Last Girls

by Demetra Brodsky

  Rémy clears his throat.

  I stand corrected, and ignore him.

  He clears it again. “Hey, can you tell us anything about what happened yesterday?”

  I shift my gaze to him without answering and without moving my pen from the page. He’s leaning in, eyes two shades darker than his skin, wide and expectant. The same color as the sticky-sweet molasses I rotate monthly in the storage cellar. I stare at him without responding, and out of the blue he adds, “Your eyes have a lot of light and dark variation on the color, like sugar-pine-tree bark. I wasn’t expecting that.”

  “O-kay. Thanks.” I give him more what-the-fuck attitude than he warrants. Considering Rémy just unwittingly helped me solve a problem I need to address in art next period. To be fair, I should probably be glad he didn’t liken my eyes to juniper bark, which is the boring putty color of a decomposing dog turd.

  Brian elbows him again and Shawna makes an annoyed “Tsk.”

  “Yeah, so, yesterday?” Rémy prods.

  “No,” I tell him.

  He recoils. I don’t know why he’s taken aback. It’s not like we’re friends in the truest sense. Rémy has always been nicer to me than most people. And sure, we talk in art class because our easels are side by side. Let me rephrase. Rémy talks to me in art class and I usually answer noncommittally. That doesn’t mean we’re friends, does it?

  “No, as in you’re not gonna tell us?” he prods. “Or no, you can’t talk about it because Principal Weaver said you couldn’t?”

  I glance at him, full side-eye, letting that serve as my answer.

  “Come on. Not even an explanation about climbing into the air shaft?” Brian adds. “I mean, that was badass, don’t get me wrong, but definitely outside the scope of normal.”

  “Whose definition of normal?” I ask. “Yours or mine?”

  “I actually wouldn’t mind an explanation, either,” Shawna says. She rubs the back of her head where she must have hit it during her tragicomic collapse.

  I take a deep, audible breath.

  “If she says she can’t talk about it, maybe we should let it go.” Rémy picks up his pen and pretends to study his homework, but really he’s just fidget-tapping the end on the table.

  I have a twinge of guilt in my gut about Shawna, especially now that I’ve eaten three of her peanut butter cookies. Rémy, on the other hand, isn’t fooling me by coming to my defense. I know he tried to follow me into the air shaft. I just don’t know why.

  This is one of those times when the Ready part of the three Rs perplexes me. I’m ready for catastrophic events. Hell, I’m ready for normal stuff, too, like having to pick up and move, which can also be disastrous depending on the circumstances. But I’m not, and have never been, ready to explain being a prepper to my peers. Mostly because they’re not my peers. What I mean is, they’re my peers to a degree when I’m at school and trying to blend, but they’re not in the eyes of what everyone at the compound considers pacifist Outsider society. The casualties lying in wait.

  Plus, once you’re labeled an outcast in high school, it’s hard to come back from it. I have nothing to gain by way of explanation. I’ve been the new kid enough times to understand high school acceptance ranking. I’m not all the way at the bottom, but I’m nowhere near the top with the mall rats. I’m with the poets and band geeks and tabletop-game players. What Blue calls the comfortable middle.

  The thing most people get wrong about me is I’m not gung-ho for the end of days or excited about taking a harsh stand against Outsiders when the SHTF. I just understand the reasons we’re not inclined to let anyone take the provisions we’ve worked so hard to amass. They’ve already forgotten the storm last winter, right after we first arrived, where we lost power. They just need to think of that on a massive scale, how people were buying everything they could get their hands on in case power didn’t return for days, or weeks, which wouldn’t be worst-case scenario. What about if it doesn’t come back on for months, a year? Preppers hope for the best, plan for the worst, and have each other’s backs.

  My eyes flick reflexively to Mr. Whitlock’s gunmetal behemoth of a desk where he’s grading papers. I’m not surprised to see he’s paying attention to this exchange, listening as best he can from four tables away. He gives me that knowing prepper nod again. And there’s the rub. Dieter Ackerman told us to act normal, so I should probably give them something simple to chew on.

  I sketch a juniper branch in the corner of my notebook while I answer as honestly as I can. “I have this long-standing agreement with my sisters that if anything dangerous goes down while we’re at school, we’ll meet at one of several predesignated spots. That’s it, really. Not much else to tell.”

  “That’s kind of sweet,” Shawna says.

  “Did you just say Honey was sweet?” Brian jokes. Like I haven’t heard that one before. Folks, I’ve got a million of them.

  “Oh, shut up, Brian,” Shawna chastises. “I meant the closeness of Honey and her sisters.”

  There was genuine awe in her sugary voice. And sure, for me it’s sweet the way air is necessary for breathing, just not sweet enough for them to invite us to any of their parties. Antifreeze sweet. In opposite world, I guess that makes us Outsiders, too.

  I turn to the side and tie my right boot laces, rolling my eyes hard enough to see my own gray matter. Because that’s what this is, isn’t it, a gray matter? There’s nothing black and white about crawling into an air shaft in front of everybody. Questions were inevitable. I don’t know why I can’t let my sisters too far out of sight, in all honesty. But sticking together has always been the unbreakable rule clicking away in the back of my mind.

  Mercifully, the bell rings and saves me from this awkward moment. The sparing is temporary since I have my last class of the day with Rémy, who always insists on talking to me regardless of my answers.

  I stop myself from being the first one to rush the door. I don’t want to be last one out, either, because I need enough time to find Ansel. Avoiding Mr. Whitlock is futile—I know that—but I might be making mountains out of molehills since he doesn’t say my name or ask me to stay after class like I assumed. Instead, he asks Rémy to stay behind, and for some reason that bothers me more. I keep my eyes on Mr. Whitlock as I walk to the door, and he slings his presumed EDC onto his desk like he wants to remind me of my own. I nod my understanding, even though my bag isn’t the one in question.

  I should be paying attention to where I’m walking, instead of ogling Whitlock, because I crash into someone coming through the doorway as part of a larger pack. The way the most popular kids in school always migrate. Safety in numbers. I barely have time to register who I’ve collided with before a baritone voice snips, “Watch where you’re going, weird.” And someone with a more honeyed voice, ironic as that sounds, says, “Apparently she’s using the hallways to get around today.”

  “Yes,” I fire back, “I’m only using vents to get into your houses tonight. Sleep tight.” Don’t let the EMP bite.

  I don’t bother looking to see who I’m talking to because they’re usually all the same, and the Ready and Responsible part of me needs to find Ansel. But I’ve clearly had enough of holding my tongue today. Damn the consequences.

  Once I’m in the crowded hallway, I search for Ansel’s wavy golden mop. The same tall, athletic build that makes the football and wrestling coaches cry from loss also makes him easy to spot at his locker. Even when he’s dressed like a gray man and has his head down to hide his blackened eye. When he sees me walking toward him, he closes the sky-blue metal door, spins the built-in lock, and walks away. Fast. Weaving in and out of people. Ansel is one of the only, if not the only, Burrow Boy I consider a friend. We talk in the hallways, when he comes to our house on errands to pick up eggs or tinctures. He even eats lunch with us sometimes because he and Daniel are such good friends. Birdie is convinced he has a crush on me and can’t believe I’m not more into the freckle-nosed cutie (as she calls him), because it’s obviou
s he wants to be my End Of The World Buddy For Life. Truth: I’m all for having Ansel as my platonic EOTWBFL. Which is why I don’t understand what’s gotten into him. Unless I’m right about how he got his black eye.

  I call his name and he picks up his pace, turning a corner in a way that’s intentionally evasive. I try to catch up without breaking into a jog, but I’m on the wrong side of traffic in this hallway. People are coming at me in waves, bumping my shoulders when we split around each other. By the time I reach the corner, Ansel is nowhere to be seen, leaving me at a loss since Daniel told me I should talk to him about what happened, and Birdie’s EDC.

  I’m contemplating whether to give up or keep looking when someone yanks me into the ADA elevator by my field jacket. I spin, ready to lash out as the doors pinch behind me, and find Ansel with his index finger pressed against his pursed mouth.

  “Don’t yell. We can’t get caught talking together. Not by anybody at school or from The Nest or The Burrow.”

  “Why? Because your dad said so?”

  It sounds snippy, even to me, but the initial shock of being yanked into the closed box hasn’t waned.

  “Yes and no.”

  My pulse slows and I examine Ansel’s black eye. That color reference is not what an artist would consider the amalgamation of all colors. His bruise is raw umber and alizarin crimson with yellow ochre bleeding out around the edges. I could mix the shades perfectly without my palette knife ever touching a dab of black paint.

  “Did Dieter do that to you?”

  I reach for his cleft chin to get a better look at his corporal punishment, and he jerks his face away. That’s how I know the wound is more than flesh deep.

  “It was a backhand for fucking up and mouthing off in Daniel’s defense. It doesn’t matter. I pulled you in here to say I have your sister’s EDC.”

  Those are the words I wanted to hear, but—“Ansel, it does matter.”

  He may not have spoken up in Daniel’s defense at the meeting, but he did speak up.

  “Let it go, Honey. Please. I’m taking a risk just talking to you at school. Can you meet me in the woods after curfew so I can get it to you? Alone.”

  “Who am I, Birdie? Flying out windows to meet a Burrow Boy in the woods. You sure you don’t want to climb up the trellis instead like Daniel and drop it off?”

  I’m trying to lighten his dark mood.

  Ansel doesn’t respond to or acknowledge bringing Daniel to our house, but I notice both his eyes are swollen from lack of sleep.

  “Those two act like Romeo and Juliet. It’s kind of sickening sometimes,” I add, trying.

  He runs a hand through his wavy hair, making it stick up in awkward angles. “I don’t think you’re Birdie, but I’m not allowed to come to The Nest right now. Can you meet me or not?”

  “What if we get caught? Won’t that be worse?”

  “Are you gonna get caught, Honey Juniper?”

  I stare at his black eye and weigh the consequences, even though I know the answer. “No. Of course not.”

  The five-minute warning bell trills and Ansel releases the finger pressing the elevator’s Closed button. “Exactly. Neither will I. Meet me at the abandoned treehouse at midnight.”

  The doors glide open and he’s gone, hitching his EDC up on his shoulder and heading to class. I wonder if he edited the contents of his bag, too.

  I remember too late that I want to ask why he ignored me in the air shaft, and what they were getting for his father that’s so secret.

  “Ansel, wait.”

  He doesn’t acknowledge me calling his name for the third time in the last two days. There’s nothing I can do but wait. I have to get to art class and deal with how I see my own eyes. Not to mention a different boy who very much won’t ignore me.

  FWIW

  FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH

  I LOVE THE Band-Aid smell of acrylics and how it blends with the dankness coming from the stack of always-damp plastic tubs next to a sink crusted with dried paint swatches from other people’s art. I take comfort in the sighs emitted by people releasing tension from their day before they start working. I’m more relaxed in this room than I’ve been in days. Thankful for the break, no matter how short-lived. I unroll my paintbrushes from their canvas wrapping and give more thought to what Rémy said about my eye color.

  I don’t need a fancy cellphone to look up photos of sugar-pine bark. Our phone doesn’t have those bells and whistles, but even if it did, I wouldn’t carry it enough to rely on that rather than my own memory. I’ve spent enough time among the trees in and around the compound to know sugar-pine bark has deep, irregular threads of dark raw umber running through the burnt sienna. I grab several shades of brown and Payne’s gray acrylic paint, and squeeze them onto my palette.

  We each have a rectangular mirror clamped to our easels to facilitate our self-portraits, and I’m staring into mine when Ms. Everitt comes by and says, “The eyes. I know they’re the windows to the soul, Honey, but you’ll have to make an honest decision about yours soon. To know your own eyes is the only way you’ll be able to paint another person’s realistically. You have it in you to see your truth.”

  I think it would be amazing to paint Ms. Everitt’s portrait. I love her thick champagne-blond hair and translucent green, sea-glass eyes. Her bone structure is delicate and sharp, a living Modigliani painting, where my family features, oversized lips and eyes, would best be served by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, or one of the modern artists Ms. Everitt showed us, like Evie Ellis. I was drawn to her artwork like a moth to a flame during a slide show last month. I couldn’t stop wondering what it would be like to paint myself in a dreamlike prepper, worst-case scenario scene, and here I am.

  No small feat considering today is another bad mirror day. Thanks to the added stress of meeting Ansel after curfew, worrying that Birdie is too impatient to wait for Daniel to return, and our Mother’s new role in The Nest. The only person not currently adding to my tension is Blue. Now, that is typical.

  I hear the scraping sound before I see Rémy Lamar predictably dragging his wooden easel an inch or two closer to mine.

  “How’s it going?” He leans forward on his stool and studies the blank mask of creamy Naples yellow taking the place for my eyes, like the shade of hot tea with a splash of milk holds my secrets.

  Detach.

  The warning goes off in my head, but I ignore it this time. “I finished painting my eyes inside my mind, so really my work here is done. I should call it a day.”

  “Sarcasm. Wow. That’s a new look for you.”

  The playful jab is so unexpected I can’t help throwing him a reply. “Yeah, well, I like to be as unpredictable as possible. Obviously.”

  He grins and the dimple in his upper cheek gets deeper. Admittedly, this trait makes Rémy Lamar harder to ignore. “For what it’s worth,” he says, “I like your choice to have only the middle face exposed. Assuming your eyes will be open once you put them on the canvas. My takeaway so far is there are several sides to you, maybe some faces you’re hiding or trying to protect, but at your center, you know who you are. Honestly, it’s aces and helped me with mine. But without the eyes, she looks like you but doesn’t.”

  Times where I’m at a loss for words are few and far between, but presently this is one. First of all, I wasn’t expecting Rémy Lamar to have that much insight into my work or have it inspire anyone, let alone him. Second, he’s wrong. The figures on the right and left are Birdie and Blue, who’s shorter than both of us by an inch. I just masked their faces so Ms. Everitt wouldn’t be able to tell. It was my way of saying we’re so close it feels like we’re one person sometimes. I painted Blue’s eyes effortlessly, because they say something different than my own. Sympathetic and mystical. Compassionate and dreamy. Peering through the openings in the balaclava. I don’t know what my eyes say yet. I’m working on it. My sisters are tucked behind me on either side, the shoulder closest to me slightly hidden. Birdie is to my right in a flowy white jumper over
a fitted black T-shirt, ripped black tights, and Docs, her face fully covered by a gas mask. Blue is to my left in a black balaclava, skinny black jeans, Docs, and one of her embroidered white T-shirts that says We See What We Want To See stitched in sapphire thread along the collar. In the distance, you can see Achilles soaring in the sky. I’m dead center in black shorts over tights, white tank top under my army-green field jacket, and burgundy Docs. Eyeless and waiting.

  Rémy is staring at me like I fell asleep with my eyes open.

  “Thank you,” I say with some hesitation, afraid anything else will encourage him to ask about yesterday now that Brian and Shawna aren’t with us.

  “Yeah. And the whole moody post-apocalyptic thing with the security fence and the mushroom cloud off in the distance, leaving you whole and in place like you’re untouchable. It’s honestly brilliant.”

  “I agree,” Ms. Everitt chimes in. “I think you should rethink your reluctance to enter into the Scholarship for the Arts America. They make a huge deal about the national self-portrait scholarship competition. News crews come and interview the winner. It gives the budding artist a nice buzz for their college applications.”

  “I appreciate the vote of confidence, but going to art school isn’t part of my plan. At least, not right away.”

  “That’s a shame,” she says. “You clearly have the talent. Then again, lots of talented, successful artists never attended art school. The trick is to keep painting. But maybe Rémy can change your mind. He’s the one who found the scholarship and suggested we make it part of the curriculum for the semester.”

  Ms. Everitt rests a caring hand on my shoulder before going to help a student who needs a wrench to open a stuck dry tube of acrylic paint.