Simon Says

H
ARCOURT, INC.
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Copyright © 2002 by Elaine Marie Alphin

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www.HarcourtBooks.com

First Harcourt paperback edition 2005

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Alphin, Elaine Marie.
Simon says/by Elaine Marie Alphin.
p. cm.
Summary: An alienated, aspiring young painter who attends
high school at a boarding school for the arts discovers that being
true to himself means opening the door to both pain and pleasure.
[1. Boarding schools—Fiction. 2. Identity—Fiction. 3. Painting—Fiction. 4.
Artists—Fiction. 5. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.A4625Si 2002
[Fic]—dc21 2001004967
ISBN 0-15-216355-7
ISBN 0-15-204678-X pb

Text set in Minion
Display set in Quay Sans
Designed by Cathy Riggs

A C E G H F D B
Printed in the United States of America

This is a work of fiction. All the names, characters, and events portrayed
in this book are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance
to arty event or actual person, living or dead, is unattended.

For Karla, who was there at the start.
For Charles, who was there at the end.
And for Art, who will always be there for me.

A white petal ruffled in the breeze, then tore free from the wilting carnation on the student's grave and tumbled away. At first flowers appeared daily, loose handfuls, and even real bouquets. Then summer began, and visitors came to the church cemetery near the school campus less often. By the fall semester, old students had forgotten him, and new students wondered who he'd been. They had their own art to create, after all. He might have been special—but he was dead.

One student still came, however, not often, but occasionally. He sat on the grass and looked at the mounded earth, and sometimes spoke softly. One mild dawn, he dug into the sod beside the plain gravestone and buried, as far down as he could reach, a circular metallic disc wrapped in a few folded sheets of paper. Later, rain filled the loosely packed hole with mud and silt, and erased the faint hollow.

The dead student's name became a school story, part legend and part warning. The boy he had been, however, and the man he might have grown to be, were both forgotten....Except by his murderer.

The mirror acts like a frame. But I would never paint on a shiny, reflective surface like that. Canvas draws the paint into it, draws the eye into it, draws the mind into its world. Mirrored glass shows too much, and too little. I came here to get away from games played with mirrors.

I always knew there had to be someone else who saw the games for what they were, someone else who hated them as much as I do. That's why I came to Whitman High School for the Arts—to meet this person. Only now I'm not so sure. Why should he care about meeting me?

"Well, Charles, are you coming or not?" Adrian demands. His voice fills our dorm room, easy and amused, blue-green tones flecked with golden highlights. "This was your idea, remember."

I remember. In the mirror I see sweaty fingers wiping themselves on a T-shirt as if they were paint-smeared, then fumbling to smooth the stretched-out cotton. Above the fingers I see frowning eyes that might be mistaken for angry instead of nervous.

"Having second thoughts?" asks Adrian.

I grab a rust-colored flannel shirt and shrug into it, letting it hang open over the T-shirt Glancing in the mirror one last time, I meet my new roommate's hazel eyes. Sleek in black jeans and an open-necked gray shirt, a plaid so fine it looks like graph paper, Adrian smiles at me, an ironic smile that masks a brain like a shrink's. No one's been so on-target reading my mind since my mother when I was a little kid, and I don't like it.

He cocks his head and raises one eyebrow suggestively over long lashes. If I were to sketch Adrian, I think I'd show him charming his prey. He'd have them trapped, spellbound: a siren wooing Odysseus. It's been two days since I met him, and I already know he can charm anyone, girl or guy. Turns out the guys are the only ones he's interested in.

I can't believe he's my roommate—you'd think they'd put something like that on the dorm questionnaire. I'm not sure how I feel about it, actually. I know how I
should
feel, but I don't What does that say about me? Maybe ... just that I don't care. I didn't come here to meet Adrian. He doesn't matter—he's only a stranger in the other half of the room. He pretends he's interested, but he doesn't know me, for all that shrink's brain of his. He sees only what the school calls me:
artist,
the way it calls him
composer.
He's already heard that no one knows what I paint He probably thinks I'm either the next thing to hit the Museum of Modern Art or the next overrated boy wonder to hit the trash can. But what would he think if he saw my work? Maybe he'd shut off those signals, at least.

"So let's go," I tell him, sliding my sketch pad into a small backpack and slinging it over my shoulder. I keep my voice light, like I don't care one way or the other about the evening. He doesn't look like he buys it, though. If he's a composer, he probably has a fine-tuned ear. Well, he can hear what he likes. It doesn't make any difference to me.

We walk through the muggy Houston evening, hearing the screech of shadowy birds clustered in the trees above. I breathe through my mouth to avoid the pungent reek of their droppings. A migratory stop—what does that say about Whitman, as a cowbird dumping ground? We keep our pace steady and stay silent, not wanting to alarm the birds.

I could have gone to this meeting alone. But Orientation Week parties are set up by department I went to the one for visual arts last night and saw hardly any new students from other subject areas. Adrian's music bash is tomorrow. Neither of us has an excuse for crashing the writers' party tonight No one was checking lists last night, but I thought I'd stand out less if there were two of us from different departments. Maybe they wouldn't realize it was just me who wanted in.

Clear of the birds, Adrian leans his head back so the warm breeze ruffles his longish russet hair, this come-take-me look on his face. I glance away. Then he whistles Borodin.

I hear the lyric in my head—"Take my hand, I'm a stranger in paradise"—and have to grin. This place
is
paradise, for all of us. No more high school math and science nerds, no more worries about SATs, no more
jocks, no more gangs, no more parents hanging over us, thinking they know better because they've already grown up. We have to take some regular classes, sure, but it's clear they take a backseat to our real work. Studios, practice halls, performance auditoriums—they take up more campus space than classrooms. If there's a place I might actually fit in, it could be Whitman.

Adrian glances at me and breaks off his whistling to grin back, and for a moment it's like having a friend. Then I look away.

The student center swims hazily into focus through the twilight, and I wipe my forehead, wishing I hadn't pulled on the flannel shirt.

"One word of advice, dear," Adrian murmurs. "Never let them see you sweat."

"Then I'll have to either get out of Houston or start lugging around my own air conditioner," I retort, though it's not just the outdoor temperature that's making me sweat.

Adrian wrinkles his nose. "Well,
that
would surely make you sweat."

Now we're past the cobblestone front walk and at the massive bronze doors bordered with reliefs of the muses. Corny, but also neat to see the arts taken seriously, like coming home—or more, almost like belonging. That would have been reason enough to come to Whitman, even without wanting to meet him. Or maybe they're not such different reasons.

Adrian pulls the door open grandly, and bows me into the air-conditioned front hallway reeking of lemon-scented polish. Sometimes I think he should be in the
theater department. Maybe we both should. As I walk past, Adrian declaims, "Show time!" and I wince inside. How can he read me so well?

In the jumble of bodies in the main room, I can already spot the new kids—too keyed up, wary, wanting to make the right impression but not yet sure whom to impress. No—that's how they felt last night, at the visual arts get-together. And that's how they'll feel tomorrow at Adrian's music party. But tonight everyone knows whom they want to impress: Graeme Brandt.

In its own way, Whitman's reputation is just as hot as the New York High School for the Performing Arts. It's broader based, with more artistic disciplines, and it's pricier, with a gorgeous campus and private work areas for every student. Photos of the wide lawns and marble-faced concert halls and galleries are splashed across the brochures to make parents open their wallets, though there are some scholarships—enough to get me in, even as a junior transfer. But no matter how much money your parents have, it won't buy you an audition pass. I had to show my paintings to get in. Some of them, anyway. I showed four of them to audition, even though I don't let anyone see my paintings anymore. I even mortgaged myself to my parents, promising I'd study some practical subjects and make good enough grades to get into college. All because I wanted to meet Graeme Brandt.

Other schools for the arts have graduates who go on to make it big on Broadway or on the charts or in the concert halls, or even students who manage to place a story in
Harper's
or get their portfolio on file with a
publisher before they graduate. But Whitman High School has Graeme Brandt As a freshman, he wrote a young adult novel that sold and was nominated for awards in eight states its first year—Whitman had itself a real celebrity. I bought
The Eye of the Storm
through the school book club when it was first published, and I knew I had to find a way to transfer here for my last two years of high school.
To find a place to belong...

"Charles?"

The girl's voice jars me. I didn't expect anyone to know me tonight Careful not to show any reaction, I turn to face Rachel Holland, editor of Whitman's student journal,
Ventures.
It's a blend of literary journal and art magazine—maybe even Whitman alumni and families couldn't support two separate magazines.

"Did you think any more about what I suggested last night?" she asks.

No,
I want to say.
I could care less. Now get lost.
But I can't say that to her clear brown eyes, coolly studying me, half serious, half smiling. I can't help smiling back, even though I don't want to. I see a new kid glance at her nervously; then his eyes slide away, and my own smile fades. In the middle of all the showing off and role playing, Rachel seems to be the only one who acts like she doesn't care about the masks, like she's a grown-up among kids. No—maybe it's that the rest of them are trying too hard to act grown up. It's as if she doesn't care how old she is—she just
is.
Seeing her among the other students throws me off balance, like a Dali painting with melting clock faces. My feet seem rooted in separate, drifting worlds, and I have trouble focusing on
either the crowd or the girl. How would I sketch her? Cool water, a still pool surrounded by wind-whipped flames, maybe. Or is that only what I'd
like
to see?

"Sure," I tell her. "I've thought about it" I toyed with the idea. She wants me to do sketches for
Ventures.
Actually, she wanted to know if she could print one of my paintings, but no one except the committee at auditions is going to see them. They're not the only artwork I do, though. When I told Rachel no, she didn't act surprised. She just suggested the sketches.

"When can you start?" she asks. She stands there as if she could wait for my answer forever, poised in a tailored leather vest over a soft crepe shirt—a contrast in textures that I'd like to paint.

I shrug and hook my thumb through the backpack's strap resting over my shoulder. "Maybe I'll see someone to draw tonight," I tell her. "Then you can decide if you really want my sketches."

"I do," she tells me in that odd, calm voice that sounds as though no one else is in the room with us. Can't she feel all of them hovering, hanging on the conversation so they can pass it along to anyone who's not within earshot?
Wise up,
I want to tell her.
We're all on display here—you, too.
Even though she's only a junior like me, she's been here for two years already. She should know. Maybe she does, and this cool facade is her mask. Whitman's really no different from any other school—everybody's just doing what they know they're supposed to do, being what they know they're supposed to be. Everybody except me. And Graeme Brandt.

At a swell in the voices behind me, I turn. Everyone
in the room turns, except Rachel—she's already facing in the right direction. A girl at a table in front of me pushes her glasses up and sighs, whispering to a friend, "It's him."

It has to be Brandt. But which one? I see a cluster of guys at the entrance. One is husky, with dark blond hair that falls over his eyes. He's laughing at something, but he doesn't look amused. He looks hungry, like a shark circling its victim. Could that be Brandt? Or is it the tall one? Slender, curly black hair, delicate hands, an incredibly beautiful face nobody'd believe on a canvas. He's telling a story, his hands moving gracefully as if he knows every eye is on him. That has to be Brandt.

He's magnetic, the kind of guy who gets voted class president and prom king and anything else he wants, just because he grabs your attention the first time you see him, and then makes you turn and look again, more closely. And when you talk to him, you feel like you've made a friend.