Simon Says (2 page)

I half grin to myself. Kids turn to look at me twice, all right, but I can't pretend it's for the same reason. They look at me like I crawled out from under some grubby rock. It's not just because I'm short and my face is hard and bony, or because I see too much. It's probably because as soon as they see my sketches they know I'm nobody's friend. So what's the deal with Rachel and Adrian trying to get dose to me so fast? Well, with Adrian I can guess, though I can't see why.

"Don't look so envious," Rachel says softly, and I hold myself motionless to keep from blinking.

"I was thinking about drawing him," I lie.

"Good," she said. "Why don't you sketch him for me? We could pair the drawing with an article on successful seniors." Her expression is perfectly calm, but I don't think she believes me.

So what? I didn't come to Whitman to meet Rachel Holland. "I'll think about it," I tell her. "But I'd have to get a better feel for him." You can't draw what you can't understand.

I circle around the tables scattered through the room, edging closer to Graeme Brandt, and can't believe Rachel's nerve. She's following me, as if we're together. Just as I'm about to tell her to get lost, she says softly, "How did you plan to meet him, just walk up and announce yourself at his grand welcome back?" She doesn't say it, but I get the message: like he'd know, or care, who Charles Weston is.

"Thanks," I say, and she smiles briefly. Well, that's fair. I could use an introduction. That doesn't mean I like her.

"Well, if it isn't play 'em Graeme," she says, raising her voice but keeping it cool. I feel the heat rising in my face—the last thing I wanted was to meet the guy by insulting him. I wish I could splash turpentine over the scene and smear it out of existence. Rachel adds, "I'm looking forward to working with you again this year."

Instead of bridling, he turns to smile at her. "Rachel! A good summer for you? Lots of revising other people's writing?"

She returns the smile. "Summer vacations are for fun. I spent the time on some writing of my own."

"A new venture," he quips, and the blond guy laughs again. "Good for you."

"I'd like you to meet a new student—Charles Weston. He'll be doing artwork for the journal. Charles—Graeme Brandt."

Too late to get out of it now. But he doesn't seem insulted by her tone. Then our eyes meet properly. His are slivers of blue ice that freeze me like a specimen before him. I can't remember being on this side of a look like that ever in my life. I slap an idiotic grin on my face and drop my head in a mock bow to duck out from the gaze. "Yeah, I've read your book."
Stupid, stupid...
"I guess everyone tells you that."

He laughs and nods. "Sure. But most of them haven't."

"Well, I have." This isn't going the way I expected.
But what had I thought would happen
? "What are you writing next?"

Graeme Brandt shrugs, gracefully. The guy could be a dancer. "I don't know yet Have you got any ideas?"

The blond guy laughs hugely, and again I think of a shark. He says, "You'll take ideas from anyone, huh, Gray?"

Brandt doesn't bristle at the nickname any more than he bristled at Rachel's rhyme, just laughs along with the guy. "Anyone at all—even you, Karl. How do you think I write books
and
write for Rachel
and
turn in all my assignments on time?"

They all laugh this time, Rachel along with them. But I don't like the joke. It seems ... cheap. Most books are junk, but his novel was something different, some
thing that rang true for me, a warning about the games. This isn't the way I imagined him at all.

Before I can think of a way to get him to open up about his writing, an older man calls his name, and Brandt turns, his face lighting up. The man must be a teacher, perhaps Brandt's mentor? We all have one, an adult who's supposed to guide us.
Goody, goody. I can't wait to meet mine.

Now Brandt is respectful and attentive, and even the laughing shark hangs back. I glance at Rachel. "Thanks for the intro, but don't count on a sketch anytime soon."

She watches Brandt a minute. "He's hard to see, isn't he?"

How would she know?
Play 'em Graeme...
And what does she care, anyway? I shrug. "You've just got to find the right way inside, with any subject It's like cracking a maze, just a matter of turning around until you find your way through it."

"Good luck," she says. But there's a strangely pleased expression behind her eyes that I can't quite name. Talk about mazes to crack....

I spot Adrian standing beside sweeping bay windows, chatting to a small group, and wave in Rachel's direction as I head over to join him. This time she lets me leave.

"Charles!" Adrian beams at me and gestures to the others. "This is Wil; he writes verse. Maybe he'll do a lyric I can play with."

"Maybe you'll do some music I can write lyrics for," Wil responds good-naturedly.

"This is my new roommate, Charles," Adrian tells
them. "He paints. And this is Tyler, he writes reviews for
Ventures.
Aren't you going to sketch for them, Charles?"

Tyler snorts through a pronounced hawklike nose, and Adrian looks faintly alarmed. He goes on to name the others, but I study the reviewer. "What kind of reviews?" I ask.

He shrugs. "Any sort. I review the drama performances. I even write a music review from time to time," he says, his tone unmistakably a warning for Adrian. "I reviewed Graeme Brandt's book." He levels a killing glance across the room.

"I'm sorry I missed that," I tell him. "What did you think of it?"

"Trash," he says shortly. "Popular trash—for kids, for God's sake! He can't even write for real people, and everybody's sucking up to him."

"Have you ever had any of your own writing reviewed?" I ask.

Wil chuckles. "Rumor has it that Tyler's working on a play, but we never get to read anything he writes except reviews. Who reviews a reviewer? Other than the teachers, that is."

Tyler rounds on him. "I reviewed that poem you published in the newspaper, I believe."

Wil shuts up, and I've heard enough. I rub my head absently and look for a place to sit. Rachel wanted a sketch, and I know who to draw. Now I want somewhere to perch—a place where I can keep my back against the wall. There's an empty table midway down the room. The wall behind it is mirrored, to make the
room look bigger, but as long as my back's to it I don't have to see myself. That should work fine.

I give Adrian a half smile and head for the table.
Show time.
Setting the chair against the party's reflection, I pull out my sketch pad. A couple of kids look at me with interest. I reach into the outer pocket of my backpack and take out a Waterman roller ball—even a caricature deserves a smooth line.

I uncap the pen and stretch it out like an extension of my left hand while I open the sketch pad with my right. I roll the pen through my fingers deftly, making sure the other kids can see I'm left-handed. It's supposedly no big deal, but I like to make sure people notice. My mother tried to make me color with my right hand when I was little. She said that in her day the teachers tied your left hand to your body so you had to use your right hand. That made me really eager to start school, all right....Not that these well-trained creative people would be so crass. But as I grew up, I kind of liked seeing if I could make people notice my left-handedness—it's better than having them dislike me for myself. I hear my mother's litany.
Don't embarrass us, Charlie. We want to be proud of you—just act like everybody else when you're with them—use your right hand if they're looking—and you don't have to let them see your pictures, anyway—they make people feel uncomfortable—wait until you grow up, and then you can draw what you like.
Yeah, wait until I've given you the bragging rights to a son with a college degree so you can be proud of what I'm
not,
instead of what I am. Really good advice, Mother.

I feel a cool pair of eyes on me, and know that Rachel is watching. Well, isn't this what she wanted? And I'm keeping the real thing—
my painting
—safe. I resist the temptation to look up to see if Graeme Brandt is watching also. I dose out the world and draw. I draw Tyler, exaggerating the hawk nose and sketching a frown under it that distorts his lean face into a mask of disapproval.
Those who can't do, review...
I pose him with a sleek fountain pen in his hand, dueling fiercely. His opponent is a mirror, reflecting the image of the critic, hacking himself to bits when he thinks he's shredding others.

As I pen the final strokes, I drift back into the room from the world of my sketch pad and hear a barely smothered snort of laughter. I sign the drawing with a quick, backward-slanted flourish and look around for Rachel Holland. I catch Tyler's furious eye and smile, daring him to take it out on a review of my work—
which he'll never see
—then pass over him.

Rachel comes to the table, and I tear off the sketch and hand it to her. "I said you might not really want my sketches," I say, no trace of apology.

She studies it, too long. "Well, I do," she says absently, and I have the feeling that she sees more than Tyler in the lines on the page. "This is a good start Once classes begin, come by the office and we'll discuss the seniors feature."

Then she leaves, and I remember that the
Ventures
offices are in the student center, two floors up. She's taking the sketch upstairs before I can change my mind about letting her print it Why would I take it back, though? It's a true drawing.

"Your sketches are good."

I look up. It's Graeme Brandt Some of the other kids are watching him, but he's not the center of a mob of admiring fans anymore.

"Thanks."

"How do you see something like that in a guy?"

The way Graeme writes, the things he sees in people himself—he shouldn't have to ask. I shrug uncomfortably.

"I really don't know how to follow
The Eye of the Storm,
" he tells me. "It can be hard to write a second book."

I catch an amused glint in his blue eyes. "What's funny about that? It shouldn't be hard. I can see the next painting before I finish the one I'm working on. But I nod—I mean, he's trying to be friendly. That's what I wanted, isn't it? But now it doesn't seem to fit It's like there's a wall he's built between himself and the rest of the world. I know all about walls. But when you can publish what he's written—not just see the truth, but show how you can get lost in the game—when you can write it and get it published, and risk other people reading it and seeing inside you—
knowing you
—then why build a wall? "What's left to protect? And why project this Mr. Popularity image past the wall?

I just don't get it I stand up and slide my sketch pad inside the backpack, wishing he'd go away. A moment later, he does.

But I feel let down. Who is Graeme Brandt, if he's not the writer I imagined? Is he just the performer I saw tonight? And what will I do if he is?

Adrian wants to stay talking to Wil, and they're eager to welcome me into the group with congratulations on my sketch, but I've had enough. I can find my own way bade to the dorm. I escape into the muggy night, my sketch pad safely zipped inside my pack. I tell myself I shouldn't be surprised at Graeme Brandt—I should know better by now.

In the front hall of my parents' home stands a glass case filled with Comedia del Arte marionettes. As a little kid, even before I started preschool, I was fascinated by them—they seemed to move around inside their cage, rearranging themselves any way they wanted. At Christmas they seemed to turn handsprings and pirouette in delight at their tiny, foil-wrapped presents. When Mother had a party, I thought the costumed figures pulled their own strings and changed places so they could greet the guests.

One Friday afternoon when I came home from kindergarten, I was stunned to see Mother home early,
kneeling in front of the open case and carefully posing the marionettes in sweeping bows and graceful curtsies for a party that weekend. They were not, after all, miniature people with wills of their own, moving in answer to private desires and unspoken longings. Like all the rest of us, they performed as Mother directed.

Or as
someone
directs. It starts out—
Mother says ... go to bed. Mother says ... clean your room. Mother says ... be a good boy—make me proud—just be yourself.
Then the rest of them.
Father says ... don't cry, don't embarrass me in public. Teacher says ... don't draw with your left hand, you have to learn to use your right.
Until we're all doing it
Simon says ... touch your toes. Simon says ... stand on your head and give them all a good show.

I hated playing Simon Says as a kid. I told my kindergarten teacher I didn't want to do what Simon said. I didn't want to be like Simon. I wanted to do what
I
wanted, not what Simon wanted. Mrs. Gutierrez told me I could pick which I wanted: playing Simon Says with the class or standing in the corner. No contest—I got real friendly with that corner. By first grade I could draw every crack in the chalky yellow paint.

I like laughing about it now. Laughing drowns out the truth: that there was—
is?
—something wrong with me, something more than just my being left-handed, and everybody could see it—the other kids, Mrs. Gutierrez, even my parents. Something I didn't know how to change, or how to hide. I was a slow learner. It took me until the end of middle school to figure out
that life is just one big game of Simon Says, and nobody cares whether I want to do what Simon says or not Nobody even wants to admit they're playing.

Except Graeme Brandt.

I couldn't believe it when I read
The Eye of the Storm.
He'd written about the way everyone plays games, but he wrote about a kid who understood the game, who mastered it, who never pretended to himself that he wanted anything except to win it He acted the parts everyone wrote for him. He was the consummate Simon Says player—he knew what Simon wanted before Simon even said anything, and he was the first one doing it He was the only one still in the circle at the end, every time. But he never played Simon's part himself.