The Symptoms of My Insanity

by Mindy Raf

  “You should tell Jacob to just shut the hell up. That’s what I do.”

  Meredith’s smiling at me in such an unusually friend-like way, it impedes my motor skills; I drop my Botero book to the floor.

  “Don’t let them get to you, they’re such idiots,” she adds.

  Okay, why is Meredith Brightwell half whispering and smiling at me? Where’s the Twilight Zone music? Where’s the celebrity host and the camera crew to tell me I’m being pranked?

  I manage to nod back at her and pick up my book. Is she buttering me up to ask me to officially do this whole Botero project by myself? I ignore her and go back to my research. But just as I’m learning that Botero’s subjects aren’t of “fat” people but rather “inflated” people, Meredith half whispers to me again, “So, what are you up to this weekend? You doing anything fun?”

  Okay, seriously?

  “Um … I don’t know. Are you … up to anything fun?” I full whisper, trying to avoid the penalizing shade of Señora Claudia’s giant sombrero, since we’re only supposed to be speaking in Spanish.

  “I don’t know … maybe.”

  Wow. The last conversation I had with Meredith was the other time we were paired up in Spanish. It was for an oral presentation using food vocabulary:

  Me gusta los bacalaos. Y tú?

  No me gusta los bacalaos. Me gusta los cacahuetes.

  Which I think roughly translated to:

  I like cod fish. And you?

  I don’t like cod fish. I like peanuts.

  I realize now it was my turn to talk and I didn’t. So I just go back to studying Botero’s happy, inflated families.

  One hour and twenty-five minutes, and then I can go from looking at pictures of paintings to actually painting them. Yes, I am definitely going to paint something new today. I never had a moment to really sit down and figure out what I wanted to do for my portfolio this past summer, so I ended up doing all these drawings and paintings of my cat, Leroy. My cat! It’s beyond embarrassing. I mean yes, Miss S. asked me to go next door and talk about one of my cat paintings to the 101 class last month, and she went on and on about how I realistically captured the movement in my lines and how great it was and all. But the thing is, Miss S. is always talking about how art is supposed to say something about you, and about how you know you’re doing the right work when you’re “whispering your secrets to other people” and stuff. I mean, my cat? No, I can’t use anything I have in my Italy portfolio. I can’t have a cat theme.

  Unghhh, and now today I’m losing a whole afternoon of studio time, and a night of studio time too, because of Jenna’s musical and cleaning out the attic for Mom. So I really need to use my studio time today.

  “Actually, Izzy,” Meredith half whisper-smiles to me, “I’m thinking of going to this party this weekend. In Ann Arbor.”

  “What?”

  Meredith drops her book onto her lap and blinks her gold-shadowed eyelids at me. “There’s this party on Saturday night that a bunch of us might go to that Cara’s older sister Becca is going to in Ann Arbor. It’s at her boyfriend Phil’s house.”

  “Oh. Um. Cool.”

  “Yeah. And Becca said invite whoever,” she continues, actually twirling a strawberry strand of hair, “so do you wanna go?”

  “What?”

  “To the party? You wanna go?”

  “Um … well … wait what?”

  “And Jenna’s invited too. See, the thing is that—”

  “Psst, Izzy!”

  We both turn toward the door. Oh, no. Pam Rubinstein is standing in the doorway. Meredith picks her book back up and mouths to me, “We’ll talk later.”

  We’ll talk later? Since when do we talk ever?

  “Psst, Izzy!”

  Pam’s still standing in the doorway, now waving and smiling at me. She does administrative stuff in the main office, but she’s also Mom’s best friend, so she always finds a way for our paths to cross. Once she came up to me and Jenna in the cafeteria and said, really loudly, “Izzy, are you eating? What are you eating? Go grab a donut, or a quiche. There are no carbs on your tray?” Then she turned to the table of boys next to us and said, “Will you guys tell my Izzy to eat a slice of pizza please, oh my God, she’s so gaunt!” And Pam grew up in New York, so what we heard was, “Oh my Gawd, she’s so gawnt!”

  I was called “Gawnt Girl” for at least a month after. But that wasn’t nearly as humiliating as the time she called me a “Botticelli babe” in front of a bunch of senior guys. And hello? Botticelli didn’t paint gaunt women, so Pam really needs to make up her mind.

  “Hola.” Pam waddles over to Señora Claudia, whose pupils dilate upon hearing Pam’s East Coast Spanish accent. “Lo siyento, necessito hablwar con Izzy. Tiyene correo,” she delightedly gets out, holding up a small postal box. I immediately know what’s inside.

  Pam shuffles over to my desk. “Izzy,” she whispers, “is this one of the birthday presents for your mom?” She shakes the box slightly with a grin.

  “Oh. Yes. Thank you.” I forgot I’d had my latest two purchases sent to Pam to avoid Mom finding out what I’d ordered, or how much I’d spent.

  Pam hands me my package, then fishes around in the pockets of her sweater jacket and produces a small object wrapped in a napkin that hits my desk with a thud. “That’s a blueberry scone for you,” she whispers loudly. “It’s a little on the dry side, but not so terrible. Save it for later, keep your blood sugar up.”

  I notice that Meredith is smiling down at her Botero book. “Thanks,” I say to Pam, putting the scone in the side pocket of my backpack, reserved for Pam’s food presents. Pam looks at me and then at my package, which I’ve placed on the floor next to my desk, her eyes swinging back and forth like that scary kitty cat clock on her kitchen wall.

  “So what did you get her? What is it?” she finally says.

  “Oh … um … well … I’m in the middle of Spanish—”

  “You know what?” Pam thankfully interrupts with another loud whisper. “I was thinking of ordering her some organic ginger.”

  “Ginger?”

  “You buy it online. It’s from this farm. I forget where. It’s a ginger of the month club! Fresh farmed ginger every month.”

  “Oh. Wow.” I glance over at Meredith, who’s now listening to this exchange with confused interest. “I didn’t know Mom was … that she even liked ginger—”

  “Well, you know those ginger candies she’s always eating aren’t real ginger,” Pam responds, as if that explains everything, “but real ginger is good for nausea and healthy digestion. That’s what I read. Maybe you can ask Mr. Bayer in bio if it’s true, he’s so smart. He almost went to medical school, you know. Anyway, since she’s been dealing with it so badly lately, poor thing, I thought raw ginger! Perfect, right? She can make tea, or just chew on it when she’s not feeling so hot …”

  I look sharply at Pam. “Oh. Yeah … right. Wait, so—” but before I can ask more about Mom, Señora is shouting, “Adios, hasta mañana!” Pam waves good-bye, and me, my postal box, my stale scone, and my knockers grandes head off to try and find a casual way to ask Mr. Bayer about the effects of raw ginger on nausea.

  CHAPTER 5

  I’m having a slumber party.

  I have to stop sneaking out of class to go to the art room. It’s not right. Even if I do have a nineteen-year-old substitute who basically takes a nap while I’m writing out the Krebs cycle. Even if it does mean I get the art room all to myself.

  I practically skip to the drying rack to grab one of the canvases I primed last week. After throwing on my smock, I take a deep breath. I love the way it smells in here, like paint and glue and dust and old clothes.

  I squirt out some red paint and some blue and lots of white, then dip some paper towel in a little water and use it to blend the colors across the canvas. I didn’t intend to ditch the last half of bio, but when I was writing out my Krebs cycle and trying to remember what happens when plant cells are respiring, I kept thin
king about human cells respiring and about glucose and our conversion systems, and what a big deal it was last summer when my mom’s system wasn’t … converting. But it is now. So I decided Pam was definitely overreacting about Mom being so nauseated that she needs constant organic ginger. Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about my cells, and my mom’s cells, and then it was like a furnace turned on inside me and I started to sweat. I didn’t even try to wake up Mr. Nineteen-Year-Old Substitute to tell him I needed a bathroom pass. I just left. And came here.

  I’m feeling better as I add more red to the top left corner and swirl it around with my towel. I glance at the canvas and blink my eyes because all I see is a mental snapshot of Meredith dealing me a totally out-of-left-field party invite. What, does she want to be best friends again all of a sudden? More red. I need lots more red. And I can’t go to that party anyway. I mean, it’s not like I can’t go. It’s not like I should feel guilty for going out to a party now that Mom’s basically better. And Jenna would probably be excited; happy I’d finally go with her to an Ann Arbor party. I need to make more purple.

  I get up and open the tiny, dust-covered window and stroll back to my section, grabbing new paint tubes on the way, and then stop so abruptly, my sneakers squeak on the floor.

  Cara Larson is sitting on my stool. She’s leaning over my canvas. Her backpack is on my table. And why is Nate Yube strolling in, sitting down at Ina Lazebnik’s table?

  I actually rub my palms over my eyes, but no, they’re still here. In fact, the whole art room, my art room, is filling with more and more 101 kids.

  “We are invaded.”

  Ina Lazebnik is now standing at my side, eyeballing the new bodies like she’s watching mice eat her dinner.

  “What are they all doing here?”

  “Didn’t Miss S. inform you?” Ina’s mouth barely moves when she talks, kind of like a ventriloquist without the dummy. “The roof in 101 is leaking, so we are to combine.”

  “No.” My mouth, on the other hand, drops wide open. “No, no, no. For how long?”

  “Indefinitely,” she informs me with limited mouth movement.

  “Hellooooooo, newly combiiiiiiined creators.” Miss Swenson dance-walks out of her junk hallway closet office and makes her way around the two large tables to the front of the studio. She swivels her head quickly from left to right. One of her pinned-up braids comes loose and whips down around her ear. Miss S.’s everyday hair looks like mine does after my campers use me as a beauty salon model. “Soooo I know it might feel a smidge cramped in here for a little whiiiiile … but let’s maaake the best of it!” She ogles the now packed room like we’re all newborn puppies she wants to pick up one by one. “We are not to be segregated by experience nooooor ability, because really”—she clasps both of her hands together—“what a blessing this is for our 101ers to be working side by siiiide with our more advanced creaaaaaaators … .” Her air-filled voice always extends her vowels, but today they seem extra-long as she plans her next words. “And ASPers,” Miss S. adds, looking directly at my moping face, “I hope you’ll embrace your new studio-mates, and perhaps even provide some technical assistance as weeeeeell. Okay, so breathe, and creee-aaa—”

  The door bursts open, hitting the wall with a crash. In walks Meredith, who waves to Cara and mutters what I’m sure is a reoccurring “Sorry I’m late” to Miss S. She spills her books across my table and takes the stool on my other side, giving me a tiny smile. Then she whispers, “Can I borrow some sketch paper?” and proceeds to rip a page out of my sketchbook. She and Cara start doodling all over it.

  Miss S. tries again. “Welcome, welcome. And now breathe, and creee-aaate …”

  I immediately move my canvas away from Cara before the gum she’s cracking falls out of her mouth and becomes a part of the painting. Then I survey the room. This is my hour. The one hour I have today all for myself, and now Nate’s talk-laughing, Meredith’s giggling, and the fifteen or so extra sketchbooks flipping and pencils tapping are all— Unghhh. I can’t even think, let alone paint.

  I fish my earbuds out of my bag and put them on.

  Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows / Everything that’s wonderful is what I feel when we’re together.

  I find some of the Gregorian chants Miss S. plays a tad sleep-inducing, so Mom made a few recommendations. “Lesley Gore’s got pep,” she told me.

  Brighter than a lucky penny / When you’re near, the rain cloud disappears, dear.

  “Hey again, Izzy.”

  And I feel so fine—

  “Izzy—Izzy.” Tap tap tap.

  No Meredith, sorry. I will not let you interrupt me with your shoulder taps.

  “Hellooo, Izzzy?”

  Does she not see that I’m trying to actually do something?

  “Hey!” Tap tap tap. “Hey, Izzy! Izzy! Helloooo.”

  “Yeah?” I say, turning abruptly, attempting to pull my earbuds out with my elbows since both my hands are smudged with paint.

  Meredith scoots her stool closer to mine, but keeps her body a good distance from the table as if not to catch its art-germs.

  “Wow,” she says as she eyes my canvas, “what’s that supposed to be?”

  “I … I don’t know yet.”

  “You don’t know yet? So you just like paint and then you know?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “But then how do you know what to paint?”

  Ugh. Stupid roof with its stupid leak.

  “We’re doing figure drawings,” Meredith says, putting on what looks like those thin plastic gloves from bio lab, and holding up a small canvas with what looks like a stick figure man on it. She lowers her voice and says, “This was supposed to be an easy elective, but it’s kind of kicking my butt.”

  “Yeah, well, you should be okay. Miss S. grades mostly on effort for you guys anyway.”

  “Oh,” Meredith says, looking down at her drawing, and I feel like a total jerk. “Am I that bad?” she asks.

  “No, no,” I say, backtracking and feeling even more terrible. “Not bad, no. You just need some more um, shadow … ing.”

  “Hmm,” she says, looking down at it some more.

  “And it would be easier to draw without those gloves, I think.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right. I hate this stuff.” Meredith gestures to the charcoal. “It kind of stays under your nails for weeks. My drawings aren’t good enough to sacrifice my manicure,” she says, and then makes a face and starts laughing.

  I shake my head at her, but can’t help laughing too. “That was—”

  “Oh my God, that was so pathetic-sounding, I know. I just wanted to take photography, but it didn’t fit into my schedule. But Marcus says he can help me work on something digital for my final project.”

  “Oh, wait, what do you mean?”

  “Like with my photos? Mostly the ones that didn’t make the cut from yearbook last spring. He’s doing all the graphic stuff for yearbook, you know? The fancy stuff.”

  “I know.”

  “Well, anyway, he said he liked my pictures a lot, that they’re pretty good.”

  “He did?”

  “Yeah. He’s like so super-nice.”

  “Yeah, he is.”

  “Yup, yeah totally.” We both turn to Cara, who is apparently a part of our conversation now.

  “We should be drawing without the gloves,” Meredith informs Cara.

  “Yup, yeah totally.” Cara stretches her long arms above her head and rhythmically removes her own gloves finger by finger. She’s clad as usual in sweatpants and leg warmers as if she’s in the middle of teaching a dance class and not at school. Cara used to do competitive gymnastics. She was actually the teacher’s assistant in my after-school gymnastics class in third grade. Well, I only lasted two classes because I would rather scream for a full forty-five minutes than walk across a high balance beam.

  “Doesn’t that look cool, Cara?” Meredith nods her head toward my canvas.

  “Yup, yeah totally.�
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  I’m slowly learning that Cara still expresses herself chiefly through movement.

  “Hey, do you paint your own nails?” I ask Cara, now eyeing her bright red polish as she brushes her thick bangs to the side of her face.

  “Yup, yeah.”

  “Do you have that color with you?”

  “Totally.”

  “Oh! Great! Can I have it? I’ll buy you another, I swear.”

  “Why do you want her nail polish?” Meredith asks, looking at my ragged fingernails. Allissa and Mom call them my “art claws.”

  “Can I have it? Please?” I ask Cara again, nodding at my canvas.

  Cara shrugs and then one-handedly fishes through her bag for the nail polish, which she sets on the table. I examine the color and then shake it up a bit.

  “Awesome! Thank you,” I say, seeing the clock and giving both her and Meredith an “I’m going back to work” look. I put one earbud back in.

  My life is sunshine, lollipops and rainbows / That’s how this refrain goes, so come on, join in / everybody!

  Man, this is cheesy. I brush in my new red texture, which to my satisfaction gives off a really nice depth and shine.

  “Hey so, Izzy …” Meredith glances up at me and then back down at her canvas. “You think you might want to come out, to that party?”

  “Oh. I … I don’t know.” I mix some white into the nail polish to add some pinkish tones.

  “Well,” she says, looking at Cara, then back to me, and moving in even closer, “I think you should. We’d like you to come.”

  “Oh. Wait. You would?”