Soon it stopped being about Jewel needing cheering up and started being about us just having the most fun together.
When Vanessa came back for high school, I barely recognized her. She’d gone from the girl I played puppies and kitties with, wearing little dresses, to this rock-star type. She wears leather miniskirts and fishnets to school. I didn’t know what to say to her. Still don’t, really.
She took up Zen meditation about a month ago, wearing an Om symbol on black yarn around her neck. She bent the Om from a paper clip. Right now, she’s probably trying to cure the bus’s chi or something. I give her another one to two weeks of dedication to the ancient practice of spirituality.
She’s like Madonna at school, respected for what people think is “edgy.” And also a little bit feared. No one would admit it, though. She’s in the public eye like Madonna, but people are too scared or something to say she’s cool. Mostly they make jokes about her style being so out there. The best part of her reputation pins her as the Queen of Goth; the worst part marks her as an outsider. Someone permanent-markered the word freak on her desk in homeroom.
Jewel’s closer with her than I am. They’re not super-tight, but they are the two best artists at school, and they value each other’s opinions. Plus, Jewel likes people who get pegged as freaks. They remind him of himself, or something. He had Nicolai Gregory over for dinner once, and they started to draw a comic together.
Of course, even if people think Nicolai’s a freak, he’s accepted. Probably because he’s hilarious and nice to everyone. He’s been out since eighth grade, and he’s the closest match to Vanessa style-wise. He wears black eyeliner and club-kid clothes. People like him. Or are afraid of what other people would think if they acted like they didn’t like him.
We file off of the bus and into the drizzle, clutching brown-bagged lunches. Mr. Smith corrals us into the lobby and pays.
Nicolai is chatting with Clara and Jeremy. He has a pink Mohawk. Tomorrow, it might be purple or blue.
I keep quiet, and so does Vanessa. She’s got this bright, excited look in her eyes today. I wonder what that’s about.
The first piece we see is the artist Marcel Duchamp’s painting of his family. It’s just a portrait. It doesn’t seem like anything special, even though Mr. Smith is all excited about this collection.
“Duchamp,” Mr. Smith says, “was average as a classical painter. Average at best. But he had to know how to do form so that he could disrupt form.”
“Whatever,” Vanessa says behind me. I can practically feel her rolling her eyes. “His ready-mades are so much more interesting.”
We shuffle down the white hallway and see a painting that could be from Picasso’s cubist period. It’s like someone took all the cels of an animated scene and showed them at once.
Mr. Smith stands next to it, pointing out the shades of brown and the shape of the figure in it. “Year,” he says, “1912. Oil on canvas. Title: Nude Descending a Staircase, Number 2.”
The nude looks more like a robot to me, all shapes and no heart. Vanessa moves next to me, getting a closer look.
“The first exhibition of modern art in America happened in New York City. This piece”—Mr. Smith gestures toward Nude—“was utterly controversial. It was the beginning of cubism and of futurism.”
Score one for me on the cubism thing.
We move on, toward something on a platform. I think it’s a urinal.
“Oh my God, there it is!” Vanessa shrieks. The other museum patrons are so not choosing today to develop high esteem for the teenage population of Seattle.
Yep. A urinal. I should be grossed out. But it’s pretty cool in an ironic sort of way: the most basic everyday thing, which is also totally private, out there for everyone to see. To admire. Or at least think about.
Vanessa practically skips across the room to the urinal.
“Vanessa,” Mr. Smith says once we’ve all caught up. “You’re obviously familiar with this piece. Would you like to introduce it?”
“The story goes like this,” says Vanessa. She looks more like a teacher right now than Mr. Smith does. Authoritative, even with her punky hair. “Some people were putting on an art exhibit and Duchamp offered the urinal. He did it as a prank. But they didn’t show it.”
Mr. Smith gives us the details. “Ready-made, 1917. Title: Fountain.”
“Totally scandalous,” Vanessa says. “Totally different. I adore it.”
She stands, breathing at the thing.
“Because being different,” she says, and I swear she looks at me, “means being interesting. And that will always be hot.”
“Hey, Clara,” I say. “Jeremy.”
I find them in the museum’s basement lunchroom.
They haven’t even opened their lunch sacks. They’re too busy holding hands. I stand by their table.
“Hi,” Clara says. “Sit down!”
I do, and take out my hummus and crackers. “What’d you think of the Duchamp?”
“Pretty cool,” Clara says. “I liked Nude Descending a Staircase.”
I spread some hummus with a plastic knife, smell the garlic. Nod.
“Me too,” says Jeremy. “It kind of reminds me of Salvi.”
“Totally.”
Clara and Jeremy have a nickname for Salvador Dalí?
They get into a discussion about the Dalí museum in Barcelona, where they’re planning to go this summer. “My dad was there,” I tell them.
They don’t seem to hear me. They go on about finding jobs to save money for the trip and I get distracted.
Vanessa and Nicolai Gregory are at a table laughing together. At least someone’s having a good time.
There’s a Seattle Art Museum pamphlet on the table, so I open it. The page I open to features a piece by Dale Chihuly: a glass hummingbird is flitting around a cherub. They’re atop something that looks like an upside-down mushroom with a pumpkin stem.
I can’t believe the detail on the hummingbird. This can be done with glass?
“Later,” I mumble to Clara and Jeremy, gathering the rest of my lunch and heading out of the room.
“Bathroom,” I say as I pass Mr. Smith.
I find the Chihuly exhibition. I read a plaque telling me that he’s from Tacoma and he’s been working with glass since the late sixties. He’s a master. The collection here is “Putti,” which means cherubs.
I find my hummingbird. Its colors are so vibrant. Red-orange mushroom like a sunset. Golden Putto. Absolutely clear hummingbird. I want to call it crystal clear, until I realize that it’s maybe clearer than crystal. It’s glass.
Other podiums in the small room housing the collection feature putti with other types of birds, a slug, a sea horse, an octopus, a jellyfish, and riding on a dolphin. They all have the mushroom cap-like orbs, in so many colors. The only word I can think of to describe the colors is pure.
Looking at them, I realize there’s a whole world I want to step into. A place away from Vanessa and away from perfect couples, and away from school. Even away from Jewel, maybe. Toward … just me.
It makes the world of Mr. Smith’s class, worrying about not being as good at art as Vanessa or Jewel, or as obsessed as Clara, seem so unimportant. I feel free.
I’m going to take that glassblowing workshop.
We’re back at school in time for eighth period. My clase de español breaks into its conversation groups.
Jewel sits across the room with Vanessa and a girl named Sam, who is chewing on her blond braid. Vanessa has that excited look again as she watches Jewel. Is it possible she has a crush on him, or something? He says, in perfect Spanish, that the tree is growing eight red apples.
Vanessa winks at him. Winks.
I can’t see his face.
“Excelente, Julian,” says Señora Rodriguez as she walks between the desks. Only teachers call Jewel by his real name.
Simon Murphy, who by some miracle is in my group, tries it. “Heh. Julian.”
Simon’s green ey
es are shining. He’s like one of those Greek statues, carved out of fine materials. I think of Mr. Smith introducing the pieces at the museum. Title, I think, Secret Crush.
Simon came to school here last year, from Portland. He was a sophomore then, but he went out with a senior girl. That means she’s a college girl now. He can get a college girl. I have to stop crushing on him.
Molly, the third member of my group, is a sophomore like me. She pokes me. “I thought that guy’s name was Jewel.”
“It is.”
I try to say to Simon telepathically, “And don’t you forget it.” I would never say it out loud.
Molly actually twirls her hair around her finger.
“Anyway.” Simon looks at his book. I wish I didn’t notice him so much. He’s a football player. And he’s hot. I don’t like football players as a rule, but … he’s so hot.
Our group studies the picture of an elephant in a zoo. “Soy un animal grande y gris,” Simon says: I am a big gray animal.
The bell rings and Señora Rodriguez bids us adiós. People crowd past me as Jewel walks over to my desk. He’s in his navy hooded sweatshirt and ripped-up olive-colored army pants. Camouflage. He wants to blend into the lockers and desks. To be un-thought-about. He’s my little chameleon.
“Friday afternoon,” he says. “Is there anything sweeter?”
“Only you,” I say to him, batting my eyelashes. He pats the top of my head, messing up my ponytail.
We head for the main doors of the school, not bothering to stop at our lockers. A long time ago Jewel convinced me that homework on the weekends is madness. We work hard all week and our grades keep us both in the top ten percent of our class.
Simon is standing with the football crew by the doors. Letterman jackets are their zebra stripes or giraffe spots; these guys are a herd.
Everyone but Simon has put on a dirty white baseball cap. Hats are not allowed in class. Putting them on in the hallway is what passes for rebellion among these guys. Simon has a more preppy look, clean jeans and sweaters. Black Adidas. He looks like a soccer player. Possibly even a European soccer player.
Miraculously, he waves at me as we pass. “See ya Monday, Alice.” His friends ignore me, except Mike Corrigan, who widens his eyes at Simon, meaning, “Why the hell are you talking to her?”
I mimic Simon’s wave.
“Why did Simon Murphy just talk to you?” Jewel wants to know.
I feel myself flush. “He’s in my group in español.”
When your best friend is Mr. Outsider Artist, you can’t go on about some cute popular guy.
The world is misting, as usual, as Jewel and I step outside. I squint into the soft raindrops and reach up to redo my ponytail. Jewel starts talking about the Bloodbath.
“It’s an excuse for people to wear as little clothing as possible.”
“Yeah,” I say. “As if black cats and bunny rabbits run around in leotards.”
“I wonder if anyone will be something cool, besides you.”
“What do you think Simon Murphy will be?”
“Who cares? But if I had to guess, I’d say a vampire or a werewolf. Something that preys on the innocent. Too bad you got stuck in a conversation group with him.”
That’s harsh, but I nod. Jewel is clearly antipopular, and so am I. Aren’t I? Simon’s pretty nice. But Jewel would probably never see him that way.
We head for Green Bean, the organic coffee shop where twelve of Jewel’s photos will be on the wall for the next two weeks.
Jewel nods to the guy behind the counter, who says, “Nice to see you again, man.”
I buy two orange juices while Jewel puts his backpack down and pulls out his photos and a box of thumbtacks.
“High-tech.” I hand him a juice. “No frames?”
“You know me,” Jewel says, and swigs juice. “I’m a purist. Just the photos.”
I pick up the thumbtacks and a photo of Jewel’s cat, Grayfur. Grayfur is sleeping and he kind of looks like he’s dead, but it’s cool because you can tell he’s not, really. When we were little, Jewel and I used to dress Grayfur in a cape and pretend he could fly. We dropped him from Jewel’s first-floor window. He couldn’t fly, but he was good at landing.
I pin the photo between two windows.
“Good,” Jewel says.
We keep going. Most of the photos are shots of our neighborhood’s quirks. There’s one of the rocket attached to the trendy shoe store Burnt Sugar, one of the arrow pointing up by a stop sign and labeled TO THE MILKY WAY. One of the sign reading WELCOME TO FREMONT, CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE: SET YOUR WATCH BACK FIVE MINUTES.
When we’re done, we walk toward my house. Traffic zooms past.
It’s one of those moments when life feels really … real. Like, this is who I am: a girl with a fun and talented best friend, walking through her cool neighborhood. It’s a nice thought, but something about it is also kind of unsettling.
“What if you got hit by a bus and you were okay but you had to stay in the hospital for months? Then who would I hang out with?”
He looks at me. “I’m glad your big concern would be loneliness if I got hit by a bus.”
“You know what I mean.”
“If I were in the hospital for months, you’d visit me and we’d hang out there.”
“Yeah, but what if you were, like, catatonic?”
We’re in front of my house now. He cocks his head at me.
“So come by around six for dinner,” I say.
Jewel just stands there, looking past the tree in my front yard.
“Jewel? Six?” He keeps on standing there. Oh. “Are you being catatonic?”
He comes out of it to laugh and I punch him in the shoulder.
Chapter Three
•
•
•
After lasagna at my house that night, Jewel and I ride the bus to Charm of Hummingbirds’ all-ages show. I can feel the promise of good music in the air like electricity. We wait in line in a crowd that’s mostly older than us, maybe University of Washington students. “We’re so good at finding teenage-zombie free zones,” I say.
Jewel smirks and I know he’s anticipating a night of happy, loud music. “Remember when we saw Death Cab for Cutie here?”
“Of course I do. Before they played stadium shows.”
We enter the Showbox through its wide red hallway. We’re immediately part of the pond of bodies, but we stay in the back where there’s some breathing room. I look around and take in everything: the people drinking and laughing in the two bars, which are up a level and behind us on either side, the neon signs for the restrooms, the instruments set up for the opening act, the posters on the walls.
The light is purple. I can feel Jewel standing next to me.
The lights dim and the opening band takes the stage. The words are muffled and I can’t make them out, but it doesn’t matter.
The band’s faces practically glow, as if all they ever want is this moment.
There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.
Jewel points to the men’s room sign, heads that way.
I’m alone for two songs, and the band finishes. For about three seconds, I feel awkward standing by myself. Then Simon Murphy walks up. “Hola.”
He’s here? Alone? “Hola,” I say. Where’s his herd? I’m so glad he saw me first, or else I probably would’ve stared at him all night. But here he is—talking to me!
“I can’t believe I did that thing with the elephant today.”
“It’s okay,” I tell him. “I swear, I totally couldn’t remember the word for orange.” Which had been a problem because my picture was a basket of oranges. “So, you like the Charm?”
“Just here to pick up chicks,” he says. Then he elbows me in the arm.
It’s hard for me to keep my gaze away from Simon’s lips. They remind me of candy. That feeling is easy enough to fight off during Spanish, but out here in the real world?
I look at his chin.
&nbs
p; “None of my friends are really into this music. Or anything that isn’t played fifty times a day on The End or whatever.” He rolls his green eyes.
“That,” I say, “is tragic.”
“You’re telling me.”
“I am.”
He points to his buddies, baseball caps in place, huddled together by the railing that separates the over-twenty-one area from the under. They’re obviously staked out in an attempt to get beers. So why isn’t he with them?
“Well, whatever,” he says. “I’ll hang with you, if that’s okay.”
Is that okay? Jewel will be here any second to find me standing with Simon. Jewel’s going to think I’m insane. But how could I get rid of Simon, even if I wanted to? Maybe he’s the insane one, coming over here to hang out with me. Did he see Jewel before he came over? Does he think I’m alone?
The crowd is sweaty. The music is about to start. I feel like I imagine I’d feel in the seconds before being kissed.
It’s all amplified by knowing how much Jewel is not into Simon’s crowd. And how much I’ve let him think I share his feelings. His repulsions.
I catch him standing by the bathroom door looking at me and Simon. Frozen. I hope he can’t read my mind from that far away.
Charm of Hummingbirds comes onstage and everything gets loud.
Guitars, screams, drums, claps.
I am pumping my hands above my head and, before I think about it, grabbing Simon’s black-sweater-clad arm.
Jewel walks toward us. I see him in my peripheral vision.
Simon screams into my ear. “Yes! My favorite song!”
I stick my mouth close to his ear to say, “Mine too!”
His hair, or something, smells like strawberries. My nose smooshes into his cheek.
Jewel comes up behind me. He puts his hand on the small of my back.
My center of gravity is off.
Simon is the opposite of Jewel. Isn’t he? Jewel hails from Planet Artist/Thinker. Simon? Planet Popular? Planet Untouchable?
I try to pretend it’s normal, me and Jewel standing in a crowd with Simon. I try to ignore what’s going on in my body. The way I seem to be floating in the space between two very different guys.
The Opposite of Invisible Page 2