A Work of Art (14 page)

She blinked when I came in, like I'd woken her from a trance.

“Hey,” I said.

“You're home early. What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“It didn't go well?”

“It went fine. We're—” She cut me off before I could tell her how I'd be going out with Joey on my birthday.

“Something came in the mail for you.” She slid a white envelope the size of a magazine off the coffee table and handed it to me.

At first, I thought it was from Dad. But if Dad had sent me anything, she would have thrown it away. When I turned the envelope over, I saw where it came from. The Paris Art Institute. I thought maybe they'd answered my request for a scholarship deferral, but their website said they'd reply by e-mail.

“I thought you might want to see it,” Mom said. “Even though you're not going.”

I glanced at her face. She didn't look smug, like I expected. She looked hopeful. Maybe she thought seeing mail from the art institute would make me change my mind about paying for my dad's lawyer. Didn't she know it was too late for that?

“Thanks.” I made sure to keep my face neutral. I didn't want her to see how it hurt me not to be going this fall.

“Aren't you going to open it?”

“I'll open it later.” I stood up from the couch, still holding the envelope. “Good night.”

As soon as I shut my door, I tore the envelope open. Inside was a letter from the school, along with a course catalog. I read the letter first. The dean welcomed me to the most prestigious art school in the world and invited me to choose my classes for the coming fall semester.

I let the letter drop to my bed and turned on the laptop I'd borrowed from school. Almost a week had gone by since I'd written the school to ask for a deferral. If they were sending me a course catalog, did that mean they hadn't gotten my letter?

I did an e-mail search to see when, exactly, I'd sent my request. That's when I found their reply in my Spam folder.
Please,
I thought as I clicked it open.
Please be good news.

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. I read the letter again to make sure I understood what they were telling me. I had to use my scholarship this year or I'd lose it.

The course catalog lying on my bed mocked me.
Don't look at it,
I told myself.
You can't go, so don't torture yourself.
But I picked it up anyway. On the slick front cover was a photo of the campus. The school's iconic bell tower overlooked a busy Paris neighborhood, the kind where people drink coffee at sidewalk cafés and walk to the local bakery to buy their bread. I turned to the first page and stared at the collage of photos: students painting, sculpting, sitting on hilltops with easels and paintbrushes. Teachers looking over students' shoulders at their work. Everyone smiling.

Their smiles cut through me.

I scanned the courses—all those classes I wouldn't be taking: Introduction to Sculpture. Renaissance in the Modern Age. Depth and Light for Acrylics.

I hurled the catalog across the room and it smacked against the wall. I wanted to hear a crack, a break, but all I got was a fluttering of pages. I grabbed the catalog and shoved it into a drawer.

I wouldn't be going because of Dad. It didn't matter that it wasn't his fault. A part of me still blamed him. I reminded myself that it was
my
drawing that had landed him in jail. And the photo he had taken of me naked—the one the police
might
have found on his computer? That was a mistake, the kind people make when they don't know any better. Dad was so much the artist that he was blind to the bigger picture. He'd realized, though, that it was a mistake. I'd made him realize it.

And it all seemed like a hundred years ago.

I didn't want to paint in Dad's studio. That would have felt too much like a betrayal, as if life went on just fine while he was in jail. So Friday after school I dragged all my painting gear upstairs to the kitchen.

Then I sat in the living room to wait for Joey. Already, he was late, but I'd expected that. Mom came out of her bedroom wearing jeans and a button-up shirt. Her hair was combed. She looked nice. I'd already told her Joey was coming over. She'd promised to keep out of the way so I could paint him for the contest.

“Don't worry.” She flopped onto the couch with the want ads and put her feet up on the coffee table. “I'll leave when he gets here.”

“He's late,” I said.

“Are you surprised?”

“Not really. I think it's a guy thing.”

“Or a Joey thing.”

“Mom, don't.”

She opened her mouth to say something but then clamped her lips closed.

We waited. The clock on the cable box said
4:23.

“So you really think he'll make a good subject?” she asked. “For the contest, I mean.”

I fiddled with a loose thread on the chair. “Mr. Stewart said it was best if I painted him as a live model instead of from memory. So that's what I'm doing.”

She squinted at the clock. “Wasn't he supposed to be here at four? Maybe you should call him.”

Then my cell phone rang. It was too late in the day for Dad's lawyer to call, so I knew before looking at the number that it had to be Joey. He was probably on his way, calling to tell me he was running late.

I flipped open my phone. “Hello?”

“Hey, Tera, it's Joey.”

“Hey.”

Mom sat forward on the couch, mouthed some words I couldn't understand. I waved her away.

“So I can't make it over there,” he said. “Something came up.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry,” he said.

“That's okay.” Had I just said that? It wasn't okay, not at all. “What happened?” I asked.

“I got busy. Helping a friend.”

“Oh, okay.”

“So I can't really talk. I'll see you Sunday, though. For your birthday.”

“Okay. Eight o'clock, right?”

“Right. I'll see you then.” He didn't wait for me to say goodbye before hanging up.

I felt Mom's eyes on me as I closed my phone and tried to act like nothing was wrong.

“He's not coming, is he?”

I shook my head. “He had to help a friend.”

“A better friend than you, obviously.”

“Thanks, Mom. That helps.”

She got up from the couch and stretched. “I'm just saying.”

• • •

Obviously I couldn't rely on Joey to sit for me, so now I had to think of something else for the contest. But what? Something to do with rain. I pressed my palms against my face.
Think!

Mr. Stewart wanted me to paint something from my innermost self, something that showed my pain. Maybe he was right, but what did that have to do with rain?

And then I had an idea. I could paint my greatest fear. My dad living in prison. My dad in a prison jumpsuit, getting the crap beat out of him. While rain poured down from a black sky.

I looked on the Internet for pictures of prison yards. Seeing the real thing would have been better, but I had to make do.

I painted all evening and well into the night. Concrete walls and chain-link fences. Barbed wire, brick, and spurts of green grass. A single tree blooming with pale pink flowers. An overcast sky, a gauzy film of rain covering the entire scene.

But when it came time to paint my dad, I didn't know what to do, where to start. Maybe I was just tired, but I couldn't bring myself to show him with blood on his face. I didn't want to paint him in pain.

So I left it the way it was. An empty prison yard, the only movement the slant of the falling rain.

I rinsed my paintbrushes in the sink and stepped back to look at what I'd done. Not good enough. I knew it wasn't good enough. But I had time before the deadline. I could do something else.

Sunday. My eighteenth birthday.

The first thing I did after rolling out of bed was call the jail.

“I want to schedule a visit,” I told the man on the phone.

“Your name?”

“Tera Waters.”

“And the inmate's name?”

“Tim Waters. Timothy.”

I heard him typing. “I don't have you down here as an approved visitor.”

“Are you sure?”
It shouldn't be this hard to see my dad
, I thought. “I just turned eighteen today. Maybe the computer isn't letting you see my name?”

“It shouldn't matter. How do you spell your last name?”

I spelled it out for him, heard more computer keys clacking.

“You sure you're calling the right jail? This is the Samuel L. Mast facility. Maybe he got transferred somewhere else.”

“No, I have the right jail. I'll just . . .” I bit back my frustration. “I don't know. Thank you.”

I hung up and tried to think. Today was Sunday. Charlotte Gross wouldn't be working. I called her anyway, got her voice mail.

“Uh, hi. It's Tera Waters. I turned eighteen today, so I just called the jail to make sure it was okay for me to visit my dad, and they said I wasn't even in their system, so I was wondering how that could be and what I should do. Did Dad not put me on the visitors' list? Call me when you get a chance. Thanks.”

I closed my phone and looked at the clock on my nightstand. I'd been planning to paint before I had to go to work, but now I was too worried. Why wasn't I on the list? Did Dad not want to see me? Did he blame me for everything that had happened?

• • •

I got off work at six, which left me enough time to shower and get ready for my birthday date with Joey. As I rode the bus home, I realized I hadn't told Mom that I wouldn't be home tonight. She'd been gone all day yesterday, filling out job applications, and by the time I'd gotten off work, she was asleep. She was still asleep this morning when I left for Papa Geppetto's, so I would have to tell her about my date as soon as I got home.

It was already dark by the time the bus dropped me off near the house. Charlotte Gross hadn't returned my call, so I had no idea what was going on with the jail not letting me visit. I tried to push the worry from my mind. Joey would be picking me up soon.

I came in through the kitchen, surprised to hear “New Year's Day” blasting from a CD player on the counter. My mom's favorite song.

She didn't hear me come in. She had her back to me, cracking eggs into a mixing bowl. I almost didn't recognize her. She wore dress pants and a nice blouse. Her hair was in a French braid.

I laid my purse on the counter. “Mom?”

Her shoulders jerked and she almost dropped her wooden spoon. She turned, and for a second I thought she wanted to hug me. Instead she reached behind me to turn down the CD player.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“What's it look like I'm doing? I'm baking you a cake.” Her smile looked pasted on. “Did you forget it's your birthday?”

“No.” I gripped my elbows. “But I thought
you
forgot.”

“Well, that's stupid.”

“Mom, this is nice and everything, but I'm going out.” I bit my lip, seeing the way her face fell. “With Joey.”

“Oh.” Her shoulders slumped.

“Sorry. I should have told you earlier.”

She laid down the spoon, then changed her mind and picked it up again. Her elbow jabbed the air as she whipped the batter. A few seconds of that and she'd be worn out.

“We have an electric mixer.”

“I like doing it this way.”

“Do you need help?”

“Why would I need help? This is
my
job.”

“Oh.” I made myself smile. “So any luck with the job hunting?”

“Please don't ask me that. I'll let you know if I find something.”

I turned to go, but her voice stopped me. “Why don't you stay home tonight? Birthdays should be family time.”

I was shaking my head before she got the words out. “No, Mom.”

The spoon banged against the sides of the bowl. “He can have dinner with us. I got a pizza. DiGiorno. We can eat on the couch and watch a movie.”

“Joey's taking me to dinner. He made a reservation and everything.” I had no idea whether he'd made a reservation, but it sounded good.

She stopped stirring and bit her lip.

“Maybe next time, okay?”

She nodded.

“Thanks for making me a cake. Thanks for remembering.”

I left her standing by the oven, staring at the empty cake box with watery eyes. It was hard to feel sorry for her, but I did. A little.

An hour later—showered, dressed, and sprayed with Viva La Juicy—I had time to kill before Joey came, so I kept busy by cleaning up Mom's baking mess. I was careful not to splash water on my outfit, a black miniskirt and black tights. On top I wore a gray-blue sweater that Ian had once told me looked good on me.

Mom watched me from the kitchen table. The unfrosted cake sat on a plate in front of her. “You look nice,” she said.

High praise coming from her. She wouldn't be saying that if she could see underneath. Not a red bra this time, but lacy black.

Mom turned the cake plate around and around, examining the crooked layers.

“It smells good,” I offered.

She sighed through her nose. “I forgot the candles.”

“Next year.” I shut off the water and grabbed a towel from the drawer.

“When's he getting here?”

“Eight or eight-thirty.”

“Can't he pick a time and stick to it?”