“I wouldn’t say best friend.” She shrugs her shoulders like it’s nothing. Like what she just said wouldn’t slice through my heart.
“You’re serious?”
“I mean, it’s not like we hang out all that much, not unless we’re working. Or at school. Don’t make this weird, okay?”
“What was I to you?” My hands can barely sign the words, they’re shaking with anger, with exasperation.
“Look, none of this has to do with Don—”
“Go bang every hearie in the world, for all I care.” I cut her off furiously, my hands a blur, and I’m out the door. I might be burning bridges, but they’re my bridges to burn.
—
The heat radiating off the fryer is welcome for a change; it’s been so damn cold out. I should be standing here steaming mad after being passed over by Donovan, only to have him come back and invade my space after all. Does he like me or not? Is this about art or something else?
But all my anger is reserved for Jordyn. She stole my school and then she stole Donovan. They aren’t worth the trouble anymore. I don’t want her to think I’m on her thieving level. I’ll back off, but I can’t force him to do the same. The breakup chat we couldn’t actually have plays out in my head.
—
We’re both standing under the overpass by my latest. He looks so cute when he’s defeated.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“I can’t do it, can’t add to this. I wouldn’t want to ruin it.” He might be holding back a tear or two.
“That’s all right. You tried.” Pat, pat on the head.
“You’re so much more talented than I am.” Donovan looks at his feet.
“Maybe one day.” Poor little toy.
“I’m sorry I ditched you for Jordyn. I thought she’d be easier to talk to, you know?”
“Was she?”
“Sure, but all she ever does is talk. She never listens.”
“Shame that implant goes to waste, then.”
“Hey, I was wondering—”
“Lemme stop you there, D. I’m sorry it’s not going great with Jordyn. That’s too bad. I’m also sorry your graff game is so damn weak. But I can’t help you with that. You have to earn it. This could have been great. But I’m out.”
Drop the mic, etc.
—
Too bad I have to keep staring at the back of his head for hours. I wonder if I should leave a note on his locker: Your move now. Nah, let him find the underpass on his own.
I line up some fries under the lights, and start folding up little boxes for the next batch. I hate folding these things; they have such a freaking weird shape. No other box is shaped like a fry box. It’s a singular thing, and it’s annoying as hell.
Donovan keeps looking over his shoulder, except this time I swear he’s looking at me, not Jordyn. She keeps filling soda after soda for him, back and forth, getting between us the whole shift. Every time she passes me she glares, or bumps into me a little too obviously while squeezing by. I’m surprised he’s not in a diabetic coma by the time we leave.
—
Jordyn leans against my car, obviously pissed off, all toe-tapping and folded arms and a scowl visible from space. I can still smell the fries in the air, and the glow of the arches tints her skin a sickly yellow color. What happened? How did we ever end up like this?
“What?” I ask her before I even reach the car.
“You didn’t let me finish,” Jordan snaps.
“Finish what?” I reach past her and unlock Lee. She pushes against the door. I fight every urge to yank it open and send her flying.
“Knock it off.” She touches my shoulders, forcing me to face her.
“You knock it off! I told you—”
“Shut up, Julia!” she signs and shouts. I back off. Let her say whatever she wants and after, I’ll add her to my X-box and shove it in the back of my closet to rot.
“Do you like him?”
“I don’t want to talk to you about boys.”
“Please stop playing games, I need to know.” She looks so hurt, and it kills me. Why doesn’t she care about me the way she cares about him? I thought our friendship was worth more than some dude who works the drive-thru. I want to know why she sold me out, why she totaled our friendship but acts like it’s still drivable.
“No. I don’t like him.” I lean next to her. We both stare off at some unknown point in the universe.
“Would you tell me if you did?” she asks without looking at me.
No.
“Yes.”
“It’s just that…” She starts pacing. “I don’t know. I really like him. But he’s dated a lot of girls at work, you know?” she asks, but it doesn’t feel like she’s actually asking me, or even talking to me. It’s like she’s trying to figure it out for herself while I’m on standby. It makes me miss YP and our talk in the art room. How she sat and listened, even if she had no idea what I was saying—she knew it was important. The more Jordyn rambles, the more upset I get.
“I guess it feels like, maybe he doesn’t like me.” She finally pauses and looks over to me, expectant. Waiting for me to comfort her, but I can’t. I won’t.
“Not everything is about you.”
“Don’t be so jealous,” she says, laughing. But none of this is a joke to me, not even remotely. I swing open the car door, but before I can peel out in a fiery rage, someone zooms into the parking lot on a bicycle. It’s YP.
“Are you OKOK?” I sign over the car to her.
“Fine, fine,” she signs back, leaving one hand on the handlebars. She leans her bike up against Lee, and they look like they belong together. She’s panting, hard.
“You rode all the way here?” I ask. It must have taken her hours.
“No, no. Bike, L I R R, and bike again,” she signs, smiling and proud.
“What happened?”
“Not. Good.” She takes her time, signing with purpose. Her eyebrows angled down, she shoots Jordyn some shade.
“Doesn’t matter. What happened?” I ask again.
“What’s going on?” Jordyn tries to get our attention.
“O V E R P A S S,” she spells. “Not good.”
I tried to shake Jordyn, but she wasn’t having it. If only YP could read my mind so we could talk without Jordyn butting in. Pants is getting good enough at sign; I just wish telepathy were the next step.
“Just tell me what happened,” I sign to her. Jordyn must be having a conversation, out loud, with YP at the same time; YP keeps talking over her shoulder.
“Hello?” I wave.
“You want to tell her?” YP tries to sign out of Jordyn’s sight. My need for info is trumping my beef with Jordyn. It’s not like she can get me expelled from Finley. YP looks disappointed.
“Don’t tell me you’re painting again!” Jordyn squeezes between the seats. She’s crammed in the back next to YP’s bike wheel. The rest of the bike just barely fits in the trunk.
“She knows?” YP scowls from the passenger seat. Jordyn replies, but I have no idea what she says. I’m trying not to crash the car. It looks like they’re arguing, from the few glimpses I catch.
I make the last turn onto Spring Road and there’s a cop parked behind a pillar under the overpass. Lights off, he thinks he’s being clever. He’s not fooling anyone. Least of all me.
“Should we just drive through real quick, like normal?” I ask Pants.
“Wait!” She holds her arm out like she’s protecting me from stopping short. Probably the first time a passenger has tried to protect the driver. A second cop walks across the underpass and gets into the cruiser. “We can’t—-——see your car.” Good catch, YP. I turn onto a side street, trying to make it look natural.
“D A I R Y B A R N?” I sign.
“Fine.” YP’s still upset.
Carefully avoiding Spring Road, Cobblestone Avenue, and Broadway, we snake through side streets, getting closer to our quasi-hideout. It’s a long, winding drive, the sil
ence punctuated by Jordyn and YP sizing each other up in the rearview mirror. I just want to see what happened on the underpass. Having my work painted over is hard enough to deal with; I can’t be concerned with the possible hurt feelings of an ex-friend. I’ll sort YP out later, she’ll at least understand.
Dairy Barn stands tall and proud at the end of the road. I’m dying to know what those cops were up to. They didn’t have a paint roller or anything, and cops don’t usually do patch jobs themselves. We pull under the carport and YP leans over me to order a large iced tea. I pay with some quarters from the center console and we park.
“When did you start all this again?” Jordyn asks, shocked.
“I never stopped.”
YP sits with her arms crossed, head leaning on the window. I nudge her shoulder and offer her the first sip of iced tea.
“Please! Tell me how it looks!” I beg.
“I think your move now.” YP signs as best she can.
“What? No. That’s not possible,” I sign.
“Why not?”
“Because the guy who was doing it was at work with me all afternoon.”
“Donovan?!” YP obviously says.
“Donovan did what now?” Jordyn butts in.
“Nothing,” I tell her.
“Someone’s been bombing her work,” YP explains to Jordyn.
“Bombing?”
YP and I share a smile.
“It wasn’t him,” I say to myself more than anyone else.
“Then who?!” YP demands.
We all sit for a moment without saying anything. I really can’t think of who it could be. Who knows me well enough? But the who isn’t what’s most important right now.
“Describe it,” I plead.
“It’s not— Don’t— Don’t get mad.”
“What.”
“It’s not bad.”
“I have to see it.”
“Take my bike.” She points to the backseat and pedals her arms. “We—-wait here——-——car, right?” YP asks Jordyn, who only nods, dumbfounded by the whole situation.
I don’t hesitate.
—
I pedal as hard as I can. Icy air burns my throat and stings my lungs. Puffs trail from my mouth like I’m a speeding steam engine. I don’t bother with back roads. I’m just a girl on a bike, right?
I don’t know what’s racing faster, my mind or my legs. It’s not Donovan. I was so damn sure. This means they still have a leg up. They know me and I don’t know shit about them. My thighs burn as I push up the hill on Cobblestone. I haven’t biked since I was a child, and I’m out of shape and practice. It doesn’t help that YP is much taller than I am and my feet don’t reach the ground. I wobble every time I have to stop.
The overpass is straight ahead, and thankfully, the pigs have moved on to haunt someone else. For how long, though? I take mental inventory. I don’t have any paint on me, the Sharpie ink has faded a bit, but that’s not proof of anything. I decide to risk it and bike through. That’s what I came here for.
I slow down as I get to the entrance. My knees shake from biking, and from nerves. I try to swallow, but my throat is dry. Every breath stings. My chest heaves up and down. That dickwad. That asshat. That—
Genius. Goddamn it. YP was right. It’s not bad. It’s not even not bad; she was being kind for my sake. It’s good. It’s really fucking good. They elevated it. Brought it up to this whole new level of, well, art, I guess.
It was great before, but with two people working on different shifts, and more hours devoted to the piece, the more detailed and beautiful it became. Is it my move now? If it were up to me I would call this one finished. Clearly, they know their stuff.
They haven’t stopped calling me out. It’s obvious now that they really know me.
There should be a picture of this. But I know I can’t take one, especially when the cops are snooping. Now I keep my phone and feed free of evidence. I stall another moment to look it over and really memorize it. I want this stuck in my head. Every shape, every line. The bones, the colors, the hearts, the hand…Wait.
The skeleton hand doesn’t register up with the one I stenciled. It’s pointing. Up. I look at the underside of the overpass. Nothing there. I walk the bike out of the tunnel, eyes locked on the pointing finger. I follow the bony index finger up again, and I see it. Screw you, Universe.
Maybe they don’t know who I am. I smash my face into my hands, alone in the yellow glow of my paper lamp in the basement. There’s no way in hell I can pull off a heaven piece like that. And for that matter, how did they? Climbing up a water tower? Are you kidding me?
Nothing makes sense anymore. I want to go back to Kingston, to my little school where no one challenged me, where I didn’t have to worry about anyone butting in, where I was alone and happy with my work. Never mind that no one really noticed it there.
Back then, I’d have these fantasies of the cops trying to track me down and all the ways I’d elude them. People would notice my work popping up everywhere, would wonder if it’s graffiti or art. Or if graffiti is art. I’d get up. I’d be a queen. All that good stuff. Now they’re only snooping on my work because someone else had to come along and show off. Do your own work. Why drag me into it? Am I not good enough on my own?
I rub my eyes. This isn’t worth crying over. Don’t be so weak. I need more time, more supplies, more planning. There’s no way my opponent is backing down, retaliating so fast and now one-upping me. It’s not fair, I have school and parents and a job. I can’t just drop everything to plan and paint in a day. I thought they knew me.
How do they know me? How am I going to get up to that water tower? How? How? How? I sink into my chair. I have to stop thinking about it or I’m going to lose it. My legit backpack nags at me from the floor. I guess I could do some homework for once in my life.
I pull out my illustrated Bob Dylan album and flip through the pages. The pages smell like firewood. I try to imagine Katz sitting there in his house, fire going, drawing in the margins. All that work, just so I could be included. I’m not sure I even deserve it.
Little fish swim all around one page, some realistic-looking with long flowing tails, some no more than goldfish-cracker-looking doodles. I laugh. I get up and grab one of my little staple-bound sketchbooks.
There was a sale on them last year and I stocked up. I have about five or six left, blank, ready and waiting for whenever I need them. I pick one with the kraft paper cover. I’ll make him a book full of my language, poems in little drawings of hands and hand shapes. First, I’ll draw his name sign.
I came up with it almost instantly. I can just picture the dark shade of green Casey will turn when she finds out I named Katz before her, too. But his was just too easy to come up with. I draw it spanning the inside cover and the first page. I don’t like to waste any surfaces.
I have one of those cubby shelves stuffed with all sorts of art materials. Mostly dead markers, art sets from when I was a little kid, that sort of thing. I can’t bring myself to get rid of any of it. I grab a shoe box full of gel pens/brush pens/Crayola markers and color in the lines. I leave parts uncolored. Too much color makes it heavy, or I get carried away and end up ruining it. I’m learning to hold back. That’s something else writing out there in the world has taught me. Being efficient means being minimal. Beauty can be found in only three colors.
I like this. I flip to the next page and the stress over my rival is only a slight hum in the back of my mind. The next sign I draw is the sign for art. It’s a good opener. I do another full-page spread.
And another.
—
I keep sketching out words until the smell of pizza drifts downstairs.
We have a thing for comfort food in our house. It’s sort of a family tradition. We’ll order your favorite to celebrate for you, or if you’ve had a bad day. Twice, if you’ve had a bad week. Mee and I have the same favorite: Indian takeout from Rajdhani’s. Ma is very into organic food and all that, but even
she has a weakness. Hint: it’s pizza. So when the smell of cheese wafts down to the basement, I know something’s up with Ma.
I follow the scent upstairs and into the kitchen. Two boxes are stacked on the table next to a bottle of red wine and a tallboy of Arizona Iced Tea. Mee pulls down three glasses from the cabinet and slides them next to the pizzas.
“What’s the occasion?”
“We both had a rough day at work. Ma’ll be home soon.”
Damn, bad-day pizza means I can’t fling open the box and chow down like with good-day pizza. It’s their bad day, so they get to choose who should get the first slice. I decide to test the waters with Mee, get the art-class news out there.
“We’re doing a street-art lesson in my new class.” I pull out some paper napkins and plates.
“No, you’re not.”
“Well, not on the actual streets or anything.”
“You’re not joking?” Mee does not look excited.
“No, you know, there’s a lot of cool history and stuff—”
“Of course there is. I know that. Don’t you understand why that worries me?”
“You don’t need to worry.”
“It’s like an alcoholic going to meetings at a bar.” Screw this, now I’m having a bad day, too. I open the topmost pizza box.
“Hey! We’re waiting!”
“I can’t believe you compared me to an alcoholic.”
“I didn’t mean it in a bad way.” Right. How else am I supposed to take that comment? As if taking a class on street art would force me to do it. I don’t need a class for that. I’m not addicted: it’s my life, not a bad habit that needs to be broken.
“Look, I think it’s great you’re learning about the history of graffiti and whatnot. I just want you to be careful.” We both feel the door slam. Ma’s home. She rushes into the kitchen, coat still on, and collapses into the chair across from me. She swings the pizza box around to face her and pulls out a slice.
“My day was hell,” she signs while chewing. Another bonus of knowing sign: you can talk and eat at the same time without being totally gross. Mee takes Ma’s coat off and rubs her shoulders before grabbing her own slice and joining us. The plates I brought out remain unused. We just scarf it up.
You're Welcome, Universe Page 10