by Susan Wilson
“Call her. Tell her you’ve got a school project. Something important to do. Chess Club?”
“I don’t know.” It’s so weird to have a grown-up suggesting she do something she might happily do of her own accord. “I have the dog to walk. If I don’t do that, she’ll send him away.”
Mosley steps back, picks up his equipment, and marches away for all the world like a pissed-off boyfriend. Not that she’s ever had one of those, but she watches how the few actual real and true couples behave toward one another. The girls are always testing the boys with jealousy and demands.
“I could be a tiny bit late. She might not notice for a while. Can you get me back by four-thirty?”
He doesn’t answer the question. “Just let me sketch you. Crouch down, link your fingers into the fence … no, just your left hand.”
She does what he commands. A strand of hair catches against the fence, trapping her there.
PART III
CHAPTER 27
With the phone tucked close to my ear, I’m scrambling to make up the three rooms left from this morning’s checkout in time for the three families checking in, and talking with my mother at the same time. “The doggy day care is finally open and suddenly the LakeView is operating at two-thirds capacity, which is one-third more than my best-ever occupancy over the past year.” I know I sound like an infomercial, but by now I can actually do a proper comparison.
“That’s good, Skye. I’m glad to hear it.” She sounds almost sincere.
“Obviously, part of it is the spectacular June weather, and part is certainly the ability to offer doggy parents an option that will allow them to visit not-so-dog-friendly attractions in the area.”
“Doggy parents? You’ve swallowed the Kool-Aid, haven’t you?”
“Maybe.” My phone chirps with an incoming call. “Sorry, I’ve got to go.”
“Are you still doing all this by yourself?”
“It’s only a few days before school ends, and then Cody can help.” If I hate the idea of making my kid into a chambermaid, the fact is that she’s old enough, and diligent enough, to do the work. After all, loads of fifteen-year-olds do this kind of work in the summer at resorts. It won’t kill her, and it will mean that the money not spent on hiring help will go toward improvements and not just making the mortgage payment.
“How is she?”
“Fine.” It’s what I always say.
“Good. Have her call sometime, will you?”
“I will.”
Whoever was calling is gone. No message.
I push my housekeeping trolley down the gallery to the last room. The key sticks a little, so I pull out a can of WD-40, spritz some into the keyhole and on the key, which then clicks into place like magic. I love little fixes, finding them satisfying in a way that coping with big fixes isn’t. Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I think about all the little things that need attention, think about what I can do to make them work. Better than counting sheep is thinking about these minor but manageable tasks; far better than thinking about the big ones, the impossible repairs that can’t be fixed with a screwdriver or a can of WD-40. I am Shawn Colvin’s Sunny, come home to make a few small repairs. Inside the room, I strip the beds. Then snap duvets over the beds, slam the side of my hand under the pillow to tuck the duvets close. Arrange the decorative pillows to my satisfaction.
Lucky/Dawg impulsively hops onto the freshly made bed. I shouldn’t have left the door open, but I like to air the rooms out.
“Get down from there.” I shoo him off the bed. The dog obeys, but it’s clear he’s got mischief in his mind. He play bows, woofs. “What’s your problem?” But he’s irresistible in his own way. “Where’s your ball?” As if he really understands, the dog dashes out of the room, thundering down the stairs. I don’t think that we even have a ball. I wouldn’t say so out loud, but I’ve kind of grown attached to the mutt. I haven’t told Cody, but when I break for lunch, I’ve been taking the dog down to the lake for a walk. He’s a good excuse to get away from the building. It’s actually quite pretty down there. And he’s a nice companion. Always keeps me in sight.
I face the small bathroom, wet towels everywhere, every hotel-size bottle of shampoo or conditioner opened and half used. The tiny flat bars of face soap and bath soap lie open, glued to the edge of the sink and tub. I pull on rubber gloves. “Blaghh.” It’s after two-thirty and no Cody. As usual. I give the bathroom a scrub, then plug in the vacuum and run it around the room; a quick touch with a dust rag and that’s done. As yucky as a used hotel room can be, there is something so satisfactory about bringing it back to order. Conquering disorder with a can of Scrubbing Bubbles and an industrial vacuum.
Dawg is running back up the stairs. He meets me as I pull shut the door to room 12. His tail is madly swinging and his amber eyes are on me. I can see the faded yellow of an old tennis ball lodged in his big mouth. With a dull thud, Dawg drops it at my feet. Wherever this ball came from, it’s a dead ball. It hits the deck with a mushy thunk.
“You’re smarter than you look.” I retrieve the rather moist object, contemplate pitching it over the second-story porch rail, then worry that the impulsive dog will jump over to get it. He’s patting his boxer’s feet on the deck, his delight in the game making me smile. “Okay. Here you go.” Falling back on my junior high school softball skills, I wind up, snapping the ball down the length of the gallery, where it nearly smacks Adam March in the head.
* * *
There is a large portfolio on the counter in Mosley’s office. Inside of it is the series of plein air paintings he’s done of her over the past couple of weeks. Cody flips it open, leafs through the eight-and-a-half-by-eleven deckled-edge pages. No matter what she was wearing as he posed her in a variety of sylvan settings—jeans and T-shirts, shorts and tank tops—the images are of Cody as a sylph or a fairy. Wings she never wore are attached to her back; butterflies she never saw alight on her fingertips. She looks like one of those garden statues that were so popular in the Victorian age, or those grim baby angels in old cemeteries. She’s seen photographs of them, and knows about the works of Charles Dodgson, who she also knows is the guy who liked photographing little girls and wrote that book about Alice. Lewis Carroll, that was his pen name. They talked about him in English class.
What Cody likes about these little watercolors is that they make her look pretty. They’re flattering in a way that her mirror is not. She’s fifteen now, and finally beginning to develop hips and a bust. It’s like some switch has been flipped; even her acne has diminished, and, glory hallelujah, her braces are coming off next week. She’s begun to wear her contacts again. She wakes in the morning with the feeling that some internal combustion engine deep within is ready to be thrown into drive. Anticipatory. Ready. Mosley has captured some of this. Maybe that’s what the wings represent.
Hearing the main door scrape open, Cody closes the portfolio, ducks out of Mosley’s office. She’s not supposed to see the unfinished paintings, although he’s promised to show the finished ones to her in time for the July gala. Part of the event will be an art show featuring the best work of the AC’s artists. Their work will be displayed in the lobby of the downtown hotel where the fancy dinner and dancing will be held in the ballroom, followed by an auction of those pieces. It’s going to be a big deal and she knows that everyone at the Artists Collaborative is banking on its being their breakthrough fund-raising event, something that will put a spotlight on the AC as an organization worthy of attention in a town already flooded with artistic endeavors. Mr. March calls it “branding.”
She’s hoping to get to go, to help out. Maybe she can help set up. Take tickets. Something, anything, not to be left out of the fun.
Cody slips into the space that Mosley and Kieran have designated for her use. It’s a tiny space, eked out of one of the larger work spaces, which was recently abandoned by a sculptor who moved out to Los Angeles to work for a game developer. It’s little, but it’s a place to keep her things,
someplace where she doesn’t have to put anything away if she doesn’t feel like it. There, under the hanging industrial light, she’s got her materials and the half-finished art project, which is beginning to take form.
Mosley waited for her after school yesterday, this time meeting her close to the school itself, telling her that he wanted to visit another pretty place close by. It seems like the whole countryside is filled with these places, some under the state park system, some just local, and Mosley knows them all. Tannery Falls was the place du jour, and on a weekday it was, in Mosley’s words, “sublimely deserted.” They hiked down the railroad-tie steps, which led down to where the stream pooled beneath the tall, narrow waterfall. The falls made a nice backdrop as he sat her down on a flat rock, arranged her just so.
“Don’t move. Just like that.” And so Cody sat, arms wrapped around her knees, head tilted as if taking the water right in the face, eyes closed. The sun beaming through the tall trees felt nice on her face. In books, it’s always called a “companionable silence,” and that’s what she was thinking, neither she nor Mosley saying a word as he worked.
From above, laughter, a girl’s squealing giggle, more flirtatious than amused. Cody’s eyes flew open. She knew that giggle. Knew the heavier laughter that accompanied it. Ryan and one of the mean girls. The girls’ voices are so alike, she couldn’t possibly discern who was who, Tyler or Taylor. One of them, alone with Ryan. Cody scrambled to her feet, ignoring Mosley’s scowl. Being found out here, modeling, sitting in this dumb pose for an artist, would further encourage the taunting, adding to her reputation as a weirdo. God help her, but this would be fuel for another year of torture. Except that there was no escape. The trail led down, and the trail led up, and there was no other way to go. Then Mosley heard the intrusion. Slowly, he gathered up his things, folded the easel, wiped his brush with a rag, set everything carefully into the paint box. Without a word to her, he started up the trail.
Cody slipped on her boots, brushed off her backside. The switchback nature of the trail gave her a few minutes before they’d see her. Cody heard Mosley speak to the pair, as any stranger might acknowledge someone on a walking trail: a brief “How you doin’.” She was on her own, and it was up to her whether or not they tied her presence in this secluded place with that man. Cody bolted for a thick stand of trees, pressed herself against the trunk of the widest, and hoped that Tyler (or Taylor) and Ryan wouldn’t see her hiding there like some freak.
From her vantage point, peeking between the close-growing oaks, Cody could see that it was Tyler, not her bestie, going solo with everybody’s favorite crush, Ryan. From around her tree trunk blind, Cody watched as the pair jumped to the flat rock in the brook where she’d just been posing. And then she got an A-1 surprise as the pair lip-locked. Oooh, this was good. This was power. She knew for certain that Ryan had asked Taylor to be his date for the upcoming Spring Fling dance, effectively choosing Taylor as his girlfriend. Everyone was talking about it, even if they weren’t talking to her about it. The benefit of being an outsider is that no one knows you’re there. And Tyler and Ryan didn’t know she was there right now, feasting on the sight of the two of them betraying Taylor; Tyler’s descent into being the “other woman” and Ryan’s elevation into becoming a true a-hole. She can’t wait to tell Black Molly.
It was like watching a smarmy video, Ryan easing Tyler down to the hard surface of the rock, sliding his hand down her shirt until she lifted it over her head, tossing it away. It fell into the stream, but they were in such thrall to their passion that neither one noticed and the shirt drifted to a bend in the brook, a mere two feet from where Cody was hiding. It was too good to pass up. Cody, figuring that the couple were sufficiently distracted, reached for the shirt with a long stick, snagging it. It was a pretty little T-shirt, pale pink, made out of that soft slinky stuff, probably expensive. Cody squeezed out the water and stuffed it into her waistband. Finders keepers, she thought, and then decided that it was a far better thing to discover than to be discovered when Tyler went hunting for her missing shirt, so she boldly walked out from behind the tree, stood on the very edge of the stream, and made sure that Tyler and Ryan looked up from their make-out session to see her standing there. “Hey, guys. S’up? Taylor know you’re here?”
And with that, she ran up the trail, heart pounding.
Tyler’s T-shirt actually fits her very well. She’s wearing it under her zip-front Old Navy sweatshirt. Cody thought about using it as a brush rag, but she’s never owned a Banana Republic T-shirt before, and certainly never a pink shirt, but she likes it. Besides, today, in school, wearing it gave her this little frisson of excitement. She’s got something on Ryan and Tyler, and if they noticed the pink cotton showing above where she’s lowered her zipper, they must have been gagging with the fear she’d reveal their nasty little secret to Taylor.
“Hello, Cody.” It’s Mr. March, his dog beside him.
“Hi.” She’s reserved with Mr. March, but she swoops down to wrap her arms around Chance’s neck. He smells like a mixture of outdoors and indoors, which is an odd thought but seems to define it, the smell of a dog. Not unpleasant, but nothing you’d want Yankee Candle to manufacture for a scented candle. She hopes that Mr. March won’t ask about Dawg, ask if she’s keeping up her end of the bargain, because even she knows that she’s not doing such a good job. It’s hard to have the will to take a walk after she gets back from a long, hard day at school, and a session with Mosley or doing AC chores; and then there’s the fact that she wants to work on her art, and she can’t do that if she’s outside walking a dog or picking up poop.
But, of course, he does ask.
“Lucky working out okay for you?” Clearly he’s sticking to the name he prefers for the dog.
“Oh, yeah. Great. He’s great.” Cody can see by the look in his eyes that Adam March is onto her. Face it, he’s probably gotten an earful from her mother. “I mean, I get him out in the mornings, real early. He likes that.”
“It’s hard, isn’t it? Having the responsibility?” Mr. March pats his leg and Chance pulls away from her embrace.
She stands upright, digs her hands into the kangaroo pocket of her sweatshirt. “Yeah. But it’s still worth it.”
“Yes, I think that maybe it is.” He gives her a smile, a real one, and strokes Chance’s head. “I should let you get back to work. Do you want a ride home when I leave? I’ll only be half an hour, maybe less.”
Cody nods. “Yeah, that would be great.” That would mean not having to walk all the way home, or, worse, call her mother and admit that she’s gone to the AC after school instead of going home as she was supposed to, to walk Dawg and help with the rooms like she’s expected to do. She just can’t explain why she would rather take the heat from her mother than miss an opportunity to be here in this big brick building, a place no one expects her to be. No Molly, no Ryan and Taylor. No shooter. “Okay, see you in about half an hour.” Adam and the dog go into Mosley’s office. The door shuts.
Cody looks at her unfinished collage with a critical eye. It sucks. It’s not at all what she had in mind when she started it. She pulls out her sketchbook, looks at the rendering she’d done there of what was supposed to be her first three-dimensional piece of art. It was meant to be something that the viewer would have to assign an interpretation to instead of her making it comprehensible to the beholder. She wanted it to be one of those things people would stand in front of, like they did Kieran’s work, stroking their chins and making up stories, like they knew what he meant by the wire and gauze and stick sculpture. What she’s got here is a mishmash of junk stuck to a board.
Maybe it’s being around all these real artists, like their talent and their industry and their karma are clouding her own. When she’s home, or in school fooling around on the back of her math paper, her drawings seem alive, real, full of potential. But the minute she tries to do something here, it’s pure shit. Mosley is always saying stuff like “Try this,” or “Try that.” “Do
n’t do this,” or “Don’t do that.” Rarely does he say “Nice,” or “Good job.” He tells her that she’s not ready for postmodern. She should perfect her skills first. “You have to be like a figure skater, learn the figures before you start doing double axles.” Frankly, it’s disheartening. Back in Holyoke, the art teacher had praised her to the moon. Mosley laughed when she told him that, which kind of hurt because it felt like she was baring her soul to him, admitting to praise. “You’re pretty good for a kid, yeah. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves because some failed artist told you that you had talent.”
The little watercolors of Cody as sylph seem to her to be as representational as her stuff, the wings and butterflies notwithstanding. They’re not like the work Mosley has shown to the world, so she wonders why he says he’ll display them at the gala. Maybe he’s just bullshitting her. Or—and this makes her laugh a little—he’ll turn her into some weird conceptual thing that no one will associate with the little watercolors.
Cody slowly begins to pull off the glued-on objects—broken glass, stones, feathers, that rubber bracelet. The things that won’t come off easily she attacks with the edge of a putty knife. She throws all the stuff away, each bit clinking in its own particular way into the unlined metal wastebasket. Denuded of the objects, it’s just a piece of plank. A piece of wood now scarred with the residue of Elmer’s glue. A little kid’s art project, macaroni on cardboard. Just about as interesting. Maybe not even as interesting, because you’d expect more from a fifteen-year-old.
Dumping the stripped board into a bin of scraps, Cody grabs her sketchbook and tears out the rendering. Rips it into fours, then sixteenths. She’s deluding herself. She doesn’t have any talent. What the heck made her think that she could do anything better than draw pretty horses?