Better Than Running at Night (13 page)

He got the bottle and shook it up and down.

"What's this all about?" I asked.

"The Melinda Cassidy Problem. I've found a solution." He unwrapped the bottle and popped the top, aiming it in the air so it sprayed us from above. We took turns drinking the remainder of the bottle's contents and went inside to rinse off.

This wasn't how I'd imagined my dad's champagne would be used. I thought it would be for the end of Wintersession, or the end of a long project. Not the Melinda Cassidy Problem.

In the steamy heat of the shower Nate told me his plan.

Instead of painting each girl in his class, he would continue to work only on Sloane Boocock. Would she be able to stand seeing three more Natesque paintings of herself without saying anything? Nate's guess was, Yes, she would put up with it. She was too much of a wimp to actually confront him. Meanwhile, he would enjoy watching her fume.

This week he'd paint her lying on a bed, in a style reminiscent of Manet's
Olympia.
Throw a little art history into the mix, he said. That's why he'd borrowed a Manet book from the library. He'd show me the picture when we got out of the shower.

"So what do you think?" he asked.

"Sounds
brilliant.
"

"That didn't sound convincing."

"No, it's a good plan." Control the sarcasm, I told myself.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I said. "I guess I'm just tired or something."

I kept picturing his wall of Clarissas, and wondered if he'd start a new wall for Sloane. He kissed me long and hard. My face backed away as his lips pressed against mine.

"Let's get out of here," he said, hugging me so tight that there was suction between our bodies. "Do you happen to know a place where a guy can find a warm bed and a hot woman round these parts?"

I rested the knob on cold before shutting off the spray.

"What did you have to do that for!" he said as the water hit his back.

"I like the shock of the temperature change."

I followed his lead to the land of dryness.

I was going to do a good job on this color project, even if it meant staying in the Garage until Ed fluttered in the next morning. And anyway, Nate had warned me that he'd have to work on his homework for the rest of the week. I wondered if he'd actually be able to pull off
Sloanolympia.
Part of me wanted it to turn out badly.

It was around ten
P.M.,
and Ralph must've finished early because it was just me and Sam. And Sam's empty Dunkin' Donuts bag.

A small tinny rhythmic sound escaped through Sam's headphones.

Our new 2-D assignment was to take our magnified drawings and redo them in complementary colors with gouache. The final images had to express an emotion.

I asked Sam what his was.

"Psychedelic," he said, removing his headphones.

Blue and orange ovals and elongated triangles spiraled around Sam's paper.

It seemed to me that "psychedelic" wasn't an emotion. Or at least not what Ed had in mind. But I had to hand it to him; I couldn't think of a more appropriate word to describe his painting.

"Mine's claustrophobia," I told him. It was embarrassing to say out loud; I'd always thought that art should speak for itself.

I had set it up so the center segments of the pinecone were red, while the outer ones were green.

"Cool," he said, turning his piece so he could view it from different angles.

"You think so?"

"Sure. Just about any state of mind that ends with 'ia' is cool. Claustrophobia, paranoia," he said, sneaking a glance at me from under his droopy hat, "psychedelia."

"That's not a state of mind, is it?"

"Yeah." He let out a goofy chuckle. "No. Maybe not, but at least it sounds cool."

The next day I was late for dinner, so I went to the Grind. The difference between the Grind and the dining hall is that the dining hall at least offers you the choice of being healthy; your only choice at the Grind is deep-fried chicken-filled grease.

I sat in my bouncy red booth, chowing on chicken fingers and fries, sketching after-hours diners. The green walls were lit by incandescent bulbs behind hubcaps.

Behind me sat a couple of girls, heavily involved in a hushed conversation. They leaned close over the Formica table. If I sat all the way back against my seat, I could hear bits of what they were saying.

"No way!" and "Then what?" was all I heard at first. But after a while they weren't so careful to keep quiet. From my strategic position, everything was clear with minimal ear straining.

"What did it feel like?" one of them asked.

"It was reeeeeally good," the other said.

"Really good is not an answer. You know me. I need details. What did it feel like?"

"It was like ... a bowling ball!"

"What do you mean, a bowling ball?" The way she was giggling I knew she could only be talking about one thing.

"I mean, it was huge. And it came bursting out from within me like a bowling ball hitting all the pins at full speed."

"Wow, no one's ever given it to me that good."

A bowling ball.

Nothing I'd experienced with Nate had anything to do with any type of ball, let alone a bowling ball. If the second girl had never had it as good as a bowling ball, maybe she'd at least had it as good as a baseball or tennis ball. Perhaps even golf or Ping-Pong.

I wondered if Nate would understand. I didn't plan on asking him, though.

He might discover I'm not such a natural after all.

Ed stood on the modeling stand and shouted, "Everybody! I have an announcement! Are you ready?"

"Yes," I said. I was the only one to answer.

"Ralph, Sam, are you ready, too?"

"Yes, Ed," Ralph said lazily.

"Uh-huh." Sam raised the brim of his cap just enough to see Ed.

"Well, I guess we're all ready then! First of all, I'm sorry to do this, but I'm going to have to start my weekend early today. I'll be leaving shortly to take care of some business at home."

The three of us shot excited looks at each other.

"I'm glad to see you'll miss me!" he shouted. "Since I won't be here, I want you to start thinking about your next assignment. Get some sketches together in the next couple of days and I'll lecture on Monday. Everybody, we have reached the final phase of our Foundation fun! Do you know what that means?"

"Two more weeks?" Ralph guessed.

"One more try!" Ed shouted.

"Three-D?" I asked.

"And the refrigerator goes to Ellie Yelinsky!" Ed shouted in his
game-show-host voice. "Now, for your final projects, I want you to create a three-dimensional space. But this space has to be in the shape of an object that is not usually considered a space! Doesn't that sound like a challenge?"

"So, you mean we can't make a cave?" Ralph asked.

"You've got it, Ralph!"

"Can it be something from nature?"

"Ralph, as long as you don't normally think of it as a space, you can make it!"

"Can it be big?" Ralph asked.

"It's all up to you!" Ed shouted. "Just bring me sketches next week and I'll discuss them with you individually on Monday!"

He hopped down off the modeling stand.

"Okay, unless anybody else has questions, I'll be going! Like I said before, I'm terribly terribly sorry to be taking time away from you. I'll stay after class next week if anybody needs my assistance."

He scurried around, collecting his coat, portfolio case, and bag of supplies, and zipped out the door.

"So long, Ellie! So long, Sam! So long, Ralph! See you next week!" he shouted.

"Bye," we said in unison.

"That guy's actually starting to grow on me," Ralph said.

"What do you think he has to do?" I asked.

"Maybe there's something wrong with his wife," Ralph said.

"Is he married?" I asked.

"I don't know," Ralph said.

"Do you think he's gay?"

"Absolutely not," Ralph said. "My gaydar hasn't picked up anything."

"Do you think he even has a girlfriend?"

"No way," Sam said.

"Why not?" I asked. "You said that so emphatically."

"You think any girl could put up with that much energy?"

Ralph and I laughed.

"Yeah," Ralph said, "I can see it. Sure, honey, I'll go to bed with you, but only if you hold still for five minutes."

"Not that I even
want
to picture that," I said, "but I can't imagine he lies down to sleep, let alone to sleep
with
someone!"

"No kidding," said Ralph, in hysterics. "He'd wear
me
out!"

That night I asked Nate how the crit went.

We stood in the center of his room, looking at his paintings. The fire hydrants had been pushed against the walls. As usual, there was a party going on inside his radiator.

Nate said that his teacher, Fritz, had expressed his admiration for both Nate's and Sloane's maturity in the matter, and for acting so professional. The Manet reference was impressive. He even complimented Sloane on her pose.

Instead of protesting that she'd had nothing to do with it,
Sloane thanked him and said she'd been working on it. Posing makes her identify better with models in class.

"Can you believe the nerve of that ho?" Nate demanded, kicking a fire hydrant head into the kitchen. "She shouldn't get credit for my stunt! Plus, I think she's actually beginning to like the attention! I'll have to throw in a real shocker next time."

I couldn't take my eyes off a picture on his wall of him and Clarissa with her half-and-half hairdo.

I wanted to ask him if Clarissa knew about this project. If she knew about me. What she thought about the situation, if she did.

But the questions couldn't escape my lips.

I felt as if right outside my mouth was one of those sharp toothy devices that they have on the ground at parking garage booths. You can drive over them, but if you back up, your tires pop. That's what would've happened to my words; once they came out they would have to keep rolling forward.

We both stood there, staring at his two paintings of Sloane.

Ask him now, I thought. Now, while we're not in bed.

But I didn't. Pretending that I didn't have questions, that I didn't care if I was just another fling for him, was easier than dealing with a direct answer. Because hearing his answer might mean letting go of a warm body in the winter, of fingers in my hair, of a rib cage tattoo. And the thrill of running at night, knowing that someone in the place I just left was wanting me.

Sunday afternoon I went to the Garage to work on sketches for my 3-D assignment. Sam was there, too, hat pulled over his headphones and a bag of Dunkin' Donuts on his desk. I bet Sam would reach his freshman fifteen by the end of Wintersession.

I started sketching from
Human Anatomy for Artists,
since I couldn't come up with any ideas for the project.

Plus, maybe the book would say something about the Bowling Ball Phenomenon.

I had left Nate's on Friday feeling bad. Neither of us felt like talking, for some reason. We didn't talk or see each other all of Saturday, either. I decided I wasn't going to call him first. I didn't want to talk to him until he was less distracted. Until his project was under control.

But that's not to say I wasn't checking my answering machine for messages. Every half hour or so that night I'd go outside the Garage to the pay phone. Just in case. And each time, the electronic lady greeted me with the ever dreaded, "Hello, you have no new messages."

Around seven o'clock I guessed he had given up on me. Well, good. He'd been taking up too much of my time anyway.

I went back to the Garage.

Sam was sitting backwards on his stool, arms folded and hanging over the chair back, feet planted on the rungs. His headphones hung around his neck and he was looking at the floor.

"What are you doing?" I asked him.

"I'm in my chill space," he said, still staring ahead.

"Your chill space?"

"Yeah."