My One Square Inch of Alaska (9781101602850) (15 page)

“It’s my understanding that Will invited him,” Miss Bettina said, her voice a little tense.

MayJune chuckled. “I’m trying to convince Bettina that your young man isn’t all bad.” Somehow, that, of all things—MayJune calling Jimmy my young man—made me blush.

“Now, I never said he was all bad,” Miss Bettina said. “I just said I think Donna should be careful of her heart.”

I stared at the two women. They’d just met, but they’d been talking about my romantic life, while I was downstairs sopping up peaches and green beans and glass with three juvenile
asses
, as if they were, what—my old aunties?

“Well, now, of course she should be careful of her heart—all womenfolk gotta be careful of their hearts—but he’s not a bad drink of water to look at, and nice manners, so for now—”

I started to snap at them to please stop talking about Jimmy, but then I realized that I’d already sipped half the mug of tea and my headache was easing.

And then I noticed the cakes on the kitchen table. They’d sunk in on themselves, a gooey mess oozing up from the middle. “Will’s cake…it’s a disaster!”

“Maybe we could cut off pieces from the outer edges, ice the tops, and serve that,” Miss Bettina said. “Like square cupcakes.”

MayJune smiled and said, “Don’t worry about that, honey. Just leave the cake be and let Will open his gifts. Things will work out just fine.”

I’d failed at not just one but three attempts to make Will a birthday cake. I thought that I should at least throw away the ruined cake. Not let it sit there on the kitchen table as an embarrassment to myself, to Will…and then I thought, no. I was trying to do things Grandma’s way again, make our lives seem perfect, pretty, unblemished. And I was tired. I’d try it MayJune’s way.

So I nodded at her. MayJune and Miss Bettina smiled.

Jimmy and Will led Suze and Tony and (I later learned their names) twin brothers Herman and Harold through the back kitchen door. Jimmy grinned at me, so happy to see me, and suddenly all my fears about our relationship dissolved. He swooped me up in a hug and kissed me on the forehead, so of course Will hollered, “Ooh, yuck!” echoed by the other children. That just made Jimmy grin and kiss me again, this time on the cheek, which started another round of whooping and gagging, until Miss Bettina and MayJune shooed us all into the living room, where the gifts were neatly stacked on the coffee table.

Miss Bettina served everyone lemonade and Suze designated herself the “gift fairy,” delivering one gift at a time to Will, who looked happier than I’d ever seen him.

I made mental notes about each gift so Will could write thank-yous later: from Miss Bettina, a wallet including a lucky dollar; from Tony, three new Western comic books—a Roy Rogers, a Lash LaRue, and a Gene Autrey; from Suze, a yellow Matchbox convertible. Will and the boys oohed and ahhed appreciatively, but as Miss Bettina’s and my eyes met, her expression was so sad that I had to look away. From Jimmy there was a compass dedicated to “all of Will’s coming adventures,” a prophecy that had Will grinning extra wide; from Herman and Harold, an honest-to-goodness pin the tail on the donkey game, which made everyone laugh, including me. Will flashed his blue eyes when he opened my gift, a new copy of
The
Call of the Wild
. Daddy had left a long lumpy package on the kitchen table. Will opened it, revealing a BB gun.

That left two gifts. From Grandma, two pairs of socks. He started to laugh at the humdrum gift, but I saw no need to mock Grandma, so I shook my head. Will quieted down, and turned to the last gift—MayJune’s.

Will had carelessly ripped the wrapping paper off his other gifts, but this one he opened slowly and carefully, maybe because it was his last one, or maybe because it was from MayJune and he knew that it would be special.

Something small…like those little choices MayJune would talk about soon enough. But life-changing.

The gift was two boxes of Marvel Puffs cereal.

Will looked at MayJune, his eyes suddenly shiny, and said, “Thank you! MayJune, how did you know I was two
box tops away? And the postmark deadline is in just four days—September thirtieth.”

“You’re welcome, Will,” MayJune said. “Donna, do you think it’s time for Will’s birthday cake?”

A pang shot through me…that awful cake, both layers a gooey mess collapsed in their pans. Another flush rose up my neck and face. And then, as I looked at MayJune’s kind, soft face, I realized why she’d said not to worry about the cake, to let Will open his gifts first, that things would work out just fine.

I grinned. “MayJune, I’d love to, but it seems I can’t bake a cake worth eating. The one I tried to make just collapsed in on itself in a gooey mess!” I looked at Will. “Do you think, if you don’t mind sharing, we could have Marvel Puffs instead?”

“Yes!” Will whooped, jumping up from the couch. He led the charge into the kitchen. I got out eleven birthday candles, gave one to each child and two each to MayJune, Miss Bettina, and Jimmy, then quickly lit each candle. Jimmy gave me one of his candles as we started to sing “Happy Birthday,” and then Will closed his eyes and made a wish, blew out his candle first, and then ran to each person to blow out the other ten candles.

We used up both boxes of Marvel Puffs and all of the milk in the refrigerator. While we ate, Suze asked MayJune to explain her name. MayJune laughed and said her mama didn’t get around to naming her for months, and when she did, she couldn’t remember if she’d been born at the end of May or the beginning of June, so her mama named her MayJune.

That made Will whoop with delight and say that that
meant she should get to celebrate her birthday for every day of May
and
June.

But once everyone was done eating, Will became somber again, carefully tearing off the two box tops, sternly instructing Jimmy to hold them
carefully
, while he ran upstairs to collect his other eight. I found an envelope and stamps. Then everyone gathered around while Will carefully wrote out a letter giving his name and address and requesting, with a little help from Jimmy, his deed to one square inch of Alaska, “in exchange for the enclosed ten box tops.” Will even included his 250-word essay about why he’d like to go to Alaska for his chance to have his photo taken with Chase Monahue, the actor who played television’s Sergeant Striker, featured on the front of Marvel Puffs boxes.

After recounting the box tops three times to be
sure
he really had ten, Will carefully addressed the envelope and put on four stamps—at least twice as many as he needed—and put his letter and the ten box tops inside.

Jimmy offered to drive Will—and Tony, Suze, Herman, and Harold—to the post office so they could all put Will’s envelope in the big, sturdy blue mailbox outside, where it would be in the care of the U.S. Postal Service.

The children all whooped at this prospect, as if riding two miles in Jimmy Denton’s car was a grand adventure. I looked at MayJune and Miss Bettina for guidance, and they both nodded—just slight nods that said it was up to me, but that I should approve.

And so I did.

F
or a while, life kept feeling perfect: that night after Will’s party, as I curled up in Jimmy’s arms in his car parked at “our” spot by the Tangy River; even on Sunday, as we went to church with Grandma and Will dutifully thanked her for his socks and told her that he’d had the best birthday cake possible; and in the wee hours of Monday morning, after Daddy and Will were asleep, as I quietly worked in the basement studying Mama’s wedding dress for how I might completely remake it by homecoming.

Then came art class on Monday afternoon. Mr. Cahill paced nervously. I recognized his manic, wild-eyed manner from the moments when he got lost in his sketching.

As we settled into our seats, Mr. Cahill said, while running his hands through his already messy hair, “All right, class—who remembers Donna’s question from last week?”

My heart clenched.

His gaze alighted on me. A nervous flush crept up my face, but he pressed on. “Surely you remember. Since you asked the question?”

I shook my head as I mumbled, “No, sir.”

Then Lisa Kablinski raised her hand. “Mr. Cahill, I remember! I remember!”

She has a crush on him,
I thought.
She likes both of the men I like, Jimmy and…

Lisa repeated, word for word, with a mimicking lilt, “‘Why don’t we ever draw anything except spheres and cones and cubes?’” Jimmy frowned. Babs gave me a look that said,
It’s OK, honey, we can beat her up in the girls’ room after class.

“That’s right, Miss Kablinski! That’s exactly right!” Mr. Cahill said, with excitement another teacher might have reserved for a student perfectly reciting a line of Shakespeare or an algebraic equation. Lisa sat up a little straighter in her chair, preening.

Mr. Cahill’s gaze slid back to me. I stared down at my desk. “I’ve been thinking about your question, Miss Lane,” he said, as if he hadn’t been able to shake the question free from his mind, like I wished I could shake away my betraying, awful thought about Mr. Cahill and Jimmy and liking them in the same way.

“And the answer to that very insightful question of Miss Lane’s, about why I haven’t had you draw anything except basic shapes, is…” He paused, then rushed on, “The answer is that I’ve been lazy and assumed that no one here really cares about art or can understand it.”

I looked up at him, startled. The class went completely quiet—no giggles or restless movements. But Mr. Cahill grinned, seemingly oblivious to the hurt silence, and said, “So now we must start over! We must discuss the question: What is art?”

Silence.

“Fine. No volunteers?” He gazed around the room, pausing for a second at Jimmy.
Not Jimmy.

“Mr. Coleman, what is art?”

“Uh…it’s a picture of something.” For just a second I felt a little pity for Hank as red splotches mottled his cheeks.

“For example?”

“Uh…uh…maybe of a…dog?”

A few kids tittered with quiet laughter. Hank stared down at his desktop.

Mr. Cahill said, “OK, a picture of a dog. But the class laughed.” He pointed at Babs. “You. You laughed. Why? Do you think a picture of a dog can’t be art?”

“I guess it can be,” Babs said, hedging her bet. “If it’s a good picture of a dog.”

Next Mr. Cahill focused on Cedric Knowles, who was known for being painfully shy and not very bright. I felt a pang of sympathy for Cedric as Mr. Cahill put his hands on his desk and leaned toward him. Cedric squirmed nervously.

“What makes a picture of a dog
good
?” Mr. Cahill asked.

“I—I dunno. I guess if it looks…just like a dog. Not like a stick figure dog, or something.”

More chuckles.

Mr. Cahill stood up. “Cedric here makes an interesting argument.” Cedric looked shocked—and pleased. “He’s saying that a good picture of a dog—a picture that can be defined as art—has to look like a dog.”

Babs raised her hand slowly. Mr. Cahill nodded at her.

“So, if the picture of a dog has to look just like a dog to
be art, why not take a photograph? Why would someone have to draw or paint a dog, then?”

Mr. Cahill beamed, as if Babs had just asked the most brilliant question possible.

“Yeah, like Ansel Adams,” Hank said.

“What about Ansel Adams?” Mr. Cahill said, ignoring the class’s surprise at Hank’s unexpected contribution.

Hank shrugged. “My grandma has a book with his photos in it.”

“And when you look at them, how do those photos make you feel?”

For a second, Hank looked thoughtful, but then broke into his usual jerk grin. “Like I’d rather look at the photos than at the doilies on Grandma’s tables.”

Mr. Cahill walked to Hank’s desk. “Dig a little deeper, Hank. How do Mr. Adams’s photos of the West
make you feel
?”

Mr. Cahill’s voice dropped to a near-whisper at the end of the question. The class was silent as Hank stared defiantly at Mr. Cahill. “Like I wanna get out of this place,” he said. “See something more than the smokestacks of Groverton sometime in my life.”

We all knew what he meant—well, all of us except Jimmy, who had gone pale at the implied criticism of the business his father ran, a business that supported most everyone in town in some way. But Hank was saying something that all of us had felt at one time or another.

“Ah,” Mr. Cahill said, walking to the front of the classroom. “So a photo or painting or sculpture has to make you feel something for it to be art. Touch you, move you, in some way.”

Cedric raised his hand and Mr. Cahill nodded at him. “So if that’s true,” said Cedric, “then is it art if the picture of the dog ain’t anything like a dog, but moves you in some way?”

I thought of Trusty, Will’s Trusty at Stedman’s Scrapyard. Would a painting or photo of poor Trusty be art? It wouldn’t be art that most people would want to see.

“Why are you asking me?” Mr. Cahill was saying to Cedric.

“’Cause you’re the art teacher!”

This time, Mr. Cahill chuckled. “I may be the art teacher, but that doesn’t mean you don’t know something about art. It’s in you.” He tapped Cedric’s shoulder. “
Art is in you.
” Then he tapped Lisa’s shoulder. “And you.” He did the same to Babs and Hank and several other students.

He looked at me, and for a second I thought he was going to come tap my shoulder and say, “And you” to me, too, like a pastor or priest giving a blessing. But then he stopped.

“Your art can touch someone else, if it comes from you, from your heart. Art starts with emotion! So today, forget cones and spheres and cubes. We’re going to draw emotion! Get out your sketchbooks. Draw what you’re feeling right now, or the emotion you feel most of the time, or the emotions that you don’t want anyone to know, and put it in a picture. It doesn’t have to look exactly like something. It can be scribbles—just show some emotion!”

The class stared at him. He stared back, for just a second. Then he said, “Oh, for pity’s sake, it can even be a sphere—a happy sphere or an angry sphere—as long as it has some emotion in it. Just get started!”