“There’s nothing to smile about.” Mom’s face tightened as she clenched her teeth.
“The cop said my art was good.” I closed my eyes, trying to get back the feeling I had when I was under the overpass—the cold can in my hand, the swish of the paint rushing out, a piece of art coming to life before me.
“Don’t even talk to me about painting.” Her knuckles turned white from gripping the steering wheel so hard. “You’ll take part in that art program and then that’s the end of painting.” She sighed again. “I don’t have the energy to argue with you, Victoria.”
I began to protest, but she cut me off with a look. As if she could force me to change if she glared hard enough. Nope, it’s still just me, your disappointing daughter here. Still wearing the black clothes and the nose ring. I went back to staring out the window and ignored her for the rest of the drive home.
Once we got home I went straight to my room and flopped on my bed on my stomach, exhausted. Truth is, I was really scared tonight. It hurt when Officer Mitchell grabbed my arm and twisted, but I had tried not to flinch or tear up. There was no way I was going to let him get the better of me. He was old and cranky. Tired of being a cop, I bet. And Mom—she was pissed. What else was new? But I never planned on getting caught. Now I had a record.
I flipped onto my back and stared at the stucco on the ceiling. It reminded me of paint on concrete. I tried to forget about the illegal part and just focus on the graffiti I had created. I got better and better each time. The persistence had paid off. And even though I spent hours and hours developing my skills, it never felt like work. The colours and lines in this latest picture were great. My backpack was stuffed with cannons and I had used them all: neon pink and green, bright blue and yellow, ruby red and burnt orange. My white highlights and black outlines were spot on. The idea was bold and imaginative; there wasn’t anything else like it in the city. No other artist had the guts to include themself in the piece. There, on a cold concrete surface, I had depicted my cold hard reality for all to see—at least for a few days. I thought about going back to get a picture. I should be building a portfolio of my work. Maybe Mom was determined about the community service, but I was determined about something too—I was definitely going to keep painting.
In the morning, I made my way to the kitchen, dropped two slices of bread in the toaster, and pushed the lever down. I took a glass from the cupboard and poured some orange juice. I could smell a hint of the apple-cinnamon oatmeal Mom had made before leaving for the early shift at the IWK, the children’s hospital. Our small kitchen was quiet except for the tick-tock of the old-fashioned wall clock and the hum of the fridge. No father. No mother. No brothers or sisters. Not even a dog or a cat.
There were some good things about being by myself: I didn’t have to wash many dishes or pick up the dirty socks James used to always leave in the living room. I could even eat my breakfast in front of the television if I wanted. I didn’t, because the picture above the couch gave me the creeps.
There was a day last year when I had come home from school to find Mom hanging that creepy print of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip—stiff smiles, jewels, furs, and all—in the living room. Mom’s eyes were bloodshot and her hands trembled.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Where’s the picture James painted?” He wouldn’t like her moving his art.
Mom didn’t respond.
There, in the middle of the floor, was a pile of busted paintings. Broken sunsets. Smashed frames. Everything James had painted in the last two years tossed in a haphazard heap. I stared at the broken pieces, thinking of James, the artiste. When he painted, he was so focused he forgot the rest of the world. That pissed Mom off.
“Mom…where’s James?”
She looked at me helplessly. She didn’t say the words out loud, but the look in her eyes told me he was gone. I knew they had loads of arguments about money and all the time he spent painting, but I never thought he’d leave Mom. Or me.
Mom had always liked the royal family, but when James left she went overboard.
“They’re the only family we need, Victoria,” she insisted.
Instead of landscapes and country scenes, I now have the Queen and her ancient husband in the living room and Prince Charles and Lady Diana in the hallway. It’s creepy the way their eyes follow me as I walk by. If I stop they look down their noses in disgust. Yet, they are the ones standing in a forced pose with stiff smiles that don’t quite reach their eyes.
James was the only father I ever knew, even though we didn’t share any DNA. My real dad died shortly after I was born. James loved to paint and he began teaching me when I was five years old. At first we just used finger-paints….
“Like this,” James said, trying to get me to mimic his picture—a little house, three stick people, a big tree in the yard, a golden sun.
I swirled the colours together on my paper: blue, green, red, yellow. I loved the slippery feel of the paint as it moved across the paper. Soon it was a big blob of greyish paint. I looked up at James.
“A true artist,” he said, laughing. “You have your own ideas, and that’s that.”
James took a paint-covered finger and dabbed the end of my nose. I shrieked and giggled.
We continued to paint and chat for hours, swapping ideas and talking about what we were creating. When we finished, James carried me on his shoulders to the kitchen where we made messy ice cream sundaes, the chocolate syrup replacing the paint. The perfect way to celebrate our accomplishments.
I snapped out of my reverie. Years after the finger painting, James had introduced me to acrylics and oils. He showed me how to use the different brushes and knives.
When James left, he took his easels, tubes of paint, buckets of brushes, and pile of pre-stretched canvases with him. So I decided to buy my own. Only I decided to be more daring. Anyone could paint on a canvas, but not everyone had the guts to do graffiti. Over the past year I’d practiced and improved, learning to use the cans and different caps. I started with just my tag but kept at it, and soon I was creating full pictures and scenes—works of legitimate art. In the beginning it reminded me of James, but now it’s more than that: I get pulled into the creative process and for a little while, it’s all that matters….
But Mom associates painting with James and has vowed to remove all signs of both from our lives.
Breakfast done, I returned to my room to get dressed. I stood in front of the mirror and ran my gel-filled hands through my hair, pulling sections up to make them stand in familiar spikes. I smeared white foundation on my face, quickly lined my eyes with a black kohl liner, and expertly layered on the mascara. Like my spray-paint skills, my knack for going goth was getting better and faster. I slipped away and let Goth Girl emerge.
The first time Mom saw me with the goth look was a couple of months after James left. I needed a change, and I wanted something to focus on rather than the emptiness. I found a picture in a magazine and copied the look. But, wow, Mom freaked that I had gotten my lip and nose pierced. And she couldn’t understand the makeup and hair.
“What have you done?” she hollered, her eyes wide with shock.
“I’m trying something new.”
I had to admit I did get some satisfaction in making her lose her cool. Most of the time she acted like she didn’t even know I existed unless she was yelling at me for something. At least now she could see me—or Goth Girl, anyway.
There was comfort in being Goth Girl: she was strong when I wasn’t; she was mouthy when I was vulnerable; I missed James, she missed no one; I wanted Mom to understand me, Goth Girl didn’t need anyone. I had considered giving up the look, but Mom was unreasonable.
“Take it off,” she demanded. “Take it off now. You look like a no-good criminal.” She studied me for a moment, narrowing her eyes. “You’re not in trouble, are you? Are you taking drugs?”
“No! It
’s just a new look.” I crossed my arms over my chest watching Mom freak. I stared at her, daring her to look away. Eventually she did.
“I don’t understand you, Victoria.” Then she sighed one of her “oh, poor me” sighs and left the room.
Never did she suggest I was too pretty to hide, or beautiful just the way I was. She still didn’t see me. She never saw me anymore. When James was here Mom and I hung out and did “girly stuff” like painting our nails or doing each other’s hair. But now it was always about her. Well, at least this way—when I had all the makeup on—her reaction was somewhat understandable. It was clear I was never going to please her, so I might as well please myself.
I stared at the only real family photo we had, tucked in the corner of my mirror. It was a strip of four shots of Mom and me from the photo booth at the mall. The edges were curled and the colours faded. I had begged Mom to get in the booth and she did, but she refused to smile. She and James had just had a big fight about something. She had taken me to the mall so she could get away from him for a bit, but it wasn’t our usual shopping-and-splitting-a-milkshake-type day. I tried to cheer her up and I made a goofy face in each photo, sticking out my tongue and crossing my eyes. I tried to tickle her, but she got upset. The last picture is of me and a glimpse of Mom’s arm as she escapes through the curtain, back to the mall.
And now Mom was angry with me over the graffiti. I bet she wants to escape again and leave, just like James. I opened my closet and reached for a black shirt and black jeans, leaving anything with colour pushed to the back, untouched.
I grabbed my English books from my locker and headed down the hall, ignoring the people gawking at me. You’d think they’d be over it by now. After all, it’s almost the end of the school year. I watched this couple approach, so into each other the building could have fallen down around them and they probably wouldn’t have noticed. But when they got close, they stopped dead in their tracks and stared at me. I blew her a kiss and winked at him. When a girl coming up behind them didn’t see them stop and crashed into them, I laughed out loud.
I like school. At least, I like the learning part. Some teachers say I have an “attitude problem,” but they can’t fault my grades. I get good marks; they’re my ticket out of here. Maybe I’ll head to a big city like New York and go to art school. I could stay there and get paid for creating art. It’d be great to live in a city that big with so much to see and do. I bet no one would even notice me there. I would just be another person walking down the sidewalk. I could paint in Central Park or on Staten Island and sell gallery prints of landscapes, like the ones James taught me to do. But my full-time job would be street art. I’d find a way to do graffiti and get paid for it—big billboard-type pieces used for branding and advertisement, full-sized walls commissioned by huge corporations and rich art enthusiasts. Even I was willing to be part of the “big-business-bullshit” world if it meant I could paint every day.
Yeah, right. Who was I kidding? New York was out of my league and way too expensive. I’d have to settle for the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design here in Halifax. But even that was over two years away. I had to get through the rest of high school first.
I slid into my seat just as the bell rang.
“Oh, look,” said Mark, who sat in the next seat. “Today, for a change, Miss Vic is wearing black.”
He snickered and Jeremy joined in.
“No, wait,” said Kate. “Do I see a hint of colour?” She stretched her neck out like a goose to look at me. She flipped her hair and scoffed as she turned back around. “Never mind, it’s just the light reflecting off her nose ring.”
I didn’t respond. It was the same thing every day and it had gotten old. Couldn’t they come up with some new material?
Mr. Fawthrope walked in. “I have your papers graded,” he said. “Some of you did very well. A couple of you need to see me after class.”
He walked up and down the aisles, handing back papers. My eyes followed his every step. I tapped my pencil so hard I thought it might break. I’d stayed up late working on the assignment and even skipped going out to paint that night. I really liked Mr. Fawthrope; he wasn’t like the other teachers. He encouraged us to think on our own and not just give the expected answer. He never followed the same boring script the other teachers used. The other teachers seemed to dislike him for this, but he continued anyway, and the school board allowed him to stay because his students did well.
“Great job,” said Mr. Fawthrope, handing me my paper.
“Nothing to it,” I said. I nodded and looked at the A circled in blue ink at the top of the page. I breathed a sigh of relief and tried to stuff the graded paper in my binder before Kate or Mark could see it. Usually I managed this without incident, but today I was not so lucky.
Mr. Fawthrope was still returning papers.
“How’d you get an A?” asked Mark, sceptical.
“What do you care?”
“There’s no way you turned in a better paper than me,” hissed Kate. Kate was the girl destined to be valedictorian. She was on every committee going, she played volleyball and basketball, she got top grades in every class, and she competed with anyone who tried to outdo her. I could not believe how important it was for her to be better than everyone else. I did a good job because I liked to learn; Kate’s goal was to be the best. Even if it meant being the best snob.
“I worked hard.” I gave Kate my best screw you look.
“Sure you did,” she whispered back, rolling her eyes. “When do you have time? You’re too busy painting graffiti at night.” She glanced at Mr. Fawthrope and continued: “My brother said he saw you at the overpass the other day. And it wasn’t the first time either.”
“Tell your brother, thanks for the concern but I can look after myself,” I snapped. Shut up and mind your own business, I thought furiously. I looked around to see if anyone else was listening.
“Jeeze. Fine. Relax. What about the paper?” asked Kate.
Man, she was persistent. “You can get papers online, Kate. They even sell papers better than yours. If fact, that’s how you order them: less-than-Kate, as-good-as-Kate, or better-than-Kate. I was feeling spunky, so I ordered the ‘better-than’ option this time.”
Kate flushed and opened her mouth to retort, but Mr. Fawthrope was already back at the front of the class talking about our next assignment.
____
At lunchtime, I sat in the cafeteria with Justine. Justine wasn’t really a friend, just someone to sit with during lunch. We were in a couple of the same classes and even worked on a history project together last fall when she had just moved here. Most kids didn’t seem to take to her fuchsia mohawk, dog tags, and heavy metal T-shirts. When it came time to pick a partner for the project, she picked me. It was the first time I got chosen because of the way I looked and the good feeling stuck with me. We got a great mark and started sitting together at lunch.
We weren’t part a clique—the jocks, the brainiacs, the socialites—but being excluded was one of the few things we did have in common. We had discussed the basics: I was an only child; she had two brothers. My dad had died and James had left; she lived with her mom and dad. She was into music; I was into art.
Justine took out one of her ear buds and handed it to me. “Here. Listen. I found a song by Motörhead that I hadn’t heard before. It’s awesome.”
I put in the ear bud as she jacked up the volume on her iPhone. I grimaced and shook my head, handing her back the ear piece. We definitely didn’t share a taste in music. “Aren’t those guys old?”
“Music doesn’t age.” Justine moved back and forth with the beat, leaving one ear bud in place so she could continue to listen to the song as we sat.
I smiled. “So what’s up, besides the new tunes?” I began stuffing fries into my mouth.
“Not much. I hear you’re putting the paint to good use. Sorry you got nabbed.
”
I shrugged one shoulder. “Yeah. News travels fast around here.”
“Jeremy’s dad has a police scanner and hears everything. And Jeremy can’t wait to tell.”
I nodded in agreement. That was Jeremy. “Getting caught was just my dumb luck. You should’ve seen the piece, though. It was coming along great. Now I’ve got to paint some mural with a bunch of brats for community service.” I took a gulp of Coke. “You know those mural paintings downtown? They’re done by other ‘bad’ kids like me. It’s called The Community Art Project or something lame like that.”
“Cool. At least you will get to paint. Maybe you’ll make friends.”
I laughed hollowly. “With all the friends I have here, who has time for more? You know Kate and I are just like this,” I said, crossing my fingers.
Justine chuckled and picked up her tray, pocketing her iPhone. “I’ll see you later,” she said. “And be careful. If you land in the slammer, who will I eat lunch with?”
____
After school I had to go to work at the convenience store down the road from my house. I look after customers, show them where to find things when they ask, ring in their purchases, and make change. When it isn’t busy I sweep the floor and stock shelves. It’s not exactly meaningful work but I’m grateful to have a job. I had gone to several interviews, but most bosses are small-minded and couldn’t get past my wardrobe and makeup. One even had the nerve to predict I would never get hired “looking like that.” Even Mr. Habib thought I looked like a hoodlum, but he’s known me since I was little and said he knew I was a good kid. He figured if he hired me it would keep the real hoodlums from bothering his store. Whatever. I’m glad to have the money—paint and caps are expensive.
Goth Girl Page 2