“What happened to your arm?”
Indigo’s paranoia caused her body language to snap shut like a bear trap.
“Oh, I, um, scratched it pretty hard today on one of these wires.” She walked quickly over to her workstation and held up the base of her wire tree sculpture like it was a key piece of evidence in a court case she was trying.
“You’ve got to be careful around the ends of those bastards,” Nick replied, setting up his easel. He didn’t seem to be suspicious about whether she was bluffing.
“What’s this going to be?” he asked, gesturing to her sculpture and lifting his cup of wine to his lips.
“A Christmas tree?” Indy said, taming with a pair of needle-nose pliers the ends of the wires that still curled out like stray Afro hairs. “I thought I’d do an installation about pop art and pop culture, and gender and advertising and Americana, and Christmas. What’s more symbolic of American values than a holiday that glorifies consumerism?” Indigo was flush with the confidence that the wine seemed to be lending her as she pitched her idea to Nick. “Plus,” she added with a nonpretentious smile, “I thought it would be fun to make tinsel out of soda cans.”
She looked up from her half-finished sculpture to see Nick listening to her, rapt. His eyes flashed with a reverential pride, like he was excited to be the only one hearing about her piece before it was done. He smiled with a kind of warmth she rarely saw in his handsome face and drained his cup of whatever wine was left.
“You know,” he said, “I’ll never forget when you decided to recreate Andy Warhol’s ‘Electric Chair’ series with patio furniture and Christmas lights,” Nick said, getting up to grab the wine bottle. He refilled his cup and sat back down.
“Oh, God,” Indigo said, blushing as he topped her off. “I couldn’t have been more than eleven when I did that piece!” She realized how weird that sounded. She’d known him since she was a little girl.
“What’s a nice Jewish girl doing, making all this Christmas-themed art?” He smiled again. Nick really seemed like he was flirting. She prayed she wasn’t imagining it.
“I’m only half-Jewish,” Indy said, getting back to work on her piece as she spoke. “My mom is Catholic. Well, was Catholic.”
“The Japanese lady who comes on Showcase Day?” He asked.
“No, that’s my stepmom, Yoshiko. My dad remarried after my real mom died of cancer.”
“That’s right,” Nick said, suddenly serious. His eyebrows knitted reverentially. “I saw your series last year. I’m so sorry, Indy.”
She smiled, taking a break from wrapping the wire around the base, higher and higher into the branches of the tree. “Thanks. You’re not the first person to confuse Yoshiko for my mom, though. I guess when you have long, dark hair like mine, you can pass for half-Japanese. At least from behind.” She took another gulp of wine, making eye contact with Nick as she did. His eyes looked kind and deep. She helped herself to another cup.
“So, yeah. I guess you could say I’m only half-JAP,” she quipped, then took a drink. Nick laughed.
She was on a roll with this confidence thing—performing for him felt great. She could see how Lucy could find it addictive.
“Oh, please,” Nick said, coming around to Indy’s side of the room to use the pencil sharpener mounted on the table behind her. “You’re the least Jappy girl in this whole camp. I don’t mean that in an anti-Semitic way or anything. Hell, I’m a Yid myself, even though my parents were huge commie atheists.”
Really! she thought. All this and a nice Jewish boy to boot? They really were meant to be together.
“You know what I mean,” he continued. “You’ve just always seemed different from the other kids here.”
Swoon.
“You’re grounded, down to earth. You never seem status-obsessed or materialistic the way the other girls here have to have their hair blow-dried before breakfast, or need the newest crazy expensive pair of designer shoes to wear to a fuckin’ violin lesson.”
Indigo practically fainted with happiness. Saying she was different from the other girls at Silver Springs was a declaration of what she’d always hoped to hear. He’d always liked her more. They had a special connection. At least that’s what her body told her. And what her increasingly sloppy, infatuation- and wine-addled brain actually heard.
“What are you working on?” she finally slurred, barely able to recover from the compliment Nick had just bestowed.
“Here—I’ll show you.”
He slid into the bench next to her, his pencil newly sharpened, and reached across the table for his pad. She felt his arm brush against the outside of hers once more, but this time, it distinctively felt intentional.
Indigo rallied the boldness she needed to look to her right, where Nick sat extremely close to her. He was staring down at his pad, sketching furiously.
“Okay,” he said, still drawing as he spoke. “So, I’m doing this series of twelve wall-sized paintings about the end of days.”
“‘Wall-sized’?” Indigo asked, unsure of what else to say in order to seem curious and keep Nick engaged.
“Twenty by thirty feet,” he replied without looking up.
“Wow.” She tried to imagine a painting that large. And twelve of them? It was insanely ambitious, but that was kind of his thing. He was like the anti–Jay Stegbrandt. Nick had big ideas and got them done.
“So, here.” He finally looked up from the page at Indy’s face, which flushed with wine and embarrassment. She smiled at him, then got serious immediately, as though to indicate how interested she was in his painting.
“This is the third painting I’m doing of this one particular horse. It’s a series of twelve, like I said, so I’m doing three paintings of all four horses of the apocalypse. This one is a Clydesdale. And he’s in the background here, with this skeleton riding him bareback.”
“This is going to be so awesome,” Indy said, pouring herself a third cup of wine. She was officially buzzed. There was no way she was getting any work done tonight.
“Finish me off?” Nick asked. She brushed arms with him again to empty what was left of the wine bottle into his cup.
“Anyway, these carcasses in the foreground,” he continued. “Those are littered with the remains of totaled cars and burnt trash. I want to have the side of this car spray-painted with the word ‘Mayhem,’ in graffiti.” He kept adding to his sketch the more he described it. It wasn’t her cup of tea conceptually, but the way he described it made it exciting for her to think about. Although it was tough to differentiate how excited she was for Nick’s piece coming together with how thrilled she was to be sitting so close to him, talking about art. All of sudden she felt dizzy and put her head down to rest it on the cool table.
“Hey, are you all right?” Nick asked.
“Mm-hmm.” Indy nodded into the table’s surface, smiling goofily.
“Nick? Do you really believe that the world is going to end one day?” She tilted her head up to rest her right cheek near his pad, looking up at him.
He laughed. “Nah, I don’t believe in that stuff. I just think it’s fascinating—and horses are fun to paint. Plus, I’ve seen way too many apocalypse movies.” He ran his fingers through his dark, wavy hair. “I’m sort of a sci-fi geek.”
“Oh, yeah?” Indy asked, rolling herself back up to sit upright. “Were you a big nerd growing up?” She smiled tipsily and smoothed down her ponytail. She had completely forgotten that she probably looked all disheveled. It didn’t seem to matter much now, though.
“Sure,” Nick said, smiling back. He finished his wine. “That’s sort of the whole reason I began making art. To create my own version of reality when I was growing up in a world that didn’t make me feel like it had a place for me inside of it.”
“Growing up is hard to do.” Indy giggled at how dumb she sounded.
“Oh, boy,” Nick said. “You’re so gone.” She felt the outside of their legs brush up against each other under the table. Every in
ch of her skin seemed to tingle in reaction to their contact.
“I am fine,” Indigo slurred, intentionally shifting her body so her arm could touch his again.
“You better not get me in trouble for giving you wine,” Nick said, gently teasing her. “In fact, you’re probably over your curfew as well.”
“Curfew-shmurfew. We have art to make.” They smiled at each other, their eyes meeting. Suddenly Indigo felt entirely lucid. Her boundaries around her teacher seemed to evaporate as readily as her feeling of intoxication.
In a moment of lunatic boldness, Indigo took a deep breath and decided to make something happen. She put her hand on top of Nick’s, and, as soon as he didn’t pull away, felt herself lean in to let him kiss her.
He leaned in, too, and put his other hand atop hers on the table, stabilizing her. She could smell him even more powerfully the closer her face got to his. Her pulse raced, and her whole body seemed to vibrate in a bold confidence she hadn’t felt until that moment. She closed her eyes and felt his strong hands wrap around her waist.
Finally, their lips touched. Indigo felt herself melt into him, completely lost in the moment that she had waited for since practically forever. It was warm, it was real, and it was even better than her imagination had been able to realize. She felt her body completely relax as she kissed him, losing control of time and space and circumstances.
This was it. This was everything.
“Indigo,” he said, pulling away and halting all momentum.
Her eyes burst open.
“Huh? Yes?”
“Indigo, you should probably go back to your bunk.” He pulled away from her and looked down at the floor.
“Oh,” she said, her heart sinking rapidly, like an elevator cut from its suspension cables, hurtling down to the basement. Her throat felt hot and tight, and her whole body seized up with dread for the inevitable onslaught of tears that would soon follow what was about to be the worst rejection she’d ever have to live through.
“I’m sorry,” Indy said, frantically trying to clean up her workstation. “I’m so sorry,” she repeated, though it didn’t make much sense. She didn’t do anything wrong, she’d only followed his lead. There had been so many signals.
“It’s okay,” Nick said, rubbing his own temples. “It’s just…we shouldn’t have done that.”
As Indigo stood up, she felt blood rush down from her head into her wobbly legs. She staggered a little bit, looking down at her shoes and eventually holding on to the table for support. The room began to spin. She shouldn’t have stood up so quickly. She shouldn’t have had any wine at all on such a hot day, let alone however many glasses that was—three?—in a row, like some kind of experienced drinker. She shouldn’t have kissed him. Now he wouldn’t like her anymore. What was she thinking, ruining everything?
And just then, she felt Nick’s thick hands on her bare shoulders.
“Easy,” he said, steadying Indy’s wobble. He slid his hands down the back of her arms and held on tight. And then, before Indigo could even react to what was happening, Nick had his arms around her in full, and spun Indigo so they were face-to-face again. She could feel his breath on her cheek, and his strong hands dug into her skin. He looked her in the eyes and seemed to move in closer to where she stood, on barely solid ground.
“Look,” he said, his hands still gripping her bare, fleshy upper arms. “Don’t think I didn’t want to do this. Don’t think I haven’t thought about it before.”
Oh my God, Indigo thought. Was this a dream? Or was Nick really saying these things she’d always hoped he’d say?
“I know you’re special. I know you’re different. And you’re incredible. Mature, talented, beautiful…you’re just…awesome.”
Indigo stood there, in shock, staring into Nick’s eyes. She still felt dizzy but no longer drunk. This was actually happening, and her body wanted her to be present for every last second of it.
“But it’s been a tough time for me this last year,” Nick continued, releasing his grip on Indy but keeping his proximity to her. “There were some rumors about me…some trouble…none of it was true, but it was still a mess. And now I have to keep my nose clean. And I can’t do anything with a camper that could be misconstrued or get me into trouble. Like this. Like you.”
Indy exhaled. He was still saying no, but she only heard “yes.” Yes, she was different, she was brilliant, she was special, he wanted her. That’s all she needed to hear to feel suddenly exhilarated, buoyant, perfect, alive.
“So, go to bed, Indy. Leave your stuff out and go to bed. I’ll clean up for you. Sweet dreams.”
He kissed her gently on the forehead—it felt like a religious rite the way he did it, like Ash Wednesday at a chapel, with Nick’s dry, soft, warm lips on her forehead instead of a priest’s ashy fingers—and gently guided her in the direction of the studio door. Indy looked back at him and smiled, then took slow steps out of the studio and toward her bunk, floating home the whole trip. She no longer felt drunk—what she felt was a different kind of intoxication, a weightless, euphoric sense of being high and in some kind of limbo between your own fantasy life and actual reality.
But what was he actually saying to her? What did he mean? He said she was special and different; obviously she remembered all of that. He said he wanted to “do this” and that he’d thought about “it” before. Her knees weakened with ecstasy just remembering how he had actually kissed her in real life. Right? That’s what happened? Of course that was what happened. And the only reason he couldn’t have continued making out with her was because she was a camper and he’d gotten into trouble? What did that mean exactly? Her mind got muddy and messy then, like when you forget to wash a brush in between using dark and light paints in a watercolor set.
Indigo snuck into the Ferlinghetti dorm and slipped off her clothes before creeping into bed without a sound. Eleanor slept on her back with an eye mask over the greater majority of her face, her arms rigidly alongside her body like a corpse.
As Indy huddled into her own covers, she touched the bandage on her forearm. Having that intense encounter with Nick erased all memory of her cutting incident and the raw emotions that surrounded her desire to hurt herself earlier. It made her flaws invisible. He really was made of magic—not just in who he was but in what he did to her.
He liked her. That was the most important thing to take away from this bizarre, humid, wine-stained night. He liked her so much, but he couldn’t fully act on it because he was a counselor and she was a camper.
It was hours before Indigo finally drifted off into a dreamless sleep.
14
The next day was a cakewalk. Indy sailed through all her classes with the same manic, ebullient energy with which she tossed and turned the night before. Rich, newly layered fantasies about Nick ricocheted around her head. At breakfast she ignored Eleanor, who asked whether she’d even come home last night.
“Maybe you’re just a deep sleeper now,” Indigo suggested over chai tea and whole-wheat pretzel croissants that Lillian had shipped in from Manhattan’s City Bakery. Eleanor seemed confused. Usually Indy spoke to her with some sort of sarcasm or outright agitation. Now her roommate was just shrugging her off with low-key cheer. Indy honestly didn’t care about her roommate’s hard-earned attempts at getting under her skin—it was a pleasant change.
It was a cooler, more arid day at Silver Springs, and it felt like a relief. Now that she knew Nick liked her, it was like the whole world was breezier.
Indigo waltzed through sculpture class with Jim Dybbs, shrugging off a nasty splinter she got in the process of sanding down a four-by-four. She sleepwalked through an oil painting elective workshop with a visiting artist lady from an artist’s residency in Rhode Island, who guided everyone through a never-ending presentation on the importance of ultramarine blue when achieving perfect skin tone. And she sailed through lunch, barely touching her croque-monsieur and humming with happiness when she passed the pitcher of Arnold Palmers
down to Puja’s end of the table, making sure to add, “Enjoy!” before she did.
There was no doubt she was giddy and goofy and feeling like a different person today. In fact, it wasn’t until she bounded past Theater Row and into the Performance Art Center to take a meeting with Jen Rant when Indy felt a little down for the first time all day. She hadn’t dealt with Jen since the night of the social and the Bob Dylan concert, and she hadn’t been particularly dying to catch up with her since she learned of her supposed past with Nick. What’s more, even though Indigo had eked out some work since they last spoke, she still felt superstitious around her productivity. As though if she talked about it to Jen, her adviser would put some kind of a jinx on her creative streak.
Plus, Indy was still wearing long sleeves to conceal her arm. She really hoped Jen wouldn’t notice, because that certainly was a conversation she didn’t want to have.
“Come in!” Jen called from behind her office door. Indy turned the knob and cracked the door to find her furiously scribbling into a leather-bound sketchbook.
“Am I interrupting?” Indy was unsure if she’d come at the right time.
“No! Hi, Indy! Sorry, I’m just finishing up my Morning Pages.” Jen finished dashing out whatever it was she was writing in her notebook, then finally shut the cover and spun her chair around. “Sorry about that! I usually try to do my Morning Pages, well, in the morning! But I slept in today, so I’m getting a late start on my creative routine. Speaking of which…”
She opened Indy’s folder, awkwardly segueing into a new, non–Jen Rant–themed stream of thought. “How is your creative routine, Indigo? What are you doing to keep yourself staying inspired and productive since we last spoke?”
“Well, I’ve made some progress on my piece. I worked on it all day yesterday, and I feel good about what I still have to do.”
Art Girls Are Easy Page 12