It's a Green Thing (2 page)

“One of what?”

“Are you a Christian too?”

I took in a deep breath, then slowly nodded. “Actually, I am.”

She shook her head in a dismal way. Like this was really unfortunate.

“I'll admit it's still kind of new for me,” I said.

“Why?” Her dark eyes narrowed as she studied me closely. I started to feel like a bug beneath a magnifying glass.

“Why?” I repeated, confused. “You mean why is it new for me?”

“No.
Why did you do it?”
The way she said this made a woman walking through the parking lot glance nervously at me, like she assumed I'd committed some horrendous crime.

“Become a Christian?”

“Yeah.” Marissa made a sour face. “I mean, I can understand girls like Kim and Natalie… They're such goody two-shoes. But you, Maya? I thought you were different.”

“I
am
different.”

“Then
why?”

“Because I was unhappy and lonely and hopeless and depressed and just really, really lost.”

“And now you're found?” I could hear the teasing note in her voice.

“Actually, I do feel kind of found.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Look, Marissa, if anyone had told me just a few months ago that I was going to make a life-changing commitment like this… well, I would've reacted just like you. I would've said they were crazy. Seriously, I never would've believed it myself.”

Her countenance softened ever so slightly, and she didn't question this statement.

“And like I said, it's still new to me. Basically, all I can say is that I was totally mixed-up and messed up and just plain lost… and now I have this real sense of peace. Honestly, it's something I never had before.”

“Peace?”

I nodded eagerly. “Yes. It's hard to describe it, but it's like my life is in good hands now, like I feel hopeful.”

“You sound like Chloe Miller now.”

I smiled. “I'll take that as a compliment.” The fact is, of all the Christians I know, which aren't that many, I can relate to Chloe best. I mean, Kim is cool and takes her faith seriously. And Caitlin is sweet and sincere and helpful. And Nat… Well, don't get me going there. But right from the start, I seemed to get Chloe. And she seemed to get me. Maybe it has to do with the whole music thing—a kind of artistic, outside-the-box sort of thing.

“So what do you think we should paint on this wall?” Marissa seemed eager to change the subject, and I felt relieved.

“I'm thinking we should get some sketches going.” I unzipped
my pack and retrieved a sketch pad. “We're not supposed to do anything out here without Mrs. Albert's approval.”

“Who's that?”

“The superintendent. But if we can get her okay, we could probably start putting the drawing on the wall before our other volunteers show up. That way we can put them to work.”

“Yes sir.” She gave me a cheesy grin. “You the boss.”

Before long we were sitting there on the curb, discussing ideas and playing with images. Unfortunately, Marissa's ideas leaned toward the dark side, and when I challenged a particularly frightening image, she seemed slightly offended.

“So what do you want to paint?” she shot back. “Sunshine, flowers, and sweet turtledoves?”

“No, not exactly. But something more cheerful than a dragon burning a gnarled tree stump.”

“I was just trying to come up with something that graffiti artists would respect,” she said defensively. “Something they wouldn't make fun of and want to deface.”

“That's a good point. We don't want it to be too childish.”

“But I suppose a dragon might be scary to some of the little kids who come here.”

“What exactly is the purpose of this building?” I ventured.

She shrugged. “It's a youth center. Duh.”

“So it's a place for kids to come…for what purpose?”

“To hang. To play. For kids who need something like that.”

I kind of frowned at her. “Why?”

“You know, it's for kids who might be kind of underprivileged, or maybe they're unsupervised. The center has a day-care program and all kinds of classes and activities for after-school programs. Stuff like that.” Now she laughed. “Oh yeah, I guess you wouldn't have had anything like that back in Beverly Hills, little Miss Rich Girl.”

Sometimes I wish I hadn't told Marissa so much about myself. But at the time, when I needed a friend a couple of months ago, it seemed right. And I thought I could trust her. Not that I can't.

“I'm not a rich girl.”

“Says you.”

I just rolled my eyes. The truth was, I would've appreciated a center like this when I was a kid. Not that I plan to admit that to Marissa. But despite her misconceptions, my childhood wasn't exactly ideal or nurturing, and I certainly never felt rich. Of course, Beverly Hills isn't the sort of town where people are terribly concerned over the welfare of the younger generation. Like Marissa, people just assume that if you live there, your parents have lots of money, and you'll be just fine.

“So it sounds like it's a place that's meant to encourage kids, to help them grow into better people, to give them hope,” I finally said.

Marissa laughed loudly. “Hey, maybe you should go into politics or public relations or advertising or something.”

“Come on. The sooner we figure this out, the sooner we can
get some serious sketches going. And the sooner we can get started, the sooner we can get done, and we won't be out here baking in the sun all summer.”

“You seem to have it all figured out, boss. Go for it.” Marissa pulled out another cigarette.

Now I was tempted to point out the risks of emphysema and lung cancer, as well as how smoke makes your hair stink and yellows your fingernails, but I figured she was probably already aware of these facts.

“Fine. I think we should create something that feels hopeful.” I squinted up at the blotchy-looking wall again. “Something colorful and cheerful and happy.”

“Maybe we could paint a
pwetty wainbow?”

Just before I made a smart retort, I stopped myself. “Hey, maybe you're right.” I grabbed my sketch pad and began to draw. “But we'll design it in a more modern style. Sort of cubist.” She looked over my shoulder as I drew a series of sharply angled shapes, working them together to make an arch.

“Interesting…,” she finally admitted.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I can kind of see it. And it would actually be fairly easy to put a team to work on it since it's mostly shapes.”

“Exactly. We'll draw them out, and they can paint them in.”

“We'll need a lot of different colors.”

“So you can see the rainbow?” I asked. “I mean, since there's no color in my sketch?”

“Yeah. I get where you're going.” She snuffed out her cigarette, then reached in her bag for a tin of colored pencils. “Here, add some color.”

By midmorning we had a final colored sketch as well as Mrs. Albert's approval. “Very nice, girls,” she told us as we were ushered out of her office. “And anything will be an improvement over what's out there now.”

“Well, that was flattering,” Marissa said as we headed down to the storage room to meet the janitor and check out the ladders and painting supplies.

“At least her expectations aren't too high.”

Marissa laughed. “Yeah, I'm pretty good at meeting people's
low
expectations.”

I wanted to ask her why that was, but we needed to get busy if we were going to put more volunteers to work tomorrow. And to my relief, Marissa actually knew how to work hard. By the end of the day, Marissa had gotten the paints, and I had managed to get a fair amount of the sketch onto the lower part of the wall.

“Nice work, boss,” Marissa said after we'd put the supplies away and stood looking at the beginning of our mural.

“Same back at you.” And I have to admit that I was kind of excited to see how this whole thing would turn out. And hopefully more people will show up to help tomorrow.

A
s it turned out, we had a crew of seven workers this morning. Okay, not first thing. But by the time Marissa and I had gotten the ladders and scaffolding in place, the other five had arrived, and we put them to work applying paint. I was sketching fast, trying to get the outline of the mural onto the wall, with Marissa following me, chalking in numbers that we had pre-matched with colors for our painters to fill in.

“It's a kind of paint-by-number thing,” I explained, trying not to stare at the odd assortment of volunteers. First there was Spencer, a hard-case dude with a reputation for all kinds of stuff, and his buddy Jake, who still has some rough edges himself, although he's a Christian. And then we had three clean-cut, preppy-looking church kids that Caitlin had managed to talk into helping us. To my dismay, Dominic was not among them. However, one of these kids turned out to be a quiet but hard-working guy named Matt Stephens. How he got mixed up with the other two, a couple of airheaded girls, was a mystery.

Okay, I know it's wrong to call Brooke Marshall and Amanda Groves airheads, but even though they're part of the youth group,
they're not exactly the kind of girls I've been dying to get to know better. Unfortunately, they remind me of Kim's buddy Natalie. Meaning they talk too much, have opinions that I don't necessarily agree with, and seem to think they are better than everyone else. Okay, that's my honest take on it. And this is my diary, so I can say what I like!

Anyway, by noon it seemed that our ground crew of five painters was making progress. The color was going up, and despite Brooke and Amanda questioning stupid things like whether number seven was fuchsia or magenta, we were doing okay. Matt was a pretty fast painter, and Jake seemed willing to work, but Spencer acted like this was supposed to be a big party, and he spent most of his time harassing either Marissa or me (or perhaps he thought he was flirting). He kept a safe distance from the “church girls,” as he called them. And naturally, they were quick to point out anything that Spencer was doing wrong. Of course, he made this easy for them. And I suppose I don't really blame him. Brooke and Amanda seemed to invite it.

But tonight as I write this, I'm a little concerned. I'm wondering, as a Christian, whether it's wrong to have bad feelings toward other Christians. There's no denying that Brooke and Amanda are Christians. They've made that pretty clear. But at the same time, I don't really want to be associated with them. And then I feel guilty. I guess I'll have to ask Caitlin for some clarification on this. Because the truth is, Brooke and Amanda make
me want to run in the opposite direction or maybe just scream some loud obscenity like Spencer does.

“Don't use the Lord's name in vain,” Brooke corrected him—over and over today. And it seemed that the more she said this, the worse he got.

“Hey, Spencer,” I called. “Maybe you should come up here and work.” I thought some space between him and the church girls might help.

His eyes lit up. “Yeah, babe, I'd like that.”

“Great.” I climbed down the ladder. “Go for it.”

“I thought we were both going to be working up there.”

“Like you really wanted to work with her,” scolded Amanda. “We know what you are up to.”

And so it went. Oh, it's not just that these girls seemed afraid to get their hands dirty or break a nail—although that was the case at first. But they had this superior attitude. I'm not sure if it's because they're Christians or because they just honestly believe they're better than the rest of us, but it was like they were doing us this huge favor by lowering themselves to help out today. Such saintly servants of the Lord. Really, someone should've just handed them their crowns and sent them packing. Quite honestly, I hope they don't come back tomorrow. And unfortunately, I have no doubt that Marissa feels the same.

Anyway, it was a relief to call it a day. Although even that started another disagreement. “Don't pour that down there!” I
yelled at Brooke. She was about to pour a bucket of sludgy paint water down the street grate.

“What?” She looked up in surprise.

“There's paint in there.”

“So?”

“So that grate is for rainwater runoff.”

“So?” Now she gave me a defiant stare.

“So the paint in there will harm fish and plant life.”

Brooke just laughed, and before I could stop her, she poured it down.

“Brooke! What are you doing?”

“The fish won't mind a little paint in—”

“That is so wrong!” I went over and looked down on her. She's this petite little blond thing (a gymnast, she's told us several times). “Don't
ever
do that again. Do you understand?”