Same Difference (9780545477215) (8 page)

W
hen I wake up Tuesday morning, I hate my closet. All my clothes are so plain, so personality-less. Just because you can buy J.Crew tank tops in every color they sell, it doesn't mean you should. It's practically a uniform. I need … I don't know. Something.

Before I even know what I'm doing, I grab a felt-tip marker and a lemon-yellow J.Crew tank. Then I turn seven years old and draw a doodle of my old cat Meowie, really big, right across the chest. I draw her crooked ear and her long, long whiskers. I draw her with a set of angel wings, and I put the years she lived underneath. It feels weird, and totally not me, but I do it anyway.

It doesn't look that great, because my pen keeps slipping over the fabric, breaking the lines. And some of the ink seeps through, leaving a bunch of polka dots on the backside of the tank and on my comforter. I flip the comforter over so Mom doesn't notice.

It's funny, how clothes can make you feel so different. But when I slide the tank over my head, I'm someone else. Someone more interesting than me.

I'm a bit nervous when I get into the car, but Mom doesn't notice my tank. She's too busy talking on her cell.

Claire spots it when I get out of the backseat at the train station. Her head drops to the side for a better look, kind of like she can't believe it. I thought she might have been too young to remember Meowie, but she just smiles. Like it's cool.

It's exactly the reaction I want.

When I get onto the train, I make my way to an open seat. I wonder what people would say if they saw me wearing this at DQ. They'd probably think I went crazy, because it's so not me. I feel like a spy, or someone with two identities. I've got a secret. A secret I can't wait to show to Fiona, to Yates, to everyone in my drawing class.

A hand touches mine.

“Emily!” Meg's dad motions to the empty seat. “Wait until I tell Meg about my new commuter buddy. She's going to be so jealous. You know how much she's been missing you while you're at your classes.”

“Mr. Mundy.” I fall into the seat and cover my chest with my bag. “Hi.” I know it's stupid, that Meg's dad won't say anything to her about my tank, but I keep myself covered anyway.

 

“Come on in, Emily,” Yates says when I get to class, gesturing like there's a big comfy couch in the center of the studio, instead of a tangled clump of paint-splattered easels. He sees my Meowie tank and double-takes with a wry smile.

I shoot him one back, and squeeze past him as he drapes a white sheet along a long table at the head of the room.

Two boys are in the back of the class, perched on another table, legs swinging in unison. Their skateboards are lined up against the cabinets. A couple of girls walk in together. They look tired, like they've all had a long, fun night.

Fiona's still in the hallway. She's wearing a black T-shirt that scoops low on her shoulders, a hot-pink-and-black striped miniskirt, and slouchy brown canvas boots that graze her calves. The pink in her skirt is the exact shade of her hair, and I know that's no accident.

I kind of want to tell her about the shadows that night at the ball field, and how I figured out what she meant about my smile. How everything she's been saying to me suddenly makes sense now. I hope I get a chance.

Yates looks spacey. He keeps putting his hands over his head and squinting his eyes, like he's trying to remember something. Then he takes a couple of big aluminum clip lights from out of a supply closet. He plugs one in and clicks the switch, but it doesn't turn on.

“Hey, Emily,” he says. “Can you set up these pears while I find some new lightbulbs?” He lays some lumpy plastic bags on the table. I guess I don't move quickly enough, because he laughs and says, “I'll give you extra credit.”

“Sure,” I say. “Do you want them in a specific order?”

Yates laughs and shakes his head. I'm hilarious to him. Or I make him really nervous. “However you want.”

I take out three green pears, two red pears, and two yellow pears. I peel off the supermarket stickers and set them all up in a row, in color order because it just seems right. One doesn't want to stand up, so I let it lie down on its side. I hope that's okay.

Yates comes back in with a package of new lightbulbs. “Guys, Mr. Frank is running late today,” he tells us. “I'm going to get things started.” He drags over two easels, clips lights to them, and clicks them on. “Okay! Now we're getting somewhere!”

It's weird, how random fruit from inside a dirty shopping bag can look elevated underneath those lights. Like a museum painting come to life. Some are lumpy and fat, some are tall and slender. Some still have delicate green leaves attached to their stems. No two look exactly alike, but all the colors seem brighter. Suddenly, I'm excited to get to work.

“Everyone position your easel so you're perpendicular to the still life, like in archery. If you're left-handed, you should be looking over your right shoulder, and vice versa.”

The noise of everyone moving around lures Fiona and Robyn into the room. Fiona spots the pears on the sheet and rolls her eyes at Robyn, like this is going to be the most boring class ever.

“Drawing is about fooling your viewer to see a three-dimensional object on a two-dimensional surface. That is accomplished by the use of light and shadow.” Yates goes on to explain a style of drawing called charcoal reduction, in which you cover your paper in charcoal and then use an eraser to wipe away your image. Instead of drawing the object, you carve out the light. So I cover my paper with three layers of dark charcoal, unwrap a fresh eraser, and start to clean small sections of it off to make the biggest, fattest red pear rolling on its side at the edge of the table.

I know there is a learning curve with any new thing, but I wish I were doing better than I am. I've got the roundness of the base okay, but it just looks like a circle. It doesn't look three-dimensional at all. How can I work backward, when I'm not even confident working forward?

Yates puts his hands on my shoulders and gently ushers me away from my easel. He stands in my place then, stares at my paper, and then at the view I have of the still life.

“Is this the green one on the right?” he asks.

I rub the back of my hand across my forehead. “No. The fat red one on the left.”

“Ahh.” He claps his hands together. “Okay. I'm going to teach you a trick. When doing these kinds of reduction drawings, you should always start with the brightest spot. An easy way to find the brightest spot of your subject is to squint your eyes.” And he squints his eyes so tight at me that I'm not even sure he can still see me at all. His hand reaches out and touches my cheek really softly. “Yours is right here.”

I get the chills. I hope he doesn't notice.

It seems more like a joke than a real technique. But I try it. I turn toward the pears and squint. Suddenly, I see a big white dot on the curve of the pear's belly and I know exactly where to start. It's kind of amazing. “Wow.” I face Yates, still squinting. His brightest spot is at the side of his forehead, right near his hairline. Maybe I shouldn't reach out and touch him, but that's what I do.

His skin is so soft.

Yates reaches like he's going to take my hand, and I think my heart might lift me off the ground. But he just removes the piece of charcoal from my grip and fills back in all the white space I've erased. I think I actually make a gasping sound, as all the work I've done so far disappears.

“Don't worry.” Yates puts a hand on my shoulder. “You'll draw at least ninety-nine bad pears before you draw one good one.” Which isn't exactly comforting.

He moves on to Fiona's easel and looks around, curious, for her eraser.

“I'm more of a fingers kind of girl,” Fiona says, matter-of-fact. She rubs her thumb across her paper, then wipes her hand with a paper towel that's already covered in dark smudges. Her hands look like they'll never get clean.

“But you can't get pure whites without an eraser,” Yates reasons. “I'd be happy to lend you mine if you don't have one.”

Fiona blinks a few times. “I always use my fingers with charcoal,” she repeats again, totally unapologetic. “It's just how I do it.” Fiona's not being mean or rude. Just confident, if not a little stubborn.

I wait for Yates to challenge her, but he seems to respect Fiona's answer enough to let it go. The two of them look perfect together, staring at Fiona's piece and discussing their artistic processes. Like two real artists. Exactly the opposite of how it is with me … a kid who needs dumbed-down tricks to help me get it together.

When Yates steps away, Fiona looks at Robyn, but Robyn's working diligently on her pears with her iPod on, unaware of the power struggle that just took place. Fiona's eyes scan the rest of the room, searching for her audience. They meet mine, just like that first day at orientation. She gives me a hard look, and it takes me by surprise. If she notices my Meowie tank, she doesn't let on.

It's like I lost my chance with her, too. And it's going to take more than my fake smile to earn another one.

I
'm not hungry when it's time for lunch, but I walk to the Starbucks on the corner and order a frozen peppermint mocha and an old-fashioned glazed donut anyhow. There's a couple open tables I could sit at, but instead I walk back outside and stare in through the smudgy glass window.

This Starbucks looks the same as the one in Cherry Grove. At least, it does at first glance. They both have the same mustard-colored walls. They have identical coffee cups for sale arranged in neat rows on a mahogany shelf. They even play the same music. But after you sit here for long enough, passing your lunch hour without anyone to talk to, you start to notice the differences.

I switch the mocha from my hand to the crook of my arm and make note of them with quick pencil drawings on a fresh page in my sketchbook. Mr. Frank said he wanted to see our personalities come through in our sketchbooks. Well, as lame as it might be, this is the kind of stuff I notice.

Like the fact that there are no plush upholstered chairs to curl up in, only the hard wooden seats that make your butt numb if you sit for too long. That's probably why people hustle in and out of here, instead of reading a book or talking for a while, like Meg and I do back home.

After I'm done, I have at least another thirty minutes to kill before Mr. Frank's class starts up again. Philadelphia is huge, but I've only seen three blocks of it. It's like I'm tethered to a rope stretching between the train station and the school. I decide to walk to the newsstand on the corner and flip through the magazines.

I'm only about a half block from the Starbucks before I notice something on the ground. Every couple of cement squares, there are tiny markings drawn on the sidewalk — each one a different color and the size of a quarter. I look around, but the other people walking along don't seem to notice them. They are too small to be noticed. I crouch down and lean in close. They are arrows, pointing off down the street. I touch a green one with my finger. It smudges.

Chalk.

I follow the arrows past the school, past the newsstand, and around the corner. Even though I've felt self-conscious today, I let it all go and follow where they lead me, because it's fun and unexpected. In a weird way, I'm proud of myself for finding them.

Four blocks later, I lose the trail. No more arrows, just the sidewalk buckling to make room for the tree roots underneath. I look hard, because there has to be a payoff. Fiona is all about the payoff. As I backtrack to the last one, I pass an alley. It's adjacent to a hospital, and has been turned into a serene little park, with trees and flowers and tufts of grass sprouting between the cobblestones. Fiona is alone, about halfway down the stretch, tracing the shadows of trees on the ground. Her colored lines are thicker and bolder than the ones at orientation, and they drip over curbs and across the pavement, into the gutters.

She must hear my footsteps because she looks up and smiles. But I guess she was expecting someone else to find her, because this surprised look washes over Fiona's face when she realizes it's me.

I think a second about turning around and walking back to school, but the idea of talking to Fiona takes hold of my brain. This is my chance.

I want to explain what's been going on with me. In a way, I owe it to her, especially since I shut down so bad in the train station. So I head down the alley toward her, making sure to step over any chalk scribbles I pass along the way.

“Hey, Fiona,” I say, trying desperately to sound casual.

“Well, this is a shock,” she says, and rocks back on her heels.

“I saw your arrows.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. And I knew you were the one who drew them.” There's a long, awkward pause as I muster up some courage. I thought this would have felt easier, since I chose to approach her instead of the other way around. “Listen, I wanted to talk to you about what happened in the museum last week. And about what you said to me in the train station.”

She stares up at me from the ground, like she's trying to figure out if this is a joke or something. “Oh?”

“About how once you figure something out, it's impossible to go backward.”

“What about it?”

“I just think you're right, is all.”

“Of course I'm right,” she says, kind of bitchy.

I look down at my flip-flops. This was a mistake.

“Are you afraid of me?” she asks.

My first instinct is to lie, but it would probably be pointless.

“Honestly? Kind of.” I shiver, despite the fact that it's really warm. Nerves. I fight them by twisting my arms around each other and squeezing as hard as I can.

Fiona takes two steps away from me, over to the curb where her owl tote bag sits. I think she's just going to grab her stuff and leave me standing here like she did in the museum, but she stays put, her eyes on the ground.

“Hold still,” she says, and fishes a thick, bright yellow piece of chalk out of her tote bag. “I mean, you can keep talking, but try not to move much.” She starts to trace the darkened patch of cement in front of me.

If not for the shadow anchoring the tips of my flip-flops to the ground, I just might float away. Neither of us talks. We're quiet, listening as the chalk scrapes against the ground into the shape of me. Fiona's hand moves so deliberately and slow, like she's carving out the pavement with an X-Acto knife.

“Hold it right there!” An overweight security guard runs toward us. He clings to the waist of his pants with one hand, combating the weight of the huge key ring threaded through his belt loop. “You girls are going to need to come with me.”

Fiona keeps drawing, totally unconcerned. “I highly doubt that.”

“It's against the law to deface private property,” he says. Fiona laughs, and the guard's fat, damp face goes red. “Graffiti is a crime.”

“How can this be graffiti if it's chalk? Chalk isn't permanent.” Fiona says it real slow, like the guy's got a learning disability.

He reaches for his crackling radio. “I said, put down the chalk!”

Fiona doesn't even blink. She just keeps drawing.

She's escalating the situation, not making it better. I want to help, but I don't want to ruin the project either. I want her to finish my shadow.

I say, “Excuse me, sir. We're students at the art school. And this is a special project we're working on.”

His eyes narrow. “You both look young to be college students.” Luckily, I have my ID on my lanyard. Trying not to move too much, I pull it out. He checks it skeptically. “Well, college students or not, this is private property. I'm sorry, but you're going to have to go.”

I raise my hands to plead with him, but then quickly line them back up with my tracing on the ground. “We're almost finished —”

“Either you leave now, or I'm calling the police. The choice is yours.”

“Riiiight. You'd have to call the real cops because you're just a man playing dress up.” Fiona sneers. “Come on, Emily. We'd better hurry before he citizen-arrests us!”

She puts her chalk back in her tote. I'm still hesitant to move … my shadow's only half finished. But Fiona storms down the alleyway. So I follow her.

“What a douche,” Fiona mutters. She fumbles to get a cigarette to her lips.

“He doesn't get what you're doing.”

She stops to light it, sucking in a few times into the flame of her cheap plastic lighter. “And you do?”

“I'm not sure,” I mumble. But there is one thing I do know, so that's what I say. “Ever since I saw your shadow drawings in the courtyard on that first day of school, everything started to change for me.”

The beginnings of a smile break across Fiona's face, but she catches herself. Then she anchors her cigarette between her teeth, laces my hand inside hers, and pulls me along. “Explanation,
por favor.
”

I stretch out an “Ummm,” as long as the air in my lungs will let me, and collect my thoughts. I wish I could be eloquent like the kids in the museum discussing a Picasso, but everything feels too messy and overwhelming, like a million puzzle pieces dumped on the floor of my brain. All I can do is search for straight edges and start trying to piece the big picture together. “So if I were to try and explain what a shadow is, I think I'd call it a shell.”

“A shell?” Fiona asks, her face wrinkled and confused.

“Not like a seashell …” While I search for the right words, we pass the shadow of a parking meter. I tug on Fiona to make her stop. “So this shadow represents this parking meter,” I say, and glide my hands around the dark spot like a game-show hostess. “Everyone knows what a parking meter is, so when we see its shadow, a picture of a real parking meter appears in our minds.”

“Rightrightrightright.” She nods, trying to hurry me along. “Abstract representation.”

I suck in a deep breath and picture my half-finished shadow on the ground in that alley. When people pass that, what will they think of me? “It's like … all I know about myself is the shadow, what I'm supposed to be.”

Fiona leans against the parking meter, genuinely confused. “What are you supposed to be?”

I shrug my shoulders. “You know, like everyone else.”

Fiona throws her hands up, exasperated. “Most everyone else sucks, Emily. Do you honestly not know that? And not just the drones, either. Even the artsy kids here, like Yates. Sure, he dresses the part, but what does he find inspiring? Pears!” She cracks herself up. “I mean, come on.”

There's sharpness to her words that I recognize as the Big Sister voice — wisdom blended with annoyance. I talk the same way to Claire. Like the time she got all upset about the boys calling her flat-chested and I had to tell her that none of it mattered. I'm sure I sounded irritated with her. But the truth was, I wanted her to know she was better than what those stupid boys thought of her.

It's exciting to think Fiona might feel that way about me, too.

“Let me get this straight. My shadow drawings started this whole mental avalanche for you?”

First I nod. And then I shake my head, because it's way bigger than that. “What I'm saying is that I've never met anyone like you before.”

I wait for Fiona to gloat, but she actually softens. “Here's the thing, Emily.” She sucks in deep from her cigarette, then pushes the smoke out her nose in two thick streams. “You are a very confusing person.”

I try to swallow, but my mouth is too dry. “I don't mean to be.”

She takes another drag. “I've tried to talk to you a couple of times now, and even though you've seemed interested, you always revert back to this pretend person who's on autopilot or something.”

“I just didn't know what to say. How to talk to someone like you.”

“Yeah, but now you're trying to get my attention! Acting all smiley, finding me in the park, and showing up to class in this weird dead kitty outfit.” She flicks off some ash and points at my tank top with the cigarette's glowing orange tip. “Which I love, by the way.”

Her compliment heats up my face. “Thanks.”

“I'm here, looking at you, trying to figure out just who you are. Because it seems like you might be this secret cool person wrapped up inside this whole other uncool person. Only you don't know it yet.”

“Really?” The word is couched in an uncomfortable laugh, like I'm afraid that Fiona's wrong and afraid that she's right at the very same time. The truth is, I hardly recognize myself.

Fiona's quiet for a second, rolling the cigarette between her thumb and pointer finger. Her mouth opens like she's going to say something else, but her eyes shift from my face to over my shoulder.

I turn and see Robyn and Adrian walking toward us.

“Fiona!” Robyn calls out. “Where have you been?” As she gets closer, her face gets tighter, like she's thinking,
What's she doing with you?

“I got you some food,” Adrian says, handing Fiona a white paper bag.

“My lunch angel!” She opens it and peeks inside. “My sandwich prince!” Fiona plants a big kiss on Adrian's cheek. He smiles from ear to ear. And underneath the surface, his veins pump blood faster, spreading pink all over his face and arms.

He is in love with her.

Robyn stands right next to Fiona, and Adrian flanks her other side. I end up directly across from the three of them, forming a triangle rather than completing their circle.

“Seriously, where did you go?” Robyn says, looping her arm over Fiona's shoulder. “You went to the bathroom and never came back. We've been looking for you everywhere.”

“I left you losers a bunch of clues.” Fiona turns to me and smiles. It's surprisingly warm. “You just missed them.” She walks over to a fire hydrant, leans against it, and opens up her sandwich. “Now, both of you be nice and say hello to Emily!”

“Hello, Emily,” they say in unison.

“Hi,” I say back.

“Isn't she the cutest thing ever?” Fiona takes a huge bite. “We make her so nervous!”

Robyn and Adrian share a quick look. I'm sure they're wondering why Fiona took an interest in someone like me. Or how long it might last.

I scratch a mosquito bite on my arm and just keep smiling, even though I kind of wonder that, too.