Miss You, Mina

by Denene Millner

  “The back of his head? Hmm,” she said.

  Just hmm.

  Argh!

  I decided to be the bigger person.

  “I, uh, I like yours, too,” I said, nodding in the direction of her easel. On it was a picture of a huge tree in a huge yard in front of a house, gray and stately, with an ornate fence surrounding it. She’d done a lot of work with highlighting and shadows, making the picture, especially the tree, pop off the canvas. I had to admit, it was good. Really good. “The house is pretty.”

  Paulette looked shocked by my nice response, and I felt a little wave of triumph. Before Paulette could respond, Ms. Roberts strolled into the room and clapped to get our attention.

  “Alrighty—let’s get started,” she said as a handful of counselors from other camp groups within the school lined up behind her. Auntie Jill, who taught painting to sixteen-year-olds upstairs, was there, too. Together, their blue T-shirts looked like a small sea against the sand-brown wall.

  “We’re going to go easel to easel checking out your work,” Ms. Roberts said, “and we’re going to listen to how you came about your inspiration. Then we’ll give you constructive criticism on how to make it better. Now, it’s not easy to let people stand around and say not-so-flattering things about your work; I know this. But I don’t want you to take what we say about your work personally. Everything that we’re going to tell you will ultimately help you become a better artist. It’s not meant to hurt your feelings.

  “With that said,” Ms. Roberts added as she moved toward the grouping of easels, “let’s begin.”

  Honest to goodness, it was like they were moving in slow motion toward the easels, Ms. Roberts leading the pack. With each step, I reevaluated my decision that morning to pick an easel in the middle of all the others. Maybe I should have made it so that they could look at my work first, so that every other picture after it would pale in comparison. Or maybe I should have tried to be somewhere at the end of the critiques—you know, like, save the best for last. Or maybe I was just thinking about it too hard.

  I chewed on one of my nails; my auntie winked at me and sent me a reassuring smile, which gave me great comfort. She, after all, had been a big help while I completed my assignment; she was the one who suggested I add the ribbon and paper to give my picture texture. And she was pretty honest about a few of my earlier drafts, which, after she said they seemed “uninspired,” found a nice home in her compost bin, beneath her coffee grounds, my tea bags, and a handful of orange peels and half-squeezed lemons she tossed in to help make the homemade fertilizer she kept for her container garden. She didn’t have to tell me twice when something stunk.

  But she’d liked this version. At the very least, she’d stick up for me, right? Knowing this helped settle the butterflies swarming in my stomach.

  Poor Julia got evaluated first. “This is, um, interesting,” Ms. Roberts said. “I’m kind of curious about why you would do a white basket against white paper. The color treatment makes your work melt into the white background.”

  Julia’s shoulders fell a mile. She tried to defend herself. “The basket is white and it’s on the table in our kitchen. It’s white, too.”

  “I see. But there had to be a way to distinguish between the different shades of white so that you could tell where the basket ends and the table begins,” Ms. Roberts said as the other counselors leaned into her work. Auntie Jill patted Julia, now officially defeated, on her shoulder. “This is a really nice start,” Ms. Roberts concluded, “but I think you should go back in and find a way to make your subject stand out more.”

  “Okay,” was all Julia could manage.

  Ms. Roberts moved on to Gabriella’s easel. I’d been hanging out with her long enough to tell that when she shook her hair out, she was nervous. When she was especially embarrassed, her cheeks and forehead turned a particular shade of scarlet red, like the color of a reddish brown leaf on a tree in the fall. Sort of the color her face was when Ms. Roberts came to a stop in front of her.

  “Well, Gabriella, why don’t you tell me about your artwork,” Ms. Roberts began.

  “I did a close-up of a pot of flowers my mom keeps in her container garden out on the front stoop of our brownstone,” she said. “I love the color.”

  “It is a nice color,” Auntie Jill chimed in.

  “Yes, it is,” Ms. Roberts cosigned. “But I wonder if you could have put a little bit more effort into the container and the building in the background. That would make the color pop even more. Try that and see where it goes. Overall, nice job.”

  “I’ll do that,” Gabriella said, not the least bit fazed by the criticism. She’d been at the camp before and maybe that made it a little easier for her to take it. “Thank you.”

  Ms. Roberts praised and shamed her way through six more campers before she finally stood in front of my easel, squinting at my artwork. I bit my lip waiting for the verdict. My blueberry vanilla lip gloss tasted like wax, but I chewed on, anyway.

  “Mina, I’ve been looking forward to critiquing your work, seeing as you clearly come from a family of talented artists,” Ms. Roberts said, nodding at Auntie Jill. “I know I’ve kept a watchful eye over your in-class assignments, but this is your first big critique. Are you ready?”

  “I, um, I think…yeah,” I stuttered.

  “Well, then,” Ms. Roberts said, leaning into my easel. “Tell me about it.”

  This part, I hadn’t been expecting. How was I supposed to stand there in the middle of a class full of people and tell them that I was inspired to draw my picture after meeting a cute boy? How would I have sounded, talking about how I’d spent the last week drawing a picture of some boy’s hair?

  No. Way.

  “It’s a picture, um, of, um…my hair,” I stuttered.

  “Hmm. Well, the color is a little off, no?” she asked, leaning in. My locs are reddish brown. Marley’s are a beautiful brownish gold, like Corbin’s.

  “I wanted to play with the colors a little,” I answered quickly. “I thought reddish brown would be a little boring.”

  I shot a look in Paulette’s direction just as she elbowed Mariska and gave her a lopsided grin. Please, please, please don’t say anything, I thought to myself. The last thing I needed was for everyone in the class to know my inspiration was some boy who barely knew I existed. Not even Gabriella knew the drawing was of Marley’s locs, even though she was the one who introduced us. He was her friend. I got a mental image of myself walking into The Spot and seeing Gabriella whispering to Marley that I was some crazed stalker girl who spent practically a week’s worth of evenings drawing and painting his hair.

  This was so a conversation I didn’t want to have.

  “But I thought…” Paulette began.

  I cleared my throat, hoping that she’d drop it, and keep what I’d told her about my picture to herself. No such luck. Paulette went in for the kill.

  “But didn’t you tell me earlier that it was the back of some boy’s head?” she asked with an icy smile.

  I forced a smile back, and stared down at my Converses, mortified that Paulette had just busted me. Why did I have to open my big mouth and tell her about the boy anyway? “I meant, um…I was trying…” I stuttered.

  “It’s a combination,” Gabriella chimed in. “See? You can tell it’s styled like her locs, but the color is like our friend’s hair. I think it looks kinda cool.”

  “Yeah, um, that’s kinda what I was doing. My inspiration was hair in general,” I emphasized. “Not the hair of any specific person.”

  I gave the evil eye to Paulette, who responded with a nose scrunch and whispered to Mariska. Ms. Roberts was totally oblivious to the theater unfolding before her; she was too busy studying my painting.

  Finally, she pulled back from the painting. “Nice approach,” she said, making me breathe a sigh of relief. “This class is about learning, but also innovation,” she added. “I think what you’ve done with the ribbon and paper is interesting, and you’re headed
in the right direction. I want you to keep at this. You still need to figure out how to express yourself as an artist. You’re not there yet, but this is a nice start.”

  I nodded.

  “Good job,” Ms. Roberts said, patting me on the back as she moved on to the next easel. Auntie Jill gave me a wink and a rub on my back and moved on, too.

  I simply stared at my picture. Honestly, I couldn’t tell if she liked it or thought it was childish. A nice start? Suddenly, I wasn’t feeling all that inspired. In fact, I didn’t know if I was supposed to hang the painting up on the wall and be proud of it, or let Auntie Jill run it over with her car.

  “And last but not least, Paulette,” I heard Ms. Roberts say a little too enthusiastically for my taste. She leaned into Paulette’s easel and smiled. “A tree! Quite a nice one, might I add.”

  “It’s the tree in front of my father’s house in the Hamptons,” Paulette said. “I drew it because I can see it right outside my window in the bedroom I sleep in when I stay with him.”

  “Well, I love the movement of the leaves. It looks like they’re fluttering in the wind. And you did it in watercolors. Very classic. Nice job, Paulette.”

  “Thank you,” she said, smiling at her picture as if she were admiring herself in a mirror. When Ms. Roberts turned her back, Paulette high-fived her girls, and tossed a smirk in my direction for good measure. Clearly, she was pleased with herself. I was not.

  I was thoroughly embarrassed. I felt like an idiot for walking into camp like I was Picasso, and being dissed like I’d brought in a third grade finger painting. In fact, I wondered if Ms. Roberts probably would have given me a better critique if I had come with something childish.

  And how I was going to explain my Marley crush to Gabriella?

  “Okay, everyone, I need you to take a seat on the rug so we can talk about your next in-class project,” Ms. Roberts said, snapping me out of my daze.

  My fellow students dutifully made their way to the front of the class, giggling and whispering to one another as if the massive slaughter that just went down didn’t happen. I’ve never been that quick about getting over such things. So I took my time digging for imaginary art supplies in my bag, with the hope that moving slowly would leave me no choice but to sit in the back and sulk a little.

  Before I realized what was going on, Gabriella was grabbing my hand and pulling me toward the door. “Ms. Roberts—we’re just going to take a quick bathroom break,” she called out to our camp instructor. She didn’t give her a chance to respond—she just yanked me through the door and down the hall into the tiny two-stall bathroom. She hurriedly peeked into both stalls like she was on some kind of secret mission, and then she turned to me.

  “Omigod—why didn’t you tell me you like Marley?” she said excitedly, shaking out her hands and jumping up and down a little.

  “What?” I asked, playing like I was clueless. “Marley? I…don’t like Marley,” I stuttered.

  “Mina! You so don’t give that level of paint detail to someone you don’t have some kind of crush on. Girl, why didn’t you tell me? Marley is my homie—I could totally see him liking you…and I could even set something up…”

  “Gabriella, seriously…” I began, feeling my face get hot.

  “Man, why didn’t I pick up on this? My radar is so totally better than that…” she continued, talking to herself like I wasn’t in the room.

  “Gabriella!” I yelled. My voice bounced off the yellow tiles and practically yelled back at us. “Please stop,” I said slowly. “I’m not even thinking about Marley right now. Some inspiration he turned out to be.”

  “What are you talking about? He was perfect. Look at the picture you came up with,” Gabriella said.

  “Ms. Roberts didn’t like it,” I said, pouting. “At all.”

  “Oh, come on, Mina,” she said. “Harsh much? You act like she wanted to drive a stake through it.”

  “Um, were you even in the same room as me? Even if all she had was a butter knife, she would have stabbed the painting a dozen times if she could.”

  “You know what? You’re right—maybe we weren’t in the same room. Because what I heard from our camp instructor was that she liked what you did. I know I at least heard her say ‘good work,’” Gabriella said, tucking a stray sandy-brown curl behind her left ear and running her fingers over her thick eyebrows.

  “Yeah, after she basically told me it sucked,” I said, sulking. “And I swear, Paulette is making it even worse.”

  Gabriella turned from the mirror and looked at me. “Okay, you’ve got to stop this.”

  “Stop what?” I asked.

  “You’re letting Paulette drive you batty,” she said.

  “Well, you have to admit, she is making camp feel like an enemy zone,” I insisted, folding my arms.

  “Look, she’s competitive and she’s not going to make winning the big end-of-camp prize easy. But your work is totally incredible. Everybody else can see that. Why can’t you?” she asked as she backed away from me and toward the bathroom door. “You have to stop letting Paulette get into your head. Seriously.”

  And with that, she disappeared down the hall and back into class.

  I took a look at myself in the mirror and adjusted the purple bandanna holding back my locs. She’s right, you know, I told myself. Get your head in the game.

  When I got back into the classroom, Ms. Roberts was already well into her lesson about Faith Ringgold. “What’s incredible about this artist is her use of words,” Ms. Roberts said as I took a seat on the rug between Gabriella and Toby. “She doesn’t just create pictures. Each piece of art has a story painted directly onto it, so the story, in essence, comes to life. Today, your challenge is to create a work of art and, like Ringgold, pair it with words that tell a story about your painting.”

  Hushed conversation washed over the room as everyone started thinking out loud about what they might want to draw. Gabriella got up and stretched and yawned. “Ooh, I’m going to draw lunch, because I’m starving,” she said, rolling her head in circles to work the kinks out of her neck.

  “Mmm—I can see it now: Lombardi’s, the table in the back, a mushroom-and-olive pie,” Toby laughed. “And I think I just officially made myself hungry.”

  Gabriella laughed as we grabbed our fabric and moved toward our easels. “You know it! My words will be an ode to Lombardi’s pizza. Maybe I’ll write ‘sweet and extra cheesy’ all around the border.”

  “Well, the ‘extra cheesy’ part would be spot-on,” Paulette said, strolling by with a giggly Mariska and the always-attitudinal Stephanie close on her heels.

  Gabriella frowned, but she kept her thoughts to herself, which, of course, signaled Paulette to dig in a little more. She trained her eyes on me. “And, um, let me guess: You’ll be drawing The Spot, right? Maybe with your friend with the black—no, brown…or was it black and brown hair?” She shook her head, giggled, and walked away. And right at that moment, I was so officially over her and her little friends and especially that camp. Forget pizza and The Spot and especially Paulette. I was in serious need of a Samantha and Liza intervention—one that could be had at the Greenwood public pool, in our special spot, a few feet from the lifeguard station. My best friends would think my painting was cool, and they wouldn’t make a big deal about Marley. They’d understand that I thought he was cute but that was it. I wasn’t even sure how I felt about boys in general just yet.

  I felt like an alien in New York City. But back at the pool, sitting on my favorite deck chair, lying on my favorite towel and listening to the kids of Greenwood splashing around in the water, I was at home. Liza and Sam just got me.

  I clipped my white handkerchief on my easel and then reached down for my pencil. I knew exactly what I’d draw on it: a picture of me in my favorite purple swimsuit, chilling out with my best friends on the beach in Cape May. On the edges of my picture, I planned to write the words: Choice waves, good friends, peace, and love.

  In other wor
ds, things I didn’t think existed here in New York City.

  Chapter Six

  I ran a mental checklist of things Liza told me to do to look more like a New Yorker and less like a tourist when I visited Manhattan: Keep your head down, walk straight and fast because New Yorkers get really mad when people who aren’t from New York get in their way, and never, ever, under any circumstances, look up at the skyscrapers.

  Do that, and you might as well have the word tourist scribbled across your forehead. At least that was what Liza’s dad had told her. He worked in Manhattan.

  I tried to keep this advice in mind as our class made our way up the staircase leading out of the subway and into the bright sun washing over Rockefeller Center. But it wasn’t easy. Every building, every billboard, every window was like candy to my eyes.

  “Last year we went to Takashimaya to check out Japanese water prints, and we saw Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Tisdale just walking down the street like normal people,” Gabriella whispered as she grabbed my hand. “They had shopping bags and a bunch of guys with cameras were following them and everybody was staring. It was crazy!”

  “Do you think there’ll be celebrities over here?” I asked excitedly as we made our way up Fifth Avenue, my eyes straying from all the fancy jewelry shops and clothing stores to search the oncoming crowd. Maybe Corbin would be shopping in Armani. Or buying a nice diamond necklace for his mom at Tiffany. I peered through the window, totally looking for Corbin, totally not noticing the ocean’s worth of pearls in the window display. “I have my camera with me.”

  “It’s not really cool to take their pictures,” said Gabriella. “Mostly, around here people just ignore celebrities, except for the professional camera guys.”

  “Well, I don’t want to look like a tourist, but if I look up and see Corbin Bleu walking toward me, it might get a little crazy around here—I’m just saying!”

  Gabriella laughed as we picked up our pace to keep up with the rest of the class. I kept scanning the faces of the people walking toward me. There was no Corbin Bleu or Vanessa Hudgens or anyone famous—just regular people swarming the streets with their briefcases and their fast-food bags and their Starbucks cups. None of them seemed to pay their surroundings any mind. As for me? I couldn’t help but to sneak a peek toward the sky when Ms. Roberts led us to the front of a beautiful, cream-colored building.