He wasn’t cute, not even close. But it felt good to be liked, so I found things to like about him. His long eyelashes. The way his jeans hung low on his waist. His shoes.
He took me to the two-dollar movie in Taylorville. A half-hour drive on the highway so he could save a few bucks. That was fine, I told myself. He kissed me when we got back to the car, pushing his tongue as far into my mouth as it would go. I kissed him back the best I knew how. It didn’t feel good, but I kept going. His hands hurt, the way they squeezed my breasts like stress balls. But I let him do that, too, because I wanted him to like me. Then his cold fingers tried to dig under my bra. That’s when I pulled away.
“What?” He sat up, breathless. “You don’t like that?”
I shook my head. The windows of the car were foggy.
“Don’t tell me you’re a lesbian.”
That hurt. I’m not sure why, but it did. The way he said it, maybe, like there might be something wrong with me. “No,” I said. “It’s just . . .” My voice stopped making words. I didn’t have any words. How do you ask a guy to stop and still have him like you?
I was clueless. And of course, he ended up hating me. To anyone who’d listen, I was a boring lesbian who, by the way, was ugly as shit.
Haley was the one who told me all this.
“No one believes it,” she said, cornering me in the restroom. “But I thought you should know.”
Thanks, Haley. Always good to know.
That thing with Alex . . . That was a memory I couldn’t paint. It hurt too much.
• • •
Before I knew it, my watch said ten o’clock and Mr. Barnes was locking the door. Mr. Barnes sat at a booth checking off the receipts for the night, while Joey, Sadie, and I tore through our side-work. My job was to roll silverware into napkins and fill the Parmesan and red-pepper shakers.
By ten-thirty, we were finishing up. I looked around for Joey. He was in the back somewhere. Hopefully he hadn’t forgotten about taking me home. He seemed like the kind of guy who might forget.
Sadie plunked the mop into its bucket. Her friend was knocking on the other side of the glass door. “My ride’s here,” Sadie said. “Would you mind dumping the mop water for me?”
“Yeah, sure.” It would give me an excuse to find Joey.
Sadie waved as she pushed open the door. Her friend took her hand and they headed off. Mr. Barnes locked the door behind them.
“You can go,” Mr. Barnes told me. “Did you have a good night?”
“Pretty good.”
I wheeled the mop bucket down the hallway. Joey stood at one of the stainless-steel counters pumping oil from a plastic jug into pizza pans. He looked up when I came in.
“Hey! It’s the woman I gave up drinking for. You ready to go?”
I smiled as I dumped the mop water into the floor drain. “Are you ready to take me?”
“Oh yes.” He winked as he squirted a shot of oil into a pan. The oil splattered onto his hands. He wiped it off on his apron.
“Messy,” I said.
He grinned at me. I smiled back.
So far, so good.
• • •
This was it. Alone in the car with Joey. He drove a red Camaro with torn-up seats. The engine was loud. The ashy smell of stale cigarettes reminded me of Dad’s studio. I tried to relax, but my body wouldn’t cooperate. I felt like a bad actor—shy girl tries to be cool. Maybe he wouldn’t notice.
“So where do you live?” Joey shifted into reverse and started backing out.
“Take El Dorado to Main and turn left. Then keep going till you hit Forest Street. I’m almost on the corner of Main and Forest.”
“Got it.”
His hand reached toward me. I tensed. But he was only turning up the radio. Did he really like the song, or was he tuning me out? I clutched my purse tighter. I should say something.
“Thanks for doing this.”
“No problem.” He grabbed his pack of cigarettes off the dashboard. “Want one?”
“No thanks.” Would he like me better if I smoked? Even I knew that was stupid.
He lit up with the car lighter and took a deep drag. I liked the way he held the cigarette between his thumb and index finger. I liked how he cracked the window to blow the smoke outside. “So what are you into?” he asked.
“Um . . .” Not a hard question, but my mind froze up.
“You ever go to any of the clubs around here?”
“Huh-uh. I’m only seventeen. Well, eighteen next week. Don’t you have to be twenty-one to get into those places?”
The streetlights flickered over his face as he spoke. “My uncle owns a bar in Maroa. A lot of people know him, so I don’t get carded much. And if I do, I have one of these.” He dug into his back pocket and handed me his wallet. “Open it.”
I ripped open the Velcro fastening. In the little plastic window was a driver’s license. My own license had a red background to show I was under twenty-one. His didn’t have that.
“Pretty good, right?”
I handed the wallet back. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll get caught?”
“I can’t worry about shit like that.” He took another drag off his cigarette. I liked how he squinted to keep the smoke out of his eyes.
So back to his question. What did I like to do? I liked to read. Boring. And of course I liked to paint. Not that boring. A lot of people thought artists were cool. I just needed to say it the right way, so he didn’t think I was weird or snotty.
He braked suddenly and turned the wheel. I grabbed the passenger door to keep from sliding into him.
“Shit, sorry about that. Almost missed the turn.”
“That’s okay.” I peered into the darkness, getting my bearings. My street was a few blocks up. “So I’m an artist.” I pulled my purse closer to my stomach. “You asked me what I like to do.”
Joey turned up the volume on the radio. Too loud. “These guys are insane!” he shouted. “Have you heard of them?”
I tried to make sense of the jarring sounds. “Who is it?”
“Strapping Young Lad. The song’s called ‘Love.’” He turned the volume back down. “You were saying?”
“Nothing.” More fiddling with my purse. The fake leather was cracking. “Just that I like to paint.”
“That’s cool. My mom used to draw a lot.” He blew smoke out in a long stream. “That was before she went to prison.”
My head shot up, my mind on high alert. Why would he tell me that?
“She’s an addict.” He flicked his cigarette out the window. “She tried to rob a 7-Eleven. Shot someone.”
Jesus! Was he kidding?
“I just wanted to tell you that before I ask you out.”
Ask me out? I turned to look at him, my heart pounding.
“So you want to go out Wednesday?” he asked. “We both have the night off.”
“Sure.” Inside my head, explosions were going off, but my words came out sounding calm and cool. “Wednesday’s good.”
“It doesn’t scare you that my mom killed someone?”
Should I tell him about Dad? Would that make him feel better?
The car slowed. “You said Forest Street, right?”
“Yeah.” I waited for him to turn the corner. “That’s my house. The green one.”
He pulled into the driveway and stopped. Light shone through the curtains. Mom must be up waiting. I knew I should go before she came outside and embarrassed me.
But I didn’t reach for the door handle. Not yet. The air in the car felt charged. I didn’t want to mess this up.
He draped his arm over the steering wheel and turned to face me. This was it. Was he going to kiss me? We looked at each other in the dark car, him smiling a little. Me with my heart in my throat. Then he leaned in. I closed my eyes, braced myself.
His lips were soft, gentle. Nothing like Alex’s. I felt my back relaxing, my lips moving in response. I pushed closer, breathed Joey in, let him soak into me. A good
kisser. Definitely a good kisser.
I wanted to keep going, but he pulled away. Gently. “I’ve been wanting to do that all night.” Again, the little smile.
“Me, too.” I sounded breathless. I was breathless.
“God, I love this song.” He reached past my arm and cranked up the volume, the bass so loud it rattled my teeth. I sat for a second, just in case, but he was busy lighting another cigarette, his head bobbing to the music.
That was my cue. I pulled the handle and got out, waved as I shut the door. He didn’t see me, but that was okay. In that moment, everything was okay. I ran up to the house and looked back. Maybe he’d beep his horn, but his car was disappearing around the corner, the thump of his booming bass trailing him like a fading memory.
• • •
Mom wasn’t waiting up after all, but she had left the light on for me. I stripped off my work clothes and looked at myself in the full-length mirror on the back of my bedroom door. What would Joey see if he saw me naked? Automatically, my brain started filling in the details of how I’d paint myself in the nude. I knew what areas I’d shadow, what body parts I’d turn to the light.
I had to stop myself from going down to Dad’s studio to paint. I might start off trying to paint myself beautiful, but with the way I was feeling—all my emotions in turmoil because of what had happened with my dad—I wasn’t sure what might come out on the canvas. A girl’s shadow, sliced into ribbons by slashes of intruding light. A woman running against a threaded texture of red and black and green and yellow. The inside of a girl’s head, a jungle of working gears, with bolts and screws holding things together.
And those ideas wouldn’t win any contests. At the school library, I’d looked up the winners from previous years. All the paintings showed happy or touching scenes. Norman Rockwell slices of ordinary life. Nothing like what was in my head.
So instead of painting another self-portrait, I pulled out the giant stuffed lion I kept under my bed and rested my head on its body. This time I pretended the lion was Joey. I imagined I could hear his heartbeat. I imagined Joey’s hand tracing the curve of my back, his arm holding me close. I imagined other things, too. And after I was done imagining, I had an idea.
I knew what to paint for the art contest.
CHAPTER 14
Wednesday promised to be a good day. Charlotte Gross was meeting my dad for the first time. I was going out with Joey that night. Haley was absent from World History. And I had a folder of sketches to show Mr. Stewart. My ideas for the art contest.
I wanted Mr. Stewart to like them as much as I did, so I was nervous when I took the manila folder up to his desk after class. He was jotting something down in his grade book.
“Mr. Stewart?”
“Tera.” He eyed the folder and slipped his pen into his blazer. “You have something to show me?”
“If you have time.”
“For you, I always have time. Let’s move over to the window.”
I clutched my folder and followed him to the window where a patch of weak sunlight fell on a long table. One by one I laid out what I’d done. A profile of a gorgeous guy, rain droplets falling from his hair. A portrait of that same guy leaning against a brick wall, his face turned up to the falling rain. A wide view of him walking in the rain, water splashing around his shoes.
Mr. Stewart straightened each sketch. I waited as he lined them up in a perfect row. He was thinking of what to say.
“Hmm,” he began, but didn’t add anything. He touched the corners of each drawing.
“What do you think?” I finally asked. “I have my favorite. The one with the brick wall. I like the way you can see the rain splashing on his face.”
“Yes, that’s probably the best of the three.” Mr. Stewart scratched his nose. “And you did these recently? After we talked about the contest?”
“Yes.” Why would he ask that?
“I’m sorry, Tera.” He turned his head my way but didn’t make eye contact. “The rain concept is there, I guess, but I’m not seeing what you want me to see.”
I bit down on my lip. Hard, to keep it from shaking. “He’s a guy I met. I felt inspired, just like you talk about.”
“Yes, I get that. So he’s some kind of bad boy?”
“What?”
“Never mind. What I meant to say was . . . When I look at these, I don’t feel inspiration or love or infatuation. Whatever it is you’re going for here, I’m not feeling it.”
Anger swept over me. Mr. Stewart was old, in his thirties. He didn’t get it. I fought to keep my voice level. “Okay.”
“Can I be honest?” he asked.
I nodded. Much safer than trying to talk.
“These look more like pictures from one of those teen magazines. Tiger Beat maybe? I don’t know all the names.”
Tiger Beat? I didn’t even know what that was. “He’s not from a magazine,” I said. “He’s a real person.”
“I understand that, and I get that. I’m not taking away from what you’re feeling for him. I just think they’re . . .” He swept his hand over the row of sketches. “Trite.”
Such a smothering word, like a rag stuffed in my mouth. I tried to breathe. Got nothing.
“I’m sorry, Tera.”
I stared at my sketches, tears biting behind my eyes. When I’d drawn them, I’d felt excited, hopeful. But Mr. Stewart thought they were trite.
“You can go deeper,” he was saying. “These sketches don’t capture your muse. They don’t capture your innermost self, that part of you that’s been hurt, that’s suffered. You have so much pain inside and—”
“I wasn’t going for pain.” I shuffled the drawings into a pile. “Not everything has to be about my dad.”
“I know that, Tera. That’s not what I’m saying.”
“You talk about good artists defying expectations. Well, that’s what I’m doing and suddenly that’s not what you want.”
“You misunderstand. I want you to extract what’s inside. That’s what people want to see.”
Of course they did. Haley, Ellen, everyone in the hallways who stared at me or asked me what was up with my dad . . . They all loved to see me squirm. I shoved the sketches back into the folder, not caring how the paper bent and tore. “So my life is a freak show.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I knew it wasn’t—he was trying to help—but how do you tell someone you don’t want to go digging around inside yourself because you’re afraid of what will happen? If I went digging, a piece might rattle loose, and then another and another, and before I knew it, my whole self would start to crumble.
Mr. Stewart lowered his voice. “Is something else going on, Tera? Did something happen?”
Yeah, something happened. I met a guy. He made me happy. And now you’re ruining it. “Nothing happened,” I said.
“All right.” He looked around like he was searching for what to say. “This contest. You have it in you to win it.”
“These sketches were done from memory,” I said. “If I had a live model, they could be a lot better.”
“I don’t doubt that. You can try it. But try some other things, too, okay? Play around with the rain concept. There’s still time.”
“I know.”
“Just dig deep, okay?”
“I have to go,” I said.
• • •
I stumbled outside into the sunshine. Strange, after months of winter, to feel warmth soaking into my skin. My phone vibrated in my purse as I waited to cross the car lane. By now, I recognized the number.
Take a moment. Breathe.
“Hello?”
“Tera, it’s Charlotte Gross. I met with your dad.”
A car honked, close enough to make me jump. Haley sat in the car queue behind the wheel of her mom’s Audi. She rolled her window down and waved her arm at me. A queen in her chariot.
I turned my back, pressed the phone to my ear. “Thanks for calling. Did he sign the papers?” She couldn’t star
t helping him until he signed the papers.
“Tera!”
I tried to ignore Haley’s shout, tried to concentrate on what Charlotte Gross was saying.
“He signed, but he wasn’t happy about it. You should probably talk to him.”
“Tera, get in! I need to talk to you!” The car behind Haley’s beeped its horn. She was holding up the line. I plugged my other ear. I had no interest in sharing the details of my life so she could blab them to the whole school.
“He knows I can’t visit him yet, right? Not until I turn eighteen.”
“He knows.”
Haley’s car rolled past me. I wanted to ask Charlotte Gross something else, something important, but I couldn’t think.
“I have to go,” the lawyer said. “I’ll be in touch.”
A tick of silence. Wait! Haley’s brake lights blinked on, then off. Traffic swelled in behind her.
“Hello?”
Too late. The line was dead.
Shit. I wanted to ask if Dad had put me on the visitors’ list yet. And I wanted to ask how he looked. Was he scared? Did he seem hopeful?
Of course Haley ruined that for me.
CHAPTER 15
Joey was late. Seventeen minutes and counting.
Mom paced the living room. Like it mattered to her if he showed up. I sat on the couch, my purse clenched tight. I tried not to check my watch.
“Are you sure you have the right night?” Mom said. “Maybe he changed his mind.”
A moment of panic. Did I have the right night? “You’re not helping, Mom.”
“I’m just saying what you’re thinking.”
“Then don’t say anything. Please.”
“I’ve dated before, Tera. Believe it or not.” She bumped my leg as she paced. “How old did you say he was?”
“Around my age.”
“Still in high school?”
“I think so.”
“You think so?” She stopped in her tracks and turned to look at me. “How can you not know that?”
A car engine outside. Loud and getting louder. Please let it be him!
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