by Ami Polonsky
57 DAYS LEFT
I picked at the paint spatters on the wooden table in art class as Ms. VanVoorhees pulled down the projector screen. Ollie nudged me (zap) to show me their fingernail; they’d painted it silver with a paint pen that someone had left out. Outside, a soft rain fell.
“Our next project is going to be to create optical illusions,” Ms. VanVoorhees announced. On the screen, a drawing appeared. It was the sketch of the old woman/young woman; I’d seen it before. “What do you see?” Ms. VanVoorhees asked us way too excitedly.
I had to admit that it was cool to see how many people—including Ollie—immediately saw the old woman, when I had to search hard for her in the image.
Then she projected a duck/rabbit. “That’s so clearly a rabbit,” Ollie whispered to me.
I looked from the screen to their eyes. “You’re biased,” I told them. “Because of Froggy.” I saw it way more clearly as a duck.
Next was a turquoise-and-blue butterfly.
“Whoa,” Ollie said, holding their hands up, thumbs pressed together. “I need to paint my hands like that.”
I squinted at the illusion. It was actually a pair of hands, painted to resemble the wings of a butterfly. Ollie fluttered their fingers. I wanted to squeeze their hands between mine.
55 DAYS LEFT
I sat on my floor, cross-legged, in front of my partially completed mural, wondering if I could build in an optical illusion. My coffee was still steaming, but I took a sip anyway, burning my lip. If I extended some of the tree branches, the empty space above the hammock could become a heart, with the U-shaped crook of the hammock (sort of) the heart’s bottom …
My phone buzzed. It was Ollie.
My heart rattled as I looked from my wall to my phone. True, the hammock was still empty, but they would know exactly what had inspired the scene.
53 DAYS LEFT
When I woke up, I drew another tally mark on my wall with my dying black Sharpie and scrolled through my phone. Mom had texted a picture of the first stages of her New York gallery installation, and one of the fancy hotel room she’d be staying in for the next two weeks.
Cool, I replied.
I hadn’t texted with Emily, Ava, or Beth in what felt like forever, and I already knew everything would be awkward when I returned home for Thanksgiving break, and then for good in December. It dawned on me that it would have been better if Mom and Dad had sent me to a new school in a new town for a full year. I mean, that way, at least I could have had a chance to settle in.
After school, I walked through rain puddles toward the bookstore. My socks were soaked by the time I arrived. Thankfully, there were loose Sharpies for sale, so I could replenish my supply of blacks, browns, and greens.
Despite my wet feet, I took the long way home. I thought of Ollie as I walked, how it had been hard to focus on homework at the library with our force fields pulling together like magnets. How our knees had touched as I’d leaned over to look at their laptop. How I was pretty sure that things between us were, at least, on the way to returning to how they’d been before. And how I hoped they’d hurry up. Because in two months, I’d be gone.
I peered into the window of a coffeehouse as I passed by, but then I stopped. Through the glass, distorted by my reflection, was Dad. And across from him, laughing, hands wrapped around a mug, was a woman.
52 DAYS LEFT
I stirred a spoonful of sugar into my coffee as Dad got dressed in his bedroom. I felt annoyed—no, angry—at everything. Not just with Dad and that woman in the coffee shop; it was more than that. First, Mom and Dad had made me come to North Carolina against my will. Now I didn’t really want to leave, but I’d have to. What did everything mean? I wanted words—for all of it. For Mom and Dad. For Ollie. For me. Names, labels—they would help me understand what was going on.
I stood in front of my coffee mug to block it from Dad’s view when he came out of the bedroom. “Okay!” he said, clapping his hands together. “Almost ready to head out?”
“Who was that woman you were having coffee with yesterday?” I asked him.
He looked confused. “What were you doing all the way on Fifth Street?”
“Does that matter?” I was sick of being treated like a totally dependent child by one parent and a completely independent woman by the other.
“No, I suppose it doesn’t. I was just curious.” He ran his fingers through his still-damp, thinning hair. “Lillian is one of my teaching assistants. She’s a grad student. We were going over her course material for second semester. She’s never been an assistant before, and she was nervous.”
I nodded, not knowing what to think. I mean, the idea of Dad cheating on Mom was pretty outrageous. I couldn’t exactly imagine him showing up for a secret date in his pleated khaki pants and a sweater vest.
“Ready to head out?” he asked again.
I nodded. “Ready.”
* * *
Later that afternoon, in art, we brainstormed ideas for our own optical illusions. Even though I couldn’t imagine Dad on a date, it was hard to stop thinking about him and the teaching assistant. The way he looked with her—interested, happy—that’s how I wished he looked when he was with Mom. And how I wished Mom looked when she was with him.
I tried to be rational. It was probably nothing to worry about. If I drew the scene through the coffeehouse window, maybe one person would see Dad laughing with a pretty woman—her hands clasping a steaming mug, her silent laugh—because he was cheating on Mom, while another person would see something else entirely. Old woman, young woman. Duck, rabbit. Butterfly, hands.
49 DAYS LEFT
I sat across from Dad awkwardly at Siri’s Indian Cuisine. I was eager to finish and get to Savannah’s for Halloween with her and Luciana. And Ollie.
Dad worked his way through his curry, oblivious. When he finally finished and paid in slow motion, he took our bag of leftovers and walked me across campus—bustling with kids and college students, all out for Halloween.
Savannah answered the door quickly when I rang the bell. “Oh, thank goodness it’s not another trick-or-treater. We just ran out of candy, and my mom had to go buy more.”
“Already?” I asked, waving goodbye to Dad.
“Halloween is a thing here,” she replied.
Inside, Ollie and Luciana sat atop the kitchen island, eating homemade rice crispy treats out of a pan. Savannah introduced me to her dad and little sister, Lindsay, who were preparing to head out.
“Peanut butter chip rice crispy treat?” Ollie asked, holding one out to me.
“The Ollie special,” Luciana added.
“Sure.” I pulled it off their hand, feigning cool as I hopped onto the countertop next to them.
“Savannah, you might be too old to trick-or-treat this year, but come get in a picture with your sister,” Savannah’s dad said, lowering Lindsay’s werewolf mask over her eyes.
Luciana jumped down. “I’ll take one of the three of you,” she offered. Ollie and I watched as Savannah, Lindsay, and her dad posed for Luciana in front of the fireplace.
“Werewolves creep me out,” I admitted to Ollie. “Big-time.”
They laughed. “For real? I love Halloween. This is the first year I haven’t dressed up and gone trick-or-treating.”
“Seriously? I kind of hate it. What do you love about it?”
“Nobody knows who you are.”
“But everyone loves you.”
“It’s not that—it’s just that it doesn’t matter who you are because everyone can be anyone.”
“That seems scary to me,” I told them. “Being anonymous.”
“Yeah. But every once in a while, it’s kind of awesome.”
47 DAYS LEFT
Ollie’s mom had invited me and Dad over for dinner. Dad, who never would have thought to bring something to a guest’s house back home, had picked up a plant with orange flowers at the farmer’s market earlier that day. When we arrived at Ollie’s house, he shook hands with Ada
m, Ollie’s dad, and handed the plant to Marianne.
“How beautiful,” she said, lifting it out of its plastic and placing it carefully on the dining table.
“It’s the least I could do. You’ve been so helpful with all of your advice,” Dad replied.
I looked at Ollie. The least he could do? All of what advice? But they just shrugged and handed me a bowl of veggie chili, their dad’s specialty.
We settled around the table. Ollie took a bite of cornbread and nudged me. “A smile?” they asked me, turning it over. “Or a bridge?”
I laughed. Across the room, Froggy thumped in her cage. “I think your duck wants some alfalfa,” I told them.
For a second, Dad and Ollie’s parents looked at us like we were nuts, but they jumped easily into conversation about the upcoming weeklong Thanksgiving break. Marianne wiped a crumb off Adam’s lip. He kissed her head on the way to the kitchen for another spoon. I turned my attention back to Ollie until something Dad said caught my ear: “Her teachers are fine with her missing school on the Friday before the break.”
I interrupted, suddenly not interested in being polite, despite the fact that we were with guests. “What?”
Dad turned to me. “Oh, you don’t mind, do you? I emailed your teachers and they’re fine with you missing November 20. That will give you an extra—”
“You emailed my teachers? What do you think I am, a baby? And how about asking me? How do you even know that I want to go home early?”
“Honey,” Dad said, looking embarrassed, “let’s discuss it later.”
I looked from him to Ollie. Leaving a day early for an already weeklong Thanksgiving break meant less time with Ollie. Which was the exact opposite of what I wanted.
46 DAYS LEFT
The next morning, I woke up to a text from Ollie: Hey Es.
44 DAYS LEFT
I woke up before my alarm. In the kitchen, the automatic start on the coffeemaker flipped on. When it stopped gurgling, I got out of bed. The kitchen was dark; Dad was still asleep.
I brought my coffee back into my bedroom and sat on the floor in front of my mural. I’d already extended the branches from the trees on my bedroom wall so the empty space between them created the top of a heart. I’d done my best to make the leaves North Carolina–fall-like. The scene was browns, yellows, greens, starlight. But the hammock was still a sharply curved, penciled line.
I scrolled through my phone. I’d gotten another picture from Mom, this one of her and a man in an Xavier’s Gallery shirt, standing together in front of her partially completed installation. I was telling everyone at the gallery how proud I am of you! she’d written. I zoomed in on the man’s handsome face, and then on the barely existent space between their shoulders.
Reluctantly, I “liked” the picture, brought my coffee into the bathroom, and started the shower.
* * *
Later that day, in art, I leaned over Ollie’s laptop to see their optical illusion. It was a variation on Rubin’s Vase, the illusion that looked either like two profiles staring at each other or like a vase, depending on how you saw it. They were doing it with Photoshop, which, given their drawing abilities, was a good idea. “I’m so turning this into a Thankful for Pride poster contest entry,” they said, blending the colors in the vase (or the space) into a rainbow.
“That’s a perfect idea,” I told them.
“This is your friendly reminder that the deadline to email your entry is just eight days away!” They wiggled their eyebrows at me. “Hey, Ms. Rose had a great idea,” they went on. “She’s not going to announce the winner ahead of time; we’ll arrive at the march and have to look at the posters to find out who won!”
I thought of the mural on my wall. It would make a good poster contest entry, too. If I wanted to, I could write GLOW in the heart and send a picture of it to Ms. Rose.
If I was brave enough to take a risk like that.
41 DAYS LEFT
Froggy sat in the middle of the coffee table twitching her nose as Savannah, Luciana, and I took turns feeding her strands of alfalfa.
“Best day ever to be a duck,” Ollie said.
I laughed as Luciana and Savannah rolled their eyes.
“You guys need to let it go with the ducks and rabbits,” Luciana told us.
“And the old women and young women…,” Savannah added.
“Don’t forget the butterflies and the hands,” Luciana chimed in, laughing.
“You’re both just jealous that you don’t have Ms. VanVoorhees for art,” Ollie told them. “You know her class is a thousand times better than Mr. Hoffman’s. Hey, is everyone done with their poster contest entries?”
“Almost,” Luciana said, holding up her right hand dramatically. “Look at this blister I gave myself from the artwork that I created last night.”
“Don’t be a drama queen,” Savannah told her, batting her hand away.
Ollie raised their eyebrows at me. “How about you?” they asked.
I thought of the almost-finished heart on my wall. “No comment,” I replied.
37 DAYS LEFT
I was feeling uneasy—about the mural on my wall that I knew I should photograph and submit to Ms. Rose for Ollie’s contest; about the fact that, once I returned from Thanksgiving break, I’d only have three more weeks in North Carolina; and about going home for break the following week, in general.
I imagined my inner Essie, freed from its cocoon, like a butterfly, and how it would feel to tell Mom to start acting like an actual mom; to make Emily, Ava, and Beth understand that me and Ollie, well, that was just about me loving … liking … okay, loving them.
I stayed up way too late doing homework and then finishing the mural. Not to brag, but it was pretty good. Ollie’s eyes were black-rimmed blue. From across my room, the heart stood out. It was a reverse heart—a heart that had been formed by erasing things that had been in the way. When you shifted your focus, everything else came into view.
I wrote GLOW inside the heart, took a picture of it, and, before I could think too hard, emailed the entry to Ms. Rose.
36 DAYS LEFT
The next morning, Dad poked his head into my room before school. “Whoa, you’re finished,” he said, evaluating the wall.
I tried putting myself into his shoes and wondered how uncomfortable it made him to see what he saw: a very, very gigantic drawing on a very, very rented wall. “Hey, Dad.”
He came in. “This is really quite good.” He ran his fingers over the trees, my red sandals, Ollie’s black Converse, my navy sweatshirt with LOVE written across the front of it … “Are these two people anyone in particular?”
“Eh, not really,” I lied.
He looked from me to the wall, and I wondered if he believed me.
* * *
Later that day, in art, Ollie and I leaned over our projects. Mine was a “box-sphere illusion.” There was a 3-D cube with a little sphere next to it. Or, inside of it, depending on how you saw it. Repeating words comprised the black lines of the cube: Saint Louis, Marriage, Family, Childhood.
The circle was a sketch of my face, which, if you looked at it one way, would be inside the box. But then if you squinted slightly, looked at it differently, it would be floating just outside it, peering in.
33 DAYS LEFT
My mind kept drifting to home. It was like I actually was the head in my optical illusion: part of the time I felt totally separate from life in Saint Louis, but then when I’d think of things differently, I’d be right back there in my mind.
I was nervous. I knew when I went home, I’d have to say something to Emily. To Ava and Beth. Maybe even to Mom. I decided to get one conversation out of the way.
32 DAYS LEFT
31 DAYS LEFT
30 DAYS LEFT
“Es?” Dad asked, poking his head into my bedroom. I was piling clothes into my purple suitcase.
“Yeah?”
“We’ll leave tomorrow morning for the airport at around eight, okay?”
<
br /> “Sure,” I said, dreading the thought of flying. And of being home.
“And then,” he continued nervously, “I’ll spend the night and fly back the next morning.”
I closed my suitcase and faced him. “You’re not staying for Thanksgiving?”
“I have so much work to get done here…” He paused.
I wanted to yell at him for all the words he was leaving unspoken, but it dawned on me that I couldn’t do that when there was so much that I wasn’t saying myself.
So I focused on not crying and asked him: “Are you and Mom getting divorced? I want you to tell me.”
“Divorced?” He looked frozen.
“I’m not a baby, Dad,” I went on, hoping he wouldn’t notice that I was trying to fight back tears.
He sighed. “I know.”
“So?”
He sat down on my bed and rubbed his wrinkled forehead with his palms. “I don’t know, hon. The visiting professorship didn’t just ‘come up.’ Obviously. I applied for it. Mom and I needed time apart.” I thought again of Dad and his teaching assistant in the coffeehouse. And of the very small space between Mom and the man in the Xavier’s shirt.
“I figured,” I said, sitting at my desk pretending to put all my Sharpies back in order so Dad wouldn’t see my face. Deep down, I had known, which didn’t explain my feelings. Because even though I’d seen it coming, I didn’t want Mom and Dad to need “time apart.” I wanted them to love each other.