Drawing Amanda (8 page)

“I can give you the story on everyone. This is your lucky day.” Hawk shot a glance at Inky and Rungs.

Amanda felt neither relieved nor lucky. But she needed Hawk’s help with the project.

“First, don’t sit with them.” Hawk pointed to the table where Amanda had been sitting. “Also, don’t sit at the nut table.”

“The nut table?”

“Yeah. That’s where they used to put the kids who brought lunch that had nuts in it. The nut allergy thing. They tried to make us a no-nut school, but the Africans and south Asians protested that peanut oil and peanuts were a cultural right. So they set up the nut table. Only now it has nothing to do with the lunch you eat, if you get what I mean.”

“Oh,” Amanda said. “They seemed nice to me.”

Hawk shot her a look. “Things are not what they seem at MDA,” she said as the bell rang. “I’ll meet you after school,” Hawk called out. She sounded so tough when she said it, Amanda wasn’t sure if it was a threat or a promise.

Chapter 15

The Nth Factor

“Y
OU LIVE IN THE NTH FACTOR
? The Nth Factor? I’m totally walking you home,” Hawk said as Amanda took her books out of her locker. Amanda couldn’t imagine what could be appealing about the building she’d begun to think of as the ice house.

“The slope of the plaza is ridiculous.” When Amanda didn’t reply Hawk added, “Guess you don’t skate.”

On the walk to Amanda’s building, Hawk talked about skateboards, which Amanda understood no better than the stuff Hawk was telling her about their classmates. Was Priya the tall one or was that Shiri? Amanda tried to memorize the stories in the same way she’d learn a new language or neighborhood each time they moved.

“So I have to fill you in on everyone. The host country kids—that’s MDA speak for ‘our parents live in New York’—we’ve been together since junior school. The international kids come and go—like you. How long you think you’ll be here? Two years?”

“My dad really likes his new job.”

“OK. Then you’ll stay through high school—Upper School, we say. So you better listen up, ’cause there’s stuff you gotta know. Everybody does.” Hawk hopped on her skateboard, got up some speed, then jumped up while the board turned around under her.

She landed on the board, right in front of Amanda. “You know Ellen?”

Quelle
bitch, Amanda thought, but didn’t say. She rolled her eyes. “She’s in core class with me.”

“I know. She can be pretty rough.”

“She’s your friend.”

Hawk nodded.

“Your best friend?”

“You can’t really be besties with Ellen. The only thing she really cares about is appearances.” Hawk snorted. “And her mother. She worships her mother—that’s her best friend.

“So her parties—all the cute guys go. Alonzo, who graduated a couple of years ago, he’s an underwear model now. Shiri was going out with him last year . . . until Ellen’s mother got into his underwear, shall we say.”

“What? No,” Amanda said.

Hawk took off on her skateboard, this time jumping up and grabbing her board as she landed. “Oh, yeah.”

“How horrible. And you said she worships her mother. How can that be?”

“Her mom got Ellen and Priya and Shiri walk-ons in a TV pilot through his agent, and took Ellen to Paris for a new wardrobe—after it made Page Six.”

Amanda wondered about page six. Was that like 86? What was it with these Americans and their numbers for things? She’d have to look that one up, too.

“She didn’t care so much about Alonzo, anyway. He was going to dorky Hofstra.”

Hawk skated up and back, leaving Amanda with thoughts of her own mother. It was like they were from different worlds, starting with their looks. Amanda was all straight lines to her mother’s soft round curves.

“See,” Hawk said, as they arrived at the Nth Factor plaza. “The perfect mini skate park—out of the view of the doorman, and no one who lives here ever sits on the benches.” A couple of older, tough-looking skateboarders were already there. They all waved to Hawk, who greeted them by flicking her skateboard with her foot so that it spun underneath her while she was in the air.

Hawk circled the perimeter of the park, jumped over a low curb, then balanced on the edge of the tiers of the concrete that formed a sitting area.

“Sick,” one of the skater boys called out.

Amanda sat on a bench and watched Hawk pick up speed as she circled. At the end of the spiral, she popped her board so she was suspended in air hovering above her skateboard. As she came down, her front foot almost missed the board. Amanda saw Hawk look to see if the other skateboarders had seen her wobble.

“Need a break,” she said as she plopped on the bench next to Amanda.

“Do you always ride without a helmet? Isn’t that dangerous?”

Hawk sneered and tugged her blonde ponytail out of the back of her shirt. “I never fall, and big whoop if I did. Like there’s anyone who’d care. Haven’t you ever done anything dangerous?”

She wasn’t sure if Hawk was looking for a response. The question made Amanda think of the riots after the election in Nairobi and how they snuck out of town, driving past the avenue of Jacaranda trees filled with big menacing birds. Was it dangerous? Daddy seemed in control, but she knew it was dangerous because of the look on her mother’s face. She’d said, “I love you, I love you,” and shoved a paper with emergency addresses and phone numbers into the pocket of Amanda’s jeans.

Amanda sensed that if she had a good story for Hawk they might be friends. But like so many things, it was all daddy and her brothers. She wanted to tell something of her own.

“Well. Have you?”

“One time in Indonesia,” Amanda said, “the housekeeper’s daughter and I snuck under the fence and played in the remains of a hotel that’d been destroyed in the tsunami.”

Hawk looked down to her skateboard. “That’s cool, I guess,” she said, sounding like she meant it.

Amanda felt relieved. At least she doesn’t think of me as a complete wimp. Right then, Amanda resolved to be braver. She smiled at Hawk.

“I haven’t traveled much. My father does enough of that for all of us,” Hawk said.

“What about you? I bet you’ve done all kinds of brave things,” Amanda said.

“The whole time my mother was sick, I guess. It was me who took care of her,” Hawk said, rolling her skateboard back and forth under her foot. “Mostly I’d curl into bed with her after school and tell her about my day. Sometimes she understood and sometimes she was all doped up and just drooled. So every day was brave.”

Amanda had been expecting to hear something boy-brave and was surprised when Hawk continued.

“The bravest thing? Maybe the bravest thing was when she died. My father was in Switzerland—some bank thing—he’s a big deal . . .” She stopped herself. “It doesn’t matter who he is. He was away and my mother died. At home. I knew she was dead and I sat with her and held her hand. And then I cleaned her up and put her in a pretty dress before I called anyone.”

Amanda reached out for Hawk’s hand and stroked it. She didn’t know what to say, but the silence felt deep, not strained.

“Thanks for not saying anything,” Hawk said after a minute. “Most people say stupid stuff.”

Chapter 16

Between the Lines

I
NKY REALLY HAD TRIED TO STUDY
for the science quiz, but he kept thinking about lunch with Amanda. He hated that she’d heard him being teased, but she was nice to him anyway.

That didn’t do him any good now on the quiz, which asked him to compare and contrast how plants and animals differ beyond basic life functions. He stared at the blank space for his response. His fingers took over, and he started drawing. First he drew a carrot growing underground, then he sketched a sunflower turned towards the sun.

On the opposite side of the paper, Inky drew an Indian in a loincloth with a bow and arrow raised and aimed at a jungle cat. He knew he needed more, knew that he needed to write an essay, and that not writing it meant another visit with Looney Harooni. Inky wasn’t stupid. He knew he was supposed to write about how humans used tools, about how humans were different because of planning and intent. He just couldn’t express it in words.

When the final bell rang, he raced out of school, not even waiting for Rungs. He needed a change of scenery, so he headed to an atrium in a Madison Avenue office building he’d discovered on his way home from his summer art classes. The lobby had an indoor wall of water, some small café tables and really good light. Inky found a seat among the out-of-work businessmen, the homeless and some stray tourists.

He opened his sketchbook to work on his school project. Looney Harooni would want to see it. He still liked his drawings, but he didn’t know what to say about them. He wrote down some phrases: “Ways a man can be. Clothing is costume. A way that people judge one another. How people show themselves to the world.”

It was all so obvious. It was all such bull. Inky put his head down and let himself be mesmerized by the trickle of water. His project was going nowhere and he knew it. He looked around him—the homeless and the jobless. Lost souls. He fit right in.

When he got home, he found some money and a note from his mother: “I have a date. I might be late. Do not fret, be sure to get a good night’s sleep.” Even her notes sounded like marketing copy. She’d know what to write about his drawings, but she wasn’t home—as usual.

Inky pocketed the money. The note made him lose his appetite. Right before school started, he’d heard her talking with her friend Gloria from work. September was her new start. She said she’d turned the corner and had posted her profile on Match.com. Inky had barely spoken to her since.

He wondered if a computer would ever have matched her up with his father. They’d met through his mother’s job. The big pharmaceutical company she worked for had been skewered in the news about the high price of its drugs.

She’d suggested they provide free vaccines to poor people in Brazil—and film it. She hired his dad, an anthropologist/filmmaker specializing in South America. When his dad told the story of how they met, he’d say, “She called it corporate social responsibility and needed me for credibility. I called it propaganda and needed the money.” No, no computer would’ve put them together.

“Turning the corner.” Her words, and Looney Harooni saying, “It’s time,” echoed in his head. He didn’t want to think what her date was like. The floor creaked. “Some of us
are
a haunted house.” Demos’s words. He retreated to his room and crawled into the space below his bed. He needed a dose of unreality, and a little understanding. He signed on to Megaland.

Megaland
: Hello again, Picasso2B. How is our resident artist? What brings you back today?

Inky liked how that sounded, resident artist. He supposed it meant his last drawings must have been acceptable.

Picasso2B:
Taking a break from homework.

Megaland
: I’m just finishing up some new modules - more of the dating sequence and a mini game on visual puns. I’d love to know what you think of it as an artist. Btw, why Picasso? Your work is more realistic.

Picasso2B:
The school admissions officer said it about me to my dad. They put all the kids applying to kindergarten in a room and had them draw. They looked at mine and said I was “a regular Picasso to be.” Makes a good username.

Megaland
: Indeed. They were right. You are a talented artist. Where will you train?

The mud colors in Inky’s mind lightened.

Picasso2B:
IDK. Didn’t have the grades to get in to the special high school. I messed up pretty bad last year.

Megaland
: That’s too bad. Your talent should be nurtured. Can you reapply? Or find another school?

Inky appreciated that here was an adult who wasn’t telling him what he had to do, but was asking him about alternative plans—even if he wasn’t ready to admit that
this
was his Plan B.

Picasso2B:
It was a one-shot. I blew it.

Megaland
: I messed up once, too. But now it’s time for a comeback. I’m gonna make Megaland a big success. Phoenix rising and all that. You can too.

Picasso2B:
not likely. I blew it at school and my friends are gone. Everything sucks.

Megaland
: Like a light was turned off and you’re left alone in the room?

Picasso2B:
exactly that.

Inky again had the sense that the Megaland dude was talking about himself. He wondered if he should ask, or say nothing. This guy seemed pretty open to sharing, and their conversations made him feel better.

Picasso2B:
how do you know? You seem pretty together.

Inky wondered what the guy on the other end was like. Maybe he should ask him which of his drawings he most resembled. The cursor blinked. He was beginning to think it was wrong to ask when text started to appear.

Megaland
: I had it all once – a happening New York recording studio booked 24/7. Gold records on the wall, a smart, pretty wife, great apartment. Like the movies.

Picasso2B:
Sweet

Megaland
: Then the world changed. The digital revolution. Home studios. Everybody was a producer. In a couple of years I lost it all - the apartment, the wife. Dark times. I can’t even tell you how dark. This game – it’s my chance to rise again.