Same Difference (9780545477215) (14 page)

O
n Tuesday morning, Mr. Frank arranges the stools so we're all sitting in a straight line, facing the front of the room like the firing squad I feared on my first day. He tells us we'll go one by one, presenting what we think is the best drawing from our sketchbooks so far.

Most of the kids show traditional still lifes, where they've drawn a bottle of Snapple or a pair of sneakers. As boring as those kinds of drawings sound, a few are really good, like staring at black-and-white photographs. Robyn's sketch of Adrian's glasses is particularly amazing. The lenses truly look like glass. I have no idea how she did that.

“This is a good start,” Mr. Frank tells a girl named Jane, who's drawn a basket filled with fruit. “But I can tell you shorthanded this drawing. Don't just make lines at random. Count the woven strips. Be as exact and authentic as possible. You are not drawing any basket, you are drawing a
particular
basket.” He clears his throat. “Emily?”

I stand up and walk to the front of the room. Yates folds his arms and nods his head at me. Fiona makes a funny, presumably supportive face. Robyn stares out the window, completely uninterested. I open my sketchbook and flip to the last drawing.

Last night, after taking a late swim with Meg, I left to go home. And I did initially, but just to change out of my wet bathing suit and grab my sketchbook. Then I snuck out to the top of the sandy hill just outside Blossom Manor.

My hands split the pages and crack the stiff spine of my sketchbook. I hold it up in front of my face, so I won't have to see anyone's reactions.

“And what is this?” Mr. Frank asks.

“Well, I drew the same building twice. Once as a Pizza Hut and once as a Taco Bell, to show that they're actually the same thing.” I cough away a tickle in my throat. “The same shape, anyway.”

The room is silent.

I peer out at Mr. Frank from behind my sketchbook. “Can I sit down?”

“No,” he says. Then he clears his throat. “Would anyone like to comment?”

I want to throw up. He hasn't asked anyone to comment before.

Yates steps forward, like he wants a closer look. “I think it's neat.” He's just trying to be nice. Someone as talented as Yates couldn't possibly be impressed by my dumb sketch. “It's like an examination of suburbia and mass consumption. It's original thought presented through its antithesis.”

Umm …
what
?

A few seconds pass and one of the two skateboarding boys raises his hand. “To me, it says corporations are soulless.”

A few other kids add their thoughts — including Robyn, who says, “There's a self-hatred here, because Emily is clearly attacking the McMansion culture of her hometown.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Sort of.”

Finally, Fiona says, “People just shove this processed food in our faces and tell us to chew, even though it's killing us. The proof is right there, right in front of us, but we don't do anything about it. It's absolutely disgusting, and I mean that in the very best way.” She smiles at me.

“I would agree with all that,” Mr. Frank says. “Emily, this is exactly what I hoped would come from these journaling assignments. Fantastic job.”

I smile back, even though I'm not sure I had any of this in my mind when I was drawing. I thought it was just kind of funny, in a depressive way. But I'm thrilled that everyone likes it. It's my first piece that has gotten any kind of response in class.

When I sit down, Fiona grabs my arm. “See? Once you start seeing things the way they really are, it's like you can't stop looking. And think, if we never became friends, you probably wouldn't have ever noticed something like that.”

I nod and whisper thanks. I don't mind Fiona taking some of the credit. She deserves it.

Fiona goes next and shows a page covered by black spots. They look like puzzle pieces, totally amorphous. There's a tiny newspaper clipping taped to the corner of her drawing, but I can't make out what it says from where I'm sitting.

“I'm very into shadows these days. Like, showing something in an undefined way, capturing something at its essence, stripping away the audience's pretension. Basically, I focus on the shell of something”— she winks at me — “and let you project whatever meaning you want to on the object. So these are a series of shadows that I saw in the water off Penn's Landing, drawn over one afternoon. I've also included a copy of the weather report for that day.” Fiona is so sure of herself, so confident.

Everyone stares. I think the shapes look cool. But no one says anything. I think it's because Fiona kind of said it all herself.

“Interesting,” Mr. Frank says.

Fiona curtseys, pleased as punch.

Mr. Frank goes through a few more sketchbooks until it's time for lunch. Then Fiona, Robyn, and I walk out and meet Adrian on the steps. He takes a graphic novel illustration class on Tuesdays, which is in the other building across the street. A bunch of papers falls out of his back pocket when he stands up to greet us.

“What's that?” I ask him.

“A mock-up of the first chapter of my graphic novel,” he says, grinning as wide as the wingspan on his Batman shirt. He gathers them up. “I have to present it to my professor this afternoon. He's already making us fight for his nomination for a final gallery spot. So much for creating in a non-competitive environment.”

“You should have seen our class today,” Fiona says. “I left everyone totally speechless with my new shadow piece. Mr. Frank is in the palm of my hand.”

We walk to the Vietnamese lunch shop and get sandwiches to go, so we can eat in the courtyard. I never thought I'd like Vietnamese food, but these sandwiches, with their spicy mayo and warm crusty bread and ham and pickled carrot shreds are better than anything I've ever had at Subway. And the almond bubble tea is really yummy, too. I think Meg would like it as much as she likes frozen peppermint mochas. She'd love that you get to pick your straw color. I chose purple, same as Fiona.

We're about to enter the courtyard when Fiona stops dead in her tracks and cries out, “Ouch!” I check to see if she hurt herself. She's clutching at her chest, but with a dopey smile on her face. “My heart hurts.”

Yates is sitting on a bench in the courtyard, drawing. He stretches and reveals two tattoos … one on the inside of each bicep. They're of lucky horseshoes, like an old-timey sailor might have.

Ouch indeed.

Fiona runs her fingers through her blue stripe.

“Let's go talk to him.”

I'd never have the courage to do that, but Fiona … she's fearless.

“He probably doesn't want to be bothered,” Adrian says.

But Fiona walks over to Yates anyway and we follow her like she's the kite and we're the little ribbons dangling on her string.

“Hi, Yates,” she says, and sits right down next to him on the bench.

“Hey, guys. Are you enjoying today's lesson?” he asks in a corny voice, like he's playing the part of our teacher on a television show.

“We sure are!” Fiona says, equally hokey, and they both laugh. “Listen. I'm seriously considering applying to this college next year. Do you think you could give us a tour?”

He gets shy. “The admissions office runs tours. I wouldn't know what to say.”

“We don't want to go through those boring, stiff tours where they just read facts out of the catalog. We want to know about the school from your perspective. Like, how it
really
is to go here.”

Fiona elbows me.

“Yeah,” I add.

Yates debates. “Well, I mean, I guess I could show you guys around a little tomorrow, after the field trip.”

“Awesome!”

We walk away. Robyn massages Fiona's shoulders and moves the lock of blue hair away from her ear. “Oh my God, you guys are totally going to be the cute, artsy couple,” she says. “And then you will both move to Paris and show your work in my gallery and we'll all get rich!”

It stings a little bit to hear this, but I know it's true. Fiona deserves someone like Yates. She's confident enough to go and get him, even though he's our TA and it's totally taboo. That challenge probably makes Fiona even more excited about the whole thing.

I see Adrian looking glum.

“You're going to come with us on the tour, right?” I ask.

“Yeah, come on …” Fiona says, draping herself all over Adrian. “Are you just going to let Yates win my heart without making a stand?” It's weird that she's flirting with Adrian if she doesn't honestly like him in that way, but I can tell it makes him happy, so what's the harm?

After all, there's something about Fiona that makes everything seem worth the risk.

A
fter Wednesday's field trip to the Painted Bride Art Center, the four of us meet Yates near the elevator bays in the main building. Fiona is nervous, I can tell by the way she keeps scratching the scabs on her arms. She looks pretty, though, dressed in a white tank and a frilly, pink skirt made out of a vintage apron with all these pretty drawings of cakes and cookies on it. It sets off the blue of her hair, and she's painted her nails blue, too. Her hair is flat and shiny, her bangs trimmed perfectly even.

“Hey, guys,” Yates says as he comes around the corner.

Instantly we all shut up. Except for Robyn. She laughs.

I think Yates knows what we might be up to, but he just smiles sweetly and says, “Okay. Follow me.”

Yates takes us through the school. The main art building is divided by majors — each one has its own floor. The fibers floor is full of old looms and big vats to dye fabric. The ceramics floor smells earthy like clay. The temperature of the metals floor is extra hot from all the torches.

Yates walks with Fiona, explaining class options and stuff while the rest of us hang back. I try to stay near Adrian, because he looks bummed, like this is painful for him to watch.

I can sympathize.

“Have you ever told her how you feel?” I whisper in his ear.

“No,” he says. “She knows. It's obvious.”

“That's the thing. Fiona doesn't necessarily go for obvious. She wants … more of a production.” I'm definitely rooting for Adrian. He's a really nice guy. But maybe also because I still like Yates. I can't help it, but I do.

“Yeah,” he says, and flicks his hair out of his eyes. “I guess.”

As we go from studio to studio, Yates introduces us to a lot of interesting-looking students. Everyone seems to know him.

“You're, like, the king of the campus, huh, Yates?” Fiona laughs, and loops her arm through his.

Yates shakes her off, not meanly or anything. But if anyone was to see that, I bet he'd get in trouble. “Oh no. I mean, the college isn't that big, so you end up meeting pretty much everyone in the first few weeks.”

Fiona looks frustrated, but she quickly replaces her grimace with a smile. “Cool.”

I try to imagine myself going to a college like this. I always assumed I would go to Trenton State with Meg. Meg's going to do premed, because she wants to be a doctor who delivers babies. I'm not sure what I want to study yet. But there's a lot I like about what I see here.

“So, you guys are really thinking about applying?”

“Absolutely,” Fiona says. “Art is the only class in my high school that I haven't failed. In fact, none of my teachers know what to do with me anymore. They just send me to the art room. For me, it's either art school or majoring in Fries at McDonald's University.”

“Well, this place seems to be very forgiving when it comes to that kind of problem. My transcripts from high school were all random, too, since I went to an art high school and never took much math or science.”

“Ah, so we're both art geeks.” Fiona bumps him playfully. “But seriously, that's good to hear. I mean, I wear the fact that I can barely survive in a ‘normal' school like a badge of honor, you know? This is definitely the kind of place I belong.”

I find myself next to Yates in the elevator. I want to ask him something, too, so he knows I am actually interested. So I blurt the first thing that comes to my mind, a question Meg had asked on our tour of Trenton State. “Does this college have any sororities?”

Yates looks over his shoulder at me and smiles. “Oh no. I mean, people definitely get cliquey within their majors. Like the painting kids hang out with the painting kids, and the sculpture kids hang out with the other sculpture kids, but nothing like a sorority.”

“Oh my God, Emily!” Fiona cackles. “Like I'd ever apply to a school that had sororities!”

I let my hair hang over my face to mask my blushing. Meg and I had always talked about pledging together, though I was never that excited about the idea. I'm sort of a picky friend. I don't like being shoved into a place and then told I have to be friends with a bunch of people. It can be overwhelming. I'd rather have one good friend over a hundred acquaintances. Those are the kinds of friends you can count on.

“Where are you from, Yates?” Fiona asks.

“Rhode Island,” Yates says. “I was so afraid that I'd have to spend the summer in my hometown, but then I got the TA position with Mr. Frank.”

“I don't know how you manage to look so interested in that old man's rambles,” Fiona says. “Mr. Frank is such a stiff, he's practically dead.”

“What? Are you serious? Mr. Frank is one of the most amazing painters ever. His TA position is the most coveted one in the whole school. I was competing with almost a hundred other painters. He's totally inspiring.”

It's cute to watch Yates gush. His cheeks get red and he stares up at the ceiling, as if he were actually looking up to an invisible Mr. Frank towering over him.

“Well, it's obvious you got the position because you're so talented,” Fiona says. “I completely get it. That's how it is with me and my mom. Her work is so inspiring to me. I just hope I can be one little bit as good as she is.”

Robyn says, “Yeah. I mean, your pieces at Space Invaded were seriously amazing.”

Yates smiles. “Well, thanks. That never gets old.”

“Where is your space?” Fiona asks.

“It's on the painting floor.”

“Well …” Fiona laughs. “Can we see it?”

Yates looks around, cautious. “Do you guys really want to?”

We all say, “Of course!” Yates walks us to the painting floor, and down a long hallway. He fishes a key from inside his shorts pocket and unlocks a blue door. Fiona looks at me and smiles all goofy. She's excited. I am, too.

Yates's studio is a large rectangle. Huge canvases sit on the floor. All of the laughter and the chitchat quiet down, like we just walked into a real gallery.

The canvases display more of his huge landscape painting/photographs, like the ones at his Space Invaded show.

“These are all amazing,” I say. I look over to Adrian and see that even he's impressed.

Yates scratches his head. “I'm kind of bored with them, actually. But I've been really struggling with what I'm going to do next.”

“Painter's block?” I ask.

“I guess so. Though I'm quickly discovering there's a very fine line between painter's block and procrastination. I'm just hoping some inspiration strikes me soon.”

Fiona sees a digital camera on a table. She grabs hold of it. “Take a picture of us!”

Yates looks shy. “For what?”

“For the debut issue of the Yates Fan Club Newsletter!” Fiona giggles. “I call president!”

That's about all Adrian can take. He walks out into the hallway. Robyn moves forward to pose next to Fiona, but Fiona loops her arm around me instead.

Yates points the camera at us. I try to channel my inner Fiona and stick out my tongue playfully. I want to be seen by him, the way Fiona is seen by everyone.

“Nice,” Yates says. “Well, I should be taking off.”

“Take us with you,” Fiona whines.

“Sorry. It's a work night for me. I'm going to my friend's band rehearsal. They've got a huge show tomorrow, opening up for a much bigger band, and it will give them a ton of exposure. The only thing is, their show is kind of … complicated. So they need my help.”

I am definitely intrigued. I can tell Fiona is, too.

“What band is it? Where are they playing?” She gets close to him.

Yates takes a deep breath and starts adjusting some of the jars of paint up on his shelf. “I wish I could tell you guys, but I could get in serious trouble fraternizing with students outside of school. I mean, seeing you at Space Invaded was totally random, but I can't be inviting you all out with me.”

I'm instantly embarrassed for coming here and doing all this in the first place. But Fiona shakes her head. She's not going to accept that answer. “Listen, Yates! We are all practically the same age. In fact, a little over a year ago, we were all in high school together. And Emily and I don't even live in the dorms. We're from around here. So it would be like ten thousand percent probable that we'd end up at the same show anyhow!”

All I can manage to do is nod. I can see Yates cracking, as his determined mouth, lips pursed tight together, blooms into a grin.

He whispers the band name to us.
Romero
. To me it sounds like a boy band or something, which would be really weird and unexpected. And then he tells us the show is at the Electric Factory.

I totally feel the sparks.