Many Points of Me

by Caroline Gertler

  “I’m vegetarian,” Chloe says. “So I choose neither.”

  “Cop-out!” Violet says.

  “Hey, you can’t make me choose something that totally violates my moral principles!” Chloe balls up a napkin and throws it at her.

  “Okay, then you’re up next,” Violet says, tossing the napkin back at her.

  Chloe thinks for a few seconds, then asks, “Would you rather vomit all over yourself in front of Principal Lewes or the boy you have a crush on?”

  “Principal Lewes!” we all shout at once.

  “Can we turn this game to more appealing topics?” Harper asks. “I’m losing my appetite here.”

  “I’ve got one,” Violet says. “Would you rather have the power to turn invisible or be the most beautiful person in school?”

  “Huh?” For Chloe, the choice is clear. “Be the most beautiful, obviously.”

  “Same,” Violet says.

  “Invisible,” I murmur.

  We all turn expectantly to Harper, who I’d bet will agree with Chloe and Violet. But her eyes darken and her marigold color turns mustard-y as she whispers, “Invisible. I’d love to be invisible sometimes.”

  “Really?” I blurt out.

  “That’s because you’re already the most beautiful,” Chloe says. “Not a fair question for you.”

  “No, seriously,” Harper says. “I’m not saying I’m so beautiful, but people do look at me a lot. For whatever reason. Maybe they’re trying to figure out what race I am, or why my family is freaky big with all my siblings running around. Or whatever. But I just always feel like people are looking, like they think they have a right to. Who knows. And all those siblings make us like a traveling circus—they drive me crazy. Always needing something, and my mom totally expects me to be, like, her mother’s helper. I’d like to be invisible sometimes. A lot of times.”

  I nod, understanding the desire to be invisible, but not how it feels to have people look at you all the time or to have a big family. I never thought before how those things could be hard for someone like Harper.

  “Oh, c’mon Harper, you know you’re beautiful,” Chloe says. “Didn’t you get a modeling job offer the other day?”

  “That’s not the point she’s trying to make,” I say before I can stop myself. “I don’t think she’s fishing for compliments.”

  Harper gives me a smile of understanding; Chloe shakes her head. “Whatever. Harps, I’d switch places with you in a heartbeat.”

  The server brings over the steaming plate of thick golden French fries. Harper drizzles ketchup in a few spots around the edges, and we dig in.

  One thing is just like I imagined: the French fries do taste better with the Mermaids. And they ordered a chocolate shake. With four straws. It’s the most delicious combination ever, even though the server rolls her eyes at four of us sharing one milkshake.

  “So who got the most cards today?” Violet asks. They pull out their cards and pile them on the table.

  I don’t bother taking out my three; I don’t have to count to know I lose.

  Harper wins with fifteen cards. Violet has nine, and Chloe has eight.

  “Not fair,” Chloe whines. “I knew you’d win, Harps, and you’re still new here.”

  Violet teases Chloe by holding up her thumb and pointer into an L at her forehead.

  “She’s not the loser,” I pipe up. “I am. I only got three.”

  They all turn their attention on me. “Aw, poor Georgia,” Harper says. “We each sent you a card. What about Theo?”

  “Nope. Not even from Theo.”

  “Did you get a card from Theo?” Chloe asks Harper. “You’d think he’d send it to you after you gave it to him for free.”

  “Nope. What about you ladies?”

  They shrug.

  “I wonder who, then,” Harper muses.

  Only I know that it went into the garbage.

  “That’s way sad.” Violet looks concerned for me. “Is he still mad at you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “But you’re, like, best best friends,” Chloe says. “How could you not make up?”

  “I tried. Sort of. I guess it’s . . . complicated.”

  “We can help!” Harper says. “Let’s invite him to your party.”

  I haven’t even been thinking about my birthday, not to mention a party. I’m surprised it’s still on Harper’s radar.

  “I don’t know.”

  “If you don’t, I will,” she says. “I’ve never gone ice-skating at Wollman Rink. How about that? With dinner and cake at my house after?”

  “Cool!” Violet and Chloe agree.

  “Just us girls and Theo,” Harper says.

  I feel like I’ve lost my voice.

  “But does she know . . .” Violet asks, looking at me. Harper blushes.

  “What?” I’m confused.

  “Harps, you have to tell her,” Chloe says.

  Violet’s nodding, like they’re all in on some secret together.

  “I can’t!” Harper groans.

  “Just say it. Tell her,” Chloe eggs her on.

  Harper’s face is a mix of shame and worry, like she’s done something wrong and wants my forgiveness. My pulse gets faster, wondering what’s going on here. Maybe this is all some joke they’re playing on me.

  “It’s about Theo,” she says. “I think he’s kind of cute!”

  I’m relieved that it’s not about me, but also surprised. “You have a crush on Theo?” I ask.

  “Maybe.” She twists her hair into a long rope and lets it fly out around her. “I had a boyfriend in LA, but the long-distance thing wasn’t working for us. Theo’s just so nice.”

  I don’t know how to wrap my head around Harper thinking that Theo is cute. The other day she said she thought he was cool, like an undiscovered gem. But how did she get from gemstones to a crush? They don’t go together—Harper and Theo. They’re like complementary colors—orange and blue, or red and green—which are actually opposites on the color wheel. The colors that contrast so strongly, they make each other stand out the most. But not necessarily in a clashing, bad way. Maybe, sometimes, being different makes them more interesting.

  “I don’t know; I just don’t see it,” Chloe says.

  “Yeah, I’ll never see him that way,” Violet agrees. “I mean, when you’ve known him since kindergarten and he used to wear his Superman underpants on top of his sweatpants to school.”

  Even I giggle at that. I’d forgotten Theo used to do that—he thought it looked like a superhero costume. Maybe Harper will back off Theo if her friends don’t approve.

  “You know he has a pet lizard named Krypto?” I tell them, feeling bad as soon as I put it out there as something more for them to laugh about.

  “Seriously, Krypto? What kind of name is that?” Chloe says.

  “For Superman’s dog.” Violet shakes her head. “Yeah, I remember. My little brother’s obsessed.”

  “Mine, too,” Harper says. “And don’t tell anyone, but I kind of have a thing for reptiles.” None of us can tell if she’s joking or not, so we all giggle.

  “Anyway, I sent him a card,” she goes on, with a coy smile. “From ‘a secret admirer’!”

  Theo’s one card. From Harper.

  The girls bounce in their seats, plotting ways to deepen the mystery and intrigue around Harper’s crush.

  Harper notices me being quiet. “You’re not mad, are you, Georgia? I mean, you said you don’t like him that way.”

  I shake my head. “No, it’s fine.” I don’t know what way I like Theo anymore.

  The server drops our check on the table. I pull out my wallet to get my share.

  “No worries,” Harper says. “We got this.”

  I don’t want them to treat me like I’m a charity case. As I pull out my money, Harper lifts up her backpack, reaches in, and takes out an envelope.

  The envelope.

  The one with the cash from the card sales.

  She takes out
a twenty-dollar bill.

  “Really, we got it.” Harper puts her hand on mine to stop me from putting down my money.

  Harper drops the twenty on top of the check and hands it to Violet, who slides out of the booth to go up to the cashier and pay.

  I snap my jaw closed.

  That money is supposed to go to a charity, for the women’s and children’s homeless shelter. It is not supposed to pay for our French fries and milkshake. “Isn’t that the charity money?”

  Chloe shrugs. “Yeah. We’re just borrowing.”

  “Think of it as reimbursement. For our expenses. Don’t worry, I’ll pay it back,” Harper says.

  I nod. I can tell myself to believe her, even if I don’t. Even if it doesn’t feel right.

  Violet comes back to the booth. She leaves the few dollars change from her pocket—the ones that fell on the floor before—on the table as a tip. “Why does everyone look like someone just died here? Oops.” She slams her hand over her mouth, looking right at me. “I’m so sorry, Georgia; I didn’t mean to say that.”

  At first it doesn’t even occur to me what she’s apologizing for.

  Harper’s puzzled, too.

  “You’re so insensitive, Vi!” Chloe punches her arm.

  Then I realize. I swallow the lump in my throat. It’s tight, like I’m not going to be able to get a breath. I bite the inside of my cheek.

  “Oh, your dad,” Harper says.

  “It’s okay,” I say to reassure them, hating myself the moment I say it for my need to play down my own feelings.

  We get up to leave. They’re all bubbly and chatty, like nothing happened. But I can’t just let it go—the money thing.

  When we walk out, the sun has fallen behind the buildings. The forecast is for snow. I can feel it in the flatness of the sky.

  “You’re not going to tell anyone? About the money? Promise?” Harper looks worried as she whispers to me, away from the other girls.

  “Promise,” I whisper. I don’t know who I’d tell, anyway.

  “You’re the best.” She wraps me in her lavender-jasmine–scented hug and kisses my cheek before sashaying off to climb into her silver SUV with the other girls.

  They don’t offer me a ride for the few blocks to my house. “See ya tomorrow, Georgia,” Harper calls to me out the window. Each step toward home makes my lungs burn with cold. As they drive off, they lower the windows and all the girls wave at me.

  I wave back. But my heart is no longer in it. My heart is nowhere.

  Chapter

  Nineteen

  Mom hasn’t had a Valentine’s date for the past two years, and we all need cheering up right now. The last few years we’ve done takeout with the Goodwins for Valentine’s Day, but Theo hasn’t spoken to me since Sunday, and I doubt Mom and Harriet planned anything since Mom’s been so busy. I imagine Theo and Harriet downstairs, having their own special dinner, or maybe Harriet’s going out with her economics professor.

  So after I walk Olive, apologizing to Mrs. Velandry for being late that day, I decide to make a special dinner for Mom. I even invite Mrs. Velandry, who unsurprisingly says she’d rather stay home with Olive.

  I set the table with the silver candlesticks from Mom and Dad’s wedding, their blue-flowered wedding china, and antique crystal wineglasses which I fill with sparkling water.

  The snow starts falling while I put water to boil for pasta and make a simple tomato sauce and a box mix of brownies. Up here, through our windows, the snow is pure and untouched. The apartment smells of garlic and sugar; I light candles to set the mood.

  Mom comes in, her hair sparkling with snow, her face red from the cold. She goes from sour and tired to glowing and happy when she sees what I’ve done. “So romantic!” she says as she takes off her boots and puts on her indoor slippers.

  “Will you be my valentine?” I ask her.

  “Of course! Always and forever. You’re my number one valentine.”

  “What about Dad?” I ask, leaning back from her. “I thought he was always your number one?” And still is, the way she works so hard to carry on his art, his legacy.

  Her face drops a little. “It’s a different kind of love. You’re both my number ones, in different ways. No one will ever replace your father; you know that.” But how is she so sure? What if someday, she wants to find someone new—like Harper maybe taking over Theo’s spot as my best friend? Or maybe not, after what she did today.

  I pull out Mom’s chair for her to sit, and she takes a few bites and tells me how delicious everything tastes. I try to find a way to ask her about what’s really on my mind: about people doing things they know they shouldn’t. Like Harper using the charity money to pay our bill at Shooting Star. Like me taking G, age 10 and stashing it in my drawer. But it’s easier to follow the line of questioning we’re already on, so I ask, “How do you know if you love someone enough to marry them?”

  “You mean, like with Dad? Or if I met someone else?”

  “I guess, someone else.”

  She swallows her food. “It takes time to get over a great love like I had with your father. I don’t know if I’ll ever meet, or want to meet, someone as special to me as he is. But even if I do, that doesn’t change the fact that he’s your father, and part of you, and us, and his art, forever.”

  G in Blue glows at us from where it’s propped against the wall as we eat our dinner. Lit by candlelight, the blue triangle almost seems alive, moving. Like part of Dad really is here with us. It hasn’t gone to the Met yet—but soon. And when it goes, I’ll miss him all over again. And I don’t even have any real answers, yet, about G, age 10 and the points on the back.

  Maybe it’s time to tell Mom, to let her do the work she’s trained to do. But that would mean admitting to her what I’ve done—essentially, stealing one of Dad’s drawings. As much as I think I could keep it to be mine, forever, I know that’s not right. All of Dad’s work, even the quickest sketch, is part of his estate. All of it is potentially valuable. Saleable. Or at least, worthy of being catalogued, archived.

  “Mom,” I begin as she swirls another bite of pasta on her fork, “do you ever do things that might be wrong, and you’re not sure why?”

  She pauses with her fork midair. “You mean like a mistake? About what?”

  “I mean, like taking something you really wanted, and you thought maybe it was wrong, but maybe it wasn’t, and you did it anyway?”

  She puts her fork down. “Is this something about you and Theo? Harriet’s noticed that you’re drifting apart, and I said I thought it better not to push things with you two right now.”

  Maybe Theo told Harriet how I’ve been acting. Maybe that’s why we’re not doing Valentine’s dinner with them.

  “That’s not what I meant. But, yeah, that’s something, too.”

  “You mentioned you’re becoming better friends with Harper Willis. Is that coming between you?”

  “That’s just the thing. It shouldn’t. I mean, Harper wants to include Theo, too, but you know how stubborn he is. It’s like he’s forcing me to choose between friends. And she’s like a magnet, pulling me away.”

  Mom nods, smiling. “Ah, charisma. That’s how Dad was. Someone who draws you in. I felt it from the moment I met him.”

  Mom and Dad met when she was a graduate student, finishing her PhD in art history. Dad’s career as an artist was taking off. He came to do a lecture for a class where she was a teaching assistant.

  “Of course, everyone else felt his warmth, too,” she says. “It was obvious from how they all wanted to get close to him. Except for one of my friends—she tried to warn me that I’d be just one woman among many lining up for Hank.”

  “Then how’d you know you were special?”

  She laughs. “Trust me, it took a while. He had to prove it to me.”

  “How?” I’ve heard the story many times before. But not for a long time, and I’ll never get sick of it. I could hear it over and over—as many times as Mom is willing to tel
l me.

  “He drew me.” She gestures to the drawing on the mantel, the one he made of her when they first met. The one that I’d hoped had a sketch for Sally in the Stars on the back but doesn’t. He made the drawing while he watched her lecture one day, then gave the drawing to her and told her to keep it, that it might be worth something one day.

  “Would you ever sell that drawing?” I ask. “If we needed the money?”

  She swallows, like the question is painful for her to answer. “Oh, honey, it’s so hard. You know I’d love to keep all of Dad’s work forever. Especially the personal ones, like his portrait of me and G in Blue. But you never know what’ll happen in life. I’ll hold on to it all for as long as I can.”

  Mom tells me how we still have so many things of Dad’s to go through, here on our table, and that we can look at more of it together this weekend, because there are some hidden treasures.

  “It’s all so disorganized and needs to be sorted. And things seem to go missing,” she says. “In fact, there’s a portfolio of Dad’s that I found in one of the boxes I unpacked a couple weeks ago. It’s incredible, and I wanted to surprise you with it because it’s something very special. For you.”

  “What is it?” I ask, crossing my fingers that it’s not what I think it is.

  A smile flickers across her face. “Drawings of you, sweetheart. Like a journal he kept, of your childhood. They’re so, so beautiful.” She wipes at her eyes.

  I freeze. I can’t move a muscle, or Mom will suspect. I bite my cheek and squeeze my hands tightly together to keep from saying or doing something I shouldn’t.

  If the portfolio were still on the table, I could slip the drawing back in, tonight. Where it belongs. “Can I see?”

  “It’s already at the Met. But there’s one drawing that’s missing. The last one. I wanted to put it in the exhibit.” She runs her fingers through her hair and her voice rises in agitation.

  “The whole theme is about the intersection of Dad’s personal and artistic lives. So I thought it’d be great to show some of those drawings of you. Especially the last one from when you were ten. Just before he got too sick. I guess I can do without it. There’s a great one from when you were seven. I could use that.” She reaches out and touches my arm, to soften the blow.