Pearl

by Deirdre Riordan Hall

  “Yeah. I know of them,” he says with a shrug like it’s not as big a deal as Terran had hoped. Where there’s usually judgment, I don’t sense him measuring who I am in relation to her fame or her fall, if I have rock star credibility or connections, or whether I have a sizeable trust fund.

  Instead, his eyes dissolve into the same pools of sadness I saw the night we went sledding. He rushes to me, about to speak, but I talk first.

  “Confusion doesn’t come close to the number of feelings ricocheting inside me. Raw, blazing, aching. I want to be with you, but you made it clear, you don’t want to do anything more than kiss,” I say as if denying myself everything good that’s coming my way.

  “I’m just afraid,” he whispers.

  “And I’m tainted, stained.” I blurt out the details of how Terran exposed my mother, humiliating me in front of everyone, and how my roommate only answers me with nods and shakes of the head.

  “Stains, they tell a story, they’re a memory of moments gone by.”

  “Ugly, painful moments.” This truth swarms and stings no matter if I stay still or swat at it. “There is too much in my past that haunts me, making me incapable of being normal, of liking or loving or being the person I should be.”

  His eyes fill as if he’s looking at the stars for the first time and the beauty he finds there is bittersweet, because as suddenly as something stunning and whole appears, it’s just as likely to vanish back into the darkness.

  “I’m afraid if I get too close to you, it might burn. Painfully like the spark of a dying sun. And if you get too close to me, we’ll disappear into a black hole. That’s what I meant about not being friends and not talking and not—I want us to be close, but safe from each other,” he says. “I’m afraid to care about someone because I’m afraid I’ll lose them. But if we know that, we can make it work, right?”

  I slowly shake my head. I want to wrap my arms around his chest, nestle into that warmth transporting me far away from fear and doubt. Instead, I silently walk away, letting his words drift and fall between us. I glance over my shoulder. Grant stands there, stalled, before he plods down the path toward his dorm, the sadness that mimics my own pulling on his limbs.

  I reach for the doorknob to Viv Brooks, but it won’t turn. Through the glass window, Terran and a few other girls standing at the end of the hallway, simpering grins stretched on their faces. Locked out. I stare back. I close my eyes to keep the tears away, and when I open them, the girls have vanished, and Connie peers at me through the glass before she pulls open the door.

  Without tattling or offering an explanation, I dash to my room and cry for a solid twenty minutes. I didn’t know words, even ones spoken with so much promise, could wound me. I want to be with you. He shouldn’t want to know me. My body racks with unnamed pain, spreading through my veins, coursing through the circuits that run from my fingers to my toes and every cell in between. It wrecks me. My chest aches. Grant wants to be with me. I want to be with Grant. There shouldn’t be a problem. For months, he’s lingered somewhere in my thoughts, and yet nothing has ever hurt as much as pushing him away.

  Chapter 18

  I commit myself to studying as a worthy excuse to avoid Connie, Sorel, and Grant. Basically everyone—not an easy feat on a private school campus, and especially not when Terran and some of the other girls have it in for me.

  Their list of abuses grows: I set my laundry bag outside my door for pickup and later find it in the trash; twice, my towel, hanging from the hook outside the shower, went missing. I had to use the shower curtain. When I sat down in my usual spot for a dorm meeting, I almost landed in a bowl of soggy ashes. Not to mention the sneers, whispers, and general looks of caution.

  I hole up with Shale in the studio, poring over thick art books, illuminating the lives and methods of the greats, thumbing through tomes on color, line, shape, texture until my body hums with a glossary filled with terms, historic dates, and everything that doesn’t lead me to bring the brush to canvas.

  “You want to learn the rules so you can break the rules, yes?” Shale asks.

  “That’s what you taught us.”

  He shakes his head as if I’ve missed a crucial point. “Fine. But a true artist makes her own rules.”

  “And what are yours?” I counterpoint.

  “Mine?” He makes a guttural sound that might be a laugh. “You want to know my rules? You think I am an artist? Yes?” He gruffly takes my arm and leads me to the office at the back of the room.

  “You think a man like me makes art?” He shuffles through a rack of canvases, pulling out dozens and letting them fall to the floor. They’re brilliant. Nimbus and cumulous clouds fold over each other in waves of grays and blues and purples; thunderheads dance and collide. He captured how the clouds move across the sky. He snorts. “Maybe I did once. Not today. Not yesterday. This is garbage.”

  “No, it’s treasure,” I whisper.

  He shakes his head. “At its core being an artist isn’t a method or something you can study from a book. Then you are just learning about art. Not how to be an artist. What an artist does comes from here.” He pounds his chest. “It is a feeling. It is a fire igniting within until it burns its way out. It is passion. It is not an option but a need. It is your own personal truth. And mine, since you asked, I’m a work in progress. I’m still unlearning.”

  My eyes dampen, and I storm from the building.

  The weekend brings a fully recovered Sorel to my dorm room. She reclines on my bed, kicking up her boots on top of my sage blanket. I hunch at my desk, trying to parse out an extra-credit assignment for math. I’m barely scraping by.

  “You’re so boring. Let’s do something huge.”

  “Good to hear that you’re breathing clearly once again . . . and ready to stir up trouble.” Or as is usually the case, get very close to trouble but then snake out of its way.

  She flicks pushpins from my corkboard across the room.

  I get up and retrieve them from Charmindy’s floor, bed, and bureau.

  Sorel rolls her eyes. “Can you get an overnight note?” she asks.

  “Where?”

  “Not where. Why?” Her signature grin stretches broadly as she chucks a sock ball at the ceiling.

  “What are you up to?” I ask, snapping the socks from her.

  “I still owe you a birthday present,” Sorel says enticingly.

  “Don’t be silly. You don’t. Plus that was forever ago.”

  “Do you have a passport?”

  I nod, recalling one of JJ’s moments of delusional grandeur. She thought she’d tour Europe as a solo act, with me in tow. But that plan was quickly swallowed with a bottle of pills when her former record company said no. At least I got a passport out of it.

  “Get a note,” Sorel says matter-of-factly.

  I haven’t ever needed an overnight note, mostly because I’ve never had anywhere to go, but the request comes with a glitch. I don’t have anyone to write one or, as it goes at Laurel Hill, anyone to email, fax, or otherwise electronically transmit one to my dorm head.

  “That might be a problem,” I say to Sorel.

  “Make it not a problem,” she says and slips into the hall.

  Leaving school for a weekend and escaping the dorm-wide ridicule that quickly reached the rest of the campus plays at me all afternoon with an alluring melody. I’m entering the computer lab to print out an essay due for English when an idea comes to me. I quickly grab a seat and open up a browser on the desktop. I fill in the requested information to create an email account, entering Janet Jaeger in the name box. In the subject heading I write, Weekend permission, then hastily type.

  Dear Connie,

  My daughter will be visiting me this weekend at home in New York. She has permission to leave the campus and take the bus. She will return Sunday by dorm closing.

  Thank you.


  Sincerely,

  Janet Jaeger

  P.S. Please disregard the rumors circulating regarding our family. As you can imagine, someone in my position is easily slandered, but I know Pearl takes it to heart, so a little mom-daughter time is in order.

  As if.

  My mother would never sign her name Janet or say thank you, but then again, she probably doesn’t even know how to use the Internet, no less how to write an email. She’s broken, sold, or lost every electronic device she’s ever owned. I look up faculty email addresses listed on a sheet on the wall. Genius.

  When I hit “Send,” there’s a metallic ting in my chest, leaving me with an ache. After the hard time my mother gave me about going away to school, she still hasn’t gotten in touch with me. Over six months have passed. I’ve become a footnote.

  Excitement for the weekend replaces thoughts of abandonment when I intercept Sorel outside her chemistry class at the end of the day.

  “Done,” I say.

  “No way? Really? I figured you’d flake out. Cool.”

  “So where are we going?” I ask.

  “You, my friend, are going on an adventure of a lifetime. Pack”—she taps her finger on her burgundy-stained lips—“warm clothing and something you’d go out in. But fit it all in a backpack. ’K? And don’t worry about bringing any cash. This weekend is on me. I really didn’t think you’d do it. You’ve been so bookish and boring, like all the time,” she says scornfully.

  Her words are like a dare.

  Later, as I pack, I wonder if she invited Grant. Our foursome consists of a variant of six degrees of separation, only minus two degrees or something. If there is Sorel, there is Pepper, and if there is Pepper, Grant is often nearby. The deficits in my character that bothered me last week dim. I envision trying again with him; maybe we could make it work. Maybe not being friends or talking or kissing will lead us to being more than friends and doing more than talking. Living on the same small campus, sharing a class and friends, has made it hard for us to completely ignore each other. The skittish and protective shell of my interior tells me I want to, but I can’t quite deny that he’s planted a seed inside my heart and it’s struggling to grow and push its way out of the darkness.

  I slip the money Erica gave me into my jeans pocket, just in case. I slide on my slouchy engineer boots and pull my black fuzzy coat over a restructured vintage tee with the printed words I vote for vodka, and a knit gray cardigan. I wrap a scarf around my neck and sling my backpack over my shoulder. I slink down to Sorel’s room, hoping not to encounter Connie or Terran.

  “We’re totally breaking you out of here,” she says, nodding at me approvingly. “Meet me at the bus station.”

  “The bus station?” I whisper.

  “Don’t worry, the walls aren’t listening,” she jokes.

  “If you grew up with my mother’s brand of paranoia, you’d think differently.”

  “You’re so sketchy.”

  My brow wrinkles.

  “We can’t have anyone seeing us leaving together. Part of the fun is in the escape.”

  “Who’s sketchy?” I ask rhetorically.

  She actually sticks her tongue out at me.

  “You have lipstick on your teeth,” I say and walk out of the room.

  Chapter 19

  Various shades of winter drab tint the campus. I plod almost a mile through the slush to the bus station, or, more accurately, a dingy café at risk of floating away on grease. There’s no waiting area, so I loiter in the entryway, already occupied by a smarmy-looking guy leaning against the wall. Feeling his eyes on me as his tongue wrestles with a toothpick, I move toward the window, watching for Sorel but unsure what to look for.

  A full hour later, a Volvo wagon as old as me pulls up with Sorel behind the wheel. Pepper rides shotgun, and Grant is in the back. A smile spreads on my face. A breakout indeed.

  “This is my fabulous, early graduation present. My dad offered to buy me a new one—” Sorel says, tapping her hand against the steering wheel.

  “He did buy you a new one, a BMW, in fact,” Pepper interrupts.

  Sorel glares at him.

  “I would have gone with it, just saying.”

  “Well, anyway, I will be driving this baby cross-country when I start school next fall, and I figured we’d take it out for a maiden voyage,” Sorel says proudly.

  “I thought we weren’t allowed to have cars on campus,” I say, dismissing her temporary stamp of approval on my cool scorecard by forging a note and instead stating the obvious.

  “We’re not. I arranged for it to be parked at Mitch’s so I could use it whenever I want,” she says, self-satisfied.

  “Seriously, I would have opted for the BMW,” Pepper says.

  “No one asked you,” Sorel snipes.

  I glean she doesn’t want to be associated with her family’s wealth, and not because of humility. The image Sorel wants to portray by dressing secondhand, slumming it, and driving a car that doesn’t shout “I’m rich” is all part of unglossing herself from the gold and silver stored in the family vault. She gravitates toward the punk style that the kids favor on Saint Mark’s Place, back in the city, and doesn’t want to be mistaken for having a trust fund. When you don’t have two dimes to rub together, secondhand is the only brand, and slumming it is your reality, being a rich kid seems appealing.

  “For the record, I would have gone with the BMW too, but really any car with wheels and an engine would do, if I knew how to drive,” I say.

  Grant doesn’t suppress his smile.

  A song about a girl brushing her hair in a burning room fills the space where Sorel would ordinarily toss out a snarky retort. I flash to last summer, my heart hiccups, and then I remind myself where I am and where we’re going.

  Sorel navigates onto the highway, heading north, and cranks up the stereo. The speakers make the doors tremble. I settle into the backseat, the music too loud for conversation, but steal a glance at Grant. He’s intent on the scenery passing by. His dark blond hair has grown since the beginning of the year. I want to run my fingers through it, letting them catch on the strands like sticky webs. I want to feel his cheek against mine, our lips pressing together, and let the infinite swallow us whole. At least there my past wouldn’t matter.

  The song changes, leaving me with a moment of silence to snap my head back into its proper orbit. I wonder if Grant knew I’d be joining them when he signed up for Sorel’s mystery weekend. I wonder if he still wants to be with me. I don’t hate myself as much today.

  About an hour into the trip, Sorel stops for gas. Mercifully, the car quiets when she turns off the ignition. Pepper fills the tank, and she goes into the convenience store. The space between Grant and me pulses with words unsaid.

  If I were the type to pick a daisy, I imagine it would land on the he-loves-me-not petal, just to spite me. Then again, I don’t put much stock in games like that. But no one has ever given me flowers, so maybe the gesture would change my opinion. I gaze out the window, trying to erase the maelstrom of feelings for him. Lust and loss tug and tear at me.

  As if sensing my inner battle, fingers reach across the leather seat between us, and he grasps my hand.

  “OK?” he asks.

  I nod, letting our fingers mend that ugly afternoon when I pushed him away.

  I swallow hard. I worry my skin might singe him, like he might suddenly flinch and retract his fingers. Then I recall the kiss I gave him on the porch of Viv Brooks, how sweet it felt, like I’d regained some of my innocence. The frightened beast within tells me to withhold, to shrink away from Grant. Liking or loving or being sweet costs too much.

  Yes. No. Yes.

  Splat. Confusion.

  It tells me that it might be easier if it just isn’t.

  But he doesn’t let go. The warmth in his fingers melts the icicles jabb
ing the place in the middle of my chest. The stabbing pangs release. He grips my hand harder, unwilling to let me let go. I chance a look at his eyes, rippling blue like peace, like promises.

  Thinking about him when we’re not together feels safe, like a fantasy. There’s nothing precious on the line. No chance I’ll face humiliation or hurt him. As I let in the immensity of what could be, of crossing out his request not to be friends, not to talk, but to kiss, and then inviting his request to be more, the clawed thing inside works very hard to shut the idea out. I squeeze my eyes closed, trying to see where it went, what it’s up to. But within, there is just shadows and darkness. All I hear are the whispers that I don’t deserve anyone.

  Grant’s hair shags around his face, his expression distant, caught up in his own thoughts. But his hand still clings to mine as miles pass. I try to like him less, because the truth is he causes the pain in the center of my chest that burns like frigid poison, and yet he possesses the elixir too.

  “It’s complicated,” his words echo. Yes, it is.

  Up front, Sorel digs into a bag filled with chips, soda, and an assortment of baked goods that would hold their shape under nuclear attack. There’s a lot of crunching and glugging going on. Pepper tosses a bag of Doritos back to us. The crinkly bag lands on the seat between Grant and me and remains there, untouched. I don’t know about him, but I’m not letting go of his hand, not even for food. He doesn’t either.

  We venture farther north as snowy pines whip past the speeding car.

  Sorel quizzes me through a mouthful of crumbs. “Figure out where we’re going yet?”

  “It isn’t so much where we’re going, but what we are doing that has me guessing,” I say.

  Grant chuckles.

  “Eenh,” Sorel says loudly like a game show buzzer. “Try again.”

  “I dunno, Canada.”

  She laughs and bumps up the music once more. The sun sinks behind the evergreen trees that line the interstate as the afternoon relaxes into evening.