Same Difference (9780545477215) (5 page)

I stare at the paint splatters on the floor. Even if I'm nothing special in Cherry Grove, no one laughs at me. I do enough right to keep that from happening.

“We're all set, Mr. Frank,” Yates tells him quietly, a much-needed break to the awkwardness. I've made a fool of myself in front of him. He slips a small black notebook into Mr. Frank's hands.

“Okay.” Mr. Frank stands up. “How many of you keep a sketchbook?”

A few kids raise their hands, including Fiona, though hers seems to rise above the rest. Robyn raises hers, too, but a few seconds later. I sit on my hands and enjoy the weight of my body, the pressure on my fingers, like a punishment. I've never kept a sketchbook. I've only doodled in the margins of my lined notebooks, when I got bored in school.

“For this class, I am requiring everyone to keep a sketchbook, which I want you to think of as a visual diary,” Mr. Frank continues. “Except that one entry per day will not do. Rather, I want you to catalog your life, your point of view in the pages. I want you to take pause in the small, beautiful moments where you'd otherwise push on through with your normal life.” He locks eyes with Fiona. “Would you mind if I took a look?” he asks, taking careful, slow steps over to her.

“
Absolument,
” Fiona says in a pitch-perfect French accent, and digs deep in her tote bag, which is covered in cartoon owls. “So long as you don't narc me out to the cops.”

What?

“I don't feel comfortable sharing my sketchbook,” Robyn says, even though no one asked to see it. “Mine is very personal.”

“Well,” Mr. Frank says, “you should begin a new one, then, because I will expect you to show me drawings each week.”

Fiona pulls out a thick blue book that looks handmade, stitched together with red yarn. It's stuffed full, the way my binders get by the end of the school year, with a black band wrapped around the cover to force it closed. As she opens it up and hands it over to Mr. Frank, a few pieces of ripped paper and what looks like confetti fall to the floor. She climbs down from the stool and picks them up, like they are valuable. He flips through a few pages. Inside are lots of sketchy pencil drawings, stickers, pieces of fabric. I wish I could see better, but my easel is in the way. Robyn seems especially interested. She's practically climbed on top of her stool to get a better look.

“A visual diary will help you, as artists, become more familiar and comfortable with the way you, and you alone, see things. I don't want you to just observe, I want you to obsess. Your point of view, your voice, will be what makes your art special and unique, so I hope you'll all take this assignment seriously.” Mr. Frank hands the sketchbook back to Fiona and smiles. “Wonderful.”

“Thanks,” she says, not even the slightest bit embarrassed by his praise. More like she hears those kinds of compliments all the time.

Even though I'm totally intimidated, I'm also inspired. I've never had a special place to draw. I've never thought about capturing my world. Lately, I've only thought of escaping it.

“And now, on to our first lesson. Mastering the human form is undoubtedly the most essential part of your training as an artist. These skills will serve you in all other media, be it photography, sculpture, painting, jewelry, or what have you. Here, unlike with your sketchbooks, creative expression is not encouraged. Rather, I will push you to be as exact and accurate as you possibly can. You must know the rules before you can break them.”

I bite the inside of my cheek. This is so different from Ms. Kay's art class. She was much goofier, and always encouraged us to be open to mistakes and happy accidents. Sometimes, she'd even tell us to draw with our eyes closed. Now I feel the pressure to be good. Better than good, if possible, to prove I belong here.

As Mr. Frank continues, a woman emerges from behind a canvas curtain slung in the corner of the room that I did not notice before. She's maybe my mom's age, wearing a plum satin kimono robe very loosely tied at her waist. Her silver-streaked hair is spun into two tight buns behind her ears. She has no shoes on. Her toenails are long and polished an acidic orange.

Yates moves quickly around the room, pulling down the shades.

Mr. Frank hops off the platform. “Lily, I'm looking for something not terribly difficult. Twenty minutes and then we'll have a break.”

Lily nods and climbs up. In a flash, her robe falls to the floor. She's completely naked and very, very pale. You can see most of her veins, like little blue rivers and streams on a map. She sits down, twists her back and lifts her chin up to the ceiling.

A few people, including myself, giggle. For the first time I remember that I'm in a room full of teenagers. And I'm not the only one who seems to look to Fiona for her reaction. It's like everyone turns their heads her way. But she's not laughing or smiling or rolling her eyes like the rest of us. She's already drawing.

Mr. Frank takes an egg timer and spins the dial around. It starts ticking. Slowly. “For this first drawing, I'd like to get a sense of your skill level. Please just capture the form at its most basic. We shall, obviously, progress from there.” He claps his hands. “Begin.”

The pencils of the students around me fly over their papers. I gaze ever so slightly above the edge of my drawing pad. Just look and get the shock over with. The woman's boobs are huge and hang heavy off her slightly lumpy frame. And her nipples are erect because it's so cold in here. Is Mr. Frank going to want us to draw nipples? Because I seriously don't think I can do that.

I've never seen anyone else naked in real life, definitely not an adult, except for the time everyone went skinny-dipping in Billy Barker's hot tub after New Year's. Rick invited us to the party after he and Meg first started talking. Everyone was game for it, except for Meg and me. Luckily, it was dark and we couldn't really see anyone. Not that we were trying to look. Rick didn't try to make Meg go in or anything. Instead, he stayed with her on the chaise lounge and they talked about school and stuff. I sat high and dry at the picnic table and blacked out the teeth of the models in the J.Crew catalog.

With the way she's twisting, if I lean to my left, I can't see the model's private parts at all. The girl from Helsinki across the room probably doesn't see anything else but the private parts. The model's got a bit of a belly, round and plump, and some love handles that hide the shape of her hip bones. I have a perfect view of her butt crack, before it smashes into the base of the pedestal.

Mr. Frank is suddenly behind me, his shadow the only thing darkening my white sheet of paper. “What is your name again?”

Everyone glances my way. Of course he hasn't remembered. “Emily,” I say.

“Emily, start with the spine. Always build from the spine.”

I pick up one of my pencils and press it to the paper halfway up the page. I try to start drawing but the pencil point is so sharp, it pushes off the paper like it doesn't want to listen to me. So I just hold it there, without moving, until my arm prickles from lack of blood flow.

“Hey,” a smooth voice comes from behind. Yates. “Which pencil are you using?” His breath smells icy, like a fresh piece of gum.

I roll it between my fingers until I see the foil stamp. “Umm … the HB?” I have absolutely no idea what that means.

“Use the 6B,” Yates instructs. Then, before he walks away, he whispers, “The name has to do with the softness of the lead.”

I am too embarrassed to say thank you, so I just take out the 6B from my art box, even though it looks absolutely the same as the pencil I was just holding. I raise my hand and position myself … and the point sinks right into the paper. It's soft, like butter left out on the kitchen counter.

I try to get into my drawing, but I think I am overthinking. My lines aren't smooth — they're sharp and jagged and impatient. My eyes bounce between the model and my paper so fast it makes me dizzy. I try to get everything just right. I can't shut my brain off enough to relax, especially knowing that Mr. Frank will probably make us all share our drawings at the end of the day. It's pretty much the most impossible situation.

What seems like seconds later, the egg timer rings and Lily excuses herself for a pee and a smoke break. The rest of the class gets up to stretch and walk around. Except Fiona, Robyn, and me. Fiona keeps drawing, staring at the empty space as if the model were still there. Robyn casually walks the room, peering at everyone's sketches. I bite down on my pencil until I taste wood and flip to a new sheet before she has a chance to see how bad I suck.

Not like she can't already tell.

I
'm not even halfway up my front steps before Meg's sing-song call trills from across the street. “Em-i-ly!”

She bounds out of her front door, shiny hair swishing from side to side. Her arms keep her lilac slip dress from flying up past her thighs and her chunky espadrilles might as well be sneakers because of how quick she is with every step.

I feel like I've been gone for months. “Hey!” I say, and hold my arms out for a hug.

“Yay! You're home!” Meg gives me a squeeze, but quickly wriggles out of it, leaving me slightly sticky from the unabsorbed cucumber-melon lotion on her skin.

“I have about a million stories to tell you,” I say, laughing as flashes of the day light up my mind. Where should I start?

“And I want to hear absolutely everything about your first day, but listen.” She's all eager and excited. “A bunch of people are going to Dairy Queen, and Rick will be here any minute to pick us up.” She glances down. “What's all over your pants?”

My white denim capris are smudged across the thighs with pencil lead. “Art class, remember?” My hands are dirty, too — not just on the palms, but in thick black stripes under my nails. I shove them in my pockets before she notices.

“Well, quick, go change!” She brushes a piece of hair out of my eyes. “Maybe wear that green polo dress with your pink flip-flops, or your red halter with your teeny jean skirt.” Meg is really good with clothes and she always helps me pick things out. “I have to run home and grab my purse. Hurry!”

I charge upstairs to my bedroom and quickly change into the green polo dress, because the red halter is in my hamper. I slide on my pink flip-flops. Cherry Grove feels more like home than ever. I know the rules here. I know how I'm supposed to think and act, and all that is very comforting after the day I've had.

At least I was able to do an okay drawing. I stopped thinking about the naked lady as a lady, and instead pretended I was drawing a statue. So that made it easier. I also just drew her torso, so I could avoid the stuff I felt was too intimate to draw. Mr. Frank said I had an “interesting composition.” I hoped that was a compliment. But the rest of the class stayed quiet during my crit, so who knows.

I run into my bathroom and scrub my hands hard and fast. Most of the dirt comes off, but not all. Hopefully, no one will notice once the sun goes down. I use hair spray to smooth down my ponytail. It smells like apples, so I don't need perfume. But I put a little more deodorant on, because it's really hot outside.

The
beep beep beep
of Rick's truck horn blows in my open window.

I gotta go.

Rick and Meg are waiting in his red pickup truck. I get in, close the door, and cuddle myself against it to give Meg more room. But she doesn't want it. Rick's truck is small, and Meg seizes the opportunity to cozy up next to him.

We pass through the gates, and Meg and I wave to the security guard who mans the entrance from a white-shingled booth, made to look like a small version of the Blossom Manor it protects.

Rick waves, too, and I notice that two of his fingers, the pinky and the ring, are wrapped in white tape and unable to grip the steering wheel.

“What happened to your hand?” I ask him. The edges of the tape are frayed into white strings, and the end is all jagged, like someone ripped it with their teeth.

“I was on the push mower and a rock flew up and dinged my pinky. It's probably broken, but I'm just going to buddy-tape it like coach did for me last season when my other one got hit with a curve ball.” He holds up that hand and proudly flashes a crooked zigzag of a pinky like a trophy. “That was right before we met,” he says, and pats Meg's thigh.

He's talking about when Meg sprained her ankle jumping the horse in gym class. I had put Meg's arm around my shoulder and tried to walk her to the nurse myself, but Meg was crying and afraid that she was going to slip and fall if she hopped on the linoleum floor. So Mrs. Lord called one of the boys out of the weight room to help support her other side. That was Rick. But instead of helping me, he scooped up Meg into his arms and carried her up three flights of stairs and all the way down the hall. He kept telling Meg how light she was. Like a feather. It was sweet, because Meg was actually on a diet then, not like she needed to be, and after that day, she went back to eating pizza. She sniffled back her tears and thanked him over and over for the help.

I guess I could have gone back to gym alone, but I didn't. I just walked next to them and stayed quiet. Actually, I walked a little bit behind them. I guess we've been a threesome from the very start.

“So, how was your first day of school?” Meg asks, in the same voice my mom used when she picked me up. “Tell us all about it.”

I try not to get annoyed, but talking to Meg alone is much different from talking to Rick and Meg as a couple. It's like she's playing house, and I get to be their kid.

Rick pushes his hat up off his brow to the top of his hairline. “Were there a lot of freaky kids there?”

“Yeah, some, I guess.” There's something about Rick's tone I don't like. Maybe what it implies about me. “Not too many people talked to me,” I say, like that makes it any better.

“It's always hard on the first day.” Meg touches my arm. “What did you do in class?”

“Well …” I think about not telling them anything, but I'm curious to see their reactions. “I had to draw a nude model.” I say it like it was no big deal.

They both stare at me, mouths open. “Shut up!” they say in unison.

“Swear to God,” I say, and then laugh with them. Though I was definitely caught off guard by the model, I still managed to hold it together. I bet Meg and Rick would've freaked. It makes me feel a little better.

“Like totally nude?” Meg asks. “Was it a guy or a girl?”

“It was a woman.”

“Was she hot?” That's Rick.

Meg slaps him on the arm.

I shake my head. “Not at all. She was old. Like a mom.”

Meg and Rick turn to each other and laugh. And then, a disturbed look crosses Rick's face. “Will you have to draw naked guys?”

“Yeah,” I say casually, even though that never dawned on me before. “Probably.” It's kind of funny to think that the first time I see a guy naked, it's not going to be my boyfriend. Though maybe it's better that way. Maybe I won't be as nervous when it finally happens for real.

“Art is so weird,” Rick says, shaking his head. “I mean, I don't know much about it, but some of those paintings Ms. Kay showed me two years ago were just stupid. Anyone could do that stuff.” He shakes his head again. “Sure some art is, like, unbelievable. Like the Mona Lisa. I can definitely appreciate that. But the other stuff. Paint splatters and colored squares and whatever. I just don't get it.”

Meg laughs. “I bet half of the people who say they get that stuff actually have no clue. They just don't want to sound dumb.”

I wonder what Meg and Rick would think of Fiona's shadows. Sure, any three-year-old can trace with chalk, but there
was
something amazing about them. Like she showed something I'd never noticed was there. I want to tell them about it, but I don't think I could explain it right. It's just like Fiona said, I guess — the experience is the thing. Talking about it wouldn't do it justice.

The parking lot of the Dairy Queen is packed. It's one of the meeting places for all Cherry Grove high schoolers during the summer. Everyone eats ice cream while they plot ways to get beer and a place to drink it. On most nights they come up short on both accounts.

We pull in and park. A bunch of kids from school come by while we're in line and say hello. Meg and I are friendly with most of the same people, but there are a few of Rick's friends who I don't know as well as she does. I turn and spin and nod my head and pretend to be interested in the gossip, but it's all the same sort of stuff you hear during the year.

We eat our ice cream over by the chain-link fence, where Jimmy Carr and Chad Daly are talking. Meg always says I should like Chad Daly, but I don't think he's my type. He wears too much hair gel, and he never eats ice cream, even though he's always hanging out at DQ. Instead, he orders a large Mountain Dew from the fountain and chews the straw until it barely works.

“Hey, guys,” Rick says. They slap hands, all loose and relaxed.

“So, what's everyone up to?” Meg asks them. “Getting excited for the Babe Ruth opening game?”

Chad and Jimmy and Rick all play baseball together on the summer league. It's the only way for them to get practice in without breaking the high school rules. Meg asks more questions, about the lineups and their pitcher's shoulder injury. I have no idea how she learned all this stuff about baseball. I guess Rick's explained it to her. I try to nod at appropriate times so it's like I get it, too.

But eventually the conversations that I'm not actually participating in soften into whispers. I can't hear people talking, or taste the vanilla ice cream in my Blizzard. That happens to me sometimes, when I get bored. When other people zone out, it's because they're lost in the lyrics of a song or thinking of a funny story. For most people, it's all about words.

Not for me. I find it fun to look at something and reduce it to the small parts that make it up. Like Jenessa Wilson, leaning against the DQ counter. She's one long line, from the top of her head, curving down her spine and along her butt, which always seems to be sticking out, and then down her long, thin legs. Jenessa's on the cheerleading squad and a year younger than me, but I think she looks way older. She wears a lot of makeup, and you can usually see some of it, tan like caramel, smudged on the collars of her shirts. But guys love Jenessa. They throw themselves at her. Meg says that she's actually a nice girl when you get to talking to her, but I don't believe it. I've never once seen her truly smile. It always looks more like a sneer.

“Hey! Emily!” Meg says, knocking into me with an embarrassed laugh. “Come on, we're leaving.”

Everything snaps back into normal focus. Rick is across the parking lot, unlocking the door to his truck. There's no one else around. Jimmy and Chad are gone. I'm standing here alone, in the middle of the parking lot, all by myself. My Blizzard is almost empty.

“What's everyone doing?”

“Nothing. Going home. You know how it is.” Meg turns toward Rick's truck.

The night is slipping away. “Hey,” I say, and take hold of her arm. “Let's go sneak into a movie, like we used to do.”

Meg shrugs her shoulders. “Hmm … maybe. You know, ever since they redid the movie theater, they have people double-checking ticket stubs. I'm dying to see that new one about the florist who falls in love with her delivery guy, but it doesn't open until this weekend. We should just go next week. Maybe on Tuesday. I think it's supposed to rain on Tuesday.”

“Well, we could go down to the fields and hang out there.” Someone discovered that the back door to the football equipment room never locks. We've snuck in there to drink beers and listen to music sometimes. It's not all that much fun, but at least it's something.

Meg laughs. “Didn't you hear? Coach Heller got the locks replaced.”

“Oh.” I try to think of another possibility. I'm not ready for tonight to be over. Nothing's even happened yet.

Meg turns and looks back at the truck. “I think we're going to just go and watch some TV or something at Rick's house.” She pauses briefly. “You can totally come if you want.”

It's nice of Meg to invite me, but I will never go and watch television with her and Rick again. The last time I did that, they were either cuddled under a blanket together or disappearing upstairs to the kitchen together to get more snacks or whatever. I'd be left alone in Rick's dark basement watching some dumb show or movie, the kind of thing you decide to “watch” when you have a boyfriend because you don't plan on “watching” anything.

“That's okay.” I say. “I've got class tomorrow anyhow. Oh! But I have to bring Claire a Blizzard or I'll never hear the end of it when I get home. Can you give me one second?”

“Of course,” Meg says. “I'll be in the truck.”

I run over to the counter and place my order. Across the parking lot, Meg talks to Rick in the truck. She's saying something to him, probably that I'm not coming. Rick smiles, and they start kissing. I hold Claire's Blizzard and walk as slow as I can. I don't care if the ice cream melts. I'm not rushing back over there. Their night is just getting started, and mine's about to end.