Crazy Messy Beautiful

by Carrie Arcos

  My phone buzzes.

  It’s a photo of a naked woman with enormous breasts.

  Luis.

  thought you’d like her

  I’m about to turn my phone off when I notice I’ve got a voice mail.

  “Be right back,” I tell them.

  I get up from the table so I can listen to it.

  “I’m not sure who this is, but if you don’t stop prank calling me, I’m going to report this number.”

  Leslie. I completely forgot.

  I stand there for a second, numb. Then I press delete.

  I LIKE FOR YOU TO BE STILL

  On Saturday morning, I’m halfway up Callie’s front steps when her door opens and she walks out in her usual black boots. But she’s also got on torn skinny black jeans, a white T-shirt, and a black leather cropped jacket.

  “Hey,” she says as she struts toward me.

  I glance back at my small scooter on the street.

  “Did you forget what kind of bike I have? It’s not a Harley.”

  “It’s all about perception,” she says. “Sometimes you have to feel it, you know.” I look at her face. Her eyes sparkle like the ocean when the sun hits it.

  She takes the spare helmet I offer and places it on her head. I get on the bike, and before I can tell Callie what to do, she hops on behind me. She doesn’t wrap her arms around my middle, like I would have thought. She holds on to the sides of the seat instead. It’s still a small bike, though, so I feel her body lean into mine as I turn left down the road.

  I’ve never had a girl ride with me before. I imagine what it’d be like to ride along the coast or something, going until we are exhausted. Just riding forever, Callie and me. We wouldn’t stop unless we needed to, and even then, only in some strange town where we didn’t know anyone. This would be the first of our many adventures together, and by the end, we’d be completely in love. Not that I’m into Callie, but it’s fun to dream about who my number nine could be.

  My fantasy is short-lived because the Metro station is only a couple minutes down the road. We get on and sit across from each other.

  “What’s in the bag?” she asks, pointing to my backpack.

  “Some lunch for later. I figured we’d get hungry, and things are kind of expensive there, so . . .”

  “Thanks. That was very thoughtful of you.”

  I shrug. “Close game Tuesday night,” I say, changing the subject.

  “You were there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You saw me miss that play, then.”

  “Which one?” I ask. I know the play she’s talking about, but I don’t want her to think I thought it was a big deal.

  “The one where I thought she was going to hit it, and so I jumped, but she just tapped it. Oh, man, I felt horrible. I should have anticipated that.”

  “Yeah, but that didn’t lose the game or anything.”

  “No, but it won them a point. Coach brought it up immediately after the game. He thinks we can win league this year and go on to the CIF finals. So he needs me to try harder.”

  “You guys are great,” I say, then add, “you’re great.”

  “Thanks,” she says. “I’m not sure I’m really good enough to continue in college.”

  “You’re good enough,” I say, and I wonder if it’s normal for Callie to doubt herself.

  “Maybe. Not sure if I want to, though.”

  We’re both silent for a moment.

  “You do any more of those faces?” I ask.

  She smiles wide. “Yeah. Here.” She takes out her phone to show me her latest work, something she designed last night. One side of her face is a brown tree trunk, and its branches spread across the other side. “What do you think?”

  I give her a thumbs-up because I don’t have the language for what she does. It’s so beautiful, so inspiring, but saying so feels like it would somehow make her work less magical.

  I watch her flip through images on her phone, surprised at how comfortable it feels to hang out with her like this.

  I tell her about my mural tour with Mr. Fisher and my sketching with Luis. Suddenly it’s our stop.

  As soon as Callie sees the tall gray lampposts that mark the entrance to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, she exclaims, “Oh, this is cool!”

  “I thought you said you’d been here before.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t remember these.” She touches one of them, pulls out her phone, and takes a selfie.

  I’ve been coming here since I first started studying art and began learning about the different mediums. One teacher suggested we go often to observe styles and practice copying.

  Imitation isn’t just flattery. It’s also a great way to learn. The harder part is leaving imitation and finding your own voice. When you do that—find your own conviction, your signature—you become a real artist. That can take years. I’m still trying to find mine.

  The museum is free for us since we’re under eighteen, but we still have to stand in line and get tickets.

  Callie picks up a map. “Where should we go first?”

  “We can just walk around. There’s plenty to see, but I’d start in the Ahmanson Building because that’s where the Picassos are.”

  “Okay. Cool.”

  We enter the Ahmanson and walk quietly up the thick marble stairs to the left, through the halls of hanging wall art.

  “Are you going to give me a tour or something?” she whispers.

  “Um, sure,” I say. We stop in front of a couple Picasso portraits. “This one is called Head of a Woman in Profile. This is one of Jacqueline, his second wife.”

  Callie reads the description. “This says the painting represents the perfect Mediterranean woman?” She takes out her phone to snap a picture, but the blue-suited docent standing close by tells her no pictures are allowed.

  Callie stands directly in front of the portrait. She tilts her head to one side, then to the other. After a few moments, she says, “Yeah, I don’t get it. That’s got to be the ugliest woman. Her eyes and lips are all smashed together. He must’ve hated her.”

  “Actually, he loved her. She was the only woman he painted for his last seventeen years.”

  “What a strange way to paint her, then.”

  “Well, he was a cubist, but this one is from the end of his life. It’s more marked by wild expressionism. His blue period is better,” I say, though I’m not a huge fan of Picasso either.

  “Why?”

  “Just my personal preference. It’s not as abstract and everything is in a blue hue.”

  “Hence the name,” she says.

  “Hence the name. There are some of those paintings in a different area of the museum. We can see those later if you want.”

  “Okay. I’m going to take some notes on this one.”

  I look at the other paintings while she types on her phone. The museum is a little crowded today because it’s a weekend. I prefer it when it’s emptier.

  After about ten minutes of note taking, Callie says, “Finished. Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” I tell her. “I could stay here all day.”

  “I don’t know many guys—wait, I don’t know any guys who would choose to spend the entire day in a museum.”

  I shrug. I can’t tell if she thinks this is a good thing or a bad thing. At the very least, it’s something for her to put into her report. “So, you want to go to the other Picassos or do you want to look around?”

  “Whatever you think,” she says. “You’re the expert.”

  “Well, do you like Monet? There’s a large collection here.”

  “He’s the one who did a lot of landscapes and flowers, right?”

  “Yeah, you’ve probably seen his stuff on calendars mostly. Or there’s Diego Rivera over at the Art of the Americas Building.
You know what, let’s go there. There’s some paintings I want to show you. Then we can circle back around and check out the other Picassos. There’s a drawing of one of his other lovers, at the beginning of his career, that you might want to use for your paper.”

  Callie smiles at me.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” She gestures with her hand. “Lead the way.”

  I show her a couple more pieces in the building, avoiding the floors with the art of the ancient Near East and of the Pacific since I’m not as familiar with those periods, before we head outside and into the art installation that features long plastic yellow tubes hanging from an iron structure.

  “Penetrable,” I tell her.

  “What?”

  “That’s the name of the piece.”

  “It looks like yellow spaghetti.”

  Callie stands in the middle of the yellow rubber tubes and it’s like she’s caught inside a yellow rainfall. I take a picture of her on my phone. Then she grabs some of the yellow strands and makes a serious model pose, followed by a crazy face. I laugh.

  “Your turn,” she says.

  I just stand there.

  “Come on,” she says. “Do something silly.”

  As I’m thinking through the poses I can do, trying to find something that would look cool, she says, “Just jump really high.”

  I jump as high as I can.

  She takes my picture. “Awesome, check it out.”

  She’s captured me midair with my face tilted up toward the sky.

  “It looks like you’re floating,” she says, and smiles up at my face.

  I smile down at her. She’s right. In fact, I kind of feel like I’m floating right now.

  We move on to the next building, the one with the American artists.

  “I love it here because of all the old oil portraits,” I tell her as we walk through the hall. The paintings are huge with large, chunky gold frames. I show Callie the portrait of a woman in a white dress and pearls—Portrait of Mrs. Carr by Diego Rivera. “Classic.”

  “Is that what you want to do someday?” she asks.

  “Not that style so much. Oil is a pretty difficult medium. But I love the detail and how the painter felt about her.”

  “What do you mean? How can you tell how the painter felt about her?”

  “Look at the way he uses color and light and shadow . . . the care here.” I reach out and run my hand in front of the portrait, illustrating where I’m talking about. “And here.”

  “Hmm. I don’t really see it.”

  “You will, the more you look. I’ve just started using oils. It’s crazy how different it is from acrylic or watercolor.”

  “That’s cool.”

  “Yeah, I’m liking it so far.”

  “So this is what you do in your free time?” she asks.

  “Yeah, or I draw.”

  “What kinds of things do you draw?”

  “Sometimes I’ll actually draw paintings, if there’s some technique I want to learn from the piece. Like if I want to practice shading or something. But I prefer live subjects.”

  We enter a room with a huge mural. I stop and take it in. Normally, I would have walked right past, but I make a mental note to tell Luis about it. It’s huge and violent in an abstract, almost science-fiction way. There are charred bodies and rubble, machines, fields being overrun, all in smoky gray and metallic colors that bleed into orange and green in the corners. It’s amazing.

  “Wow,” Callie says. “This is huge.”

  I read the description: Burn, Baby, Burn by Matta, an artist from Chile. More props to my people.

  “It’s about the Watts riots.” I read from the placard. In 1965, a highway patrol officer pulled over a black man on charges of drunk driving, which prompted huge protests. Thousands of people took to the streets and began rooting and raging against the racial discriminatory practices of the police department.

  “Crazy,” she says, reading over my shoulder. “You’d think things would have changed by now.”

  I look around and don’t see any signs, so I take a photo.

  “You really like it, huh?” she asks.

  “Well, yes, but the photo is for Luis.”

  “Ah, your new best friend.”

  “Ha. Yeah,” I say.

  “I can’t believe you have to work with him. You guys are so different.”

  I don’t disagree, but I’m curious as to what Callie means.

  “How so?” I ask.

  “He’s kind of cocky and a jerk and . . . you’re neither of those things.” She walks away from me and waits at the edge of the room.

  I stay where I am in front of the mural, doing my best to act as if I’m still interested in the artwork, as if what she said doesn’t matter. Eventually I pull myself away.

  “Come on,” I say. “Let’s go look at the Japanese art. There’s something cool over there I think you’ll like.”

  • • •

  Netsuke are miniature sculptures that the Japanese wore to fasten containers on the sides of their kimonos that would act as pockets. Inside a small room are rows and rows of netsuke. Sunlight streams in from the huge surrounding windows, bathing them in its light. Callie walks slowly through the rows.

  “These are my favorite,” she says softly. It’s the type of room that commands reverence and makes you want to whisper like you’re in church.

  This is the third time Callie has called something her favorite today, and I smile. I’m beginning to understand she uses that word loosely.

  “I thought the Breathing Light exhibit was your favorite.”

  “It was until I saw these.” She bends down to get a closer look at one. She catches her breath. “Look at these. Turtles! I love turtles.”

  I stand alongside her and see three small turtles stacked on top of one another.

  “I used to have one of those baby turtles,” she says. “You know, the little ones that are illegal to sell on the street? We didn’t know that at the time. My mom and I were on Olvera Street for something and there was a woman selling these tiny, adorable turtles, so I begged Mom and she bought one for me. It only lasted a couple of months because I’m pretty sure it was sick. But it was so cute.”

  “I like this guy.” I show her the little octopus, but she’s already moved on to something else.

  “A snail. A tiny snail. Oh my gosh. These are amazing,” she says.

  “Here’s an entire city carved into an oyster shell.”

  “How did they do this?”

  “No idea,” I say.

  “It’s amazing.” She squeals again. “A baby elephant.”

  Callie is the happiest I’ve ever seen her, so I’m pretty sure that’s a good thing. She touches my arm. “I want one.”

  And if I could, I would have stolen one right there for her.

  • • •

  After we check out all of the Picassos, I take Callie to the museum’s coffee bar. I order us two hot chocolates, since she doesn’t drink coffee, and since it’s a little cool outside. We walk over to the grass near the La Brea Tar Pits and sit down.

  “I never come here,” she says when we sit down. “Why do I never come here?”

  I pull out the food I packed for us: yogurts, apples, and turkey sandwiches. “Hope this is okay. There’s no peanuts.”

  “Are you kidding? It’s great.”

  We eat in a comfortable silence for a few moments. It’s nice to be able to just sit quietly with someone.

  “Hey, how’d you know I’m allergic to peanuts?” she asks.

  “Two truths and a lie.”

  She nods. “Good memory. We should keep the questions going for our papers. I haven’t even started writing mine yet. Have you?”

  “No.” I have to admit, I forgot about the pa
per. At some point over the past few days I’d stopped thinking of hanging out with Callie as a school assignment. Now I kind of just want to hang out with her.

  “What’s your favorite sandwich?” she asks.

  “Peanut butter and jelly,” I say.

  “Aw. Sorry.”

  “No worries. Turkey’s good. What about yours?”

  “Nutella and banana. But I like turkey. Thank you for the food, by the way. I should have brought something too.”

  “No, my treat. I just like being prepared.”

  “How often do you come here?”

  “Once every couple months or so,” I say. “Or I go to the MOCA. There’s also the Getty. Actually, there are all kinds of art museums in LA. Do you ever go to museums?”

  “No. I should, though. It’s just so easy to get comfortable doing the same thing every day.” She pauses. “Thank you for showing me something different.”

  “You’re welcome,” I say, surprised by her graciousness.

  If someone would have told me a week ago that Callie and I would be talking art and having a picnic, I’d have said they were crazy. But it feels right, sitting here with her.

  She holds up her sandwich and clinks it against mine like we’re cheers-ing after a toast and takes a bite.

  “This is good,” she says with her mouth full.

  And it is.

  She points to my bag. “Is your sketchbook in there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can I see it?”

  I hand it to her, both excited and nervous that she’s interested in my art. I watch as she flips through different drawings. She stops on a pair of hands.

  “Whose are these?”

  “My mom’s.” I must have ten sketches of her hands in there.

  “You like drawing them.”

  “It’s more like I’m practicing, trying to learn and get better each time I draw them. It’s something I learned studying Van Gogh.”

  “Isn’t that the guy who cut off his ear?”

  I nod. “That’s usually the only thing people know about Van Gogh, which is sad. I mean, he did get a little unhinged later in life, but he wasn’t a madman. And his process was so amazing. He was completely self-taught and he believed his paintings were studies—that’s what he called them. Almost as if he were rehearsing and practicing for the later paintings of his career. And with his portraits, he tried something that was really different for his time. He didn’t want to just paint what he saw. He wanted to capture the essence of a person, the internal part that informs the external. So he had to love what it was that he was painting, whether it was a blade of grass or a woman. It’s like you need to feel something before you can paint it, and then you paint what you feel. I totally get it.” I look up to see Callie watching me closely, and I feel my face grow hot. “Sorry.”