Hard to Get (13 page)

The little pep talk helped immensely and I stepped from the Saab with renewed
confidence. Today, I was going to project just the right air—polite, distant, and cool. Like an ice queen. I kept the image of the purple dress firmly fixed in my mind as a detriment. I rounded the corner and saw Adam up on his ladder. A steaming cup of chai sat on the ground next to him.

“Hey,” I said.

Adam turned around. “Hey. Glad you came back. I thought you might be at
home, you know, with your eyes all squished up.”

I couldn't help laughing a little. “Yeah, well, luckily for you I'm not. But I can't drink that, okay?” I indicated the chai and stared him right in the eyes so he couldn't miss my meaning.

The corners of Adam's mouth twitched. He climbed down from the ladder and picked up the cup. “That's too bad,” he said slowly, bringing it to his nose and inhaling the fragrant aroma. “But it would be even worse if it was for you in the first place.” He tilted the cup to his lips and took a sip, watching me over the top.

“Oh!” I blinked. “Er, that's cool. I just thought—,” I stuttered. Then I looked up. He was still watching me, his face bland,
but I caught the crinkles around his eyes. “Wait a minute …”

He laughed and thrust the warm, heavy cup into my hands. “Of course it's for you. I really don't want you to swell up like a bullfrog, but I figured you could handle a chai. I promise you won't regret it.”

The steam rising from the milky tea was scented with cardamom and ginger. “Mmm,” I murmured involuntarily. I took a little sip. Sweet, creamy, and spicy. I couldn't help smiling and Adam smiled back, a basic friendly smile. Maybe I was being too strict. I mean, a chai could be just a chai. “Thanks.” I took another sip.

He picked up a large tube of dandelion yellow and squirted some into a bucket. “No problem. It's the least I can do since you're helping me.” He trickled in a thin stream of white, stirring with a flat stick.

There. He said it himself. It was like a trade. Chai for painting. No GNBP violation at all. I relaxed and picked up my friend the roller, which was sitting head down in a water tub. “What am I doing, more of this red?”

Adam glanced up from his bucket. He was squeezing in orange from a tiny bottle
drop by drop. “Yeah, that would be great. Hey, check out this shade.” He tilted the bucket in my direction. “You think this would be good for the outer petals?”

I craned my neck. The paint inside was now a creamy yellow. “Isn't it kind of lighter than in the drawing?” I pointed to the large sheet of paper spread on the ground, its corners weighed down with rocks.

He stared at the paint and nodded slowly. “Yeah, I think you're right. But what if I just …” He dribbled in a minute bit of red and two drops of purple and stirred again. Now the paint was the vibrant, bold yellow of buttercups.

“Perfect,” I told him. I pried the top off a can of red and stirred it with a flat wooden stick. Then I carefully tipped some into a tray. Adam climbed up on his ladder, carrying the bucket with him, and began dotting yellow over yesterday's blue.

I dipped my roller in the paint. “I like the dots,” I said,
ziiipp
ing the roller up and down the brick again.

“Hey, thanks,” he said. “I wasn't sure it was a good idea, but yeah, I like it now too.” He leaned back on his ladder to admire his work. I continued rolling.
Ziiip. Ziiip.
The basketball kids weren't around today, but the mourning dove was back, calling thoughtfully from his branch every now and then. A long, low Cadillac with tinted windows passed by, bass vibrating the undercarriage. I reached the end of the wall and started rolling my way back. I glanced up at Adam. He was still intent on his dots, his face about three inches from the wall.

“So what's the story with you?” I asked. “Are you going to college in the fall, or what?”

Adam blinked and looked down at me almost as if he'd forgotten I was there. “What?”

I raised my voice. “
Are you going to college in the fall?
You're a senior, right?”

He cleared his throat. “Yeah, I am.” He coughed a little. “I'm not exactly going to college, though.”

I looked up at him. He was back to the dots, but this time, it seemed like more of a way to avoid my eyes.

“Aren't you graduating?”

He nodded, still dotting. “I am. It's just that … I don't know, I didn't feel like I'd learn what I wanted at college. So I'm apprenticing with a sculptor in Maine instead.”

“Really?” I paused my rolling momentarily. “Are your parents cool with that?”

He shrugged. “Now they are. It took a while for them to get used to the idea. And this guy's studio is, like, way out in the woods. They're kind of worried I'm going to get eaten by a bear or something.” He glanced down at me. “I got into college, you know. I was accepted at North City Art Academy. I don't want you to think I'm some kind of slacker or something.”

I shook my head. “I don't. Why would I think that? Just because you're not going to college?”

“Well, that's how most people act when I tell them.”

“They're just stupid, then. It's not like you're saying you're going to hang out at the beach your whole life or something,” I told him. “I'd never have the nerve to just go off and do something like that. It's going to be just the usual for me—graduation, college, job—even if I
wanted
to do something else.”

He smiled down at me. “Maybe you should try it sometime.” Then, from his high perch, he looked over toward the street. “Hey, isn't that your friend who was in here before?” He pointed with his brush.

“What?” I followed his arm. Becca and Kelly were emerging from a familiar red car pulled up at the curb, pushing their sunglasses up on their heads and looking around. I felt a little surge of irritation. What were they doing, checking up on me? I saw Kelly point to the wooden sign out front and say something to Becca, who nodded. They hadn't seen us around the corner yet. As I watched, they went up the steps and disappeared through the front door.

“I don't even know what they're doing here,” I told Adam.

“Maybe they wanted some coffee,” he suggested mildly.

I bit my cheek. The last thing I wanted was Adam to get suspicious about my motives for hanging out with him. “Yeah, of course,” I agreed.

I wasn't surprised to hear the crunch of shoes on gravel a few minutes later. “Hi, Val!” I heard Becca call out. I turned around casually. She and Kelly were standing a few feet away, both holding steaming cups, their eyes darting around the scene rapidly, taking in the half-painted wall, the brushes, paint cans, buckets, and tarps spread out all over the scrubby grass. “Kelly just had such
a craving for a hazelnut latte, so I brought her over,” she said brightly. “We saw your, ah,
boss
inside. Sarah, right? She's really pretty. And we wanted to say hi to you too, of course.”

I rolled my eyes. “Of course. Hi.”

Adam climbed down from the ladder. His hair was splattered lightly with white paint. “Hey. I'm Adam.” He stuck out his hand to Kelly and smiled. “Did you guys come to help paint?”

“No, they were just getting coffee and then they're leaving,” I broke in, staring pointedly at their innocent faces. “Right, guys?”

“Of course, Val,” Becca soothed. She looked over at Adam. “She's so high-strung, isn't she? It's great she's doing this project with you—it's just the break she needs.”

Adam nodded agreeably. “Sure, it's great.”

“Hello?” I waved my arms. “I'm standing right here. I can actually hear everything you're saying.”

“Okay, okay, we're going,” Kelly said. She took a last appraising glance around, then shot me a smirky smile. “Don't work too hard, Val.” She grinned. “Don't forget
to have some fun too.” She mouthed
purple dress
at me.

I shook my head slightly and pointed at my ears, then gave her a closed-mouth little smile. “Bye. See you guys later.”

“Later!” they trilled and crunched away. A minute later, the Beemer engine fired up and roared away.

I furiously rolled paint onto the wall for a moment. Didn't I have enough going on without those two creeping around and spying on me? I rolled my way to the end of the wall and, with my irritation as momentum, followed the roller right off the corner. I stumbled and caught my balance, just avoiding being impaled by the handle. “Whoops!”

“Are you okay?” Adam looked over.

“Yeah.” I set the roller down in a paint tray. “I'm going to take a break for a minute.”

Adam laid down his brush. “Me too. Are you hungry?”

“N—,” I started to say before I realized that my stomach was rumbling. “What are you, a closet psychic? I'm starving.”

“Cool. I know a great place for sandwiches.” He guided me around the corner of the building. “Here's my car,” he said.

I looked around. The street was empty except for a fire hydrant and a junked sedan at the curb a few buildings down. “Where?” I asked.

“There.” He pointed to the sedan.

“
That's
your car?” I walked over. It was a gray Volvo—or had been at one time. The entire bottom half was covered in rust. Both bumpers were gone, and the roof consisted of a piece of heavy plastic tied down with rope. I peered in the window with difficulty, since it was covered in a layer of sticky dust. Most of the upholstery was gone from the seats, so the foam innards boiled up like mad popcorn. I straightened up. “So what do we do—carry it to the sandwich place on our shoulders?”

Adam grinned. “Yeah, it's a little beat-up. It was my brother's and he kept saying he was going to fix it up, but then he went to college. Now
I
keep saying I'm going to fix it up.”

I laughed and wrestled for a minute with the passenger door. Finally it opened with a protesting squeal and I climbed in, fitting my feet in among the pop cans, paintbrushes, newspapers, and CD cases that covered the floor.

Adam turned the ignition and pulled away from the curb. A screech rose from the engine, immediately followed by a scraping so deafening I had to consciously restrain myself from covering my ears. I pressed myself against the seat. Adam must have noticed the grimace on my face because he grinned apologetically and said something incomprehensible.

“What?”
I almost yelled.

We bumped over a manhole cover and the scraping mercifully stopped. I shook my head to clear the ringing in my ears.

“Sorry about that,” Adam said, now that I could actually hear him. “My tailpipe's broken. It drags on the pavement from time to time. I have to get it fixed.”

“Or you could just go deaf,” I suggested.

“That's also a possibility. I'm just weighing my options right now.” He pulled up in front of a little store with weaver st. co-op painted in yellow lettering on the front window, surrounded by swirls and starbursts in blue, green, and red. A bell tinkled overhead as we pushed through the door.

Bins of bulk beans and grains lined the walls, and the few aisles were stacked with bags of dried fruit, nuts, organic pancake
mix, and cartons of soy milk. Adam led the way to a few small tables at the back. “The veggie Reuben is amazing,” he told me.

“Oh yeah, I'm not surprised,” I said, looking at him sideways.

“About what?” He pulled out a wobbly cane-back chair for me.

“Nothing,” I said airily. “It's just that I have you pegged. Vegetarian, right?”

He rolled his eyes. “Thanks. I love it when people make random assumptions about me. For your information, I
was
a vegetarian for a couple of years. But I cheated with a bacon cheeseburger. It was all over after that.” He shot this last over his shoulder as he spoke to a shaggy-haired guy behind a little counter, returning a few minutes later with toasted rye bread stacked high with grilled, sliced tofu, sauerkraut, and swiss cheese.

“You know, I wasn't just making a random assumption,” I said as he set a plate down in front of me. “A lot of, um, art students are vegetarians.”

Adam sat down across from me and took a huge bite of his sandwich. “You mean crunchy-granola types, right?” His cheeks were distended as he chewed. He swallowed with difficulty.

“Well …” I took a bite of my own sandwich to save myself from answering, losing half the sauerkraut in the process.

“You may not be aware of this, but people are not always what they seem,” Adam said, watching me scrape up sauerkraut with my fingers.

I snorted. “Yeah. I learned that particular lesson earlier this year.” I mopped up the Thousand Island dressing dripping down my chin.

Adam handed me a stack of napkins. “Would you like a bib? They keep them reserved for only the messiest eaters.”

“Hey, I'm trying my best here.” Some tofu fell onto my plate. “This sandwich is giving me a hard time.”

He nodded. “They've been known to do that.” He stuffed the rest of his own sandwich into his mouth. “So what did you mean, you learned that lesson earlier this year?”

I hesitated, then shrugged. If he was apparently the last person in school who didn't know about Dave and me, why deny him a little laugh at my expense? “Do you know Dave Strauss?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“Junior? Tall, brown hair? Basketball forward?”

His face remained blank. “I've never heard of this guy. Did you guys go out or something?”

I resisted the temptation to ask if he'd been living on the moon for the last month. But perhaps assuming that everyone in school knew about my guy problems was just a tad conceited. I looked down at my plate, where a mangled crust of rye bread was sitting alone. “Something like that. It didn't work out, though. Apparently he prefers Strawberry Princess pageant contestants.”