THE PICASSO PROJECT

by Carol Anne Shaw

  Jesus, Eddie thinks. The world is full of freaks.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  (Flashback)

  The woman is in her thirties, maybe thirty-five at the most. Her dark hair is swept back into a simple ponytail, and if you were to look closely, you would see that, while she is pretty, she looks tired. There are dark circles under her eyes, and her lids appear swollen, as though she has been crying.

  She reaches for the cast iron frying pan that she has just wiped clean and rubbed down with olive oil and turns to hang it from the pot rack suspended from the ceiling.

  She stops in her tracks.

  Her husband stands beside the kitchen table. He is sweating slightly, and his eyes are darker than usual—almost black.

  The woman's heart skips a beat. She knows this look. She knows what it means. Instinctively, she looks out the window to see where her children are.

  Her daughter, Maya, eight-years-old and skinny as a rake, is playing with a neighbour's cat in the back yard. She is trying to dress him in a pair of her brother's shorts and a black woolly toque. She laughs and chases the tabby around the rusting swing set—broken and never fixed, and as a result, abandoned.

  The woman marvels for a moment at the mane of blonde hair surrounding her daughter's head as she skips around on the grass. Maya is strong and beautiful. She has the whole world ahead of her.

  Edward, the woman's son, sits on a stump at the end of the yard. He has a pad of paper on his lap and a pencil in his hand, even though he doesn't appear to be using it. He watches his sister and the cat, then he looks up at the kitchen window where he knows his mother is. He can't settle. Eddie, just thirteen, always seems to be on high alert. He is always watching. Always ready.

  The woman goes to hang the frying pan, but her husband grabs hold of her wrist and the heavy pan clatters to the floor. His grip is strong, and her wrist feels brittle, like balsa wood. It is still sore from the last time.

  He is yelling, but she doesn't know why. She seldom knows why. It could be anything. Nothing. He doesn't need a reason.

  A split second later, and almost on cue, Eddie is in the doorway.

  "Eddie!" The woman yells, "Go back outside. Go back outside with your sister!"

  But Eddie doesn't go back outside. He is sick of going back outside. He rushes his father and hits him full in the stomach with his whole body.

  "Leave her alone!" he yells. But he's small for his age, and ricochets off the man as though he's made of rubber to slam hard against the refrigerator door.

  "EDDIE!" the woman yells again.

  Eddie's father yanks her arm around and pins it behind her back. She yelps as he pulls her head back by her ponytail with his free hand.

  The boy screams. "STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT!"

  Maya is running toward the house, but Eddie tears outside and meets his sister before she reaches the door; before she can see anything. He grabs her hand, and together they run to the end of the yard, through the gate and down the back lane.

  The woman does not know where they go but it doesn't matter—she is just relieved that they are gone.

  It doesn't last long. Her husband is more bark than bite tonight. He slams out of the house and starts up the Harley in the driveway.

  She got off easy. Her shoulder aches more than usual, and there will be a bruise on her wrist for a couple of days, but that's easier to hide a bruise on the arm than one on the face.

  She breathes a sigh of relief. She feels lucky today. It'll be okay now for a few weeks. It's almost worth getting it out of the way, because when it's over, it feels like starting a holiday. He will be wonderful for the next few days. Loving. There will probably be flowers: sunflowers, her favourite—and maybe even a treat for the kids. Maya will be thrilled, but Eddie, not so much. Eddie recognizes the pattern. He is not as forgiving as his mother.

  As the days slip by, Eddie grows quieter and quieter. He draws on the pad of paper, but no longer shows his creations to his mother. His drawings are for his eyes only.

  He tears his sketches from the pad and hides them under his mattress.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  "Tell me about this piece, Eddie?" Mr. Mackie stops by Eddie's easel, his hands clasped firmly behind his back, as is his customary fashion.

  Eddie doesn't mind Mr. Mac; the dude pretty much let’s all the AP art students do what they want. But even so, Eddie won't ever understand how a person teaches art. It isn't like its math. There is no black or white, no right or wrong. It's all so subjective. Personal. Eddie figures it's gotta suck to be Mr. Mac, handing out all those A+'s and C's like he has the whole art thing dialed. Still, as teachers go at Bridgeman High, Mackie is one of the good ones.

  "Waiting, Edward," Mr. Mackie says. He stands back a little to check out Eddie's canvas. It's a big one: 4' x 5'—larger than the stuff Eddie normally does—a kind of Picasso meets Banksy meets...something else Eddie's not sure of.

  "Picasso influenced?" Mackie asks.

  "Maybe," Eddie says. "A little."

  "You're quite an aficionado, aren't you?"

  "I guess." Eddie doesn't like everything Picasso ever painted, but he does appreciate that the guy was never afraid to do or say what he wanted. No one ever controlled him. He just put his shit out there and people ate it up.

  "I like it," Mackie says. "It's emotive."

  But Eddie just paints them as they come. He doesn't read anything complex into it—that stuff about raw emotion, and passion bleeding over the edges. He just throws it down and if he doesn't like what he sees, he paints over it and starts again. He figures it's the over-thinking that ruins most art pieces.

  Still, Mr. Mac's comment gets him thinking about Picasso again, and about The Weeping Woman print he's stubbornly hung on to. Not exactly the most uplifting painting Pablo ever did, but there is something about the image of that sad woman and her handkerchief. She reminds Eddie of his mother, or maybe it's just the familiarity of the print that makes him think of her. He wonders what that tortured woman thought about the DuMont family from her place on all those crappy apartment walls they lived in?

  Maybe Eddie's mom should have thrown that print out years ago. Put up Van Gogh's sunflowers or something. Something beautiful. Something alive. Still, that print is the only thing from their old life that Eddie kept. These days, it sits on the dashboard of the Buick. Eddie laughs to himself. Home, sweet, friggin' home.

  There are only six kids in Eddie's Art 12 class. They're known among the rest of the art department as, The Serious Ones. They mostly keep to themselves, except to occasionally borrow supplies from one another. Eddie likes it this way. No one gets in his face or gives him a hard time about being quiet. Even Jasmine Hammond, who tries to engage him in conversation every chance she gets; Jasmine, with her dark eyes and sexy British accent. Damn, her!

  But Eddie is no fool. Any anyway, she's way out of his league. He's seen her get dropped off at school; seen her step out of that blinged-out silver Range Rover. And sure, while she's very distracting, Eddie knows better and stays quiet. Quiet is good in this class, especially for him.

  Each one of the AP students has laid claim to a portion of the studio—a spot to claim for their own. Eddie's space is near the double sinks, next to the cracked pane glass window. He likes it there. Mostly he's just used to it, and he doesn't get the chance to get used to things very much.

  Mr. Mackie hangs around a little longer and offers Eddie a couple of pointers: something about colour mixing; about how to create a delicate shade of blue. Denim blue, he calls it. Eddie nods like he's paying attention, but he isn't. He's thinking about denim. Jeans. Or more specifically, the ones Maya is wearing today. He's thinking about the lecherous looks the rugby jocks gave her when they saw her walking down the hall this morning. Mark Johnson among them. Eddie has to wonder what kind of grade twelve douchebag checks out a girl in grade nine? But even more bothersome, was Maya. She enjoyed every minute of it—all that playing with her hair and bending over and hip swingi
ng. Where did she learn to move like that anyway, Eddie wonders? She knew exactly what she was doing. Jesus.

  At 3:30, Maya isn't in their usual meeting spot. Eddie waits for almost thirty minutes, but she doesn't show. He has a bad feeling about this. They always meet at the drinking fountain near the back door to the cafeteria after classes. Then they walk "home."

  Eddie skirts the field hockey pitch, ignoring the gaggle of girls who are gathered near the bleachers. They're all wearing purple and gold, Bridgeman's school colours. One girl is louder than the rest. Eddie can hear her above the other voices. Georgia Baines: Mark Johnson's girlfriend. Nice enough girl, Eddie thinks. He wonders why she hangs out with such an asshole.

  Once he's off school property, he takes the short cut past St. Peters and the adjacent graveyard. Some of the headstones are so old and worn down you can't even read the names of the people who lie underneath them. Eddie often wonders about those people. Without a date or a name, it's like they never even existed.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Maya doesn't get back to the car until almost 5:00.

  Eddie is furious. His face is hot, and his eyes feel as though they are bugging out of his skull. He doesn't like feeling this way, and lately, he's been feeling this way a lot.

  "Where the hell have you been?"

  "Chill out, brother," Maya says. "I was just hanging out with Nicole and Paige."

  "Who?" Eddie's fists curl at his sides.

  "Nicole and Paige. You met them the other day. They're in my homeroom class. We were just watching a rugby game. Oh, and guess what? We totally slaughtered those guys from Ramsey High. It was awesome!" She casually walks past Eddie, and opens the door of the Buick, reaching into the back seat for her sweatpants.

  "That's not how it works, Maya, and you know it!" Eddie shakes the rope that holds the two tarps together over the car. Water cascades over the edge and onto his foot—his permanently soaked foot. Figures. "What do you think I've been doing here for the past hour and a half?"

  "I don't know," Maya says with a nonchalant shrug. "Jerking off?" She sits down in the car and wrestles herself into her sweats, but not before she gives Eddie a look. A look that says he is wasting her time. A look that says he's a giant pain in the ass.

  Eddie makes a sudden lunge forward and then stops himself. But she sees it.

  "Nice, Eddie," she says. "What were you going to do? Hit me?"

  She might as well have punched him right in the face. It's a low blow.

  "Well?" She's challenging him, but Eddie stares her down.

  "Oh, come on, Eddiot. It's only five, and I'm alive and well. Just relax, okay? You're so anal these days."

  She never used to say things like this, Eddie thinks. This is all new. Is this what junior high does to a kid? He tries to remember what it was like for him, but he can barely remember last week, it seems.

  "Just don't ever pull a move like that again, okay?" Eddie re-ties the rope around the alder tree next to the car. "What if I had to move us or something? What if there was some kind of emergency? How would you know where to find me?"

  "God! Why are you always so dramatic?" She piles her hair on top of her head and secures it with a clip. Eddie thinks she looks a lot like their mother when she wears her hair that way, but he doesn't tell her this. What would be the point?

  "You know what?" Maya says suddenly.

  "What?"

  "You think too much. You totally need to get a girlfriend or something." She smiles at her brother as though it's the most normal thing in the world to say.

  Eddie blinks at her. "Don't be a dumbass, Maya. You know that can't happen."

  "Oh, it could too," she says. "At least, it could if you'd stop being so paranoid all the time. You think everyone is the enemy."

  They've talked about this so many times that Eddie can almost go on autopilot. No close friendships. It's a cardinal rule, and Eddie hates that Maya doesn't seem to be taking it seriously these days. Doesn't she remember a couple of months back? How her desperation for a friend almost blew their cover? Does she really need to learn that lesson all over again?

  "Seriously, Eddie," she says. "You're pretty half-decent looking, or, you are when you smile, which is pretty much never. You always look so pissed off. You have total RBF. It's no wonder girls never talk to you."

  "RBF?"

  "Hello?" Maya says, exasperated. "Resting Bitch Face. Everybody knows what RBF is, Eddie."

  "Whatever."

  "Well, you're almost nineteen. Have you ever even had a girlfriend? Unless of course, you're, you know..."

  "What?"

  "You know," she says, smiling coyly. "Unless you prefer guys. And that's cool, I mean if that's your thing." She thinks she's being so damn funny.

  "You're changing the subject," Eddie says. "We were talking about you."

  "No," she says, her smile fading. "You were talking about me. And like I said before, Nicole and Paige and I were just talking. They're my friends. It's not a crime to have friends, Eddie."

  "Friends?" Eddie bristles.

  "It's not like I'm going to bring them home for milk and cookies or anything. We were just watching a rugby game." She swears under her breath but it's loud enough for Eddie to hear.

  "Maya," Eddie says, doing his best to keep his voice calm. "We need to stay connected. We need to keep it together for six more weeks. Six weeks, Maya! You think you can do that?"

  Maya chews on a fingernail. "Nothing bad is going to happen, Eddie."

  Eddie sighs. "Look. We've lasted this long on our own. Just a few more weeks and then we can kiss this shit hole in the woods goodbye, okay?"

  Maya hold her hands up in front of her like she's stopping traffic. "Okay, okay! I get it."

  "Just play by the rules."

  "I said okay, Eddie."

  Eddie takes the broom and punches the underside of the tarp, releasing a torrent of the rainwater that it spills over its side. Under normal circumstances, he'd go for a walk. Burn off some steam. But that's out of the question now. No way he's leaving Maya by herself today. Not a chance.

  They both get into the car and Eddie hauls out his sketchbook. He starts making notes about nothing. Angry notes; words that might become images later on, or maybe not. Maybe they're nothing but stupid, fucking words.

  He shuts his sketchbook and gets out of the car, goes over to the Rubbermaid container by the stump and rummages around for something to eat. Bread. It's all they have, so dinner becomes sandwiches made with long-expired plastic processed cheese slices. He makes four and holds two on a plate in front of the car window for Maya. She rolls down the window without looking at her brother.

  "Thanks." She takes the plate. "But I thought it was my turn to cook tonight."

  "Yeah," Eddie says. "It was, but you're a shitty cook."

  Maya tries, unsuccessfully, not to smile.

  The bread is dry. A little butter or mayonnaise would have been nice, but as the saying goes, beggars can't be choosers.

  Eddie really hates that saying.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  JOURNAL ENTRY (mid May)

  "Everything you can imagine is real."

  - Pablo Picasso

  Everything you can imagine is real?

  Fuck you, Pablo!

  Want to know what I'm imagining? Okay. Here goes: I'm imagining waking up one morning-any morning-and not being in a car that smells like cat piss. I'm imagining waking up in some stupidly soft bed with one of those crazy expensive pouffy quilt things. I'm imagining that maybe there's a cat curled up behind my knees. Sure. That'd be nice. Real cozy. A cat.

  But I'm not done yet, Pablo. I'm imagining being in a house, not a big one necessarily, but a warm one, with lots of windows and a wood burning stove and a kitchen that smells like cinnamon and apples and coffee and shit.

  I'm imagining a back yard with tons of trees-big shady ones that change colour in the fall. The kind that birds make nests in.

  Oh yeah, there'd be some music, too. Th
ere'd always be some music on. It would drift in from the kitchen into the living room, some nice mellow stuff, except at Christmas when I'd bust out that corny Bing Crosby/White Christmas crap.

  And while I'm playing your stupid game, Pablo, let's talk a little about the holiday season, because my Christmases were never about trees or lights or holiday baking or any of that crap. Christmas for me and Maya was always about keeping ourselves out of our father's way.

  But, hey. I digress. I'm going off track-I'm supposed to be imagining, right? That's what you're so stoked about, right? Imagination? Okay, so let's go back to Christmas. Sure. I can do that. Let's see, the Christmas in my head would be a full-on yuletide-fest: lights in every window. Candles. Snow globes. A big ass tree crammed with decorations and gingerbread men, homemade my jolly grandmother, who would bust out trays of shortbread and Snickerdoodles. At least, the grandmother than I'm imagining would be like that. Oh yeah, Pablo; she'd be a big, fat, cookie-making Diva.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Eddie gets up before Maya, mostly because he has to take a piss. It's not raining yet, but the air is heavy with moisture and the grey sky is so low you can practically reach up and touch it.

  Water drips steadily from the branches onto the blue tarp, then runs down to the ground where a big puddle has formed. Eddie shakes his head. The sun will come out one day. It can't rain forever, he thinks, although it sure feels like it.

  He walks over in bare feet to the trees, dodging the puddle as he goes. Mud squelches up between his toes, cold and slick, but when you gotta go, you gotta go. He unzips his jeans and aims at a low-lying bush. He's still pissed about that stupid Picasso quote: Anything you imagine can be real. Try as he does, imagining that his feet are warm and dry and stuffed into a pair of insulated, waterproof hiking boots doesn't work. His feet are still just plain cold and wet.

  He walks around to the back of the car and jiggles the latch on the trunk until it opens. Their duffle bags are slightly damp on the outside, but thankfully pretty much dry on the inside. He pulls out a Haywood High rugby tournament T-shirt from 2009, and a blue sweatshirt that's frayed at the wrists.