“Nebraska is an icebox. Don’t let that middle-of-the-country thing fool you,” she said when I was in second grade. She tapped the map of the United States that was tacked to our hallway wall and crouched down to my height. “It’s no place for a water girl. In the winters, the cold smacks your face and bites your skin. Everything is frozen. The horizon is gray as far as you can see.”
The way she tells the story, you’d think she’d packed a few swimsuits into a bandanna, wrapped that around a stick, and hitched all the way to the Sunshine State.
“The day after graduation, I walked out the door and turned my back on Nebraska. I had a destination, and I had some determination, so I trekked right across the country and then down south as the ocean called out to me. I needed to be near waves, and warm water, and seas I could dive into year-round,” she said, sweeping her index finger along the mapped edge of Florida’s coastline, as if I needed the reminder that we lived on a big toe surrounded by blue. But I watched her hands, mesmerized by the way she could weave both water and words, how every move of her body, every ordinary gesture, even her hand trailing along a laminated map, was a ballet.
Now she’s camped out on a papasan chair and hasn’t felt the sun on her skin in years, stricken by some mystery ailment that’s handcuffed her to the house and turned her into a shell of the woman she once was. She doesn’t even talk the same.
“They do, Mom. The doctors in New York, they’ll be able to figure out what’s wrong,” I say, trying desperately to plant the seed of escape in her. Maybe we can do more than visit New York. Maybe a doctor can heal her, and then she can protect Jana from our dad. Or better yet, she can leave him, and be the mom she used to be. She can take care of Jana.
She waves a hand, like she’s swatting away an errant bug. “Don’t worry about me.”
“But don’t you want to? They have medicine for panic disorders. There are things you can take, you know. I’ve researched it. I’ve looked it up.”
Her eyes harden, as they do whenever I name it. The thing that pins her down. “Aria, can you go fetch me my newspaper? I want to read the latest on how the Lookouts stopped that tropical storm brewing in the Caribbean,” she says.
The Lookouts are the teams of elemental artists who help fight forest fires and turn hurricanes into tropical storms. Elemental artists can’t control Mother Nature, but they can help quell her when she slouches toward disaster. The Lookouts are the reason neither Florida nor any other state has been battered by anything greater than a category 1 or 2 storm in the last several years. The reason why brush fires in Los Angeles last for hours now instead of days.
“Yes, Mom. I’ll get you the paper.”
I open the front door, where I’m greeted by a blast of morning heat. I walk to the end of the driveway, grab the newspaper, and bring it to my mom.
“Thank you, my love,” she says, then kisses me on the cheek and opens the paper, closing the conversation.
When I return to my room, I kneel by my bed and pull out an orange crate that holds my fashion magazines. I don’t read them for tips on what to wear. I like to draw on the models instead. I give them tails and longer noses or cartoon eyes and extra hands. Nothing fancy, nothing that would make comic book artists quake in their boots. But they’re mine. They’re my graffiti, and I like to keep them, to look at them when I need a laugh. They’ve served their purpose many times, after many returns from the garage, when all I could do was use my wrists to flip through pages of my mustachioed models waggling cigars from their pouty lips and quipping cartoon-bubbled sayings—“Get your fish and chips here” and other ridiculous things.
Inside one of the magazines is a worn-out sheet of paper I’ve kept there for more than three years. It’s full of dates, including the one I marked on it two nights ago. The night I lost my fire. The night I regained my fire. The night my fire started to eat me alive.
Again.
“What if hair could feel?”
“What if?”
“Do you think my hair can feel your hands?” Jana asks me as I weave another section of her rabbit-soft brown hair into a French braid. She’s folding a flyer from last night’s show into a makeshift fan.
“Well, I hope you can feel my hands, dork.”
“No. I mean really feel. Like details. Like your—”
“Shhh …”
“Why?” She finishes the fan, then waves it in front of her face to cool off. It’s hot and then some in our house; but proximity to me makes her toastier.
“Don’t.”
“But I can. I can feel the ridges a bit—”
“Anyway,” I say, cutting her off, “what are you going to do today?”
She shrugs. “There’s nothing to do. I hate summer vacation.”
“Words you rarely hear from a twelve-year-old.”
“Well, it’s boring when you’re twelve and don’t have a phone or a car, and your mom won’t drive you anywhere and your sister is gone all the time.”
“It’s not as if I love all-day practices either when school’s out. Anyway, what’s Mindy doing?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, call her,” I say. Mindy is Kyle’s little sister.
“It’s too early. She’s never up this early.”
“Text her. Use my phone. In my pocket.”
I loop another strand of hair as Jana reaches into my pocket. Her hand is cold and it tickles. I wriggle a bit. She laughs, then sends a message.
“I’ll call you when she writes back, okay?”
“What if you’re on fire?” Jana teases.
“Then I guess you’ll never know what Mindy wants to do today, silly,” I say as I wrap the end of the braid in a tight rubber band. “There. Beautiful.”
Jana leans back into me, and I wrap my arms around her. “Do you want to go pool hopping tonight?”
She turns her face to me and grins. “You’ll go with me?”
“Sure. I think the Markins are out of town for a few weeks. We can sneak into their yard.”
Jana beams. “I love pool hopping with you.”
“I know. Because you’re a fish.”
“Maybe I should just go to the beach today.”
I tense. “Okay, but don’t tell Dad.”
“Why?”
I lower my voice. “Because he’ll ask a million questions. You know he will. He’ll want to know if you turned into a dolphin or something.”
“Maybe I am a dolphin,” Jana says, and flashes me a smile, her teeth white and bright and perfectly straight.
“You might be. But don’t tell him. Promise me, okay?” I whisper, tightening my arms around her, gripping her as if I can protect her this way. With her promise. With a hope. With a wish.
“I promise,” she tells me.
“Time to go,” my father barks from the driveway.
I jump up. “I’ll draw a dolphin on your arm later if you’re nice to Mom today. I’ll even give him sideburns,” I say as I give Jana a kiss on the forehead, then grab my bag as she tells me no sideburns ever. I rush out, shouting good-bye to my mom, who’s working the crossword puzzle now. Xavier is still snoring, lying on his stomach, with one arm dangling off the side of the couch. The back of his hand glares at me, marked with a dark X, etched like a tattoo.
I slide into the front seat of my dad’s car, a 1970 Pontiac GTO he restored a few years ago with parts that had come into the junkyard he runs. He also had one of his car cronies lay a pair of flame decals on the sides. They’re hideous.
“Did you sleep well last night?” He twists his gaze behind him as he backs out of the driveway.
“Like a baby.”
“Do you feel rested today?”
“Totally.”
“I told Nava you need to work on control exercises.”
“What a surprise.”
“You do. I want pristine control, Aria.”
“I’m sure.”
“Don’t be sarcastic with me.”
“I wasn’t b
eing sarcastic. I meant it. I’m sure you want pristine control. I have no doubt you want perfect, rigorous, pristine, impeccable control. And you’ll get it. So don’t worry.”
“I don’t worry. You are the most talented fire artist there is.”
I am, and I like to think it’s because I train so hard. I work harder than anyone, but maybe that’s just to make up for my crime. Maybe I can never make up for it. Maybe I’m only good because I’m not natural.
Silence fills the car for a few minutes, but at least the air is cool inside these four doors. When my dad fixed up this car, he fixed the AC in it too. I take a pen from the front of my backpack and draw a stick figure blowing up TNT on my thigh.
“Don’t do that,” my dad says.
I ignore him, bending my head lower to ink out a cartoon explosion. Thighs are wonderful inventions with their dual purpose. They propel us quickly if we work them, and they also provide magnificent, omnipresent canvases.
“Why do you do that?”
I say nothing. This—silence, the occasional snark—is all I have to fight back. To show him that he hasn’t broken me.
He relents. “Someone’s coming in today to pick through our stock of Fords. Should be a good day. We have a lot of those,” he says in an offhand way. As if I care about his love of cars. “Fords.”
“That’s great.”
“I’m betting we’ll clear a thousand.”
“Fabulous.”
“Wouldn’t it be, though?” He turns toward me at the red light.
I try not to look at him. “Yes. Money’s awesome.”
If I’m recruited into the Leagues, I plan to save every last dime and use it to steal again. To steal my mom and my sister and my brother away from my dad.
7
Secrets and Shortstops
I walk through the doors of the training facility. The air-conditioning grinds louder as I pass through. It’s heat sensitive, so the AC’s working harder, sensing the rise in temperature. I head for the old bullpen, where I practice.
Nava is thrilled with my precision and my stunningly beautiful flames.
“Beauty is always rewarded,” Nava says after my flames soar higher than they ever have, curling into lush tails, like a peacock’s fan spread open.
“That seems like some sort of wise old adage that is supposed to mean something but really doesn’t,” I say, teasing her, feeling light and fun again now that I’m back in control.
“What? You don’t like my adages? How about You will obtain your goal if you maintain the course?”
“Now you’re just a fortune cookie, Nava. I thought you didn’t even like Chinese food.”
She puts a hand on her heart in mock indignation. “Not like Chinese food? All my people love Chinese food. Of course I love it.”
“Do they have Chinese food in Israel?”
“No. We had to go pluck all our food straight from the fields. We had to yank carrots from the ground and shoot arrows into rabbits if we wanted to eat.”
“Oh, ha-ha.”
“Well, you asked a silly question, so you got a silly answer,” she says as we continue to work through my moves out in the bullpen. “But yeah, of course we had convenience stores and Chinese restaurants in Tel Aviv. But I hear it’s all changed since then.”
“You mean since the Middle East became the M.E.?”
Nava nods. “Since the treaty, yes. I mean, there are still convenience stores and Chinese food. But everything else changed and for the better, of course. When I talk to my cousins who are still there, they tell me how wonderful it is to walk the streets and not fear getting shot or bombed.”
“Do you ever want to go back?”
“I’m a Florida girl now. Florida’s been good to me. Besides, Florida will be good to you too, Aria.”
“Yuck. I can’t stand Florida,” I say, but unlike Nava I’ve never even been anyplace else.
“I hope you might like Miami,” she says in this coy, flirty voice. And I turn to her, my eyes wide.
“What do you mean, Nava?”
Her voice has a playful glint to it. “Just that Miami, if it works out, might be a nice place for you to spend a few months.”
I spin toward her, my veins filling with hope. “Am I going to Miami? Do the M.E. Leagues want me?”
She holds up her slender hands and laughs. “I don’t know. But what I do know is this: I took a phone call this afternoon from a certain scout from the M.E. Leagues who’s had his eye on our team and a few of our artists in particular.”
“And?” I feel like I may rocket to the moon with excitement, that I might very well learn I have wings and can fly.
“And it’s a good thing your control is better because he’ll be here on Friday.”
I give Nava a massive hug, grinning. She pats my back, and I can tell she’s smiling too, and I’m so deliriously happy that a tear slides down my cheek.
Nava pulls back, mistaking it as worry. “You’ll be fine. Don’t worry. You’re ready.”
I nod, collecting myself. I so rarely let emotions show. I return to my usual stoicism. “Does my dad know yet?”
Nava shakes her head. “I’ll call him later and tell him. I wanted you to know first.”
I have a secret. Sure, it has an expiration date in a few hours. But it feels so good.
I turn back to the concrete wall, thinking of my dad, of all the ways he’s hurt me. I throw a massive fireball that spins on its path to the concrete. For the briefest of seconds, I swear my fire has the faint outlines of a pair of eyes. Then it hits the wall and disappears. Maybe I imagined it.
Elise and I walk through the weight room on the way in from the field. The room is filled with grunts and the clangs of iron bars going up and down, as well as with glares from the ballplayers. The shortstop is the only one who doesn’t stare us down. Instead, he manages the tiniest of smiles, and it makes his blue eyes crinkle in a cute and kind of sexy way. I’m not even sure what his name is, but I’m glad he’s on the team.
Elise cups her hands over my ear. “Listen. I heard from some of my friends in the M.E. Leagues. The scout wants something big. Something special.”
“Like what? Like the legendary fire twin?” I suggest, though I’m joking because the fire twin is a trick that hasn’t been seen in several years.
“Well, if you could do that, then yes. If you want to get out of town, you need to wow him.”
“So what should I do that’s epic? The spinning-wheel trick? The starlight? I don’t know if I have time to develop a new trick.”
“Can you combine two? Like marry the arc that you do with starlight?”
“I don’t know. I mean, yeah. But is that enough?” I ask, and my voice sounds like a squeak, tripping on my own desperation.
“Talk to Nava. I’ll make some calls. We’ll come up with something. Maybe ask Xavi?”
I scoff. “Yeah, he knows all the right tricks. But what about you?”
Elise laughs drily, a quick laugh. “You know I don’t stand a chance with a scout. Plus, my parents want me in the Lookouts, not the Leagues.”
“I know,” I say. I’ve known this for years. Her parents always saw the Wonder team as a feeding ground for the Lookouts. But Elise and I are more than a team. I can’t survive without her. Elise is a year older than I am, but we’ve been best friends for years, and nearly inseparable throughout high school. The good thing is, since she’s going to college in Miami, we can still meet up for renewals if I’m recruited.
We leave the weight room, stares following us.
“Go Mud Dogs,” Elise shouts, pumping a fist as the door swings shut. Then a shrug. “They already hate us.”
“Not all of them.”
“Well, the nonhaters are nice. Especially the shortstop.”
“He’s definitely a babe.”
“You should go for it.”
“Ha,” I say because I don’t do that. I don’t “go for it” when it comes to boys. Going for it could lead to getting it, an
d then where would I be? Stuck with someone who’d want to know me, who I’d want to tell all my secrets to. I don’t want to share my secrets because I don’t trust anyone but Elise. So I don’t get too close to boys. They belong in photos on my phone.
Not closer. Never closer.
My father holds his index finger to his lips when I walk inside that night. He tips his forehead to the chair. My mom is sleeping.
“She just fell asleep,” he whispers, his voice like a pillow when he talks of her. He says this as if it’s some wondrous mystery that my mother is sleeping. My mother is the queen of sleeping. Yet everything about her somehow enchants him. He tends to her, brushes her hair, runs the bath for her. Sometimes it seems as if he’d do anything for her. To keep her. The coddling, the kid gloves he wears with her are such a contrast to how he is with me.
“Okay,” I say in a whatever kind of tone and head to the kitchen for a glass of water.
He rises from the couch and follows me, padding quietly.
“Aren’t you excited for the scout?”
I shrug as I run the tap and drink some water. I am excited, but I will never let on in front of him.
“This is what we’ve been working for, Aria. This is what all our hard work has been leading to.”
I tense, holding my hands behind my back. I clutch my fingers, linking them together, as if that will keep my hands safe.
“Are you ready for Friday?”
“Totally.” I won’t let him know the scout wants a big trick. If I tell him that, he’ll burn me again, as if his matches might elicit something new and magnificent from my hands.
“You need to be amazing on Friday. And I know you can be. You can. And then we can get air-conditioning, and we can get a new chair …”
He looks at my mom sadly, but with so much regret and love in his eyes that he seems like a different person. His voice slips and he covers his eyes. If he were a real father, I’d comfort him. I’d tell him I want Mom to be okay too. But I don’t want to get her a new chair. I want to get her a new life, and I want him out of mine. I soften, but not for him. For Mom, for Jana, for Xavi. The Leagues are my path to their freedom. “It’s okay, Daddy. I’ll be great. I promise.”
The Fire Artist Page 4