Chapter Two
Mom parks the Toyota in front of Lakeview Middle School. The morning sun has already moved across the tops of the gymnasium, and I know I’m very late.
I waited too long for Dad.
At breakfast, he said that he just had to run out for a little bit. The morning light was perfect. But as the stove clock ticked past the first bell, I knew Dad had forgotten his promise. He had forgotten this was the morning he had to take me to school for the contest. I try very hard not to start bawling. There is some simple explanation, I keep telling myself. There must be. He told me he would take me.
“Jasmine,” Mom says.
I look at her, and our eyes lock.
“I’m okay,” I mumble. Once again, Mom and I are a team. As our eyes meet, I feel tears floating too close to the surface. I swallow hard and push them away. I turn around and try to lift the collage out of the backseat. The sides jam against the seats. I hold my breath and hope that the canvas won’t tear. If Dad were here, he’d park the car and very carefully ease the collage out of it. But Dad isn’t here.
I push and tug, and the collage breaks free. I hold it in front of me like a shield and head toward the gymnasium. I hate being late for anything, so I walk quickly.
“Art projects over here!” Mrs. Hanson, the school principal, calls as I step through the gymnasium doors. Her nasal voice carries across the slick floor and bounces off the concrete walls. “Jasmine! You’re late,” she barks.
“I’m sorry.” I peek around my collage and spy an empty easel near the front. Dad always says, “Get there early and set up in the front. By the time the judges get to the back, everything looks the same to them. They’ll remember the first one they see.” The wave of disappointment that Dad is not here to help washes over me. My throat closes and I push away Dad’s face, sending the sad feelings deeper and deeper into a dark hole inside of me that I imagine burying with a big shovel under a lot of dirt.
I hoist my collage onto the easel. The easel tilts and sways under the weight of the heavy canvas. I keep my hand on the collage and try to find a balancing point.
“That yours?”
“Yes.” I don’t need to turn around to know the voice.
“Kinda strange. Don’t you think?” Julie Ann, my worst enemy, steps so close to me I can smell her peach-scented lotion. She scrunches her nose and crosses her arms. I want to do the same about the lotion she is wearing. Julie Ann sticks her face close to the collage.
“It’s art,” I say as the easel tilts to the right. I lurch after it in a stretch that was never taught in gym class. I will not fight with Julie Ann. Last year, after arguing with her about space on an art table, I spent three days in the counseling office, sitting in a green plastic chair with a rip in the side, while Mr. McIntosh talked about the importance of conflict resolution. I pretended to be interested.
“Hmm…” Julie Ann places her pink-painted fingernail alongside the collage and moves it slowly. At any minute her long nail will tear a gaping hole in the canvas.
“Don’t!” I knock Julie Ann’s finger away and bite the inside of my lip as the canvas tips and the easel crashes to the floor.
My collage lands facedown on the hard gymnasium floor.
“Jasmine!” Mrs. Hansen bustles toward us and leaves two parents standing, mouths open and pencils poised above clipboards.
“See you later.” Julie Ann smirks and ducks around the corner of a watercolor print with sunflowers.
Wanting to slug Julie Ann, I pick up my collage. If Dad were here, Julie Ann never would have dreamed of talking to me. I push down the lump in my throat and ball my fingers into a tight clutch around my collage. For a minute, I want to scream. How can the morning light be more important than me? How can he have forgotten about the art contest? And just as quickly, I stuff the words deep inside.
It’s something I learned to do a long time ago.
“Set your collage over there,” Mrs. Hansen says and waves to a back corner of the gymnasium. She pushes red curls away from her forehead. The curls spring and then bound back onto her shiny forehead.
“What about the judges?” The parent judges cluster in the corner. They are all staring at us, and I want to stick out my tongue. But I know that would really disqualify me.
“They’ll find it,” Mrs. Hansen mutters and walks away.
A spot way in the back is not a good idea, but the alternative of arguing with Mrs. Hansen seems worse. I pick up the collage and carry it to the back corner. Once I reach the corner, I see there is no easel. Only a small doorway leading to what I assume must be the janitor’s closet. I lean the collage against the closed door and step back to take one last look. I hope it doesn’t slip and crash to the floor. In the shadows, the colors blend together into one dark mass. The brilliant green from the tree and my vision of the night before is non-existent. My insides feel just like those colors—blended in one dark mass, tucked away in the corner.
The morning drags, and I can barely concentrate. I’m thinking of nothing but the contest. After a lunch that I don’t eat, I join a slow-moving line of people heading toward the auditorium and the contest awards. The chatter rises and falls in a big bunch of noise around me. Seeing the line snake toward the back of the auditorium, I jump out and head toward the front. I can’t sit in the back. I need to be up front. Winners sit up front. Up front is closer to where I will jump up on the stage and claim my award.
“Jasmine!” Mr. McIntosh steps forward and places his large hand on my shoulder. “Your class is in row 12.” He gently turns me toward the middle of the auditorium.
“I’m in the contest,” I remind him. “I sit in the front.” I give him my best smile. I hope he will not say anything about my rebellious behavior with Julie Ann.
He mumbles something about forgetting, and I dodge around him, plop into a front row seat and take a deep breath. Just because I have been in his office for that one fight with Julie Ann, it seems like I can’t do anything without having him right behind me and checking every move. I cross my legs and twirl my ring. In only a matter of minutes, my name will be called and I’ll be up on that stage. I will prove to Mr. McIntosh and everyone else that I am not a failure.
Jasmine Baast, Artist. I hum as I imagine hanging my collage next to Dad’s award winning photography.
On stage, Mrs. Hansen begins talking. The seats around me remain empty. I try not to think about how I am sitting in the front.
Alone.
Everyone else sits with friends.
For a minute, I pretend I have a very important phone call and dig in my bag for my cell phone. Maybe Dad will have remembered to text me a message. A good luck message. I will smile and not feel so alone. I flip open the top and stare hard at the screen.
There is no message.
“And now,” Mrs. Hansen says, “The contest winners.”
I twirl my ring hard and fast. My heart feels like it might pound right out of my chest.
“Third place…” Mrs. Hansen says. “Goes to…”
I hold my breath.
“Vicky Parkinson for her watercolor drawing, Flowers in the Garden.”
A tiny girl with long dark hair sprints toward the podium from the left side of the auditorium, and a group of girls scream. Vicky Parkinson is a sixth grader. I clap and smile one of Mom’s “everything is just wonderful” smiles. She uses those smiles a lot after Dad has said something that is not so wonderful.
“Second place,” Mrs. Hansen says, and turns toward the seventh grade bleachers. “Alex Cooper for his Day at the Baseball Park photograph.”
A blonde boy, who I think might be cute in a few years, jogs forward to the podium. I clap while smiling at him. Scooting to the edge of the chair, I hold my breath.
“And now,” Mrs. Hansen says as Alex steps to the side of the stage next to Vicky. “The moment you’ve been waiting for. The first place winner.”
I let out a big whoosh of air.
“We’ve had many fine entr
ies, and the judges had a hard time deciding.”
Why do they always say that? I shift closer to the edge of my chair.
“The winner…” Mrs. Hansen pauses. “Is Julie Ann Wilson.”
I freeze.
Julie Ann.
Julie Ann with her flimsy watercolor. Sunflowers in a meadow. That’s not art. Art is my collage.
Bold.
Big.
And fabulous.
I jump up and instead of cheering, I scream. “Didn’t you see the collage in the corner?”
No one pays attention to me as Julie Ann steps on to the stage. She takes her award and ribbon from Mrs. Hansen and turns to give a victory wave.
I push out of my seat and rush toward the front podium. I don’t care if I get in trouble and have to spend days and days in the ripped chair in the counseling office.
Julie Ann smirks. “Are you here to congratulate me?” She waves her blue ribbon and white envelope in front of her. “Or give me suggestions for what to buy with my gift certificate?”
I shove past Julie Ann and toward Mrs. Hanson. “My collage. Did you judge my collage?”
Mrs. Hanson frowns at me. “Only winners on the stage.”
“My collage! No one saw my collage!” I can barely keep the tears from spilling over as I cross my hands across my chest and try to stop myself from shaking. Why is this happening? I should be the winner.
“No.” Mrs. Hanson shakes her head. “You are disqualified. Your canvas is too big.”
I hold very still, like I do when Mom and Dad fight. I lie in the dark as I listen to their voices rise, thinking that, somehow, I can make the fighting stop with my stillness.
I remember showing the contest directions to Dad, the ones that said the size of canvas we could enter. Dad pushed the paper aside and said, “The size of your canvas is not going to matter, Jasmine. They don’t really care about things like that.”
“No.” I barely whisper the word. No. The shaking feeling is back, only it’s much worse than it was last night. I have failed. Mom will make me attend summer classes at Fishers. Dad will go to his art institute classes without me, and I will be nothing.
Nothing.
I shove my way off the stage and head toward the exit doors. Who cares if it’s the emergency exit and the alarm will ring? This is an emergency, and there has to be something I can do to stop the train wreck that is about to become my summer.
I reach out for the exit doors as Mr. McIntosh drops his heavy hand on my right shoulder. “Can I see you in my office please?”
I whirl around in time to see Julie Ann shake her head and smirk. I want to sink into the floor. I have lost the art contest. I’ve disappointed Dad, and I’m going to spend days in after-school detention. Everything is more than a train wreck. It is a tsunami.
Chapter Three
“A little to the left,” I hear Mom say as I push open the door to the apartment. I drop the yellow flyer on the front hall table and head toward her voice. On the way home, I had stopped by the Art Palace. Jennifer, the Art Palace Director, was just posting the art contest flyer on the bulletin board inside the double doors. “Good luck, Jasmine,” she told me. “The theme is ‘celebration’.”
I don’t feel like celebrating right now, but I’m sure I can come up with something by the contest deadline at the end of July. And this time I will win.
“Mom?” I holler.
“In here!”
I round the corner and find myself standing next to a tall ladder. “What are you doing?”
Mom touches a spot on the wall that has been missed. A man wearing paint-stained overalls holds a roller brush covered in bright yellow paint.
“I’m just making a few changes.” Mom says, and laughs in a high-pitched voice. It doesn’t sound at all like a laugh, more like a shriek. She brushes a strand of dark hair away from her face. “I always wanted more color in this room.”
“Does Dad know?” Dad hates change. He is not going to like this yellow wall.
“Your dad left,” Mom says abruptly.
“He never came back from this morning’s photography shoot?” I try to process what Mom is telling me.
“No.” Mom looks hard at me before she reaches in her pocket and pulls out a note. “Here.”
Slowly I take the note. My hands are shaking and my heart is pounding. I don’t need a magic ring or any other type of sixth sense to tell me that my world is about to crash in on me.
Dear Jasmine,
I know this will be a disappointment to you, but I have been hired for a photography shoot in Africa. I have to leave. Your Mother and I need some space apart. This will be good for both of us.
Love,
Dad
P.S. I called the school to find out about the contest. Next time, you must spend more time on your project. And follow the directions!
My eyes blur, but it doesn’t matter. The facts are there, on the paper. In his handwriting.
Dad is gone. The words replay over and over in my mind, and I can’t help but think if I had won the contest, this might have been different. Dad might have had a reason to stay. But I lost, and he is gone.
I raise my eyes and look anywhere but at Mom. I have been at school only seven hours, but already the loft looks like an interior decorator swept through the place. An interior decorator in love with the color yellow, who splashed bright sunshine yellow everywhere. Even the rugs are now yellow.
“Did you change the studio, too?”
“No.” Mom reaches over to turn on the living room lamp. Her arm brushes against a vase, which topples to the ground. A long thin crack splinters along the side, and a jagged crack forms as it hits the floor. It looks like at any moment, the vase will crack in two.
“Be careful!” A small silver of blood appears on Mom’s thumb. I grab a tissue out of the box on the table and hand it to her.
“Uncle Jasper,” she mutters as she wraps her thumb with the Kleenex.
“Uncle Jasper?” I wonder if Mom has lost part of her mind. Uncle Jasper is Mom’s older brother, who lives on a tiny island in the Pacific Northwest. Once a year he makes a surprise visit. Mom always says, “Can’t you call first?” and then pulls him into the apartment with a big hug. I know Mom enjoys Uncle Jasper’s unexpected visits as much as I do. But why does she say his name when the vase tips over?
“The vase is from his island,” Mom murmurs. “A gift.”
She sets the broken vase pieces on the coffee table and says brightly, “I bought something for you today, too.” Mom tries to smile at me, but it doesn’t even come close to meeting her eyes. “It’s in the bathroom.”
“Why?” I cross my hands in front of my chest. A gift at this point means one thing—pity. I don’t want a pity gift. I’ll probably walk into the bathroom and find a box of fake flowers that she thought looked so lively and colorful she just had to have them. Or, maybe she has bought one of those baskets of fake seashells soaps—the kind of soaps you can’t use because they are for display only.
“Jasmine,” Mom says softly. “He left me too.”
My insides twist and tears clump in my throat. I know Mom is right. Dad left both of us, and both of us hurt. It’s no good to be angry with her.
“I’m sorry.” I give her a quick hug. “I’m sure I’ll like my gift.”
Mom wraps her arms around me and pulls me close. I breathe in the smell of her perfume, and something else. Something that smells like a deep sadness that can never be washed out of her clothes or mine. When she releases me, I feel as if something has been sucked out of me. I take a deep breath, turn, and head toward the bathroom.
I haven’t gone three steps before I stop in front of one of Dad’s pictures. There are no awards on the pictures in the hallway. Dad said the pictures didn’t fit in the studio. They weren’t award winners. I rub my fingers over the glass. I remember the shoot, and even though I never told Dad, I like this picture better than Dad’s award pictures. The afternoon of the shoot, Dad and I ha
d driven an hour north to a cornfield. Dad spent hours working and adjusting his shutters and flashes to get just the right light. I spent the time drawing tall stalks of corn and trying to capture every tassel on the page. I rub my fingers over the glass.
Why did you leave? Why?
I swallow the lump in my throat and turn away from the picture to pull open the bathroom door. Inside the bathroom, baskets of lilac bath soaps, gels, salon shampoo and conditioner sit on the sink, on the tub, and in the shower. Mom must have spent a fortune and bought out the store. I pick up one of the lilac bath gels, open the lid, and inhale. The lilac rushes around me. It’s much better than Julie Ann’s peach lotion that made me want to gag.
“Do you like it?” Mom steps up behind me and places her arms around me.
“Yes,” I say, and swallow. “Why does it have to be so hard?”
“What?”
I see her frown in the mirror above the sink.
“Dad. The contest. All of it.”
“I don’t know, Jas.” Mom smoothes back a piece of hair from her face as her eyes meet mine in the mirror. “I don’t know.”
I pick up a small seashell soap. Dad would never let us cover the bathroom with soaps and lotions. But right now, as I twirl the pink soap in my fingers, I’d much rather have Dad than a bathroom full of pretty lotions and scents. Tears gather in the back of my throat and I know I have to be alone. I want to sit and bawl and bawl.
“I think I’ll take a bath,” I choke.
Mom touches my shoulder. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to be okay.”
A tear slides out. It’s going to take more than a basket of bath soaps and gels to make everything okay.
A lot more.
Long rectangular boxes of sunshine snake between the brick apartment building and across my thin black sandals as I head for the front door. I’m glad today is the last day of seventh grade. I don’t think I can stand one more minute of Julie Ann telling me how much fun she had signing up for her art classes. Or her glowing face as she talks about how great her blue ribbon looks on her bedroom wall, or how her mom contacted a local gallery and the gallery is interested in showing Julie Ann’s winning painting for a few weeks. I know she has to be lying about the gallery. I once asked Dad if any of my paintings could be shown in a gallery like his photography. He looked at me, and then tossed back his head and laughed.
Stained Glass Summer Page 2