Fan Art (2 page)

Lia adds another one, a realistic nude. It’s good, drawn on bark-colored paper in Conté crayon with highlights sketched in white over the model’s cheekbones, but I pretend not to see the obvious—that the model is male. And naked. I wonder if it was someone’s self-portrait for Ms. Maude’s assignment and decide the lack of clothing reveals a lot about a person. Literally.

By the end of the meeting the others have decided on five new poems, two flash fiction stories, and two drawings for me to add to the Adobe InDesign layout on my
laptop. Lia says she’ll email me the pieces that were submitted online and type up the one handwritten poem. I tell her I can do it and slide the poem between the keyboard and the screen of my computer. I put the nude and a landscape into my folder as the others start to pack up their things.

I’m halfway to the door when Michael says, “Hey, Jamie.”

I turn around. “Yeah?”

“You going to prom?”

I open my mouth. No words come out.
Is he asking me to prom?

“I take that as a no?” Michael guesses.

“No—Yes.”
What am I saying?
“I was thinking about going. It’ll be fun. You know, dancing . . .” I babble.

When I manage to stop the tumble of words, Michael says, “Awesome.”

I wait for more. For a question. For some idea of what this conversation is about. “Yeah.”

“You want to share a limo with me and Lia? Holland and DeMarco are in.”

I parse the equation and figure out that he isn’t asking me on a date. Lia is his date. “Sure. Yeah. A limo.”

“Cool. Let Mason know.” Michael cuffs my shoulder.

There’s no zap of romantic connection, no gentleness, no lingering touch. It’s simply friendly. And not at all gay. “Yeah, I will. Thanks.”

“And you got that hard-copy submission, right?”

I tap my laptop. “Yeah.”

“Thanks for typing it up,” he says, and turns in the direction of his locker. I head to the music wing to pick up my trumpet, letting out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

Crossing Jordan

by Juliet Polmanski

This stretch of nothing highway

just past the roar and cheer of the racetrack

is as quiet as a cemetery

and dotted with white crosses.

I drive as slow as a funeral procession

looking for mine,

my brother’s,

my hero’s.

I pull onto the shoulder,

step out into the silence

to untangle the tumbleweed

from my faded silk flowers.

With a Sharpie,

I darken the letters of his name—

Jordan, like the river of tears

flowing into the dead sea.

I’m done with asking why,

and pray only that he knows

I love him. Loved him.

More than silk flowers

can ever say.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

TWO

“Hey, Mom,” I call as I
shut the front door behind me. I let my backpack fall to the floor and kick off my sneakers.

“Hi, honey,” my mom says from the kitchen, her voice as chirpy as the beep of the microwave. “How was school?”

I don’t have time to answer before my two-year-old twin sisters assault my knees.

“Jamie, Jamie,” Elisabeth greets me, hugging one knee.

Ann Marie doesn’t bother with words; she just shrieks and tugs on my jeans.

I try to move, but Elisabeth is doing a good job as an anchor. I peel her from my leg and carry her into the kitchen, following an excited Ann Marie. Ann Marie shows me her doll—who is taking a bath in the spaghetti pot.

“School was school,” I tell my mom. “And we finally got some decent art for
Gumshoe
.”

“About time,” she says, and holds up a box of frozen chicken nuggets. “How many?”

“Six,” I answer, although I don’t particularly care for processed chicken bits.

“’Icken,” Elisabeth says.

“Yeah,” I tell her. I couldn’t agree more. This is my mom’s idea of cooking: chicken nuggets, tater tots, pork ’n’ beans, mac ’n’ cheese—anything with an ’n’ instead of a real word. It’s been this way since she went back to work and Frank started working out of state.

He’s home for the moment, which makes my mom happy—she has her husband back—and nervous—because if he’s here, he isn’t working. And if he isn’t working, he isn’t getting paid.

I pick up the spaghetti pot and my laptop, and take the girls into their room, leaving Mom with a few minutes of peace while she heats up dinner. I play dolls with Ann Marie while Elisabeth packs a toy purse with plastic pork chops and alphabet blocks. I don’t know if she’s ever seen a real pork chop, so maybe it all makes sense to her.

Settling in to watch them, I sit on the floor and lean back against their toy chest. I open InDesign and scroll through the pages until I find a blank one. Reading Juliet’s poem, I type it in. Then I proofread my version against
hers to check that I’ve copied it exactly. Unfortunately, I have. It’s about Jordan, and it leaves a little ache in my heart.

I look up at my sisters and put my computer down. I crawl over to where Ann Marie has abandoned her dolls and is unpacking Elisabeth’s purse.

“Pork chop,” I say, and pretend to take a bite. I hold it out to her.

She leans forward and pretends to eat too.

Elisabeth joins in, and the three of us make sloppy chewing sounds until we burst into a fit of giggles. I start a tickle war but soon regret it. They pin me and wiggle their small hands under my arms. Mom pokes her head in, wondering if I need to be rescued.

Later I help the twins into their booster seats and slide their chairs up to the kitchen table. They’ve got bibs, plastic plates, sippy cups, and little kid silverware, as if dinner is a sport that needs safety gear.

“Jamie,” my stepdad says while stabbing a chicken nugget with his fork, “I was talking with my friend Sal, and he said he needs some guys to fill out his crew this summer.”

Sal started a landscaping business back when construction took a nosedive. His crew fixes sprinklers and mows lawns—not my idea of a fun summer job, but I don’t say so.

“Frank,” Mom says. “Jamie has a summer job all lined up—”

“I know, I know. But this is outside. Fresh air and sunshine,” Frank explains to Mom. Then he fakes a punch to my shoulder. “Build up those muscles, get some color, huh, bud?”

I fake a smile. And wince inside. That’s so Frank—built, tan, construction contractor Frank with sawdust on his clothes and dirt in the laces of his steel-toed boots. And so not me—beanpole tall and prone to sunburn. Sure, I used to love tagging along to construction sites where he’d show me my mom’s designs being built. The last day was always my favorite—and not because of the new Day-Glo green grass—but because the signs would be up: shiny letters stating the name of the business inside, rows of numbers on the doors indicating the address, bright neon curls announcing that it was open.

I have no interest in mowing lawns this summer. I
want
to work at my mom’s architectural firm, running errands, redoing the website, updating the brochure, and photographing projects. And I want to remind Frank that I flipped burgers and asked people if they wanted “fries with that” all last summer to buy my Mac—tell him that I’ve earned this job.

But Frank is, as usual, trying too hard at the stepdad thing, as if he wants to be my receding-hairline superhero. “I thought you’d like to earn a few bucks. Sal pays
more than your mother does.”

“Hey,” my mom says.

“It’s not about the money,” I say instead of
hell no
. “I want to work for Mom.”

A look of dejection crosses Frank’s face. “I put in a good word for you with Sal, that’s all.”

“Thanks, but I get all the lawn-mowing fun I need around here.” I do. He’s always away at a job site or just getting home or about to leave again. And I mow the lawn.

“Exactly!” His face bounces up into a smile. “That’s what I told Sal. That you have experience.”

I close my eyes and let my head fall into my hands. He doesn’t get it. He never gets it.

“Now, honey,” my mom says to me. “It would be nice to have a little extra to put toward tuition in the fall.”

That’s what happens when you get a new stepdad at fifteen, followed by two baby sisters and a Honda for your sixteenth birthday. Don’t get me wrong: I love my sisters. And my car might be a POS, but it’s mine. The college tuition money my mom had carefully saved for me, though, is no longer all mine. It’s divided three ways. And the new guy that lives down the hall? He’s not my dad no matter how hard he tries. And Mom? I have to share her, too.

My dad? He never married her. They were college sweethearts, but after graduation they found jobs
in different cities and promised each other they’d work something out. They never did. Sure, he visited a few times when I was a kid, sent child support when he could. But that stopped the day I turned eighteen. He and I were always on tectonic plates, slowly drifting apart, from father and son to nothing over the course of eighteen years.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

THREE

In gym class the next morning,
a rough-and-tumble game of two-hand touch is tied at 21–21. Coach Callahan has given up on the soccer unit and let the guys play football instead. It’s shirts vs. skins and Brodie Hamilton vs. Kellen Zalaba. They look like they’re having fun—not that I want to join them. The skins part of shirts vs. skins can be a little distracting when you’re trying to catch a ball and run at the same time—oh, and not run into Lincoln High’s defensive MVP, Nick O’Shea, a six-foot-three wall of muscle. His friends call him Red and everyone else refers to him as the Redneck—and not just because he drives a vintage two-tone Chevy Silverado. He’s the kind of guy you don’t want to run into on the field or off. In fact, guys like DeMarco, Michael, and I walk wide circles around him. So I’ve opted out of the game in favor of running a mile.

Today I walk an extra lap to cool down and, on my
way back inside, I find Mason staring up at the sky. His back is to me, the game ball tucked under one arm. He looks like a modern day Greek god in a faded John Deere T-shirt—his dark curls his personal brand of halo.

I stand beside him and follow his gaze. A plane passes overhead, its contrail neatly dividing the brilliant blue sky in two. The line is as crisp and as white as the snow lingering on Shafer Butte.

“I can’t wait to get outta here,” he says. “Live my own life.”

“So with you, man,” I agree. “Frank wants me to mow lawns all summer.”

“Lawns, as in plural?”

“Yeah. For his friend Sal.”

“And you don’t want to, I take it.”

“Bingo.” I bump his shoulder and start toward the doors.

“Jamie,” he calls out, and when I turn, he tosses me the ball.

I catch it, backpedal, and launch it to him in a graceful arc.

He snatches it from the air and runs toward me, zigzagging as if to dare me to tackle him.

I bend at the waist and spread my arms out to my sides.

Mason fakes left and zigzags right.

I catch him by the waist and his momentum spins us
around. In a dizzying flash, he grabs my arm and holds it tight against his ribs. I feel them shake as he laughs. One more revolution and we stumble to the ground.

“Dork,” I tell him, and flop onto my back. “I was tackling you.”

Spread out like he’s making a snow angel in the grass, he lifts the ball from under his arm. “Nah, total touchdown.”

“Touchdown? Not even close,” I protest, and reach for the ball.

But Mason points up at the split-in-two sky. I lie back to look.

We watch the contrail as it fades away. I wonder about college next year and the million things that will change in our lives, like living away from home, on our own without parents and siblings. I wonder if college will feel like home, if I’ll make new friends, if coming out will finally let me feel like I fit in.

I know Mason’s itching to leave, probably because he shares a room with his older brother, Gabe. And his sister, Londa, can be a royal pain. He’ll be the first one to go away to college. (Gabe works at the family garage, and Londa goes to Boise State; they both still live at home.) One thing’s for sure: he’ll be glad not to be working in his father’s garage.

“Just a few more weeks,” I say.