A Work of Art (2 page)

Mom made a choking sound from the window. We all ignored her.

“At comic-book conventions,” Dad added. “Not in the real world.”

“Well, you know the saying,” said Mr. Stewart. “Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach.”

“Or starve,” Dad said. “I did plenty of time as a starving artist.”

Mr. Stewart shook his head like he didn't quite believe that. “And now you're sending your daughter to Paris. To what is arguably the best art institute in the world.”

“It
is
the best. I read it on their website.”

They both laughed. At least
something
was going well. Dad and Mr. Stewart chatted, and Mom paced in front of the window like a prisoner in a jail cell. Mr. Stewart was polite enough to pretend he didn't notice.

“Dad,” I said. “Why don't you take Mr. Stewart to the living room while I get those paintings.” I gave him a look and flicked my eyes toward Mom.

Dad took the hint. He led Mr. Stewart to the couch. I could still see them from the kitchen, but at least they weren't in the same room with Mom.

I squeezed her arm. “I'll hurry.”

Her eyes were locked on the window. “It's too late.”

Too late? I finally followed her gaze to see what in the world was so fascinating.

And that's when the first police car turned down the driveway.

Another police car pulled in behind the first, then a third.

Three cop cars for one house. For
my
house.

“Mom?” I tried to sound casual, but my voice was too high. “Why are the cops here?”

And just like that, conversation in the living room stopped. Dad poked his head over the counter that divided the two rooms, a meerkat sensing danger. “What's going on?” he asked.

Mom must have known they were coming, but she didn't answer. Whatever it was, it couldn't be good. Not with three police cars.

Voices from the porch, then a pounding on the door. Dad's head disappeared behind the counter. Mom didn't move.

“You want me to answer it?” I heard my voice, and it sounded so calm. Maybe because Mr. Stewart was sitting on the couch, watching the whole thing. If I acted like nothing was wrong, nothing would
be
wrong.

I crossed the room in silence. Everything felt hazy, like walking in a dream. The hand opening the door seemed like someone else's hand.

And then the door swung wide, and the world became sharp and real. A black man and a pretty white woman stood frowning at me from the doorway. The woman held up the badge that hung around her neck. “I'm Agent Caine. This is Officer Jenks.” She gazed past me, into the living room. “Are your parents home?”

“Um.” I turned back to the living room, saw a blur of staring faces. “They're right here.”

Dad rose from the couch. Smiling. But I saw how his neck tightened, his arms hanging like dead limbs. “Can we take this outside?” His voice polite. Friendly. Nothing in the world to worry about.

“No, we can't,” Caine said. “You're Timothy Waters?”

Dad's eyes swept the room, like maybe one of us might swap identities with him. Mom had backed herself into a corner, her knuckles pressed to her lips. Mr. Stewart sat rigid on the couch, fingers digging into his knees. I still gripped the doorknob, my feet glued to the carpet.

“Yes, I'm Tim Waters.” He cleared his throat. “What's this about?”

Caine pulled a document from her jacket pocket and handed it to my dad like she was dealing him a card. “It's a warrant,” she told him. “We're searching the house.”

Dad stared at the warrant, his face pale. Caine and Jenks stepped aside as three more uniformed cops brushed past me. They talked to each other in low voices as they pulled on latex gloves.

I gripped the door, solid beneath my hands. Real. This was real.

A warrant meant they were looking for something. But what? Drugs? The only drugs I'd ever seen were the legal kind, the ones for Mom's depression and anxiety. Did Dad steal something? I couldn't imagine what, since he hardly left the house. And it wasn't like we were rich.

“Mom, what's going on? What are they looking for?”

She swallowed, turned her head the other way.

“Dad, what does the warrant say?”

His shoulders tensed, but he didn't answer.

I let go of the door, took a stumbling step toward the closest cop. My eyes found his badge.
Jenks.

“Please.” I heard the fear in my own voice. “What are you searching for?”

He didn't look at me either.

Caine pointed at two of the cops. “Go search the bedrooms,” she told them. When they disappeared down the hallway, she turned to Dad. “Where's your office, Mr. Waters?”

Dad said nothing.

Caine's eyelids fluttered, annoyed. Her eyes darted past Mr. Stewart on the couch, landed on my mom, still in the corner. “Ma'am?”

Mom seemed ready to talk, her first words since they arrived. “His studio is downstairs,” she said. “In the basement.”

And suddenly I knew what was happening. Mom had called the cops to get Dad in trouble. That was why she wouldn't look at me. She had probably planted something in his studio.

I cleared my throat. “Wait! If my mom called you here, it was a mistake. Tell them, Dad.”

Dad shot me a look. Gratitude? Hope? “She's right. My wife's off her meds. She doesn't think straight when she's off her meds.”

Caine gave a faint smile. She didn't believe us.

“Mom, tell them it's a mistake.” If she told them now, this could all go away. But her lips stayed pressed together. She wasn't talking anymore.

When Mr. Stewart cleared his throat from the couch, it suddenly hit me that he was
here
, seeing this. Shame fell over me like a black sheet.

“Tera,” he said. “You should sit down. Wait for it to be over.”

I pretended not to hear. I didn't want to sit and wait. I had to do something.

I lurched toward my dad, but Jenks blocked my way with his arm. Stop.

“Why?” I pleaded. “Why can't I go to him?”

Then one of the cops searching the bedrooms came tromping back with my green laptop under his arm.

“What'd you find?” Caine asked.

“Just a laptop. I think it's the girl's.”

It
was
mine. I reached out, knowing it was useless. “What are you doing with it?”

No one answered me. The cop with my laptop started opening kitchen drawers. Another cop searched the antique desk in the hallway where my parents kept important papers. I heard voices from Dad's studio, things being moved around. Then silence. The silence went on for a long time. Jenks gave a questioning look to Caine. She shrugged.

The two cops searching my dad's studio came stomping back up the stairs. One of them carried the hard drive from Dad's computer. The other had a sheaf of sketches thrown into a cracked leather binder. Dad hated when his drawings got creased, but his head was down, so he didn't see. He didn't see the crumpled drawing on top.

The sketch I had wadded into a ball not ten minutes ago. The sketch of the naked girl. They thought Dad drew it. They thought he was some kind of perv.

Jenks stepped around me. The next thing I knew, Dad's arms were being wrenched behind his back. I saw his face as the handcuffs snapped around his wrists. Eyes squeezed shut, lips pinched tight.

“Timothy Waters,” said Jenks. “You are under arrest for possession of child pornography.”

What?

My vision zoomed out, and for a split second, I saw my dad the way a stranger might—a creepy, sullen-faced thug who deserved what he got. But this was my
dad
, and he didn't deserve this.
I
was the one who drew the naked girl, not him.

I reached out a hand. “Wait a minute!” But when Caine looked at me, my throat closed up. The old secret clawed at my gut. If I said something, they'd know. I threw the photo out years ago because I didn't want anyone to see it. But maybe the digital file still haunted Dad's hard drive. Was that why they took his computer?

I finally found my voice. “You can't do this!”

Jenks gripped Dad by his elbows and led him toward the door. Dad stumbled like a sleepwalker.

“Mom, tell them!”

Still, she wouldn't look at me. No one looked at me.

“Please!” I cried. “He didn't do anything!”

They were out the door. I stumbled after them, squinting in the bright sunlight. Dad's feet got tangled on the porch steps. I couldn't help him, but I reached out anyway.

And that's when I saw Haley across the street. Watching.

Our eyes met as she tossed a lock of dark, waist-long hair over her shoulder. I felt myself shrink into a tiny speck. If the wind blew, it could carry me away.

Dad craned his neck to look at me. Scared. Not the Dad I knew. “Go back inside,” he told me.

I didn't go back inside, though, even when he kept stumbling and the cops had to help him down the driveway. I watched his humiliation. Because turning my head felt too much like abandoning him.

Sunlight brightened the kitchen table where Tera sat waiting with her paper and crayons. Her dad put his leather bag on the floor and sat beside her. He smelled like paint. Better than her mom's flowers.

She opened her drawing pad and held it to her nose. Paper was another good smell.

Her dad was shaking his head. “That cheapo paper is for kindergarteners.”

“But I'm in kindergarten.” Maybe he forgot how big she was.

“Not today you're not. Today you're an artist.”

He reached into his leather bag, the one he carried with him everywhere, and slid out a thick pad of paper. This was the special paper, the stuff she wasn't allowed to borrow when she wanted to draw horses. She leaned in closer as he opened the pad. He flipped through drawings of all kinds of things—trees with kites stuck in them, men with swords, monsters with sharp teeth. All of them so good. She'd never be that good.

He stopped flipping pages when the drawings ran out and all that was left was blank paper. His hand slapped down on a page of clean white. “What do you see?”

At first she didn't see anything, but she leaned closer, just to make sure. That's when she noticed how the paper wasn't really white. Up close she saw gray and red and blue threads, all tight and mashed together.

“It looks dirty,” she said.

“Not dirty, but not pure either. That's your blank slate.
Tabula rasa.”
He smoothed his big hand over the paper. Took her hand and did the same. “Feel that?”

“It's bumpy.”

“Right. That's real life. This is what you draw on. Those little bumps give your drawing texture.”

She didn't know what texture was, but that didn't matter. He was sitting here next to her, teaching her stuff. She pulled her box of crayons closer.

“No crayons. Not today. Use this.” He handed her a pencil. Not a fat pencil with an eraser, but a thin one with a flat top and a point that looked sharp enough to cut.

“What if I mess up?”

“No big deal. Artists learn from their mistakes.”

“They do?”

“And disguise them sometimes. Do you know what that means?”

“They hide them.”

“Right. Or turn them into something else.”

“So no eraser?”

“Erasers are for babies.”

Could that be true? She saw lots of grownups with erasers.

He tore a sheet from the pad. “Today I'll use the tear-out sheet. You draw in the sketchpad.”

He slid the pad of special paper over so it was right there in front of her. That made her feel proud, like maybe it was hers, not his.

“Now, when you're drawing a face, you want to get the proportions right—unless you're Pablo Picasso.” He smiled, and she smiled, too. Because her dad made a joke and Pablo Picasso was someone important.

She watched him draw an oval on the paper, watched him cut the oval into four pieces with a cross.

“This is where you put the eyes.” He pointed to the top pieces of the cross. “This is where the nose goes, and this is for the mouth.”

She drew an oval on the sketchpad, making sure to get it right. Then she drew a cross on it.

Already he was filling in his oval with eyes, the beginning lines for a nose, a slit where the mouth would be.

“I started learning by drawing myself,” he told her. “That's a good way for you to learn, too.”

“You want me to draw
me
?”

“I love to draw you.”

His hand moved over the page, making little strokes with the pencil, using his thick fingers to smudge black lines into gray. In only a few minutes, the oval with the cross turned into a face—her face. The way it looked when she saw herself in the mirror.

“That's a portrait,” he said. “And when you draw yourself, it's called a self-portrait.”

“It's good,” she said, because that's what you said when you liked what another kid was coloring. She wanted to say something else, something that would let him know how good it really was, but she didn't have the right words.

“Now you try it.” He guided her hand to the first cross section of her oval. “Right there. Draw your eyes.”

She squeezed the thin pencil, pressed the sharp tip down on the paper—too hard. The point broke off.

“Careful. Don't try so hard. Let it flow the way you think it should feel.”

She tried again. Already she could tell hers wouldn't be as good as his, but maybe he'd still be proud of her. She drew a circle for an eye and added eyelashes, then another circle for the other eye. The nose came next—easy except for the nostrils, which turned out way too big. The mouth came last. She drew a smiley face, then round circles. The circles she colored gray, for rosy cheeks.