Crazy Messy Beautiful

by Carrie Arcos

  “He’s got some basic ability.”

  “That sucks for you, then.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it sounds like you’re stuck working with him. Maybe he’s got some other surprises in store,” she says.

  “Yeah, like dismembered heads wrapped in plastic in his basement.” I cringe a little because the thought may not be too far from the truth.

  “Eww . . . or—and I hate to say this.” Callie hesitates. “Maybe he’s more decent than we think.”

  There’s a pause as if we’re both thinking over what she’s said.

  “Nah,” I say, and we laugh.

  “So how was practice?” I ask.

  “The usual. Coach had us do sweepers and lunges and burpees. Two people threw up, and I almost did too. He wants us in extreme physical condition heading into our next game.”

  The front door opens.

  “Neruda?” Dad calls out.

  Callie’s telling me about the team they’ll be playing when I cut her off. “Sorry, I’ve got to go.”

  “Okay, bye,” she says.

  I hang up and head for the stairs.

  “How was school?” Dad asks me just as I reach the bottom step.

  “Fine,” I say, and continue going up, holding on to the railing for more than just physical support.

  “Neruda?”

  I stop but don’t turn around.

  “Listen, I don’t know what you think you overheard the other night, but everything’s fine. Your mom and I are happy. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  He doesn’t say anything about the file I left on his desk. He doesn’t even mention Leslie’s name. But I know what I heard, and I hate him for it.

  “Please promise me you won’t say anything,” he says, fully admitting his guilt.

  I turn around to face him, but he doesn’t look me in the eye. He offers no explanation, no apology for what he’s done. He leaves me there, standing on the middle of the stairs, gripping the wooden rail.

  The gall of his request shocks me. I didn’t agree to this role. I don’t want anything to do with his deception.

  My heart speeds up like it sometimes does when I’m uneasy. I feel it fluttering in my chest.

  I push off the railing and run to the bathroom. I almost don’t make it in time. I throw up more than once and try to ignore the burning in my throat and nose. I lean my head against the cool rim of the toilet seat, hold my chest, and do some breathing exercises until my heart returns to normal and I can’t feel it anymore.

  ALLIANCE

  The next day at lunch, I sit down on the part of the low wall zigzagging across campus that gives me the best view of the quad. I’m sketching the scene before me—groups scattered throughout, clusters of students standing or sitting or passing by. It’s crowded. I take notice of the condition of the grass—patchy like a calico cat, mostly brown and dead, with an occasional swath of green. The trees are skinny with small, fragile leaves dangling on their branches.

  Greyson plops down next to me and starts eating a sandwich.

  He points to Jasmine. She’s standing with some of the other foreign exchange students. “You think she’s seeing the guy from Finland?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s probably the accent,” he says, his mouth full. “Girls like guys with accents.”

  “That would mean she’d like every guy here, since to her, Americans have the accent.”

  “Good point,” he says.

  I look around.

  “Where’s Mercy?” I ask.

  “We broke up.”

  I glance at him sideways. “Sorry.”

  “It’s all right. Wasn’t meant to be.”

  I wait for him to say more, but he doesn’t seem that broken up about it. I shouldn’t be surprised, considering he told me earlier that’s what he was thinking.

  “How’d she take it?”

  “She cried.” He watches Jasmine. “I hate it when they cry.” He shifts his attention to my drawing. “I can’t believe Fisher put Luis on the mural and not me. What was he thinking?”

  “Maybe you should have your parents donate money.”

  “Can Luis even draw?” he asks.

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “So, what’re you going to do?” Greyson asks.

  I shrug. “It’s not like Mr. Fisher gave me a choice.”

  Jasmine breaks from her group, and Greyson stands.

  “I’ve got to go do something.”

  “Putting in the work?” I tease him with his own phrase.

  He grins. “See you later.”

  He’s jogging after Jasmine before I can say good-bye. I watch him fall into step beside her. They’re talking and laughing like they’re old friends. How does Greyson do that? He makes it look so easy, so smooth. Like it’s not any work at all.

  • • •

  At home after school, I dial Leslie de Prieto’s number again. I know it’s stupid. But if my dad won’t talk to me, and I can’t talk to my mom, maybe Leslie can give me some answers. Something to explain this whole thing.

  “Hello?” she says.

  This time she only says it once before hanging up.

  Just seconds later, my phone rings. I freeze. Leslie’s number pops up on the screen. I’m such an idiot. I should have called her from another line. I let it ring and ring.

  While I’m freaking out, my phone vibrates, signaling that I’ve got a new voice mail.

  I’m about to press play when a black Prius pulls up and Luis gets out. I stand up and shove the phone into my back pocket.

  “You could’ve told me you didn’t live in South Pas,” Luis says when I open the front door.

  He walks in and starts wandering around the living room before I’ve even invited him in. Jerk.

  “Is anyone else here?” he asks.

  “No,” I say. “My parents are at work. I’ve just got to grab some things from my room first,” I say, making it clear that Luis should wait downstairs.

  He follows me up and hovers in the doorway.

  I get some blank sheets of paper, a ruler, some pencils and erasers. I also grab colored pencils in case we want to play around with a color scheme.

  “Are these all yours?” Luis asks of the drawings on my wall.

  “Mostly.”

  He stands in front of a portrait I did of a homeless guy and his shopping cart by the Metro station.

  “Huh.”

  If Luis likes it, he doesn’t let on.

  “What’s on your walls?” I ask, trying to make the best of this crappy situation.

  “Trophies. Wrestling posters. A calendar with hot chicks.”

  Figures. “You’re really into wrestling, huh?”

  “Yeah. I’ve been doing it since I was seven. My dad wrestled through college. He even made the US national team before he got injured.”

  Luis goes over to my desk, where I keep a stack of sketchbooks. He grabs one and starts looking through it before I can tell him not to.

  “Damn, Neruda. Didn’t expect this from you.”

  He pages through my drawings from a nude class.

  “I studied nudes last summer,” I tell him.

  “You drew these in a class?” He holds up the side profile of a woman’s bare torso. “You mean you copied a picture?”

  “No, they were live nudes.”

  “A naked chick just stood there for you to draw her?”

  “Basically, yeah.”

  “Shit. Sign me up for that class. Can I keep this?”

  “No.” I go to grab the book, but Luis swivels around and moves it out of my reach.

  “Hey, I’m not finished looking.”

  “Just put it back.” I drop my hand.

  “Okay. Okay. But . .
. damn. This is beautiful stuff.”

  “Look, I don’t have all afternoon, so we need to start.”

  This time I take the book from Luis, set it on my desk, turn off the light, and walk out of my room. He follows me back downstairs to the kitchen table.

  “So I was thinking we could draw the quad and the different people and things happening.” I show him my preliminary sketches of the mural. “Something like this. Basically it’s like capturing a scene at lunch.” I’ve drawn quick, almost portrait-like images of who I’ve seen walking around, sitting, talking.

  “I know them.” He points to my picture of a guy and girl embracing against a wall.

  “Who doesn’t?”

  They’re two sophomores who are more into PDA than any couple in the history of the world. Teachers don’t even try to break them apart anymore. And they always make out in the same spot.

  “We could do one giant orgy under the sun,” Luis says. “And with what I saw upstairs, the detail you could provide . . .”

  I give him a look that says shut it. “Anyway, I can pull all of this together in one sketch in the next day or two and then we can start on the wall.”

  “Wait, so that’s it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t get a say? No offense, but it’s kind of boring.”

  I glare at him. “Boring?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So what are your exciting ideas?”

  He opens his notebook and shows me a bunch of skyscrapers, like Downtown LA. He turns the page and there’s an octopus wrapping one of its arms around a building.

  “What’s with the octopus?”

  He shrugs. “It’s cool.”

  I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with that. Besides, this is still my mural project, even though I have to work with him. Mr. Fisher didn’t say anything about Luis getting a say in the design. He can paint what I tell him.

  “Look, Luis, I’m not sure what Mr. Fisher promised you, but I’m overseeing the project, and I just don’t see how an octopus fits.”

  “It can represent how the school is squeezing the life out of us.”

  I sigh. “Let’s just do a warm-up.”

  “What’s that?”

  I stare at him. “Just sketch whatever comes to mind when you picture the quad. Fifteen minutes.” Idiot.

  I unroll the ream of paper and we work on opposite sides of the table. When we start drawing, the only sound is our pencils.

  When time is up, Luis has drawn crude skyscrapers in the corner again, this time with the sunlight shooting through the windows and beaming out toward the quad. The quad is like ours, but it’s also more futuristic or something. It’s less dirt and trees and more concrete, more urban. I cut out some of the figures I’ve drawn to show him where they’d go. We step back and take it in.

  I’m annoyed to admit it, but it actually looks kind of decent.

  “I like all the light,” I say. “What if the light is illuminating everything, kind of setting fire and spreading through the whole quad, touching people as it goes?”

  “You know how to do that?”

  “I could try.”

  I hear a car pulling into the driveway.

  “I think my mom’s home.”

  “Does she know you draw naked chicks?”

  I ignore Luis and get up to greet her at the kitchen door.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  She places her briefcase on the counter and grabs a Diet Pepsi from the fridge.

  “This is Luis.”

  “Oh yes, Luis.” She throws a quizzical glance my way. I can almost see her piecing together that Luis is the guy I got into a fight with.

  “Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Diaz.” I roll my eyes as he pretends to be a decent human being.

  Mom sees the sketches on the table.

  “We’re working on the mural,” I say. “Mr. Fisher’s idea.”

  She studies our sketch for a minute. “I like it. Very cool city with the lights.”

  It bugs me that she points out Luis’s elements over mine.

  “Thanks,” he says.

  “What about the people?” I ask.

  “Yeah, they’re good too, a little rough, but you’ll fix that.” She leaves the kitchen and heads upstairs. “Nice to meet you, Luis.”

  “You too,” he says. “I gotta go.”

  “Okay. I’ll run this past Mr. Fisher tomorrow,” I say, and follow Luis to the door.

  “Cool,” he says.

  I don’t watch him leave, but a few seconds later, I hear his car peeling away.

  I create a preliminary rough sketch for the mural based on what Luis and I talked about. His comment about my idea being boring still grates on my mind, so I start to research murals online. Most are pretty uninspiring, but I do find something interesting about these art installation walls started by an artist named Candy Chang in New Orleans a few years back. She created the first piece after she lost someone she loved, and the exhibit is like a giant chalkboard with tons of lines that say: Before I die I want to . . . People have written what they want to do in the space that follows, and now there are installations up all over the world, from Japan to Canada to Mexico to Australia. But the walls themselves aren’t these amazing pieces. It’s more about the idea of people—total strangers—creating the piece together that makes it interesting.

  Some of the things people write are funny. Someone wrote that he wanted to fight The Rock before he died. Other stuff is much more inspirational, like the people who wrote that they want to abandon all insecurities or that they want to see equality for all people. In Spain, someone wrote that they wanted to be swept up in a passionate love affair.

  Some walls have different prompts, but the same open-ended idea. Instead of Before I die, one wall says, When I graduate . . . There’s another that says, If you knew me . . . , and one was even started in Pasadena with the prompt One day I will . . .

  I find mention of a wall in Santiago, Chile, and I’m curious to know what the Chileans put up. The wall is titled 11 de Septiembre (September 11), but it’s not about the terrorist attacks in the United States. It’s referring to the bloody military coup of 1973. The event right before Pablo Neruda’s death. The prompt for writing is Yo siento . . . I feel . . . I try to read some of the inscriptions, but I can’t make out the words from the photo. The wall is dense with multicolored writing.

  I wonder if we could create something like this at school alongside the mural. It would be a cool form of self-expression and maybe even spark conversations, if people were actually honest.

  When I’m finished researching and doing homework, I head downstairs. Dad and Mom are in the kitchen talking and making dinner. Dad’s putting noodles in a pot of boiling water.

  “Neruda, when do you think you can clean the garage?” he asks when he sees me. Normally, Dad would just tell me to clean the garage, but he’s being all nice about it, as if that will fix things between us. “Can you do it this weekend?”

  “Can’t. Have a school project.” My trip to LACMA isn’t necessarily for my assignment, but technically it’s for Callie’s, so it counts.

  “All right, the next weekend, then.”

  “Fine.”

  “How was work, honey?” Dad asks Mom. “Did you get that new client?”

  Dad’s pouring it on thick with Mom, being overly attentive, asking more questions than usual. You’d think she works for the FBI with how he’s hanging on every word she says. When he pulls her in for a hug and a kiss, I feel sick.

  I tell them I’m going out and don’t wait for any protest about how I haven’t eaten dinner yet.

  “Save me a plate!” I yell over my shoulder, and rush out the door.

  I head to Greyson’s, but his mom tells me he’s at the school volleyball game. I could go back home, b
ut I don’t feel ready to face my parents yet. So I get back on my scooter and make my way to school.

  • • •

  When I enter the gym, music is blaring and both teams are already on the court, warming up. I scan the bleachers and spy Greyson at the top. He’s sitting with Jasmine and a couple of the other foreign exchange students. I have to give him credit. He does work fast.

  Greyson introduces me to them when I sit down next to him. “Guys, this is Neruda.”

  They say their names down the line as if in a roll call: Jasmine, Grete, and Peter.

  “Grete is from Norway, and Peter is from New Zealand. How cool is that?” Greyson says.

  “Pretty cool,” I say.

  The referee blows a whistle and the first game begins. Things move quickly with sounds of sneakers squeaking on the gym floor, girls calling out plays, and the ball hitting flesh. Callie’s at the net. The setter passes her the ball, right on the net, and Callie slams it over. Two of the opposing team jump up to block her on the other side of the net, but the ball makes it through and our team scores its first point. I cheer and even yell, “Go, Callie!”

  She smiles and a couple of her teammates give her high fives before she goes back into position at the net. I’d seen the team play last year, so I know how good Callie is, but I don’t remember noticing how good she looked while playing.

  I keep my eyes on her for the rest of the game.

  Greyson, on the other hand, barely watches the game. He and Jasmine talk almost the whole time. From what I can tell, Grete and Peter are together. The hand-holding is a dead giveaway. I am the odd man out.

  As usual.

  Our team is in the lead going into the last game, and it’s looking like we’ll take the win until Callie makes a strategic mistake. She misreads a hitter and goes for the block, but her opponent just taps it lightly over to the left. The ball hits the floor and the other team scores. Callie swears and bends over with her hands on her knees. She shakes her head and then pulls herself up.

  We end up winning the final game, but it is tight. I contemplate congratulating Callie, but she’s standing with a bunch of girls, so I just head out.

  Afterward, I go with Greyson and the others to get something to eat. Peter is explaining the difference in New Zealand coffee, but I’m not really listening. I’m thinking about Callie—how great she looked out there, how great she is at volleyball, how great she is, period.