Better Than Running at Night (3 page)

"You don't have to say anything."

"Are you done?" I pointed at the spaghetti mound in the bottom of the pot.

"Couldn't be more done!" He patted his belly. It made a hollow popping sound.

I got up to bring the pot and forks to the sink, but he stood and pushed me back down by my shoulders. "No, allow me," he said.

The wine had made me sleepy. I brought my glass to my bed. Walking made me lightheaded. Seated on the floor, I hadn't noticed that I was getting drunk.

The sink splashed and the pot bonged each time it hit the faucet.

When Nate finished washing, he flipped off all the lights except my bedside lamp. I had finished my wine and was lying on my side. He lay down, mirroring my position.

His hand ran over my face a few times from top to bottom. Then he kissed the tip of my nose. He dragged his fingers in tiny circles on my neck.

Goosebumps rose on that side of my body.

Nate reached behind him and switched off the lamp.

Before my eyes adjusted to the dark, he was like an invisible phantom stroking my skin.

I massaged his scalp beneath fistfuls of hair and our faces got closer. He put his cheek against mine. Then he moved his face lower so his forehead was in my eye socket. And his eye socket cradled my cheek. My zygoma.

"This fits," he said.

He was right; it felt like our faces were meant to be attached in precisely this manner.

I couldn't get his father's death out of my mind.

In my drunken state, Nate's pain seemed tangible, like I might be able to actually rub it out of his skin into a ball and throw it through the window. It would be easy; the window was just above my head.

But heavy sleep made my fingers forget, and my hand fell on his chest.

A little later, when it was still dark, I woke up remembering that I had been on a mission. Both his hands were clasping mine. I don't think I moved, but he must've sensed that I was awake because he started whispering to me.

"I dig you, Ellie Yelinsky," he said, so softly I barely heard it.

I nodded.

"I dig you too, Nate Finerman," I said back to him. I had never used the word
dig
like that.

I was tempted to write down what we talked about because I knew I'd forget everything in the morning except his lips moving against my ear.

He squeezed my hand against his chest so hard I could feel his heart pounding, like it wanted out.

I wished we could've stayed like that forever: on the border of sleep and sunrise, not quite making sense and a little dizzy.

But it would've been awkward if I had stopped him from putting the moves on me.

"Do you want any coffee?" I asked him the next day.

He was sitting on the edge of my bed, holding his head. His hair was flat on one side.

"Please. Regular." He nodded his head without raising it and left it heavy in his palms, pushing his elbows into his thighs.

When the coffeemaker let out its last gurgles, I went to the kitchen. From the bed, Nate watched me through the doorway. I was about to pour cream in his cup, when his head jolted and he
asked, "What are you doing!" as if I had dumped the coffee all over his face. "I said reg-u-lar."

"Exactly," I said, "cream and sugar."

"Don't you get it? Regular: nothing in it."

"In New York, regular means cream and sugar. If you want it black, just say so."

"Of course I do. None of that sweet stuff."

I apologized. I didn't feel like fighting both him and my hangover.

"That's all right," he said, laying his head back in his hands.

"Did I
unpack!
" I screamed into the receiver as soon as he picked up. I had meant to sound more reserved than that.

"You found it," he said calmly.

"What's this supposed to
mean?
"

"First: relax."

"I
am
relaxed," I said between clenched teeth.

"I just want you to try it," he said. "Try it with some new friends."

"But I don't
want
to. I'm throwing it out. Right now. It's in the garbage." I held the receiver over the wastebasket so he could hear my foot slam the pedal on the metal trash can. The baggie crinkled when it dropped.

"Great idea," he said. "Now, if the cops find it in your trash, it'll have your fingerprints all over it."

I snatched it out. "I have another idea."

"So do I," he said. "Smoke it."

I got an empty jar from my painting supplies box. It was meant for turpentine. "I'm emptying the contents of this bag into a jar," I said. "And I'm putting the jar on my spice rack." I placed it next to the oregano.

"How will you label it?"

"Poison. Do Not Use." I found a Sharpie and drew a skull and crossbones on the glass.

"Will you at least drink the champagne I gave you when you got your acceptance letter?"

"I'm saving it."

"Listen, if you don't get this out of your system now," he said, "imagine what you'll be like when you're forty."

"I can just see it," I said. "I'll be a sober, lively woman. And everyone will say, What a shame she turned out that way."

"Look," he said. "These things happen at one time or another. It's better to try it now with the rest of the kids than to end up a lone junkie. You're a girl who likes to keep to herself. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but those morbid paintings you make, and those pictures of skinned cadavers you love have me worried. And not that I liked that morose look, but you're dressing all normal now. You're trying to grow up too soon. You need some sort of release."

"Art
is
my release."

"Ellie, everyone experiments with danger at some point, and
the way I see it, the most harmless way to do it is at an early age. That way you outgrow it before it's too late."

"I'll find my own way of having fun, Dad."

"That," he said, "is exactly what I'm afraid of."

Ever since I graduated from high school, my dad kept telling me he could hook me up with some good dope. I never thought he'd actually follow through.

He never understood that I didn't get my thrills out of getting high; I got my kicks from oil paint. And not from sniffing it, just using it.

I was always painting screaming heads strangled by boa constrictors, mangled bodies pinned to bleeding walls by arrows through the heart, vultures devouring the brains out of lost souls on scorching sand.

During free periods, while other kids hung out in the cafeteria or did homework in the library, I would set up a canvas and painting supplies in an empty art room. Teachers would poke their heads in, and when they saw what I was up to they would back away slowly, as if any sudden movements would cause my picture to attack. "Why don't you ever paint anything
nice?
" they'd ask.

"Because," I'd tell them, evoking an evil smile, "I don't
think
anything nice."

But when my peers came by, they were full of compliments, full of awe. "You have the best ideas," they'd say. "It's like you can see our souls." That's exactly how I wanted them to think of me: as a painter for our generation, as a teenage soul psychic.

Once school ended, I painted at home. My dad would ask questions like, "Why a vampire?" and "Do people's faces really turn that green when they're dead?" I got sick of telling him I had artistic license to paint whatever I wanted, and that I exaggerated on purpose to heighten the sense of pain in the picture.

I started to avoid these confrontations by spending time looking at art by other people—something I hadn't done much before. I'd go to the Met and stay there for hours, copying paintings with a pencil into my sketchbook. One painting I always went back to was of a beheaded martyred saint. His head lay beside his body and a thin stream of blood spouted from his neck. This depiction of death was a little too conservative for me, but still it was fun to copy.

Christ's Descent into Hell
was more to my taste. It was painted by an unknown artist, in the style of Hieronymus Bosch, and was full of fiery scenes. This painting took me the longest to draw because of all the figures and hellish details.

One day, I thought, I'll paint an image of hell so horrifying, people will feel tortured just looking at it.

When I wasn't in the museum, I'd be at the library, copying Leonardo's drawings of cadavers. I wished I could understand his writing, but it was all in Italian and backwards. Leonardo's dead people looked so—well, dead. If only I could learn to draw like that, I thought, my paintings would be more powerful; I could show real emotion, real agony, real fear. Somehow, I needed to get practice painting realistically.

In the library I came across Ilya Repin's
Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan. A
portrayal of the Russian tyrant cradling his son and only heir after having murdered him. The gory picture was said to have made ladies faint.

But it wasn't the amount of blood gushing from the young Ivan's head wound or his father's fingers' inability to stop the leakage that frightened me. It was those eyes. The look on Ivan's face that said, "Holy shit, I just did something that can't be changed. My life will never again be what it once was."

I wanted to erase time for that man, no matter how "terrible" he was.

"Hey, cutie," a voice said when I picked up the phone. "Ready for your first day of school?"

I knew who it was without asking.

"You make it sound like I'm starting kindergarten."

"Get ready," he said, "Freshman Foundation might feel like kindergarten. Who's your teacher?"

"Ed Gilloggley."

"Ed's the best. He's such a gas. I took a drawing class with him last semester. Are you in the Garage?"

Outside, a car blasting a hip-hop beat sped by.

"You mean the Van Gogh Garage?"

"There's no other."

"Then yes."

"I'm right on your way home." His voice warmed me from the inside out.

"What are
you
starting tomorrow?"

"My job at the computer lab," he said. "I'll get to fiddle around at the main desk when nobody needs my help. You know, you
should come by sometime. After class or during lunch or something. I bet it gets lonely there."

"When do you have class?"

"Painting from Life? Second half of the week."

"You're so lucky you get to take painting."

"Sorry, honey," he said. "Freshmen have to wait a year."

"But I've been painting all my life," I sighed. "Doesn't that count for
anything?
"

"You'll play with the big boys soon enough."

"Next year
isn't
soon enough." I hoped I didn't sound too whiney.

He took a breath like he was going to say something, then stopped.

"What were you gonna say?"

"I was just thinking, I can't wait to see you again."

"Me too."

"Let's make it soon."

"Okay," I said, "Want to set a time?"

"No," he whispered. "Surprise me."

That night I sat in bed, sketching
Ivan the Terrible
from memory.

I thought back to the day I'd first seen him. I'd bought a red
T-shirt and worn it out of the store. It was the first time since fifth grade I'd owned a garment that wasn't black.

When I got home, I stormed into my room and took all my paintings off the walls. I couldn't stand looking at my work anymore, after having seen
Ivan.
My figures looked like cartoon characters in comparison. Ivan got your empathy; my paintings did nothing except beg for attention.

I put the paintings in piles and shoved them under my bed.

Then I went to the bathroom and washed off my makeup. The gray water was sucked to its doom down the drain.

Enough with painting my face; that would just take time and energy away from painting canvases. I needed to learn as much as possible before school started. The other NECAD kids were probably way ahead of me.

At dinner that night, my dad asked, "What's with the red? Are you out of mourning?"