North of Beautiful (13 page)

“There’s a glass gallery across the street,” I told him, ignoring the collective intake of offended breath from the Twisted Sisters because I referred him to our competition. “I’ll meet you over there.”

But Jacob looked entirely too amused to budge until the Terra Rose Cooper Show was over. I glared at him. His smirk widened into a grin.

It wasn’t just that I didn’t want Jacob to see me doing anything idiotic — he had already seen both me and my mom at our worst — but I didn’t want him to see my artwork. And that, I knew, was hanging up. Otherwise, why the grandma-cheerleader antics? According to Nest & Egg tradition, every debuting artist was feted with this surprise pom-pom routine, technically having been invited to see a piece of their artwork on the wall. It was a visual nudge for the new artists to finish the ten pieces required for their show. More than a couple had gotten cold feet and never delivered. I wondered now whether the idea of an encore performance with the pom-poms had simply scared them away for good.

“So, we’re waiting,” chimed Jacob, gesturing at the expectant arch of pom-poms.

I swear, Magellan didn’t have it this hard circumnavigating the world. There was no way out of this.

“Fine, fine,” I grumbled, trying to ignore Jacob snickering in the background. And then, like every other debuting artist before me, I ran under the arch of outstretched arms and shaking pom-poms, and stopped directly before my collages. Three of them were hanging on the center wall, the space of honor reserved for the headlining artist.

“What do you think?” asked Lydia softly, coming to my side. “Don’t they look gorgeous?”

They did. Framed, my collages actually looked finished. Real. More

than that, they looked like they belonged on a wall, rather than resting in hodgepodge stacks on the floor. I chanced a glance at the Twisted Sisters, wondering if they recognized their lives in these collages. But Lydia’s green eyes glinted in the gallery lights, showing nothing but maternal pride.

Anyway, how could they possibly know that hidden among the fragmented maps and artifacts like buried treasures were their stories, collected the way I did scraps of paper, car parts, sugar packets: Beth and her world travels. Lydia and her crusading causes. Mom and her kitchen accoutrements.

“Tell me now that you aren’t an artist,” Lydia said. “Tell me now that you don’t belong at art school.” When I turned toward her, she quickly conceded, “Or Williams.” Her voice turned into a muted, frustrated wail. “The school your parents want you to go to doesn’t even have a fine arts program!”

For a moment, it was hard to disagree while the Twisted Sisters stared at me expectantly, these gift givers who only wanted to deliver unbridled delight.

“Oh, you guys” was all I could manage. It was odd how much easier it was to accept my dad’s criticism than these women’s opinion, as if there were something suspect about their high regard for me and my work. Embarrassed by all the attention, I studied the exhibit poster that had been forgotten in my hands. Even though the type size of Dad’s name was the same as mine, it loomed on the page, his very presence casting a shadow on my sanctuary.

“Once your parents see this, how could they not insist you go to Williams at least?” asked Lydia.

No, if Dad saw this, how could he not ask, Is this really art?

Like a siren’s song, his seemingly innocent rhetorical questions pulled down the unwary, drowning them in self-doubt. Dad might as well have been here, holding my head steady so that I could take a good hard unflinching look at my collages. What I saw now were inane efforts at making a statement: Mom’s collage map wasn’t even done. I had chickened out of calling Magnus tohelp me with the wire. The edges of the maps I had sliced with a dull razor blade were fuzzy, because I had been too lazy to change it for a new one. Now, I wished I could recut each one of those maps, create utterly clean border lines. But they were affixed as permanently to my canvases as Dad’s dismissal was fixed inside my head.

I couldn’t divulge any of that to the Twisted Sisters. The truth felt too close to betraying Mom. Too close to admitting that my family fell far short of their own happy households, their well-adjusted and successful children. I smiled weakly and then shook my head, more firmly.

“I can’t be in the show,” I said, redrawing the boundary line back to where it belonged before my gerrymandering mentors messed with it. They were artists; I was a studio manager for artists.

Now, it was Jacob’s gaze I felt as acutely as yesterday’s laser on my cheek. Without knowing how, only just that he did, Jacob saw through the protective layers of my denials, down to my core. I didn’t like it. Not at all.

Lydia guessed, “All of us get queasy at the thought of other people looking at our art. But it’s part of being an artist — showcasing your work. Sharing your visionary statement with others.”

How could I answer with the truth? All roads leading to my insecurity shared the same starting point: Dad, the prime meridian.

“One,” I said, and spun around, my back to the collages, “the framing is better than the artwork.”

“You know that’s not true,” protested Mandy, who truly did excel in finding the right frame to best show off art.

“And two,” I continued, ignoring how my heart pounded the way it did whenever I geared myself up for an encounter with Dad, my tension building until I could skitter right out of my skin. “We’re going to witness three major temper tantrums from the other artists who aren’t going to want to share their show with an amateur.”

No one looked convinced, not the Twisted Sisters. Not Jacob.

Trapped, my face throbbed in time to my pulse. There it was, my way out of this too-intense scrutiny. So I deployed yesterday’s surgery, a menstrual-cramp type of excuse that would end all argument. And I said flatly, “My face hurts. I don’t want to talk about it anymore, okay?”

Just as I suspected, no one argued with that, not when I took the collages down, one by one, and left them there on the floor.

No sooner did I reach my studio than my cell phone vibrated in my back pocket, the tickling of a guilty conscience. It was Erik. Of course.

“God,” I said, hitting my forehead. I had blown off Erik’s voicemail yet again last night and then forgotten to call him this morning when I was chauffeuring Mom. I softened my voice, dousing it with the usual happy, carefree lilt that I added whenever I spoke to him: “Hey!”

“Hey, what’s up, stranger?” he said.

“Not much,” I answered in a low voice. Liar, I berated myself, even as I peeked downstairs to see the fallout of my diva-esque departure. From where I stood, stationed behind a wood column carved with twisting vines and leaves, I could safely eavesdrop on Jacob’s conversation with the Twisted Sisters. He was crouched before my collages, inspecting them. Even up here, I felt more transparent and more exposed than going barefaced in public. Vaguely, I heard Erik on the phone, followed by an expectant pause. I asked, “What?”

“My cousin Max is here, remember?” he repeated patiently.

“Yeah. Are you having fun with him?”

“We were going to catch the late show. I can pick you up at eight.”

“Oh,” I said, my breath letting out in a deep sigh. It was a long hour’s drive to the nearest movie theater. Even if it had been fifteen minutes away, I didn’t want to go, didn’t want to try to disguise my cheek. Absently, I rubbed my hands together and winced, noticing for the first time the thin line of blood welling on my thumb where one of the hanging wires must have scratched me. “I’m still not feeling so great.” Technically, that was true. My face hurt, and I wished I could curl up into a deep Rip Van Winkle sleep. Wake me when college starts. Yet here I was in the gallery, wondering what another boy thought about my art.

And thought about me.

I couldn’t help but peek over the railing when Beth’s voice carried effortlessly to me: “And how do you two know each other?”

Then I smiled at the intimate, teasing tone in Jacob’s voice, as though he knew I was eavesdropping: “Terra ran into me. Literally.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Erik asked.

I left the catwalk to sit heavily at my desk chair, brushing a sliver of origami paper off my otherwise pristine work surface and into the garbage can beneath my desk. On my desk was Erik’s Christmas present, his collage, still an empty canvas, cotton duck, nothing more.

“I’ll be better soon. I promise.” But I had the feeling he wasn’t inquiring about my health.

“No, I meant —”

“I have to go, okay?” It was ironic that Erik finally seemed ready for our first real conversation beyond his personal best time pinning his opponent, his weight loss, his pickup truck. This was the conversation I’d wanted to have all along — but now, I didn’t have the heart to start. Or the energy to finish us. Gently, I told Erik, “I’ll call you later, okay?” And this time, I hung up first without waiting for his reply.

“So,” said a voice from behind me, one I already recognized. Despite myself, a tiny flare of excitement brushed away the last of my lingering guilt.

I swiveled around in my chair, away from Erik’s nonexistent collage. Jacob was leaning against my door frame, looking around my studio curiously, nodding as if what he saw only confirmed his deepest suspicions. I became acutely aware of my neat bins, the rows of matching tins, all of it labeled precisely. The labels themselves were tied with satin ribbon, orange on one side, green on the other.

“So this is messy,” he said.

“I just cleaned up.”

He eyed the trash bin with its one tiny sliver of paper. “Uh-huh.”

“Suddenly, I’m having serious regrets for not maiming you yesterday.”

“Bloodthirsty. Sure you’re not a Goth in hiding?”

That’s when I noticed he had already placed Mom’s collage beside my desk, no fanfare, no expectation of anything.

“Thanks,” I said softly.

He shrugged. “Is your work always this provocative?”

Provocative — I thought about that apt description, and how Erik would have described my collages: cool. Or neat. Or weird. If he noticed them at all. I now spied my Beauty Map, propped against the wall by my worktable. In my call with Erik, I had completely forgotten to check where Lydia had hidden it. With my foot, I nudged Mom’s collage surreptitiously over to camouflage mine before Jacob could see my Beauty Map.

As I straightened, Jacob made a light, impatient sound. Had he seen?

“God, you’re bleeding again,” he said. I tried to hide my hand at my side, but he dug into his pocket and withdrew a napkin. “Don’t worry, it’s clean. I promise.”

“I —”

He held my hand and pressed the napkin to my cut thumb gently. “Remind me to keep a bigger stash if I’m going to keep hanging out with you.”

And what makes you think I’m going to hang out with you? That’s what Karin would have responded, flirting by way of challenge. But with my cell phone in my pocket, still warm from my conversation with Erik, I took a step back and said flatly, “I don’t need rescuing.”

Perched on the edge of my desk now, his legs splayed wide, hands on either side, Jacob looked completely at ease while I felt fidgety, self-conscious, yet utterly conscious of his every movement. “No,” he said, “it seems to me that you do your fair share of rescuing.”

That reminded me of Mom. The clock on the wall read almost ten. Which meant we had two hours before Dad would need the car for his weekend extreme fitness regimen at the gym — ninety minutes of running, biking, or swimming, followed by an hour of weights and fifteen minutes in the steam room to leach out toxins. It was a matter of personal pride that he wasn’t an ounce over his college weight.

“I forgot to let Mom know we have to be back by noon.” I started to reach for my cell phone and asked, “What’s your mom’s number?”

Jacob simply pulled out his own phone and dialed. “Hey, Mom,” he said into the phone, his eyes locked on mine. “You Martha Stewart yet?” He listened, toyed with three platters that nested one on top of the other, each carved with eggs, the largest with life-sized ostrich eggs and the smallest dotted with fingernail-sized hummingbird ones. “You’ve already made two wreaths?” Another pause. “Trevor made one? So we’ll be back around” — he looked at me — “eleven thirty.”

“Eleven fifteen,” I whispered. It’d take a good fifteen minutes just to tidy up his cabin and then another fifteen to load Mom’s supplies into the truck. We couldn’t afford to be late today, not after Dad was already angry about our car.

When he hung up, Jacob said, “All set.”

“Thanks.”

His attention shifted to the world map on the wall behind my desk. Leaning back, he traced his finger from Washington State over the Pacific Ocean to southern China, and then he shot me a self-conscious look, moved his finger to Africa. I almost felt his touch skimming along my face. I had to admit, it wasn’t hard to imagine Jacob commanding a fleet of ships to chart an unknown land, Terra Nullis.

Chart me, instead.

God, where did that thought come from? It made no sense. Jacob wasn’t even my type — my fantasies involved tall, lanky guys, the kind with blond hair and blue eyes. Guys who’d pay attention to me, proving to everyone that I was special, a girl to be cherished. My fantasy guy may not have been Erik, exactly, but it was definitely not a Goth who was lean, my height, and kept his fingernails well-manicured in black.

“Antarctica,” Jacob said, his finger on the continent. “That’s where I would go.”

“Too cold for me. I’d go to Kashgar.” I stopped talking when I noticed Jacob staring at the map the way I do after one of Dad’s sotto voce tirades, wishing myself and Mom anywhere but here. Had I said too much? Did he think I was weird wanting to travel the Silk Road?

“Sometimes,” he said slowly, “I think I was born in the wrong century. Everything’s already been discovered.”

“Not everything.”

His head snapped to me as though he had just spotted uncharted territory. “You didn’t tell the Twisted Sisters the truth.”

“Which is . . . ?”

“You’re afraid of what your dad will say.”

“I’m not!”

He arched his eyebrow at me.

“I already know what he’ll say,” I amended quietly, expecting Jacob to ask me what that was.