Simon Says (17 page)

I looked back at Charles and smiled with the pride he'd always expected to find in me. I'd never truly felt it in myself until that moment We stood, balanced, two creators, and finally I saw myself as he had always seen me.

And then I saw the caricature of himself that he had once told me about, with the hidden face. It showed him masked and disguised, a desperate, serious, fantastic Harlequin. He was armed with his pen and shielded with his sketch pad, and he stood guard in front of an easel that would betray his vision if he ever relaxed and let the canvas it held be seen. The drawing was right by his studio door, a constant reminder of the role he'd chosen to play in the world.

I reached into my pocket and felt the sharp edges of the crumpled sketch he'd made of me, the sketch I was going to remake as I remade myself. My mind was already shaping the book-the novel that Charles had pushed me toward and that Mr. Adler had been waiting for, and, most important, that I'd been aching for while empty thoughts chased themselves across the computer screen. Now he'd given me the purpose I'd lacked.

Holding myself erect, still gripping the pride and hope he'd given me to fill the emptiness I'd struggled with for so long, I faced Charles as an equal. "Thank you."

He said nothing, but the shadow of a smile flickered across his face.

"I understand that this"—I gestured to the painted world around me-"is your business. I won't say anything about it to anyone."

He didn't react, and I knew he didn't want to talk about it How could I ever do anything for him that would measure up to what he had given me?

I started for the door and he moved aside to let me pass, but I stopped in that little entranceway. I had to put it into words, to be sure he understood. "Charles-I love you, for what you showed me here. Thank you."

We were close enough to touch, and he didn't draw back from me, but he didn't lean forward, either. If he had- But I didn't press him. Instead, I reached for the door and let myself out, leaving him in his sanctuary. By the time the door closed, my mind was fully on the book, on Kyle-becoming Kyle. He was to be myself, and he would fight my battle to break away from the roles and mirrors his family had accepted-had welcomed.

I didn't see the Whitman stairwell—I saw a crowded middle school hallway in Los Angeles. I didn't smell the paint and turpentine in the air-1 smelled vinyl book bags and heard the slam of steel lockers that I remembered from my old public school. I felt the jostling of bodies in between classes, heard the principal's announcements, heard the kids talking back to the intercom. I could see the first chapter as if it had already come off my printer.

I hadn't felt like this since I was a kid making up stories in third grade. I felt I was truly an author. Somehow I'd finally become a creator, for real.

And then I knew how to thank Charles. I'd dedicate this book to him, and he'd see how he had changed me.

"What happened to the sketch of Graeme Brandt?"

Rachel's tone is even, not demanding anything, but I can hear she feels I've let her down. She saw me drawing him, after all. But I can't put that image of him in print I couldn't even before he looked at me on the roof, and asked to see my paintings. I certainly can't do it now, remembering him standing in my studio. It's a true sketch—it
was
true, when I drew it—but I don't know if it's still true. Something happened that morning, to both of us. Graeme Brandt may have changed. I may have changed. I'm not sure exactly how to draw him any longer. I don't try to explain that to Rachel, though. All I say is, "It didn't work out Will the others do?"

"Of course." She shuffles through them and smiles. "I really like the one of Marc Worley."

He's in the drama department, and I drew him poised above a puppet theater, moving strings with every finger, a look of utter panic on his face in spite of the order onstage. "He's a nice guy," I say, looking out the window crammed between her office file cabinets as a
flock of birds heads purposefully for the trees. "But he's going to have a heart attack before he gets to college if he doesn't take it easy."

She nods. "Too true."

I've given her two girls and three more boys to go with the drawing I did of Tyler originally, and I have no doubts about the truth in any of them. That will have to do.

"I don't know if you're interested," she says slowly. "You may not want to sketch him after all. But you've got some time to think it over. I'm planning to do a separate piece on Graeme Brandt in the spring. Would it bother you to sketch him then?"

I drag my attention back inside the cramped office. "Why would it bother me?"
What did you really see that night at the cast party?

"The way you look inside people..." She's keeping her eyes on the sketches spread out on her desk, not looking directly at me for once. "I don't know what's inside Graeme Brandt, even though I've edited his essays. He's like a puzzle that doesn't fit together, that's missing a piece, maybe? Or a plastic puzzle where one of the pieces got too near a fire and warped. I thought maybe you'd see inside him and find a way to explain him."

You wanted me to dissect him and serve him up to you, didn't you? But why?

"But I only caught a glimpse of your sketch the other night, and it didn't make any sense—just pieces again." She raises her head and looks directly at me. "
Did
you understand him?"

I shrug.
You've got a crush on him, don't you, Rachel?
Well, I hate to break it to you, but you're hardly his type ... Or do you just have a thing for puzzles you can't solve?
"Why the spring?" I stall. I tried to call Graeme the other night, to make sure he was okay, but there wasn't any answer in his dorm room, and I couldn't quite muster the nerve to knock on his studio door. I wanted to hold on to the way he looked when he saw my paintings. I want to believe he hasn't pulled away from me after seeing them. I want to believe him when he said—

"He's working on a new book," Rachel says. "I'm guessing he wants to finish it before graduation."

Hope suddenly leaps in my chest Graeme hadn't known what to write before—now he's already at work on a new novel? Because he saw my paintings?

"If it's as good as
Eye of the Storm,
" she goes on, "he could graduate with a second contract" She smiles briefly. "Think about it—two published books before he even gets to college."

"When did he start this book?"
What did he see in my studio?

She must hear something (
hope? happiness? fear?
) in my tone. She cocks her head to one side and studies me. "Charles, are you okay?"

I can't let her (
anyone
) guess that Graeme saw my paintings and they—What? Inspired him?
Not yet—not until I'm sure. And then I can let them all in, can't I? What I used to dream—at last. He really will be able to show me how to do it, after all.
But I have to be sure. I have to wait until I see what he writes (
until I see him again
). I make my neck relax enough to nod, and man
age a grin. "Sure. I'm just tired. I've been painting a lot"
Liar. You haven't touched a paintbrush since Graeme left your studio, afraid of what you did to him—what the two of you did to each other. Except for stupid still-life blocks and cow landscapes. But now he's writing. Now you can paint again, too.

"Well" she says slowly, her eyes unconvinced, "I thought I'd interview him in the spring, when the book's done. I hear he's like a hermit when he's writing his first draft, so there probably won't be a chance to do a piece on him until he finishes. I suppose he's planning on going out with a flourish."

Like a hermit—that's why I couldn't reach him. I try to squelch the stab of regret.
You thought, if someone
(Graeme)
liked your paintings—liked you—you wouldn't be alone anymore. You thought you'd have a friend with whom you could share the crippled tree, not find yourself still on the outside, this time stranded there by a hermit.
But that's okay—if he's writing, Graeme must be all right If he's found a new book inside himself, then my paintings must have mattered more to him than my sketch. Maybe he'll even forget the things I said to him on the roof—maybe he'll prove (
to whom? himself, or me?
) that they're not true after all. And I can wait—wait until he's finished with the book, until he's ready to stop being a hermit until he's ready to tell me he's forgiven me for the sketch because of my paintings (
or until he shows me he can't forgive the mirrors, ever
).

"Are you still there, Charles?"

Rachel is looking at me curiously, and I realize a hint of my being pulled between two possibilities shows on
my face. I can't help it—I loved seeing him in my studio. I want him to forgive me.
I want him to be my friend.
I wonder how Rachel would look in my studio. What would her clear brown eyes see in my world of canvas and paint? For a moment I imagine her turning to me, her eyes alive, her face smiling, but that's a future hope (
a painting
) not a present truth (
a sketch
). It's too soon to believe it might really be possible. I ignore the ache in my chest at the sight of one strand of shining hair caught across her cheek and shrug. "Sure, I'm here. Whitman's going to have to make a new admissions videotape advertising Graeme's success to wow prospective students."

It's a pretty good answer, but she sits there, strangely still, studying me, and I can't see what she's thinking.
She's working out how to revise you, how to rearrange the pieces to show the potential she thinks she'll find in you.
I shift on the hard chair, wishing I could speed up time. How long does it take to write a book? How long do I have to wait?

"What would you like to draw for me next?" she asks. Perhaps she's accepted my reaction, or maybe she's kind enough not to push. Or maybe she's hied it away to fiddle with later, like sliding around the wooden pieces of her puzzles. I don't know which.

"Nothing," I tell her, realizing it's going to be hard to wait, now that I've started hoping. All I can do is bury myself in paint (
and hope he writes fast
). "I'm doing too much right now—I need some time to get caught up or I'm going to flunk Introductory Programming." Am I? That's the first course I can dredge up, but I haven't a
clue how I'm doing in it No, wait, Alona showed me part of the
Lord Jim
video game in class this morning, and it actually ran—the climax of the book as Conrad wrote it, but with the player making up Jim's mind for him.

"Will you fight?" she cried. "There is nothing to fight for," he said; "nothing is lost" Saying this he made a step towards her. "Will you fly?" she cried again. "There is no escape," he said, stopping short How do you answer her? Do you:

• a. Fight Doramin

• b. Fly from Dain Waris's death

• c Finish the pretense by dying

She showed me how to program these graphic designs for the options, and I had to admit my father was right to see possibilities in computer graphics. Alona even set up a point value for the choices so they add up to a final score at the end of the game. Not that scoring a lot of points means you've won anything, of course.

"Charles—"

"Sorry. Maybe next semester, okay?" Will he have finished the book in the spring, like she expects? Will I find out then that he's forgiven me, or will I have to face the feet that I'm destined to always be the outcast—seeing too much and hurting people with the truth? Oddly, it was easier when believing that someone might see my paintings and understand was only a distant dream, before I came to Whitman, when I only imagined that
Graeme Brandt could show me how to make the dream a reality. Now that it might actually happen—that I can dare to hope I'm on the verge of letting the people I care about see my paintings at last (
or on the verge of having it all come crashing down on me
), I'm afraid to count on it, afraid of Ming. I'll paint a figure poised on the parapet of the studio roof—will he leap up, to soar free at last, or crash to earth forever?

I want to tell Rachel (
Graeme, someone
) all this, but I don't dare. Somehow I'm out of her office, out of the student center, into a sweltering afternoon, burning from the confusion of hope and fear inside me. Students crowd the sidewalks, heading for studios and practice rooms, and I want to grab them and say,
Look at my paintings!
But I can't—not yet—not until Graeme has written his book and I know, for sure, what we did to each other.

Then I'm up the echoing stairs and around the corner to my studio. My key grates in the hasp lock. Inside I just sit on the tile floor, my back against the smooth wood of the door, not seeing what is, but what was. Seeing Graeme looking at the cityscape. His face was beautiful, almost transformed. That's what I dared to hope for when I imagined people seeing my paintings, a transforming rapture. I itch to paint the figure straining toward hope on the parapet, but I'm too keyed up.

I go back to the dorm. Adrian's in his practice room, though he's left pieces of himself scattered across his half of the room. I see his CDs of Ravel, and Tyler's panic when I bluffed about the quartet flashes through
my mind. Why did I stand up for Adrian? Why did I show Graeme himself?

I see the sketch I made of Adrian, still hanging there, and know the answer. Both were truths. Standing up for Adrian was right, because his quartet was true, it was his self transformed into music that spoke to all of us—even Tyler. That's why Tyler hated it. The sketch I made of Adrian shows that truth. The sketch I made of Graeme showed his truth, as well. But now Graeme is writing. Can the truth change?

I think of Graeme looking at my paintings, awed and excited. I could actually see something click into place in his mind as he stood in front of my cityscape, as if he'd found his way out of a maze. That must have been when the new book came into focus for him. He was more than the mirror then, wasn't he? Could I sketch him like that, a peace offering to undo the shock of that first sketch? I imagine going to his studio (
not knocking on the door, not going inside to him, not—
) and slipping the sketch under the door, envisioning his face as he unfolds it and sees—what? I pull out my sketch pad and uncap my pen. Lines uncoil on the page, straining to capture pride and the moment of inspiration as his tall form rises from a framed vision the viewer can't see. Instead of drawing his head as a mirror, it's a book, open to the first page, the first line just beginning to appear, the rest of the pages blank with the potential to become—anything.
Why can't I draw his face?