“Two years ago, Haring came to our own city of Philadelphia to create a mural with CityKids called We the Youth. You can see it today, on Twenty-Second and Ellsworth. Like many of his public installations, our mural is vibrant with the spirit of an urban community. Sometimes—”
Sometimes seizures just happen.
“Sometimes the risk with graffiti is that its art will be defaced, but you can visit We the Youth anytime and see this piece intact. Haring’s mural at the Palladium, and his successful Pop Shop in SoHo, New York, are other examples that this artist is our successor to Andy Warhol as a reigning prince of pop art.”
Click click click click.
“Recently, Haring was diagnosed HIV positive, and while this doesn’t seem to have affected his output . . .” Though my slides changed now, to images of skulls and snakes, bones and devils. “Haring’s work has a new, forceful energy.”
I’d combed art magazine interviews for more details on this unhappy bend in Keith Haring’s story. One article said he was doing just fine, had hardly slowed down while living with HIV, and was more a globetrotter than ever.
I hurried to the finish.
“If the past ten years are any indication, I think we can expect to see a lot more exciting work from this artist. Thank you.”
My last click was my favorite. It was a larger study of that small piece I’d seen in Philadelphia on New Year’s Eve, a crowded dance scene that would always remind me of my night at the Bank, the risk of chaos met by the pure joy of being there.
Applause broke out. I stepped away from the podium and ducked backstage, conscious of my sweating armpits and my heaving breath.
Sometimes seizures just happen. But not today.
Nobody was in the theater’s wings. I sat on a folding chair and put my freezing hands on my knees and breathed. It was only when I could hear the student announcements start that it really sank in. I had done it.
When Mrs. Robles appeared through the theater’s side door, she seemed pleased. “Good job, Lizzy. You sure stepped outside your comfort zone today, didn’t you?” She handed me an index card.
I stood on rubbery legs. My thanks came inside a puff of air. I knew, even before I’d looked at the grade on the card, that it would be pretty good. It was actually three grades, the average of my subject (90), content (92), and presentation (97) averaged to a 93—an A minus.
Shy and pleased and braced for Nectarines, I exited from backstage around to the lobby as students spilled out the theater’s doors. Wendy herself was deep in conversation and didn’t see me, but a few girls gave me a high five or a “Nice.”
Mom was waiting for me, wearing her best work dress and heels and an expression like I’d burped in a restaurant on my birthday.
As in, not my fault, no big deal—but embarrassing.
No surprise. I knew she wouldn’t be too into my choice of subject matter.
When I showed her my grade, she smiled. “Very nice, Lizzy. I’m so proud.” She squeezed my shoulder. “Though I wish I’d known ahead you were picking that artist.”
“Why?”
“For one thing, I told everyone that it was Mary Cassatt.”
“I love Keith Haring. I wanted the assembly to be important to me, personally.”
“And I wasn’t expecting all the drug references, or all of those, ah . . .” She whispered the last two words: “Phallic symbols.”
“Sorry to disappoint. Sexual shock is part of his energy.” I was quoting myself, a sentence that I’d put into my speech and held in my heart because it meant so much to me, but then I’d cut it, because it felt too private.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Lizzy. It’s not just me—you can see the score reflects some unease with the subject matter. Your presentation score is highest, and I bet you’d have gotten an A plus if you’d done Cassatt. I’m still proud, but I also feel like I just can’t win with you lately.”
“Were you worried that I wouldn’t get through it?”
“It’s a mother’s job to worry.” If misery could smile, that was Mom’s face.
And I knew I shouldn’t have, but I bit back. “Imagine if you could only say, Congratulations, Lizzy—I believed in you all along. Imagine that!”
“Your tone has become really harsh.” Mom looked upset, then she seemed to take stock of all the people milling around us. She gave me a quick, closemouthed smile and turned away, heels clicking as she left me, shoulders squared against the pain I’d inflicted.
My impulse was to run to her, to catch up and tell her I was sorry for hurting her feelings. I was sorry. But I was also sorry that she didn’t get why I’d chosen Haring, or why his passion was so important to me. And I couldn’t apologize for that.
forty-two
Matt and I hadn’t exactly stopped talking on the phone. He called the night before my assembly to wish me luck, and he called Friday afternoon, to hear how it went.
“Before I get off, I meant to tell you there’s free weekend drawing classes over at Moore,” he said. “I tore off the number from our school community board. Mr. Dorsey’s wife teaches over there.”
“Really?”
“I could pick you up some Saturday, and I’d wait for you. We could have lunch.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Was he just trying to be nice? But he still didn’t get off. We ended up talking for over an hour. In the end, when I’d finally hung up, I’d felt kind of destroyed that our breakup had done nothing to end our closeness. Wasn’t that what being a couple was all about? Didn’t he think so, too? How would I ever move on from Matt if we stayed this important to each other?
That night, Mimi and Gage took me out to Chili’s and then Gage drove us to her house for make-your-own ice cream sundaes.
In the privacy of Gage’s room, spooning the last of my chocolate with butterscotch sauce, I told them about the breakup.
“Hello? And it happened a whole week ago?” Mimi looked crestfallen. “When were you planning to let us know? Aren’t we still your best friends?”
“I just wanted to get past the assembly stress. And it wasn’t a bad breakup. I mean, not that I’ve had a ton of experience. But we still talk on the phone.”
“That’s sweet,” Mimi acknowledged. “Noah and I didn’t speak again once after our breakup, except when I called to ask him to return some of my CDs.”
“It makes me sad to hear his voice,” I admitted. “Maybe not talking to him would be easier.”
“You didn’t seem affected by it onstage,” said Gage. “Were you nervous?”
“The whole time! Especially when I imagined Nectarines laughing at me.”
“Guys, I’ve never told you this.” Gage looked like she didn’t want to tell it now, either. “But in fourth grade, Wendy Palmer once said I looked like the evil toy that would blow up Santa’s workshop. It obsesses me—how Wendy thought that back then, and if she still does.”
Mimi and I both knew about that insult. We quietly traded looks.
“She’ll never remember she said that,” Mimi assured.
“She might,” I said. “I think you have to accept that Wendy’s out there, and she’s always hoping you’ll mess up, or that she can make fun of you for something. You’ve got to deal, and do it anyway.”
“True.” Gage nodded, and it was one of those rare times when I felt like I wasn’t the baby of the group, but someone wiser.
“My assembly’s in March,” said Mimi. “Is ‘Prohibition Era’ a boring topic? You definitely win for the most sex in your assembly, Lizzy. Nobody was expecting that! People’s eyes were falling out of their heads with some of those slides of yours.”
It amazed me, too, that I’d been the one to give such a daring assembly—and I didn’t even mind if my grade might have been docked for it. I’d do it again if it meant speaking up for art that I thought was important and real.
If I told Mimi and Gage about my father’s suggestion to do my presentation in Mrs. Robles’s office, they’d laugh so hard. It was a funny story, and I imagined Dr. Neumann nodding: Talk about your condition. Use the word epilepsy. Explore your real self.
But this was one dare I couldn’t take, I just couldn’t.
Gage drove me home a little later. She had a fencing thing in Morristown on Saturday, and Mimi and her mom were hitting some clothing outlets, but I was beat, glad for an early night with Ursula K. Le Guin. The phone rang just as I’d switched off my bedside reading lamp. So late, I knew it could be only for me.
I leaped down to the kitchen, hoping against hope it was Claire.
“Bliz.”
“Hey!”
“I’m at a pay phone, we’re heading out to a party—but quick, give me the rundown on your big speech. It was today, right?”
“Uh-huh.” I was so flattered Theo remembered, my smile covered my whole face. “It went great. Didn’t pass out, got an A minus.” Then before I could stop myself, I blurted out about my breakup with Matt.
“Aw, Bliz. Sorry to hear. That’s rough. You’d been worried it was headed there.”
“Yeah.” Had I?
“You’ll be okay.” Now I could hear kids calling to Theo, hooting his name. “Look, I gotta go. I’m glad you nailed it today. Chin up, kid.”
And then he was gone.
As totally surprising and cool as Theo’s call had been, it also reminded me how Claire hadn’t phoned my house in forever. She hadn’t come up to me after the assembly, either, and all week she’d skipped out of school early, per her habit. So I wasn’t prepared to see her striding into Ludington on Sunday evening right before closing, dressed in black jeans and a bomber jacket, her Wayfarers casually perched on her head and a long silk ivory scarf wrapped around her neck, Amelia Earhart–style.
She looked so glamorous that it was hard for me to know what to do with my emotions, or even my hands. As she beelined for my desk, every nerve in me was tensed to the point of breaking.
“Nice job Friday,” she began, friendly enough.
“Oh. Thanks. I figured you’d skipped it.”
“Nope. How cool that you did Haring. I felt like I was secretly part of it, when you got to the mural.”
“You were,” I said earnestly.
“We should go look at it again.”
My heart was pounding. “Anytime, yeah.”
“How was your weekend?”
“Quiet.” My skin flushed, wondering if Claire had been hanging out with Dave and Matt this weekend—while I’d been stuck at home with no plans.
“So listen, Matt and Dave and I were thinking of going to the city tonight, to that bar on Quince that’s around the corner from Moriarty’s—we thought you’d want to join. We’ll stop by your house first if you need to get permission.” Claire spoke fast, maybe hoping I wouldn’t notice the complete strangeness of her talking to me in such a friendly way, or the fact that this suggestion was totally off-the-wall.
“Claire,” I started. “Why are you doing this?”
“We can tell your parents we’re going to my house to study.”
“No. Claire.” I stared her down. “It’s been over a month since we’ve made any kind of a plan about anything.”
Claire’s eyes seemed to admit to this. “Okay,” she began again, more slowly. “Backing up. For a while, I felt like I had a right to be pissed with you. First with the letters, and then you totally misled me about that money, and it was incredibly hard for me to ask Aunt Jane, with all the strings she attaches to everything. But I get it. Sixty bucks equals, what—twenty hours here?” She opened her arms to show that here meant Ludington. “I didn’t mean to be naïve about your situation. I’m really sorry about that—and your letter was really kind. I should have said that first thing. It meant a lot to me.” Her face was frank. “Can we call it a learning curve?”
All I wanted was to crush our standoff into a bad memory and toss it over my shoulder. All I wanted was to declare a new day on our friendship. I’d never stopped wanting that. “Okay,” I said after a moment.
“The four of us, at the diner, on the train, that morning after the club—that was our best. I always think about that morning. Our little foursome.”
“Me, too,” I admitted.
“So we’re on?”
“No. Claire, don’t you see how strange it would be for me to hang out with my ex-boyfriend the weekend right after we broke up?”
“Matt misses you.”
She wasn’t mocking my pain, but I felt like she didn’t understand it. “I appreciate the offer,” I told her, “but it’s confusing. Matt and I talked on the phone Friday, and he didn’t say anything about this weekend, you all going to that bar, or me coming along.”
“He wanted me to be the one to ask. He doesn’t know how to say it. Don’t you think it’d be better between you and Matt as friends?”
“Is that what he said? Better as friends? Does he say things like that about us to you?”
Claire shifted. “Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t mean to upset you. Of course you still have feelings for him. I know he has feelings for you. But maybe this breakup is supposed to be the start of something new.”
I could feel my limbs stiffening. I swallowed. “Sorry if it still feels like the end of something old. I guess I’m not ready.”
“You can decide to be happy, Lizzy.”
Claire sounded like a therapist. In fact, she sounded like my therapist. But two could play that game. “Really? Let’s explore that,” I snapped. “Could your authentic self have decided to be happy about Jay, when everything was said and done?”
“Jay?” Color crept up in her cheeks. “Jay—was different.”
“If you say so.”
I wondered if Claire could sense what I knew about Jay. Her face was inscrutable, but I knew my words had hit the target.
“Look. I’m going home after this. I’m tired.” The confusing idea of seeing Matt tonight wrenched at me. Tears were gathering hot behind my eyelashes. I stared blurrily down at my stack of book returns. Opened an inkpad and took up the hand stamp.
“If you change your mind . . .”
“I won’t.”
She lingered a few seconds. Then she smacked her hand on the desk and left.
When I looked up, I realized that her slap had signaled what she’d left behind—a small circle of tin.
I picked it up. It was her Radiant Baby button.
On the ride home, I cooled my cheek on the train’s window glass. Claire meant well, and in a way I was thrilled that she’d offered me this olive branch. But she didn’t understand Matt and me. If only her “learning curve” were as simple as she thought.
At home, the whole family was leaving for Sunday dinner at the Midgeses’—a plan I’d forgotten until I found them all in the kitchen, buttoning into heavy coats.
“Do I have to go? I don’t feel up to it.”
“They have Chopper 1 on Nintendo,” said Peter. “We’re gonna play it all night.”
Mom looked at me, perplexed. “It’s their wedding anniversary dinner. I suppose I can say you’ve got a headache.”
“Okay, say that.”
“You know where we are if you need to call.” Dad’s eyes narrowed. “Are you all right, Lizzy? Sure you’d rather be alone?”
There was nothing I’d rather be than alone. “Don’t worry about me.”
“I think you are getting a headache,” said Mom. “I’m glad you’re staying in. You don’t look well.” Preparing herself for the lie she’d soon be telling, by making it be true.
forty-three
In the quiet house, I swigged some Nyquil along with my chicken noodle Cup-a-Soup dinner so that I’d nod off early, but it worked for only about an hour. I woke up groggy and tingli
ng with wanting to do something, but what?
Matt and Claire and Dave were together. They’d probably just started their night. Bought beers and burgers, figured out the tunes lineup on the jukebox, if there was a jukebox.
I paced and looked out windows onto the quiet suburbia all around me.
For years, all I’d done was hope for Matt Ashley. Hoped and hoped, and then it happened. Matt Ashley had swept into my life like Prince Charming and changed it forever. Suddenly we were together all the time, and then almost just as suddenly—and for reasons I still didn’t really understand—we had failed.
Now Matt, Claire, and Dave wanted me to be part of something, and I’d rejected it, but why? I missed our foursome almost as much as the duo of Matt and me.
I was on the edge of the decision, but it also seemed dangerous—a sharp new blade of strategy gleaming in the dark.
Take Mom’s car.
My mouth was dry. Yes. That was it. I’d take Mom’s car, and I’d drive into the city, and meet them all on Quince. They’d invited me, and even if I wasn’t “with” Matt, I was wanted, right? Because that’s what Claire had meant, right?
Before I could veer too hard into a second guess, I was rocketing into my jeans and Docs. I smoked on some eyeliner, brushed my teeth. My roots were coming in, and my untrimmed-since-October bangs dropped heavy past my eyes. “Shetland pony,” Dad had complained, but in my view, my hair looked more like the white and dark feathers of a bird.
Took the car and went to the movies with Mimi, home by 11.
My parents wouldn’t like this note.
Mom’s keys felt like contraband as I unhooked them from the key rack. Outside was freezing, and my boots crunched through a fresh skin of snow. I backed out slowly, hands locked on my Driver’s Ed three and nine, my breath making clouds because I wasn’t sure which was the heat button, and I didn’t want to push something wrong, or invite any more anxiety than what was already churning around inside me. I was petrified the Nyquil had slowed my reflexes and that I was flying in the face of its label warning—driving a car was for sure operating “heavy machinery.”
Tell Me No Lies Page 21