones.
My stomach did a grande jeté. Was I that pathetic? Could I overlook the fact that Gray Foster was a death-threatening serial stalker just because he was hot?
Before I had a chance to answer, he was walking toward me. He had his hands in his pockets and a backpack slung over one shoulder. What did he have in there? Even if it was a weapon, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to use it in a public place in broad daylight…would he?
“Hey,” he said, glancing nervously at his shoes and then up. He knew enough to keep his distance, but didn’t look like someone about to grovel. “Thanks for meeting me on time.”
How polite. Was that some kind of stalker etiquette? What were you supposed to say when your pursuer thanked you for your punctuality? “You’re welcome” seemed a little too victimish. I just grunted.
Gray gestured toward the ice-cream place. “Do you want to get a drink or something?”
“No.” I looked around for Paterson and Joey and glimpsed a puff of pink hair. “Let’s just walk around here.”
Crowds chattered and clutched their shopping bags as they bustled by the two of us walking in silence. I felt as if we were in a commercial where everyone had used the same deodorant but us. Then Gray broke the stillness. “This whole thing got so out of hand.”
I put my fingers in my jeans pocket and felt the coins Paterson had given me to call her cell phone if we got separated. “So you only meant to stalk me a little then?”
Gray turned to me. “I didn’t mean to stalk you at all.”
“So you did it by accident?”
“No. I mean it wasn’t about stalking. It was about art. It was an art project.”
“On what? The art of stalking?” I stopped for a second, then remembered my own rule that we would keep walking the whole time.
“I’m telling you,” Gray said, with impatience. “It had nothing to do with stalking. I didn’t even know you’d be wearing red shoes in the ballet.”
I was incredulous. And, strangely, a little disappointed. “So you didn’t care who you were after—just any old dancer in red shoes would do?”
“I wasn’t after anyone,” Gray shouted. He let out a loud breath and shook his head in frustration. “Remember those blue guitars you saw in my room?”
“Don’t try to change the subject.”
“I’m not. The blue guitars were an art project, too.”
“You told me that, but I don’t see any connection.” I didn’t want to tell him that I didn’t see a connection between blue guitars and art, either. If he were deluding himself about being an artist, I didn’t want to be the one to tell him otherwise.
“Remember, I told you at my old school I painted those guitars blue. Well, I put them in places all over the school.”
“And that’s art?”
“No. I attached a note to each of the guitars. Just like I did with the shoes.”
“You mean like, ‘Playing blue guitars will kill you’?”
“No, nothing like that. It was a line from a Wallace Stevens poem.”
“Who?”
“Wallace Stevens. He was a great poet from the early nineteen hundreds.”
He could have been a great serial killer for all I knew. “But what does this have to do with the red shoes?”
Gray stopped and swung his backpack around to the front and started to unzip it. I looked around for Paterson and Joey and caught a glimpse of her head again. Thank goodness for passionate pink hair dye.
“Wallace Stevens wrote a poem called ‘The Man with the Blue Guitar.’ About the power of art. The guitar’s a symbol of the imagination.”
“And…”
“I thought it was a cool way to demonstrate the importance of art, the power of the imagination. The note said, ‘Play it on the blue guitar.’ It was kind of like an invitation to art, an invitation to use your imagination.”
I thought about it. His explanation did seem possible. “But what does, ‘Dancing in red shoes will kill you’ have to do with the imagination or art?”
Gray pulled a book out of the backpack. “It doesn’t. It has a whole different message.” He handed me the book. “Turn to page forty-seven.”
I flipped through it and came to a poem called “A Red Shirt.”
“Look at the last line on the page,” Gray said.
My eyes scanned the poem until it got to the words Dancing in red shoes will kill you.
“See?” Gray said.
“See what?”
“The words are from a poem, just like with the blue guitar. I was trying to merge art and poetry to send a message.”
I was beginning to sense his frustration. I thought maybe I’d cut him some slack and try to understand. “Okay, so who was the message for?”
Gray looked down. “It was sort of…for you. But, really, for everyone.”
Now it was my turn to be frustrated. “I’m sorry. I don’t get what you’re talking about.”
“You know how I told you my mom makes me read poems that she’s researching? Well this one’s by that writer, Margaret Atwood, the one we talked about. The poem’s about how girls are taught through fables and myths that they should always be careful, how fairy tales tell them they shouldn’t wear red and go in the woods….”
“Like Little Red Riding Hood?”
“Yes, and they shouldn’t dance in red shoes because they’ll get their feet cut off.”
“Paterson was right.”
“What?”
“She said the shoes might have something to do with the fairy tale…. But what did it have to do with me?”
Gray put the book in his backpack. “After you found out why that Timm guy didn’t choose you for a lead part and Paterson compared it to those fairy tales, I got to thinking about this poem my mom had given me. She said it meant that girls and women are taught to take the safe path all the time, to avoid risks. Dancing in red shoes is like not listening to all that and taking the risk.”
“But why didn’t you tell anyone that’s what it all meant?”
Gray looked down and zipped his backpack. “I don’t know. I chickened out. I assumed everyone would know it was art. Everyone at my old school in Manhattan would have.”
“Really?”
“I think so. Anyway, when everyone started freaking out and talking about death threats, I got scared. I thought it would all just fade away if I stopped putting up the shoes.”
I turned toward him. “So it didn’t have anything to do with death threats at all?”
“No, I swear. I just wanted to do something different. To make
people more aware of the sexist messages they get from everyday life. I was never going to hurt anyone.” He looked me straight in the eye. “Least of all you.”
I stared back at him. “Why least of all me?”
He stuffed his hands into his jean pockets. “Well, you must know that I really like you…a lot.”
Those were the words I’d been wanting to hear. Yet I didn’t know what to say. I just stared at him for a few seconds, but then I remembered something. “One more question,” I demanded.
Gray looked sheepish. “What?”
“Why were Melissa’s initials on the backs of the pointe shoes?”
Gray laughed.
“I don’t see what’s so funny.”
“You would if you’d seen her in the school store, prancing around trying to get my attention. She came in to buy a new pair of shoes.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
“When she was finally done trying a bunch of shoes on, she left her old ones on the floor. When I told her she’d forgotten them, she said I could have them as a souvenir to remember her by.”
I could hear Melissa’s voice, as sickening as six packs of NutraSweet. “And you took them?”
“What else could I do? I put them in a box behind the counter. I wasn’t going to do anything with them. But then I got the idea for the project.”
Gray finished his explanation just in time. Joey and Paterson apparently had decided the clock struck midnight. They popped out of nowhere beside us.
“So…” Paterson said, “what’s up?”
In those brief moments before she and Joey materialized, I had almost forgotten the whole plan we’d devised. I gestured toward Paterson and Joey and looked at Gray. “You’ve met my bodyguards?”
After a brief summary of what had transpired, Paterson and Joey realized Gray was no longer a threat to me or anyone else. Paterson claimed she knew all the time it had something to do with the fairy tale and that Gray was a good guy. I didn’t remind her about the psycho and smut suspicions, not to mention the fetish accusations.
“So what are you guys going to do now that you know?” Gray finally asked.
Joey shrugged. “Eat dinner?”
Paterson laughed. “Tell Etch A Sketch you deserve an A in class.”
“I’m serious,” Gray said. “You’re all accessories now.”
“Accessories to what—an art project?” Paterson said. “Since when is that a crime?”
Gray laughed. “Depends on the artist, I guess.”
Paterson rolled her eyes. I knew she was thinking of some of her fellow art students. “I just have one more question,” she said.
“What?”
“Did you really think anyone at Farts would get what you were trying to convey?”
Gray shrugged. “At my old school, we combined art forms all the time—poetry and sculpture, music and painting. It was kind of like a puzzle. Everyone liked trying to figure out what the artist meant.”
Paterson shook her head. “You forgot we have a principal with the aesthetics of a slug and an art department head who thinks a single straight line is a thing of beauty.”
Gray raised his right hand. “I promise I’ll start sketching buildings or something.”
“So let me get this straight,” Joey said. “You’re not a stalker? Never were a stalker?”
Gray laughed. “No.”
Joey let out a sigh. “So now we can eat dinner, right?”
That night was the first in a long time I felt really relaxed. No one wanted to kill anyone. The red shoes mystery was solved. And, best of all, Gray Foster liked me—a lot. I played the day back in my mind. Dinner had been fun. We mostly talked about the protest plans. Before that, there was the whole explanation for Paterson and Joey. And before that, Gray had made his declaration of “like.” That was the part I wanted to freeze-frame and play back my own way. If I’d been making the movie of my life, that’s where Gray and I would have kissed. Before I fell asleep, I directed the scene, played the movie, and pressed the pause button just as our lips met.
Chapter 13
Normally getting up in the dark was not my idea of a good time, but on the day of the demonstration, brushing my teeth by morning moonlight didn’t bother me a bit. It was going to be a great day. The protest was all about Paterson. No one at school was talking about my boobs anymore—they were all talking about a whole other part of the anatomy that I didn’t have.
Paterson had told our parents what was happening, so at five-thirty they stumbled out of bed to wish us luck. They weren’t quite as radical as Gray’s parents, but they’d grown up in the sixties and got the whole fight-for-what-you-believe-in thing. “Just don’t get kicked out of school,” my mother yelled as Paterson grabbed two granola bars and ran out the door.
My father patted me on the shoulder. “Make sure things don’t get out of hand.”
“Sure, Dad.” I smiled and followed Paterson to the car.
Paterson backed out of the driveway. “This is going to be so cool.”
“Way cool,” I answered, realizing we were probably talking about two different things. Now that I knew Gray wasn’t a stalker, I couldn’t stop fantasizing about being with him again. I felt a little guilty that my excitement about seeing Gray slightly overshadowed my enthusiasm for free speech. I tried to muster some outrage. “We’re really going to kick butt.”
When we got to the Burger King parking lot across the street from the school, Ryan, Sara, and Gray were already getting the posters out of the car. A few other cars pulled up and parked at the same time we did. As I grabbed one of the placards, Gray’s arm brushed mine. Our eyes met and lingered for a second. My legs felt as if I’d just done a thousand jetés. We smiled briefly, but then it was back to business.
“Okay everyone,” Gray announced, “here’s the deal. The permit allows us to protest from six to eight A.M., as long as we’re peaceful. The school can’t do anything about that. But if we miss class, that’s a problem.”
Everyone groaned.
Gray closed the car door and gave me one last smile. “We’ve got to be in homeroom by the time the bell rings so Kovac doesn’t have anything to complain about.”
Ryan’s blond spikes popped up next to Gray’s dark ponytail. “My dad’s sending the TV cameras around seven-fifteen so they can get the reaction from everyone arriving at school. We’ll have to hurry and put the posters away around five to eight.”
Gray nodded. “Okay. It’s showtime.”
The first hour of the protest was pretty uneventful. About twenty of us paced back and forth across the street from school, holding up our “The Pen-Is Mightier Than Censorship” posters. Some of the art majors who hadn’t shown up at Gray’s carried their own signs that read, “Farts Stinks of Censorship.” Aside from the occasional junk-food junkies at the BK drive-thru, we were barely noticed. When we were, it was usually by someone yelling, “Hey, penis doesn’t have a hyphen!” I was beginning to understand why so few people engaged in organized protest. No one seemed to care but the protesters.
Even Kovac had nothing to say as he drove past us and backed into his special space by the front entrance. Some of the art students crossing the street raised their fists in solidarity. Others who saw the signs but clearly had no idea what the protest was about, shouted “Penis Power” as they drove to their parking spaces and walked into school.
Around seven-thirty the theater majors put on a performance that they’d obviously planned ahead of time. Six of them piled their placards on the ground, lined up beside one another, and began to rap:
We go to Farts
and we’re here to say
we’re trying to stop
censorship today.
Don’t try to tell us
that the penis is lewd
’Cause if you think it is
check your pants—DUDE!
On the last word, in perfect sync, they all pulled their pant waists out and looked down at their crotches—e
ven the girls.
It wasn’t exactly Will Smith, or Will Shakespeare for that matter, but it got the point across. And it broke the boredom. It also prompted Joey to begin executing grands jetés and pirouettes up and down the street in front of the main entrance of the school. Not to be outdone, the theater kids repeated their rap, accompanied by an impromptu booty dance, behind Joey’s leaps and turns. During the performance Gray and I took the opportunity to sneak back to the parking lot.
“Is everything okay with us now?” Gray said, leaning against his car.
“You mean since I found out the red shoes were all about a fairy tale instead of a felony?” I joked.
Gray laughed. “I guess that’s what I mean.” He reached for my hand. “Maybe we can finally have a real date soon.”
I was about to say I’d like that too, but we were interrupted by the rest of the crew returning the posters. My frustration at never being alone with Gray was making me crazy. Classes were about to start, so we all grabbed our backpacks and headed off.
On the six o’clock news that night, Paterson’s message was somewhat overshadowed by a sort of Lord of the Dance meets Sluts in the Street. So when a local radio station called the house that night wanting her to appear on the Hal Barker show the next night, she said, yes, without thinking about it. She was hoping to put some pressure on Kovac. Etch A Sketch, who had always liked Paterson and was secretly sympathetic to her cause, said the demonstration hadn’t swayed the administration. Paterson thought maybe more publicity would help.
Our parents decided it would be a good idea for all of us to go to the show because the radio station shared a neighborhood with several gun shops and triple X bookstores, a connection I never understood. After a rousing session of raw porn, was it a guy’s first impulse to go next door to buy a gun and fire off a few rounds?
When we arrived at the WADD offices, we were greeted by a guard and told to park in a fenced lot. Someone buzzed us into the building. I wondered if all the security was because the radio station feared crime in the neighborhood or because they feared the listeners. Hal, the DJ, was a Howard Stern wannabe who prided himself in antagonizing his South Florida audience of retirees, rednecks, and radicals. He was an equal-opportunity annoyance, never sticking to a particular point of view. He mainly wanted to stir up controversy, which is why Paterson agreed to go on the show. She figured he’d probably be on her side since that was the side getting the most flack.
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