Simon Says (11 page)

Across the room, I see Rachel talking to the cellist, smiling at the girl. Forgetting about Adrian, I smile, too, a wave of excited pleasure surging up inside of me. I think of the way Rachel looks inside people, trying to see how the pieces fit together. Would
she
understand the bent tree? Are there actually people here at Whitman that I might be able to share it with? She looks up and sees me. She's wearing a dress tonight a soft green
that ripples in the light like leaves in the sun (
like leaves dappled with the shadows of fluttering birds
). Her even brown gaze smiles into mine, and the party fades around us as I catch my breath.

Then Adrian pulls back slightly, and I see the scene in sharp focus—tense kids, already trapped in roles they've chosen for reasons they can't even understand. And, disembodied, I see myself, posing as the deliberately casual, almost—but not quite—too intimate friend of my gay roommate, while Adrian plays the companion role of flinching at our being caught together.

I recoil from the insight Still staring at Rachel's face, I see the reflection of my widening eyes in hers. Just before I can shove Adrian away, my mind grabs control and forces the scene back into perspective. My mentor would be pleased to see my growing grasp of perspective. It's just a party. Adrian's just my roommate.
My friend?
And Rachel is just my editor, nothing more. Not a seer whose cool eyes look too deep. Not someone I could care about Across the room, Rachel turns back to the cellist.

As she does, I touch Adrian's arm lightly. "Wait till you see it" I repeat and watch his uncertainty fade and be replaced with something like relief.

Then I straighten and turn away. Just a party. Just a lot of kids like me, trying to figure out how to make their own art or find their own voice.
Or how to belong.
Only, they're not just like me.... Still, it's only a party.

I go into the concert hall itself. A few students hang around in the aisles, on the stage even, talking to each other, maybe even listening to what the others say. But
it's less crowded in here. I walk down an empty row to a seat against the right-hand wall, under a sconce light. I pull out my sketch pad and sit holding it, going over the sketch in my mind.

"Hiding out?" There is no accusation in Rachel's voice, and none in her cool eyes as I look up. Her dress rustles softly as she makes her way across the row of seats in front of me and stands there, her back to the stage.

"Maybe."

"Sketching?"

I'm glad I haven't started yet "Not for
Ventures,
" I tell her. "This is just a gift. A thank-you."

She doesn't pursue it. Instead, she cocks her head to one side, and the light slides across her shining cap of hair. I imagine painting the strands, using the texture from a coarse brush to give each delicate hair life. She asks, "Are you with Adrian Lawson tonight, or someone else?"

I glance down at the sketch pad. Why should she assume I'm
with
anyone? "I'm on my own," I tell her.
What would it be like to be with her?

"Care for company?"

It's as if she read my mind and offered what I've been wishing for. But I have a sudden glimpse of Cindy throwing herself at me to get that jock's attention. Is that the sort of invitation Rachel's making? I tell myself she's not like Cindy, and for a moment heat flares in my chest as if the air has caught on fire. Then I remind myself that I don't know what she's like, beyond a puzzle lover. I don't know if I'm just another puzzle she's
picked up, or something more. I drop my eyes and shake my head, willing my heart to stop pounding.

"No." I know it sounds brusque, and I'm glad. I don't want her looking inside of me, calmly dissecting me. I can't let myself want that because it hurts too much when someone sees what I do (
what I am
) and pulls away.

"Why?"

She was expecting that, I realize. So I tell her a piece of the truth no one could understand without seeing my paintings. "You know too much about art."

But I see comprehension in her face before she turns away—she knows my art is who I am, and getting close to me would be the same thing as getting close to my paintings. Now she knows another piece of the puzzle that makes up me. I stare at the sketch pad and wonder how else I can screw up the evening. Maybe I should do this sketch another time. But I can see it in my mind so clearly—and I've never screwed up a drawing I could see like that.

I flip open the pad and uncap my pen, lowering it to the blank page. The lines take shape and the noise from the other kids disappears around me. There are only black lines on a creamy background, growing into Adrian's face. Not the way I thought I'd sketch him, trapping his prey. Not the way other people see him at alL Perhaps the way Adrian sees himself. I reach for that radiance I saw earlier. I've seen guarded hints of expression before (
love?
), but never so true as it was tonight after his quartet was performed so magnificently.

I seat him before a piano in the practice room he must have, like I have a studio. His look, focused on the
black and ivory keys, carries the viewer's eye to the oversized music score, half completed and spread across the top of the piano. And the unfinished line of music leads the eye back to Adrian's face, and the luminous delight that fills it.

Then I'm finished. I glance over the whole, and wish I could paint this one. I'd like to use color to bring out the radiance. And it's more than a sketch—I draw what's true, but I paint what could be (
should be
) true. This is Adrian as he should be.

He'd read too much into a painting, though. He'll probably read too much into this. But I owe him, and I sign the drawing quickly before I can think about it too carefully. He'll get more pleasure out of this than anything else I could give him.

I tear the sketch out of the pad and stand up, feeling stiff. The ginger ale has gone flat I realize that some of the kids have seen what I was drawing. I catch sight of a strange, sly sneer on some faces, but I turn away from them, the way I turned away from the kids who laughed at me for not playing Simon Says, the way I turned away from Cindy and Rob and the smirking middle school students. If I let other people's opinions tell me who I am, I'd have different paintings in me. And I'd never have drawn this sketch. Let them think what they like. All their opinions can do is remind me why I can't let anyone (
Rachel
) in.

Among the surrounding faces, I recognize Graeme Brandt—I hadn't seen him earlier. He's different tonight—more relaxed somehow, in an open-necked white shirt with long sleeves rolled up nearly to his
elbows. There's a line of muscle in his forearm that I'd like to draw. Above the shirt collar, his expression is thoughtful, not sneering. I smile at him faintly before easing out of the row of seats and heading to the lobby in search of Adrian. I don't want to ask myself what Brandt thinks of the sketch.

Adrian looks up from an animated group conversation with a crowd (
wolf pack
) of kids I don't know (
and don't want to know
), and smiles at me even before I hand him the drawing.

"There—how do you like it?"

I see delight flare in his eyes before the color rises. It's easy to see that there's no flattery in the sketch. I can copy pompous stacks of books and spoiled fruit in my paintings, but I won't flatter someone untruthfully. What's the point of art if it's not true? And finding the right truth can show a greater kindness than playing games that only pretend to please.

A shadow crosses Adrian's face. "Is it for
Ventures?
"

I shake my head. "Just for you." At least, not for any more prying eyes than the ones here tonight who are busy drawing their own conclusions.

I turn away from his pleasure to get another ginger ale and see Graeme Brandt near the concession stand. He nods toward Adrian as I come up to him. "You drew him as he'd like to be seen, especially by you."

I shrug. "He did me a favor. I just wanted to repay it" He nods in silent agreement while I ask for the ginger ale. "You want a soda or anything?"

He shakes his head. "No, I'm fine." There's a relaxed quiet in his voice that wasn't there the other night
Hemmed in by strangers, I search for something to say, some way to keep the conversation going so I can keep him beside me—keep him under observation for that
Ventures
sketch, I remind myself. But Graeme Brandt is as elusive as fleeting oil colors on water. I haven't even realized he's changed from peaceful to teasing before I hear the other guy's voice.

"All alone, Gray?"

Graeme grins. "Everyone I knew had other plans, it seems."

"So you've developed the artistic temperament," the student says to Graeme, and looks at me strangely. "I never noticed that side of you before."

"That's because you're a different type of artist."

This is the Graeme Brandt of the other night, not the one who looked into my sketch tonight, or the one who wrote that book.

An enormous clap of thunder heralds the rainstorm I felt blowing up earlier. A few kids jump, then laugh at themselves for their false fright. I wish suddenly that I could be far away from here, becoming part of the storm, but I can't begin to work out the vectors to plot an escape route through the shifting crowd. A burst of lightning flashes in overture to another explosion of thunder, and then the lights blink off.

Silence, except for the drumming of the rain. Then voices start, rising sharply as if they could drown out the darkness. I feel a hand take my arm and firmly pull me away from the center of the room to a window at the far side of the enclosed lobby. Beyond the glass the world is dear and bright in the intermittent flashes of lightning, and rain pounds the sidewalks and lawns, making them into alien ground for students and returning to them a wildness they lost long ago. Safe in the darkness, so near to the storm, I feel myself relax as I do only when I'm painting. The rushing water washes away the loneliness.

Long fingers of lightning reach out across the sky, turning the world a garish white, and in their light I look beside me to see who pulled me away from the room full of strangers. I half expect it to be Rachel But I feel no surprise at seeing Graeme Brandt, standing tall and silent, both hands now in his pockets as the lightning illumines the planes of his face. Looking out over the storm, he makes me believe for an instant that he
sees in it some of the things that I see. Perhaps he even sees something he wants to use in his work.

He glances at me briefly and smiles a clear, open smile—the first I've seen from him, and I smile back. Something between us is understood about the storm and the other kids and the party behind us. We've stepped out of Whitman. Silent, apart, we've somehow joined with the wild and raging force outside the window.

Minutes—hours—then the lights blink on again, blinding me, and I press against the glass, hopelessly straining to cut myself off from the false brightness indoors and to remain one with the storm. Not until Adrian appears at my side, gesturing to the now shadowy world beyond the glass pane, do I realize that Graeme Brandt has disappeared.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

I nod, sorry that the distance between me and the storm is growing.

"The school has no sense of humor," Adrian tells me. "We've got to clear out, in case the power goes out again. Now there's logic for you—send us all out in the rain so we can get pneumonia, for fear of what we might do in the dark!"

I look around. The place has already mostly emptied. I blink, remembering why I was here in the first place. "I'm sorry—kind of a letdown for your big night."

"Not on your life!" Adrian declares. "I'd say the night was just about perfect."

I wince inside, not wanting to explore what I've let myself in for.

"Coming?"

The storm has eased to a drizzle. I can't see myself walking through the soft rain with Adrian.
With Rachel, perhaps? Or with Graeme...
But that's a wasted thought I scramble for a way out "Um, no. I think I'll go to my studio for a while."

"What do you plan to do there if the lights go off?"

I bite back a sharp retort "Work on the still life, what else? It'll look better in the dark."

He laughs, if a little sadly. "Well, if you get stranded in the rain before reaching your safe haven, you can always dry off in two-oh-seven downstairs—that's my practice room. I always leave it unlocked."

I marvel at the confidence that casual comment implies.
Unlocked...
"Thanks," I tell him.

"Don't forget curfew," he warns.

"I won't" We have to sign in and out—dorm parents on guard. I watch Adrian go off with a few of the others, wait a few minutes, then head out with the last of the stragglers. I stand on the walk in front of the concert hall, feeling the clean wind and the cold drizzle on my face. It's raining harder than I thought and I hunch my shoulders and wish I had a raincoat in my pack. The pack is waterproof for my sketch pad, but I'm getting soaked. I start walking, not knowing where I'm going.

"Want to share an umbrella?"

I look up, the rain plastering my hair to my head. There stands Graeme Brandt, jacketless, his white shirt gleaming faintly in the dark. I glance around—could he have been waiting for me? Standing in the rain with that
umbrella, waiting for me to come out, knowing I'd come alone?

"Thanks." I feel like I've been thanking people all night.

He steps forward and the umbrella suddenly cuts off the rain on my face. "Where are you headed?"

I smile and shrug. "I don't know. I just felt like walking, but there's more rain than I expected."

He smiles back. "It's always better in the movies. Come on."

I walk beside him, surprised how easily we pace each other. With his height, I'd have expected to trot. He stays silent, and I remember he's a year older. He seems at once remote and infinitely enlightened. As we walk, the lamps that line the path sweep across his face, like headlights on the road. I can see one cheekbone lit for a few steps, then the corner of his mouth, then the shadows underneath his eyes are heightened. How would I paint him?