Drawing Amanda (11 page)

“Dude, you’re not looking so good. You feel OK?”

“I feel—I guess, it’s just, I dunno. You’re probably right and all, but something’s creepy.” The dark colors receded as he said that. Rungs’s calm silence invited him to say more.

“Maybe it’s just that I went into my father’s study.” It was a lot to share, and he felt embarrassed, naked.

Rungs was good. He looked at Inky intently for a moment. “His spirit,” he said quietly. Inky nodded. Rungs made a funny gesture with his hands, shaking them over the table. “
Pii,
” Rungs said.

The word had a high-pitched tone that startled Inky and made him suck in his breath. “
Pii
,” Rungs said again, softly, almost reverently. “In your father’s study, spirits.”

“Spirits?” he asked, looking at Rungs.

“Your dad’s spirit. Wandering around. It’s because you don’t have a spirit house. The spirits of the dead need someplace to go.”

Inky nodded and let out his breath. He knew Rungs took his customs and religion seriously, but he was annoyed anyway. For a year and a half, everyone told him what to do and feel and what he was doing wrong. He’d always been grateful that Rungs had kept from judging him. Until now.

Inky glared at Rungs, but the look didn’t stop him.

“You’re feeling uneasy because your dad’s spirit is wandering and looking for you.”

In his own way Rungs was saying the same thing as the Soccer Boys in the cafeteria and Hawk in the hallway. Inky was like a haunted house. How stupid of him to think that his friend didn’t think so, too. And Amanda? If she didn’t connect the dots herself, Hawk by now must have clued her in.

“I’m six feet tall, dude. I shouldn’t be so hard to find,” Inky said.

“You’re hiding from the spirit. Hiding what matters. What you care about. Even who you care about.”

That’s enough, Inky thought and banged the table. Because I didn’t want to tell him about a crush I maybe have, he hits me with this mystic dung.

“You’re hiding from them—and yourself,” Rungs added.

“Thank you, cosmic muffin,” Inky said, feeling hot from the anger rising inside of him. “And thanks for the lesson on ghosts. I’ll be sure to make a little house for the spirits. Maybe I’ll use a cardboard box like we did in fourth grade.”

Rungs picked up his coffee cup and slowly crushed it. “Open up, will you. I was just trying to help you get a little peace.”

Chapter 19

Inky Cleans Up

I
NKY CAME HOME TO AN EMPTY APARTMENT
. The familiar creak of the old floorboards reminded him of Rungs’s talk about spirits. He winced. He regretted that he’d been so nasty to Rungs, but why’d he have to say all that stuff?

As he walked to the back of the apartment, his head filled with murky colors; they swirled, like a squid’s ink, marking everything. Inky tried to shake it off, but with the darkness came a deep cold. He felt pulled to his father’s study. He pictured it, shades drawn, papers strewn about, and could practically smell the must of disuse.

Whether or not he believed what Rungs said about ghosts and spirits, his father had never let his study get dusty and wouldn’t be happy with what it looked like now. The least he could do, then, was to do what he knew was right.

He found the cleaning bucket with the dust rags and cleansers under the bathroom sink and entered his father’s study. It felt like night because of the blackout shade. Inky released it. The shade’s thwack echoed in the empty room as it rolled up, setting off a dance of dust in the stream of late afternoon sun.

Outside the window Inky saw the maple tree shedding its copper and rust-hued leaves. He’d forgotten how he’d loved to sit on the mushroom-colored beanbag chair under the window. He dragged it from the other side of the room and whacked it. The dust made him cough, but he whacked it a few more times because it felt good.

There were still papers from his father’s last trip strewn across the desk. His father had pulled the project together in a hurry, and this time, of course, there’d been no post-trip tidying. Inky looked at the appointment card from the tropical disease specialist who’d given Inky’s dad the shots and medicine before the trip. The date looked like ancient history. He wished he could go back to that day, or to any day before it.

Deeper into the pile of papers, Inky recognized the Brazilian postmark and name of his father’s friend who’d set up the trip. He opened one of the letters and immediately felt guilty for snooping. Then he realized it didn’t matter, and read about the Indian tribe, how his father’s friend Raoul had first found them because of a stray headband that was decorated in a pattern he’d not seen used by other known indigenous tribes.

Inky put the letter back in the envelope. He gathered the other cards and papers, then stacked them, tied them with rubber bands and put them in the biscotti tin where his father kept his password notebook and other business papers. Then he put cleanser on some paper towels and scrubbed the newly revealed desk surface.

Inky moved over to the bookcase and blew the dust off of the books. He touched the leaves of a dead plant and threw it out. He flipped through the huge pile of old
Traveler
and
National Geographic
magazines. He took a few things to read and placed the rest in a bag to give to the school librarian.

Inky took his rag and wiped down the windowsill, the blinds and the edges of the bookshelves. He took care to clean out all the crannies of a carved wooden mask. When he was done, he patted it on its head. Then he swept.

As he was emptying the dustpan, Inky heard his mother open the apartment door. He stopped, knowing she’d see the sliver of sunlight coming from his father’s study when she walked through the entranceway.

“What are you doing? Who said you could go in there?” his mother shouted before even saying hello.

“I’m cleaning.”

Her tone reflected her shock, Inky knew, but he was pissed she didn’t acknowledge he was doing something good, something hard.

She looked from the magazines in the bag to the discarded plant in the trash. She crossed her arms across her chest. “Michael Kahn.”

“It needed to be done. It may not bother you because you’re never around.”

She uncrossed her hands and put them on her hips. “What have you done?”

His anger at his mother mingled with his raw feelings from his afternoon with Rungs, and he lashed out. “You think it’s time to start dating, Ma. I think it’s time to clean up, OK. What do you think Dad would prefer?”

His mother gasped. “Mikey.”

“And don’t call me Mikey.” Inky turned his back on her, ripped off a sheet of paper towel, sprayed it with glass cleaner and wiped the glass of the photograph on his father’s desk. It was a picture of the three of them on the beach at Montauk the summer after fourth grade. Just behind their heads was a sign: “No lifeguard on duty. Swim at your own risk.” Ain’t that the truth, he thought.

Inky felt his mother’s gaze looking at the photograph, too. “It’s just. This is so unexpected; I had no warning, I . . .” Her voice was softer.

“I cleaned up. The dust and clutter won’t bring him back.”

“Michael Kahn.”

“What?” Inky said, crossing the room to look out at the tree. “Why are you mad?”

She slapped her thigh for emphasis. “It’s not yours to decide that today is the day to throw out his stuff. Didn’t you think I’d want to be part of that decision?” Her face contorted. “No, of course not. It was like that when he was alive. You and your dad, it was like a boys’ club. Doing whatever you pleased.”

Her words pierced him. He’d wished she’d slapped him instead of making him feel like he had to defend his father. “That’s because you were never around. You’re married to your work.”

His mother started sobbing. He’d never seen her like this, though sometimes he’d heard her cry at night when she thought he was asleep. He just stared.

“Did you ever think that I need you? That you’re all I have left of him?” his mother said after a minute.

She walked towards him then stopped. Inky thought he saw her hands come up from her sides, and was half-expecting a hug from her, like when he was little and hurt. But she didn’t come closer.

“You sure have a funny way of showing it. It’s not like you’ve exactly been there for me, you know.”

“You don’t know how hard I tried.”

“Oh yeah, you tried,” Inky said.

“I tried not making any demands on you—errands around the house, forget that. Not going to school. I covered for you. The school psychologist, even grief counseling—which I understand was a big help for your classmate, Helen, when she lost her mother.”

“Yeah, Ma, Hawk’s real together now.”

“I don’t care about her, Michael, I care about you.”

“You care about me. Great. What I cared about? It’s gone. All gone. Besides Dad, all I ever wanted was to go to Art & Design. Dad said I could transfer out of MDA for high school. And what, Ma, what? I screwed up so bad I couldn’t even apply. And you just stood by and watched while I failed.”

Inky bit his lip hard. He wasn’t going to cry.

“You shut yourself down and locked me out. Locked everything out. There was no reaching you to help,” his mother said.

He wanted to be mad, but he recognized the truth in what she said, a truth that was echoed by Rungs earlier in the day.

Inky looked up at the carved wooden mask and his father’s things. Some of the anger inside was replaced by understanding; it was almost like he was seeing his mother and himself in a mirror.

“It started when they hung the mural at school. He would have been so proud, but he wasn’t there. Every time something happened and he wasn’t there to see it, it was like he died all over again. So I shut down. It didn’t seem fair that life could go on just like always. To go on made it seem like he never mattered.”

“Oh, Inky.” She put her arms around him. It was stiff, but it helped. Somehow he believed she was doing the best that she could.

After a moment she cleared her throat and returned to her more remote self.

“Thank you for cleaning up. You’re right. He would have wanted this. But shouldn’t you be spending time on your schoolwork?

“Schoolwork? We’re talking about schoolwork?”

“Well, dear, Principal Harooni called today to say there was a watch on your file.”

“A watch. Does it tell time? Oops, sorry. Lame joke. But really, what do they expect? It’s the first month of school.”

“It’s time to turn the corner. You know the consequences if you fail your core subjects.”

“I’m making good progress on my presentation. So far, Mrs. Patel really likes my drawings.”

Inky’s mother raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps you can talk to your teachers then and find out what they want from you.”

As she walked out, she gave him another stiff hug meant to make him feel better. It did not.

His legs felt like jelly, and he sunk into the beanbag chair. He was deeply tired; the day’s events swirled in primary colors in his head like a spin art: Amanda’s haircut, his big red “F” for epic fail on the science quiz, the fights with his mother and Rungs. It was like a centrifugal force was drawing it all outward, lifting it away from him, creating an intricate, layered image.

He glanced up at the bookshelves. The mask seemed to smile down on him. The study felt calm. The spirits, at least, were at peace.

* * *

Later in his room, he sent an IM to Rungs.

Inky
: You have spirit houses. We have Fantastik and Windex. Sorry I blew up. U were right.

Chapter 20

If the Shoe Fits

A
MANDA WHISTLED AS SHE THREW
her books down on the bed. With Hawk helping her, she didn’t dread her project so much.

She looked into the mirror and put her hands on her hips in exaggerated toughness, mimicking Hawk. Then she put one hand up and rested her head on it, like a model’s pose. She looked “fierce,” to borrow a Hawk word.

Amanda turned on her music. She felt like dancing. The song sounded better coming from her computer than the last time she’d heard it, on a tinny player in the Nairobi market. She saw that there was an email from her brother Derek.

He told her how hard his classes were and how there were more people in his own dorm than in their last two schools combined. He’d even run into the son of the ambassador from Benin. Did she remember, he asked, that they’d lived in the same area in France when Amanda was really young? At the end he said he missed her, wondered how she was adjusting to her new school and asked if their parents were spoiling their baby girl rotten.

Amanda wrote that she was becoming a New York sophisticate.
“
You may not recognize your baby sister when you see me again.” She didn’t let herself miss him.

She opened her project notes and jotted down some of what Hawk had told her about the different friendship groups at the school. She giggled as she remembered Hawk telling her about the time prissy Priya planned the group outing to Serendipity then barfed frozen hot chocolate on Sven Thorsson’s shoes.

The Sacred Circle shopped together, and it showed. When they had something new, like the brown burlap “Feed” bag that they all used as a book bag, others in the school, Amanda now included, soon followed. Amanda made a note of the irony. Here they were in a school that celebrated diversity, and all they all wanted was to fit in.

It was a good point, but there was nothing special to the rest of what she wrote. She’d have to work on weaving in Hawk’s stories. She saved her work and played a couple of rounds of word scramble. When she didn’t see that “nekstit” was “kittens,” she gave up and signed on to Megaland.

Megaland:
Hello again, Justagirl. How are you liking autumn in New York?

Justagirl:
The colors are pretty.

Megaland:
It’s my favorite season - harvest time. Time to enjoy all the fruits of your labor. My work is progressing. I would welcome your feedback on the next elements.

Justagirl:
The dressing up game?

Megaland:
Yes, that’s it. You have a wonderful memory.

Justagirl:
I was looking forward to it. I started to pay more attention to what everyone is wearing.