Zero (22 page)

Oh god. I forgot the recommendation letter. The one I sent last year was from my high school art teacher, and he may as well have used a rubber stamp reading, “This student is kinda-sorta okay by me.” But one from an actual artist, even
one whose career hasn’t done much lately … she’ll know how to say the right things.

“Oh, no, no, I understand. Thank you!”

“A number of elements must come together in perfect harmony,” she says. “But the first of these is talent, and that you have. So we’re off to a good start!”

I feel a blush in my cheeks. “Thanks,” I say. “And thank you for meeting with me. See you Wednesday.”

“Just a few more classes!” she chuckles. “The time’s gone so fast.”

No kidding. We say goodbye, and I head out to the parking lot.

Did this really just happen? It was only a couple weeks ago I thought it would be surreal if I even passed the class; now I’ll be meeting with Doc S again before fall semester even starts to work on—wait for it—
my career
.

I sing along with the radio all the way home. Mike’s supposed to call tonight, and I can’t wait to tell him
everything
.

Mom’s on the kitchen phone when I walk in. She gives me a quick look and turns away. Smooth, Mom. Not suspicious at all.

“Friday afternoon is fine,” she says, lowering her voice. “Thank you, Father,” she whispers. “Goodbye.”

Um—pretty sure she doesn’t mean her dad, who died when I was real little. No, this is one of those collar-and-stole-wearing fathers.

“Who was that?” I ask anyway. Because
this
is news.

Mom straightens her dress. “Oh, Father Larson,” she says, trying to sound dismissive.

“Are you going to Mass?” Because she’s been home every Sunday morning since I can remember. I’ve never been to church; Mom had me baptized when I was little, but that’s all. Father Larson was the guy who did it, if I remember right.

“Not just yet,” Mom says, moving to the sink and searching for dishes in need of cleaning. There aren’t any. She turns on the faucet anyway and begins scrubbing her hands.

“I’ve been speaking with him,” Mom says suddenly.

Huh. This sounds deep. “About what?”

Mom continues washing her hands. “Oh, this and that.”

“Dad?”

“Sometimes. Yes.” Mom turns off the faucet and grips the sink edge. “There’s been some trouble at work,” she says quietly. “He’s been leaving early. Taking very long lunches.”

I lean against the wall. My bag, which seemed weightless when I walked out of Dr. Salinger’s classroom, is now filled with bricks.

“You mean drinking.”

Mom faces me, her expression strained. “We’ll work it out,” she promises. “I don’t want you to worry, Amy. Father Larson has been very helpful….” She looks at me hopefully, like she wants me to agree with her.

But I don’t. I can’t.

“That’s great,” I say instead. “If there’s something I can do—you know.”

Mom wrangles a weak smile. “Thank you, Amy.” Her gaze drops to my bag. “How was school?”

“Um. Good. Really good. My teacher’s going to help me rework my portfolio.”

“Well, that’s wonderful. Good for you. I’m proud of you, Amy.”

And she is. I can see it. Her voice is weary, her eyes and mouth elongated like a Modigliani portrait, but she really means it. Mom must’ve been pretty, once. Not that she isn’t necessarily now. But she looks a lot older than she should.

Salt leaks into my mouth, draining from the back of my throat. I clamp my jaw shut to keep it from trembling.

“Thanks,” I force myself to say, then turn and go to my room.

Inside, I close my door as usual and wipe my nose with the heel of my hand. I drop my bag to the floor, go straight to my easel, and grab my charcoals. I’ve got a couple hours to kill before meeting up with Jenn to post the GR flyers.

Before heading out to meet Jenn, I discover I’ve drawn a picture in charcoal of my dad crushing a beer bottle in each hand so hard the glass has shattered. The only problem is, he’s starting to melt from the exertion.

I leave the drawing on my easel and go pick Jenn up at her house. I’m surprised to see her dad’s BMW in the driveway.

“Hey, you!” Jenn says, springing into my car.

“Hey. Your dad’s here?”

“Yeah, just for a couple days. I told him about culinary school.”

I pull out of her driveway and head for downtown. “Yeah? What’s he think?”

“He likes the idea,” Jenn says. She looks happier than I’ve seen her in a long time. “There’s a couple places in Illinois, even. Maybe we could go to Chicago together.”

“Sure, that would be cool. My art teacher’s helping me with a new portfolio.”

“Really? That’s great!”

“I know, right?”

Jenn reaches into the sack of flyers I copied this morning and pulls one out. “These are cool,” she announces. “Does Mike like them?”

“He hasn’t seen them. He’s out of town, seeing his mom.”

“Do the other guys?”

“Yeah, I met up with Hob real quick before I made the copies. He was pretty excited. That might just be the show talking, though.”

“Nah,” Jenn says. “It’s all you, baby.”

We both laugh. “He wants me to do T-shirts and stickers, too,” I say.

“Awesome!” Jenn puts the flyer back and rolls down her window to let the breeze ruffle through her hair. “How, um … how’re things going with Mike, anyway?”

“Great,” I say. “Really good. I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy, to tell you the truth.”

“Yeah, well, then you didn’t see your face when you got accepted to Chicago!” Jenn says, slapping my shoulder. “How does Mike feel about you moving out there?”

“Well, I mean, I don’t know for sure that’s gonna happen, so.”

I wait for a response, but Jenn is quiet. We hit a red light. Jenn’s nibbling her lower lip, frowning at the dashboard.

“What?”

She gives a slow-motion shrug. “I just … I mean, you wouldn’t
stay
here for him, would you?”

“I—I mean, the soonest I could even reapply is in the spring. That’s a long time from now.”

Jenn tilts her head. “Uh, that’s not what I asked you, Z.”

I meet her eyes. Jenn’s face is tense, eyebrows creasing together. A horn sounds behind me; the light’s green. I shake myself and accelerate through the intersection. I don’t say anything for several minutes, because the truth is, I don’t have an answer.

“Z?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I mean … no, I guess I wouldn’t.”

“You’ve been talking about that art school since we were, like, fourteen.”

“I know….”

“Honestly, I’m not liking this,” she says quietly.

“What?”

“I’m glad things are going well with you two, I really am,” Jenn says, watching the world cruise past us through her window. “But suddenly you’re okay with even considering
not
going to Chicago if you got a scholarship? That’s not like you. I never figured you for a groupie.”

I hit the brakes hard at the next red light. Jenn jerks forward and gives me a surprised glare.

“I’m not a groupie!”

“Okay, okay, sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean that you’ve always known who you were, what you wanted to do. And I’m, like, feeling that for the first time myself, and it’s awesome, and—you know, I originally had a date planned tonight.”

My anger subsides; talk about not being yourself! “You did?”

“Yeah, but I broke it off. It was kinda nice. I figured me and you could go out somewhere, or if we didn’t, then I could stay home or see a movie, or
whatever
. Maybe even have dinner with my dad …” She snorts a bit, like she’s shocked to hear herself say it.

“That’s cool,” I say cautiously, and pull into a parking garage near Damage Control.

“It is,” Jenn says. “And what I’m saying is, now that I’m sort of finding my way here, I’d hate for us to trade places.”

I find a space and park. I shut off the engine and face her. “Trade places how?”

“Settling,” Jenn says, putting a hand on my knee. “Settling for anything less than what you really want. I’d hate it if someone
decided for
you what you were gonna do. That’s all.”

“It’s not like that! This is all hypothetical. I already bombed the scholarship once, so I might do it again, in which case I’ll be stuck here anyway…. And if I
do
get it, well then … I’ll figure that out when I get there.”

I twist my fingers in my lap for a moment.

“But I wouldn’t turn it down,” I say, surprised that I’m surprising myself with the decision. I’ve gone to great lengths to not think about it, and it was easy, because there wasn’t anything really to think
about
. Not until I resubmitted my portfolio. Now that Jenn’s showing me the possibility in cold, hard reality, the truth is, I couldn’t ignore the opportunity.

If
it happened.

“Well, then, cool,” Jenn says. “I mean, you know I’m behind you, whatever you do. But don’t give up on what matters most to you. ’Cause that would suck.”

The concern in her voice is partly aggravating, like I’m
being a total idiot for even thinking about staying in town for Mike. But I also suddenly feel
way
grateful that she’s here and cares enough to say something.

“I won’t do anything stupid,” I tell her. “Promise.”

“I know,” she says. “That’s
my
job.”

We both giggle, then head out to paper the area around DC with Gothic Rainbow flyers. With Jenn batting her eyes at all the right guys—she hasn’t ditched
that
skill—we get stacks of flyers in businesses all over the place.

Whatever happens, this is going to be a
huge
show. I put worries about school out of my mind even as I let myself admire the flyers a little. Just a bit.

“Too tight,”
I tell my reflection in the
Young Virgin
poster while Social Distortion plays on my stereo.

The black and gray pinstripe shorts Mom bought hug my hips more tightly than
I’ve
ever hugged
her
. And my red Minor Threat shirt from junior high is too clingy, making my boobs pop out and emphasizing my belly pudge. My thighs are dead tree trunks.

Except …

I turn around for myself, checking all the angles. Do a little
sexy dancin’
just to see how it feels. Hunker down and stand back up to see how much room I still have in the fabric.

I
know
I’m wrong, but …

I think maybe I look kinda good.

“Wow,” I whisper. When the hell did this happen? When did my hair fall just right, my legs look this sharp, my whole short body fill these clothes so well?

I’m not talking supermodel quality, here. No one will ever take covert glances at my chest (except maybe my
boyfriend
! giggle!), and I don’t lack for ass.

But it isn’t
bad
.

(
In the nightclubs, baby, when the lights shine down, she’s a knockout
. —Mike Ness, lead singer of Social Distortion. Thanks, Mike!)

Maybe I should wait and wear this outfit tomorrow when Mike gets home.

Nah! I look too
good
, and who knows if it’ll all fit the same tomorrow? I might gain eighty pounds by then.

“Weird,” I say out loud. I grab my bag and head out for class.

So I feel pretty good on the drive to school. And when I sit down at my usual place in Dr. Salinger’s room and she’s not there, it’s a bummer but no big. She’s missed probably one-fourth of our classes entirely. She didn’t show up Wednesday, either, which truly sucked, because I wanted to show her my flyer design as it looked on paper.

But when some old dweeb in tweed skitters into my classroom, my first thought is that I’ve accidentally gone into the wrong room.

Even as this gray-haired dork is slapping down a briefcase on Dr. Salinger’s desk, I look around at my classmates. No, this is the right classroom, right time, right date.

“Uh, hello,” the dork says. He’s dressed like a turd, all
greens and browns. “This is painting, right? Intro to Art? Is today your final, or is that next week?”

“A week from today,” old grandma Candace says helpfully.

I raise my hand. “Um, excuse me?”

Mr. Turd squints at me through his glasses. “Yes?”

“I’m sorry, where’s Dr. Salinger?”

He shakes his head and pulls some papers from his briefcase. “Dr. Salinger has decided to try her hand elsewhere,” he says.

He keeps talking. What I hear is: “It appears
mutter mumble mutter
no grade book
blah blah blah
passing credit
whistle snort vomit
final project next week
mumble mutter mumble …”

In the distance, someone with
my
voice asks, “Where the fuck is she?”

Someone gasps a bit, and I couldn’t care less. Mr. Turd puts his hands on his hips the way only a dork knows how to do. “Miss, I need to ask you to refrain from using that language.”

“Yeah yeah fine, where is Dr. Salinger?”

He lowers his head, trying to look all severe over the top of his glasses. “Dr. Salinger. Has moved. Out of state.” He cocks an eyebrow as if to say,
Is that clear?

Which, um,
no
, it’s not.

“Are you kidding me? Did she leave a number or an address or anything?”

“I couldn’t say, miss.”

“But this is
important
!”

He offers me a bland turd smile. “I understand if some of
you are upset by the school’s decision to not give letter grades, but it was the best they could do under the circumstances. If she’d done even
some
of the work an instructor—”

“Oh my god,” I say, and grab my bag.

“Miss, you’ll need to fill out this—”

“Shut up!”
I scream, and shoulder through the classroom door, into the hall, and outside.

There has to be a mistake. I just
saw
her, for god’s sake. How could she suddenly decide now to take off? That can’t be right. I could ask at administration. Mr. Turd got his facts mixed up, is all.