My Not-So-Still Life (5 page)

I have a canvas out here that I’ve been painting for months, layer after layer. I paint something—Grampie bent over the engine of the Chevy, a teacup, Mom’s face—and then I paint it black. Then prime it white. Start over.

Kind of like I do with my hair.

Today, I’m using the black to erase my cherry blossom from Friday.

Soon there will be actual cherry blossoms in bloom, right outside, lining the streets of Ballard. The buds are filling up. Any day, they’ll burst and be the most beautiful color.

My cell buzzes when my canvas is almost completely black. Grampie went inside at some point, and I didn’t even notice. I was zoning. I’m unsettled when I realize I didn’t notice him go, but the thought is fleeting.

I plop my brush on the drop sheet and check the phone. A number I don’t recognize.

“Hello?”

“Vanessa. Oscar, Palette.”

“Hey.” Good news? It’s so fast. If it was a no, he probably wouldn’t be calling to tell me. Unless that’s exactly why he’s calling.

“So, those other two applicants were both no-shows.”

“Seriously? How lame of them.” Why would anyone bother to apply for a job and then not show for the interview?

“Yeah. Well, I like you anyway. Can you start next Saturday? Ten a.m.?”

“Absolutely.”

“Great, Vanessa. See you then!”

“I’m so excited. Thank you, Oscar!”

My heart is pumping fast.

I call Holly; I call Nick. They’re both psyched.

I go to the back door and see Grampie and Mom sitting at the table. They look up from their tuna melts as I open the door. I’m surprised by how glad I am to see them sitting there like that.

“I got the job!”

Grampie raises his sandwich in celebration. “Hey, that’s great. My working girl.”

I smile at him. Then I look at Mom, who has little creases near her eyes. She’s worried, but trying not to show it. “I hope this will be good for you.”

“I know it will be.” I do. A real-world job. Where I will totally reinvent myself. “And I’ll meet new people, and get a discount.”

“Sounds good, Nessie,” Grampie says, but Mom still has that crease.

“It’s fine, Mom. I want to work.”

Grampie gets up and puts his plate in the sink, then heads down to his room. Guess he’s not all that interested. Or he’s trying to stay out of our way.

I sit down across from her. “Why shouldn’t I have a job? What’s bothering you about it?”

She pushes her plate away. I think she might cry. I hold my breath. There must be something big she wants to say.

“I feel like I grew up really fast.”

I’m still barely breathing. “Because of me.”

“Because I got pregnant and started to get ready for a baby and then your grandmother died. I had to grow up fast and early. Support us. You don’t have to do that.”

My heart breaks a little every time I remember that she gave up so much of her life to raise me. She was only a few months older than I am now.

“You don’t have to do this. Have fun. Join clubs, stuff like that.”

She wants me to stay a little girl? Tough luck. “Clubs? No way.”

She nods. “Maybe school clubs are stupid, but all I’m saying is you don’t need to do this for us. We’re okay.”

“I get that, Mom. This is not a big deal. It’ll be fun. Really interesting. It’s not like I’m setting out to work at the docks. I’m working in art. I thought you’d be happy.”

“I just want to be sure you have time to focus on your art and your schoolwork. Setting yourself up for later.”

“Are you talking about college?”

“College, yes. Art school, maybe. But finishing high school, doing well, and enjoying this time of your life. You’re only a sophomore.”

“Mom. This is a way for me to spend time living my real life. I’m ready for responsibility.” I don’t get it. I’m not doing anything wrong. “I’ll always be your kid. Okay?”

“Sure, Nessie! Of course you will.” Something shifts in her face. We’re done talking. “Garden time for me!”

I watch her go, and I want to follow, but instead I wash her plate, and Grampie’s.

In my room, I switch to a green string.

I spend some time organizing my closet and scrubbing my bathroom. Mom will be happy when she sees that.

As I clean, I think. Mom said I was growing up too fast. But it’s not a problem for me. I’m bigger than high school already. And I don’t need art school later. Life is as good as art school. I just need to prove it to her.

I do homework until I hear Mom in the kitchen, and I go help her start the lasagna. Me cooking two meals in one day. Unprecedented.

It’s a calm night. Grampie waits for his favorite meal
out in the garden. I can see him through the kitchen window, and I know he’s humming, just like he always does when he’s working. Mom hums a little, too.

While dinner’s cooking, I sketch Grampie among the flowers.

And now it’s Monday.

Getting ready this morning, I wanted to choose a purple string because I’m so excited about Palette, but I went with blue because it’s only Monday. I have a whole week of school to get through before I start work.

I put on stacks of necklaces. White Doc boots. Black lipstick. Nick waits for me at school. Soon I’m sitting in Spanish class trying not to watch Jewel.

I’m not proud of my lingering crush. It’s there, always there. Like my arms. Like the salt in the air of Ballard.

I’ve known him since elementary school, but mostly from a distance. One of my earliest memories: jumping in puddles with him at recess on a kindergarten day. It’s strange how, in that memory, I can so clearly see little Jewel through my younger eyes, all huddled up in a white-and-black-striped snow hat and these red mittens he used to wear. I can’t see anyone else; I don’t even exactly remember what our kindergarten teacher looked like. But I’ve got this memory-film of Jewel, complete with the scent of rain and the shimmer of wet leaves. Maybe I’ll paint that.

During middle school at Ocean Tides, I was busy with new friends, including Holly, while Jewel stayed at the public school. I guess that’s when he got really close with Alice Davis.

When I started at Gates, I was so relieved to see that public middle school hadn’t turned Jewel into a drone, like Mike Corrigan and those sports guys. Those guys who exist at every high school with a football team. They might grow out of the cretin stage, but probably won’t. Destined to become frat boys. I’m pretty sure Mike or one of his buddies was behind the Sharpied “freak” on my desk freshman year.

All through Spanish class, I watch Jewel.

I watch him watch nothing. There’s got to be a movie inside his brain.

Jewel stares a lot of the time.

I love that stare.

For a while in the fall, he let me behind it. He let me in.

I wondered sometimes if it was only because Alice was dating someone else, but I was able to push that idea aside because I was having so much fun with Jewel. I felt so close to him. I didn’t want to think about Alice.

We painted together in my garage, and we kissed, and Grampie and Jewel talked about old movies. The feeling of Halloween was in the air. We talked and talked, and it seemed so real, so much like we were this couple who belonged together. He said yes when I asked him to the
Halloween Bloodbath. The dance where being a freak served me well and I was voted Halloween Queen.

Everything was natural during those days with Jewel. I didn’t change my hair once. It only lasted a few weeks, though; he began to seem distracted, and then he was hanging out with Alice again and told me that he wasn’t the right guy for me.

What he meant was that I’m not the right girl for him.

It’s like he was just trying me out, and while I had the role for a while, he replaced me before the big opening night. Which is what, really?

Spring Semi, I guess. The big spring freshman and sophomore dance, the warm-up for junior and senior proms. If a sophomore couple starts out in the fall and makes it to Spring Semi, they’ll probably make it all the way to graduation.

So that’s the other reason I’m psyched for my job at Palette. If you can’t get over your feelings for someone you can’t have, maybe you should find someone else to fall for. Like an artist, or a new coworker. A blond guy on a skateboard. At least stay busy and forget how you love to watch Jewel watch nothing.

Finally it’s time for Smith’s art workshop, the only place where I feel free to relax at school.

We sit down on our stools—I try not to watch as Jewel sits with Alice, and Smith starts to psych us up for the spring art show. What should I enter? I have no idea.

“Push your limits,” Smith says.

He reminds me of the teachers at Ocean Tides.

Mr. Smith doesn’t follow some curriculum. The rest of my teachers drone through the day. He tries to inspire.

Whatever I put in the show needs to be awesome, because I won the fall art show.

“Browse my books for ideas,” he says. “And the computer is yours.”

I hung out with Jewel at the fall show, a rare time when Alice was nowhere around him, right when things were starting to happen between us. I’d made a city out of cardboard boxes that I found by the school Dumpster. Those boxes called to me. They begged to be buildings.

Right now, nothing’s begging me to become anything.

“Here’s your chance to show me what you’ve got,” Mr. Smith says. “Show everybody what you’re about.”

I need to do something great.

Something that will make them know that I am ready for so much more than just a high school art show. That I’m the real deal. A real artist.

Jewel’s messing around with a stack of photos, trying to put them in some kind of order. Alice is making a collage using what might be scraps from his discarded photos.

I am just sitting here. I’m trying to look deep in thought. Contemplating my masterpiece.

Mr. Smith comes over and taps the table, like knocking at a door. “Anyone home?”

“Yeah.” I don’t have to lie to him, though. He gets me. “But I’m stuck. I have no idea what I want to put in the show.”

“Take off your boots.”

I just do it. I step off my stool, bend down, and unzip my left Doc, then my right. “Am I gonna practice being grounded in my bare feet or something?”

He laughs. “How many times do I have to tell you, Vanessa, that I am not a hippie?”

“So what’s with the shoes? How does this help me?”

“Paint them.”

“My boots.” He wants me to paint on my boots?

“Your boots. Still life.”

“Paint a still life of my boots.”

“Or draw them. Use any medium. I don’t care. Just get your art muscles going.” He picks up the boots and puts them on the table, brings me a sheet of paper. “Get flowing.”

I nod. I fight the temptation to draw
on
my boots.

He goes off to check on someone else.

I start at the toe, trying to get the curve just right, starting in on the stitching that holds the leather to the sole.

I focus.

Once I have the whole bottom of the boot, the sole and the toe and the heel, I take a breath. Close my eyes. Open them. Look at my work.

It looks just like the boot. But it doesn’t make me feel anything.

At least making it took me out of my head for a little while.

After workshop, it’s time to come up with a plan to hook up Holly with her Wilson.

Got to find him first.

At lunch, I tell Nick, “We’re on a hunt.”

“Ooh, hidden treasure?” He eats a chicken finger.

“Holly’s treasure.”

He stands up and puts his hand above his eyes, peering out.

Then he sits. “Near the milk machines. Orange hoodie.”

I stand quickly, take a peek. The Harry Potter glasses. The extrashort brown hair. “He’s cute!”

“Duh.”

“And he will look so very adorable with Holly.”

“If he ever opens his eyes and notices her.”

“That’s what Holly has me for. Call me Cupid.”

“Cupid.”

I shoot an imaginary arrow at his heart with my invisible bow.

“Seriously, Vanessa, do we think it’s wise to get involved in the love lives of innocent orchestra musicians?”

“Please. Holly has no idea how to talk to a guy by herself. You’ve seen her. She’s smitten. She thinks Wilson’s this genius. I’m sure it paralyzes her when she’s around him.”

“But if she could just chill out and talk to him, he’d love her. They have stuff in common.”

“Exactly. So they just need a nudge.”

“And you are the designated nudger.”

“Precisely.”

I spend the rest of lunch listening to Nick rehash some old movie and working out a plan in my head. Step one: recon on Wilson. Make sure he doesn’t have a girlfriend. If he does, abort the mission. I am not a heartbreaker.

Tuesday morning
, as I’m riding my cruiser to school, I pass graffiti that stops me.

To call it graffiti seems wrong. It’s blackbirds, in silhouette, against a gray concrete wall—the side of the Wash-O-Rama launderette.

Blackbirds. Simple. Beautiful. Appearing out of nowhere. Just landing. I know they must’ve been stenciled, to be so neat at the edges. But they feel so natural.

I did a series of birds a few months ago, in clay. They were tiny and I tried to make them perfect. But they never made me stop in my tracks the way these birds do.

I don’t think I want to do birds again, but all of a sudden I’m pretty sure that spray paint is the right medium for me.

Does Palette sell it? On Saturday, I’ll look.

In art workshop, while Jewel is out taking photos around the school and Alice is sketching something at their table, I use Smith’s computer.

I search.
Public art
.

I read about the Guerrilla Girls, a group of women who make big statements about feminism by pointing out things like the percentage of women represented in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art who are naked versus not naked. The Guerrilla Girls wear gorilla masks, and they make bumper stickers, billboards, and other paraphernalia. Cool, but not quite what I want to do.

I search for public art in Seattle and find out about a guy named Jason Sprinkle, who made big social statements all over town, doing things like tying a giant ball and chain around the leg of the
Hammering Man
, a huge metal statue outside our art museum. He also left a car blocking traffic right outside Westlake Center. I was just a kid, but I wonder if Mom remembers.