Same Difference (9780545477215) (7 page)

T
he sunset is the same color as the thick cheese drowning Meg's nachos — a deep, zesty orange. It burns my eyes when I stare into left field. That's where Rick is crouched with his mitt on his knee, in a white uniform and gray baseball stirrups, haloed by a fuzz of brightness and gnats.

I lean back against the row of metal bleachers behind me. There's just a few people at the game, mainly parents watching their sons. It isn't like the spring, when you have rivalries with other high schools and pep rallies and everyone comes out to cheer the team on. Summer leagues are more sloppy and casual, and if you go to watch the game or even play on the team, it's because there's nothing else to do.

But the ball field is a welcome change from that claustrophobic Duchamp gallery. The quick flash of yesterday makes me hot with embarrassment all over again, as does my whole conversation with Fiona at the train station. I've been thinking a lot about what she said, trying to figure out what she wanted to hear. But I'm still clueless.

Thankfully, Fiona wasn't in my Mixed Media class today. I don't know how I am ever going to go back to my drawing classes on Tuesdays and face her.

The teams switch sides and everyone claps as they jog to the bench. I move my hands like a zombie along with them.

Meg taps me on the shoulder. “Okay, so let me finish my story.” She takes a deep, dramatic breath. “I'm sitting at home totally bored today. I mean, it's just about lunch and Rick hasn't called me once, even though I've texted him a million times to complain about how I had nothing to do. Then the doorbell rings and it's Rick, with two Subway sandwiches and a huge bouquet of wildflowers that he cut from the golf course while he was working! And they just so happened to be mostly pink daisies, even though I never told him they were my favorite kind of flowers! He's, like, psychic. And then we had a picnic right on my front lawn. Your mom saw us from across the street and was cracking up, like ‘Awww, young love!'” Meg rocks back with laughter, and the pale pink flower she has tucked behind her ear falls out onto her bare legs. She scoops it up and puts it back in place. “But seriously, isn't that just like something a guy in a movie would do?”

Rick jogs over from the bench, steals a chip, and kisses Meg quickly on the cheek. “I actually did see that in a movie.” He smiles with pride as he chews. “A trailer actually, for that florist movie you want to see.”

Meg laughs. She doesn't seem to mind Rick's lack of original thought. Romance is romance, I guess.

Someone on our team strikes out. I think it's Chad, but I can't tell with his helmet on. A round lightbulb on the scoreboard flickers on. Two outs to go.

“I'm thinking about quitting the summer program,” I tell Meg, when Rick returns to the bench.

“What?” Meg pulls out a nacho and a dribble of cheese slides down her fingers. She looks for a napkin. “Why?”

I hand her one and think a second, searching for a way to save face. “It's just not like how I thought it would be.”

“What do you mean? How did you think it would be?”

“Oh, I don't know. A little less … intense. It's like all these kids are really sure that they want to be artists. I don't think I'm cut out for it.” I grin. “Like you said, a mohawk wouldn't look too good on me.”

Meg doesn't laugh at my joke. Instead, she takes a long sip of Coke. “Well, I'll support you no matter what you decide, but I'd hate to see all your talent go to waste.”

That catches me off guard. I thought Meg would have been happy to have me back home with her. I thought she missed having me around. But maybe not. Maybe she's doing just fine without me. “So you don't think I should quit?”

“Do what you want, Emily. I just think you end up talking yourself out of things.”

I give her a dirty look. I can't help it. “What?”

Meg sighs like I'm dense. “You're, like, afraid to be good at something.”

“Umm, no.” It's more like I desperately want to be good at something. “Meg, you don't get it because you've never had to work for something you wanted.”

Her face turns pink, and her mouth puffs out like it's full of angry words. But she must realize that I'm right, because she lets all the air out and starts over, this time with a much softer voice. “You haven't even given the program a real shot. This is only the first week. Don't you like any of your classes?”

I actually did like the Mixed Media class today. It was taught by two girls, Hanna and Charlotte, who had just graduated from the college last year. They seemed superexcited as they explained how many different techniques can go into a mixed media collage — painting, sculpture, screen printing — and we'd get basic instruction on all of it. It was definitely going to be more freeing than Drawing, and the rest of the kids in the class weren't judgy or full of bravado. We all seemed like beginners.

But I was still conscious of dodging Fiona. I took a later train, so I'd arrive once classes had already started. And I sat alone in the Starbucks on the corner of school for the lunch period. Just sat there and did nothing.

Meg shrugs her shoulders. “Well, it's up to you. Just give it some thought, is all I'm saying.”

I stare down at my bare legs and trace lines with my finger, connecting the dots of my freckles. I guess it's stupid to ask someone for her opinion when you just want her to agree with you.

Rick comes back over. He looks sad that there are no more nachos. “Meg, I'm starving. Can we go to the diner after the game?”

“Sure. Emily, you'll come, too, right?”

“Yeah, okay.” Then I think about it, just like Meg said. If I quit my art classes, something here is going to have to change. I can't let things go back to how they used to be. I can't be the third wheel anymore. “Maybe I'll ask Chad if he wants to come with us.” I mean, who knows. Maybe I was wrong to judge him. After all, I don't really know Chad. But he seems more like me, more in my league than someone like Yates. And Meg's always saying what a nice guy Chad is and that it would be so fun if we all double-dated. I could at least give it a try.

Meg beams an excited smile at Rick. “That's a great idea!”

When I stand up, I feel a bit shaky. “Do I look okay?” I wish I had worn something cuter than my plaid shorts and a plain peach tank, but I can't do anything about that now.

Meg takes her pink flower and slides it behind my ear. “You look better than okay.”

I feel silly with the flower, considering it was part of Rick's bouquet to Meg, but I wear it anyway.

The crowd claps for the last out. I walk up to the chain-link fence near the dugout. Chad sits on the team bench, untying his cleats. His white baseball socks are stained from the dirt.

“Hi, Chad,” I say. “Great game.”

He looks up at me. Kind of surprised. “It was okay,” Chad says. “But thanks. I didn't think you liked baseball.”

“Oh yeah. I definitely do. Meg and I came to cheer you all on.” There's an awkward moment of silence, as I stand there and watch him pull off his shoes. He doesn't loosen the laces to make it less difficult. He just wrestles them off. I take a deep breath, then a deeper one. “Listen … Rick and Meg and I are going to go to the diner to get some food. Do you want to come with us?”

He looks up at me and smiles, like he's been waiting for me to ask him that very question his whole life. My heart jumps. And then I realize Chad's gaze is a little off to the left. He's not actually looking at me, but just past me instead.

A tiny body struts up next to me.

Chad says, “Hey, Jenessa.”

I take a step back.

Jenessa loops two fingers into the chain-link fence and hangs off seductively. Her white tube top is lower than low and her bottom lip, dewy with strawberry gloss, pouts. “Can we leave now?”

“Sure,” Chad says, and looks at me apologetically. I'm grateful that he doesn't decline my invitation out loud.

“I'll wait at the car,” Jenessa says pointedly. She spins on her toe.

“Umm, okay,” I say, and take a few unsure steps backward, until it hits me that there's nothing else to say.

I rush back over to Meg and Rick. Meg's flower falls out from behind my ear, but I don't even care. Meg is waiting with a huge smile on her face, but it quickly falls.

“He's hooking up with Jenessa!” I hiss.

“What?” Meg turns toward Rick, accusatory. “Chad is hooking up with Jenessa? Since when?”

“He is?” Rick smiles for a second, then thinks better of it. “Weird.”

Meg hands Rick her trash. “Did he ever say anything to you about Jenessa?”

Rick stutters for words. He doesn't know why he's in trouble, but he knows he's in trouble. “No! I mean, nothing. Just that he thought she was hot and—”

“Shhhh!” I practically scream.

“Sorry, Emily,” Rick says, truly apologetic and quiet. But he and Meg get into it, like she blames Rick for the fact that Chad likes Jenessa and not me. I know Meg really wanted this for me. It would have been the easy solution to all our problems. But nothing easy ever seems to happen for me.

“Can we please just go?” I beg them.

“Do you still want to come with us to the diner?” Meg asks.

I shoot her a look. Of course I don't want to go to the diner. I'd rather die than go to the diner.

I try not to watch Jenessa and Chad kiss on the hood of his car as we walk past to Rick's truck. I worry how many people saw me get shot down, or if Chad will tell Jenessa and then Jenessa will tell everyone. Like I'm some big joke.

“Maybe we should have a sleepover tonight,” Meg says, looping her arm through mine. “I mean, it's not like you have class tomorrow. It'll be like old times. We can make brownies and then go for a midnight swim and have diving contests for quarters like we used to.” Meg tries to skip, but it's like I've got sandbags strapped to my sneakers.

“I just want to go home.” It's nothing personal. I wouldn't be any fun tonight. And, anyhow, Rick is hungry. Meg shouldn't break her dinner plans just because I'm all depressed.

“Okay,” Meg says, glancing up at Rick with a sad face.

Rick fumbles for the keys, and Meg strokes my arm. The funny thing is, I don't even care about Chad. It's just … everything.

I drop my chin to my chest. The shadows bloom all around in the parking lot from the trees overhead. I stare at them. Hard. They are the only beautiful things about tonight, and I am so grateful that I see them because I really, really need them right now.

B
ig surprise, I can't sleep. The fact that it's only nine o'clock on a Friday night doesn't help me feel any better about it.

My room is dark except for the lamp with the grosgrain ribbon shade on my night table. I sit up in bed, braced by a mountain of pillows, and stare down at the first blank page in my new sketchbook. I try not to be afraid of it.

I tell myself that drawing will make me feel better, give me something to focus on, like it always does. I don't worry about an egg timer or a teacher circling the room. I sit quietly, force my eyes to move as slowly as possible across my bedroom, and let my pencil follow.

I quickly discover, as I peer down at my comforter, that fabric is just about the hardest thing to draw, especially in this kind of light. There are so many little peaks and valleys, where the cloth buckles and wrinkles over my legs. It seems impossible.

But I take some of Mr. Frank's advice and just capture the basic lines and folds and shadows, like an outline. I start from the bottom corner of the left side of the page and make half a rectangle that finishes on the bottom right side.

I fill that shape with the tiny rosebud pattern of my bedspread. My hand picks up a rhythm of a small spiral, the letter U, and two oblong leaves, until the entire thing is covered. That pattern continues on the two sets of window curtains to my left. Those are way easier to draw than the bedspread. They hang in long, crisp folds that pool on the wood floor.

It's creepy, how clean my room always is. I bet Fiona's room is covered in dirty clothes and half-finished art projects, and has spots of hair dye on the carpet. We have a cleaning lady who comes twice a week to straighten up and do laundry. Even if I were messy, it wouldn't have a chance to actually stay that way. I mean, I like having a neat room, but tonight it looks sterile. And cold. And boring.

My eyes follow the thick white baseboards over to the tall white bookcase near my bedroom door. There are a few books on each shelf, stories I don't remember reading, artfully arranged in pyramids and clusters. And then, on the top shelf are my ballerina figurines — white ceramic, their glaze reflecting the light from the streetlamps outside. The long-legged girls twirl gracefully, wearing bristly tutus and huge smiles.

I put down my pencil and rub my hand.

I've never taken a dance class. I've never wanted to. But here these ballerinas are on my shelf, displayed like Claire's soccer trophies, like something earned or reflective of who I am.

The ballerinas are from my mom. She picked them out for me.

She picked out the bedroom furniture, too.

And the rosebud comforter.

My room has always looked like this. No one bothered to ask how I wanted it to look or what my favorite color was.

Fiona's words circle through my brain. I can't stop thinking about what she said about me, about my smile. Fiona saw right through me.

This room, the one down on the page, might as well be a stranger's. There's nothing to make me recognize that it's mine. It's as blank as a piece of notebook paper, and not in that good, full of possibilities way — just in a nothing kind of way.

But the thing is, I'm seeing it now. I'm seeing it, and, like Fiona said, once you do, you can't turn back.

You have to move forward.