Hard to Get (16 page)

Kelly smacked her on the shoulder. “What happened after you left?” she asked me.

I rummaged through the front pocket of my bag. “Well, I talked to Dave, did you know that?” I unzipped another pocket and dug around futilely. “Do either of you guys have any Advil?”

“What? You actually
talked
to him?” Kelly gasped. “How can you say that so casually?” She shook two Advil into my palm from a little white bottle.

“I'm not casual,” I told her. We reached the open door of the calc room. Becca glanced at her watch.

“We have five minutes.” We all sank down on the linoleum, our backs against the wall.

“So what did he say?” Becca asked. “I can't stand it—tell us!”

I shrugged. “He just said, basically, he was sorry if he hurt me—”

Kelly held up her hand. “Stop. He's sorry
if
he hurt you? He
did
hurt you!”

“I know, that's just what I said. And then he acted like I was hysterical just because I was defending myself.” I leaned my head back against the wall. “I was so mad when we were talking, but I actually started feeling better on the way home. Like I have some closure now. I can see he's a jerk, finally, once and for all. So I can let him go.”

“Yay!” Becca cheered. She leaned over and gave me a hug. “I'm so glad for you. Go, Val!”

“Thanks, babe.” I hugged her back.

“Awesome show last night, Val.” We looked up. Kevin walked past us into the calc room, but not without turning and giving me a big grin. I shuddered.

“Oh no, Val,” Kelly muttered, looking at the end of the hall. I followed her gaze. Mr. Solis was striding toward us, a set of files clutched in his hand. Today his suit was wrinkled blue instead of wrinkled gray.

“Oh my God, I do not want him to see me,” I whispered. “He smelled like spaghetti.”

“Come on, get in the classroom, hurry,” Becca whispered back, giggling. We grabbed our bags. Kelly and Becca swung theirs over their shoulders.

“Mine's stuck!” I said, tugging at the strap, which was snagged on a metal doorstop. Mr. Solis was getting closer. Becca's giggling grew louder as all three of us yanked at the bag strap. Now I could hear Mr. Solis's footsteps. “Don't look, don't look,” I muttered. We all grew quiet and stared down at the bag as he passed by, his own eyes fixed firmly on the end of the hall.

I felt distinctly nervous that afternoon as I got ready to go to Sternwell's. Had Adam decided that I was completely crazy, prancing around with Larry like that,
then falling off the riser? I put on an army green tank top and a pair of painty khakis and got in the Saab. I stopped at a 7-Eleven on the way and bought two Hershey's bars. Just in case Adam didn't want to paint with a crazy girl, maybe I could bribe him.

It was hot and muggy. The sky was whitish with a disk of harsh sun glaring through. I could see flies buzzing in a little cloud over the Dumpster on the corner as I approached the mural. Adam was squatting near our supplies, which we kept piled under a blue tarp at the side of the building. He was making careful piles of our paintbrushes, his face downturned.

“Hey,” I said. “What's up?”

He glanced at me briefly, and then returned to his sorting. “Nothing much.” That was it.

“Do you want some help?” I crouched down next to him.

He shrugged. So it was true. He thought I was a weird, vice-principal-attacking freak who was dating a five-foot-tall thirteen-year-old.

I tried again. “Hey, I got us a snack on the way here.” I pulled the chocolate bars
out of my pocket. He glanced at them.

“I'm not really that hungry right now. Thanks, though. Listen,” he said, rising to his feet. “We're out of a ton of stuff—blue paint, turpentine, and someone stole a bunch of our clean brushes. I told Sarah I'm going down to Mason's Art Supply to stock up, okay? I'll be back soon.” He turned on his heel and started toward the street where his car was parked.

“Okay,” I said to his back. I suddenly felt very alone standing there in the weedy lot by myself.

“You can go home if you want. I probably won't be back for a while,” he said over his shoulder, digging in his pocket for his keys. He turned to the car.

“Can I come with you?” I shouted on impulse.

He wrestled with the door, and then wrenched it open in a shower of rust. “If you want.” He slid behind the wheel as I climbed in beside him.

As before, the intermittently scraping tailpipe made conversation nearly impossible, but this time there wasn't any light banter anyway. Adam drove with one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the gearshift,
staring straight ahead out the windshield. I folded my hands on my lap and watched the Taco Bells and liquor stores slide by. I was acutely aware of Adam's every movement next to me, as if I'd suddenly sprouted invisible antennae. Finally, I couldn't stand the silence one second longer.

I took a deep breath. “So that was so crazy at the dance lesson—,” I began.

“Yeah, what was up with that?” Adam's hands tightened convulsively on the wheel. I glanced over. His knuckles were white.

“Listen, I can explain everything,” I rushed ahead. “I'm not crazy, I swear, even though I know it really seems like I am.” Here I let out a little hyena laugh, which did not do much to help my case.

“You know, you could have just told me you already had a partner when I asked you at the co-op the other day,” he said, his words short and clipped.

“Well, that's what I wanted to explain about—”

He glanced over at me and then back at the windshield. I could see the muscles of his jaw clenched. “You could have just told me the truth. The one thing I can't stand is lying.”

“Listen, Adam, that guy was my
cousin
Larry. My aunt was like totally begging me to take him so that he could learn dancing. It was a favor to her, that's all.”

He glanced over. “Really?”

“Yeah.” I paused. “To tell you the truth, he's not really my type.” I grinned at Adam so he'd be sure and get the joke.

He laughed. We drove in a comfortable silence for a few minutes, then Adam reached his hand behind him and felt his back pockets. “Darn.” He glanced over at me.

“What?”

“Do you mind taking a side trip? I think I left my wallet at my house. It's right near here.”

“Sure, that's fine,” I said. I watched as he steered us through the suburban streets. The houses shrank from McMansions set far back from the road to comfortable frame houses with large, fenced lawns to finally a quiet street of small brick bungalows. He killed the engine in front of a tidy house with white trim. Plain white curtains fluttered from the open windows.

“My parents are still at work,” Adam told me, climbing from the car. He unlocked the door and I followed him into the small,
dim living room. As my eyes adjusted from the bright light of outdoors, I found myself staring at a giant nude in oil that hung on the living room wall right in front of me. Adam saw my surprise.

“My mom paints too,” he explained, throwing his keys on the coffee table. “And this stuff is my dad's.” He pointed and I turned to see a row of large abstract horse sculptures standing in the tiny dining nook.

“Do you like it that your parents are artists too?” I asked. “Is it annoying?”

He shrugged. “Sometimes. They have their own ideas about what I should be painting and
I
have my own ideas about what I should be painting. But most of the time, we get along.” He stepped into the kitchen, which was about four feet away, and rummaged through a drawer for a second, then slammed it shut. “I must have left the wallet in my room. I'll be right back.”

“Don't worry about me.” I perched on the edge of one of the wooden dining chairs.

He disappeared down a short hallway. I rested my elbow on the table. It was very quiet in the house. The only sound was the ticking of the kitchen clock. I stared at the salt and pepper shakers on the table, which
looked like two little people embracing, the salt white ceramic and the pepper black.

I shifted my seat on the chair. Adam was taking forever. I got up and peered down the hallway. I could hear shuffling from one of the three open doors. “Adam?” I called.

“Yeah,” he called back. “I'm in here.”

I walked down the hall and stood in the doorway. The only sign it was a bedroom was a mattress heaped with rumpled blankets on the floor. Several drop cloths were spread out in one corner, where an easel stood near the window. Squeezed, empty tubes of oils cluttered the windowsills along with mason jars filled with worn paintbrushes. Dozens of canvases were stacked against the wall. Some of them were facing backward, but I caught a glimpse of a bright blue figure, and a landscape done in browns and oranges, and what looked like a pair of giant yellow lips. Adam was standing half-buried in a closet, flinging flannel shirts and jeans behind him onto the floor.

“I think I left it in these jeans,” he mumbled. “Aha!” He turned around, holding up a brown leather wallet triumphantly. “I knew it was there.” With his foot, he
swept all the dirty clothes back into the closet and shut the door.

“I like all your paintings,” I told him, looking around. “This is like a real artist's studio.”

He shrugged. “It's okay. I wish the windows were bigger. But Mom is really cool to let me paint in here—I'm not always so neat when I work, in case you haven't noticed,” he said, leading the way from the room.

“Nooo, I've never noticed that,” I teased. He turned around and grinned at me, and I grinned back.

I couldn't help glancing in the other rooms as we passed by—a little bathroom, his parents' room with a big bed. I peered in the doorway of what looked like an office, with an Oriental rug on the floor and a computer desk in the corner. Boxes were strewn all over, with paper stacked on the floor and clothes draped over the desk chair. Then I did a double take and skidded to a stop. Hanging on one wall was the most beautiful gown I had ever seen. It was floor-length dark blue silk, flowing like water down the white-painted wall. The shoulder straps were wide bands of silk. Cream-colored chiffon was draped softly across the bodice,
and fell in swathes to the hem. “Wow,” I breathed. Adam turned around and followed my gaze.

“Oh yeah,” he said. “That was my grandmother's. My mom was sorting some attic stuff this weekend. It's nice, right?”

“Nice!” I smacked him playfully on the shoulder. “What a typical guy. It's gorgeous! Wow, and vintage too.” I paused. “Can I see it?”

He shrugged. “Sure.” He took the dress off the wall and handed me the padded hanger.

The cool silk slid through my fingers and shimmered in the filtered sunlight from the window. A faint scent of long-ago jasmine wafted up to me. I held the hanger up to my shoulders. The hem fell perfectly to my toes. “Look,” I said to Adam. “It's my size.”

“You're right.” He looked me up and down. “You look good in it.”

His voice was casual, but something about his gaze made me drop my eyes. My heart gave a little jump. Quickly, I replaced the hanger on the wall. “Oops,” I said with a moronic giggle as one of the straps slid off. I fixed it, and then walked rapidly from the room, not
looking at Adam as I brushed by him.

We were quiet in the car on the way to the art store. I was glad for the randomly scraping tailpipe mixing with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs song blaring from the tinny speakers. After about ten minutes, Adam turned onto a busy street lined with stores on both sides. “This is it,” he said, pulling up in front of an art shop with a sign shaped like a palette. Wooden modeling mannequins filled the window, along with blank canvases, cases of oil paints, and huge jars of brushes.

Adam held the door open for me and a bell tinkled overhead. It was quiet inside, and the air smelled of turpentine overlaid with the spicy aroma of books and paper. The white-haired proprietor perched on a high stool behind the counter at the back, reading a heavy, blue-bound book. He glanced over his half-glasses at us and nodded.

“Cool place,” I whispered to Adam. I felt like I should whisper for some reason, even though it wasn't a library.

“Yeah, I know,” he murmured back. “Hey, look at these prints over here. You've got to see this one by Diego Rivera. It's my favorite painting in the entire world.” He grabbed my hand. His warm, rough palm
rasped against mine. I inhaled sharply. This was the first time he'd touched me, except to shake my hand that night in the garden. I wasn't prepared for the shiver that zinged through my body.

Adam didn't seem to notice my odd reaction to his touch. He pulled me over to a bin full of cardboard-mounted prints wrapped in plastic. I stood beside him, gripping the cold metal edge of the rack as he rifled through the stack.

“This one.” He pulled out a painting showing part of a factory, dark red and yellow, against a blue sky. “Isn't that incredible? The way the colors contrast? It's like what I'm trying with the mural, except it's a thousand times better, of course.”

Something in his voice made me look at him more closely. His eyes were sparkling and his cheeks were a little flushed. This painting really meant something to him. I examined it more closely.

“Wow, you're right,” I said. “The blue and red look amazing together.” And it was true—the deep burnt red-orange of the building popped against the flat periwinkle of the sky.

“Now,
this
one, on the other hand …” He
pulled a print of a medieval painting from the bin. “This one reminds me of you.”

“What?” I laughed. “Give me that!” I pulled it out of his hand. A woman draped in gauzy robes perched on a tree root in a deep forest. Her slender oval face was alert as she gazed at a baby Cupid, who was looking up at her in a questioning way.