The Anatomical Shape of a Heart (28 page)

29

After my session with Jillian, I hugged Jack good-bye. Knowing we might not see each other for a while made leaving him excruciating. I squeezed him harder and tried to think up excuses not to let go.

“I keep going back to that first night we met at the bus stop,” he said against my hair as he held me. “And, you know, I think I wanted you from the first time you laughed. But now it's so much worse. Now I need you.”

“I know,” I whispered.

“It scares me how much. How are we going to fix this?”

“If your father sends you away, I won't let you go without a fight. I'm willing to do something drastic.”

“Like what?”

“I don't know,” I admitted.

He didn't, either. His parents controlled his bank account, and I had a whopping eight hundred dollars in savings. What could we do? Drop out of school and run away? Even though my brother possessed zero pride, getting booted from community college and squatting at Mom's the last couple of years, that definitely wasn't me.

And it wasn't Jack.

All we could do was wait. And hope.

So I watched him walk to the parking garage, my heart breaking a little. Then I pulled myself together. And after checking in with Mom at the ER, I went home with my sketches and notes from Jillian, and I laid them out on my bed with the crinkled, torn drawings from Minnie. I still had a few old canvases down in the garage. One of them was barely used—just a few old brushstrokes. I remembered it well. I'd started working on it the day my parents had their big blowout. Mom had found pictures on Dad's phone of him and Suzi vacationing together at a cabin in Big Sur. Heath was still a senior in high school, and we were living in our old house. We'd stayed up half the night on his bed with our ears against the wall, listening to our parents fight in the room next door. Dad left a week later.

But even though the canvas brought back bad memories, it was still usable. A coat of gesso and it was blank again. My portable easel was still perfectly functional, and most of my paints weren't dried out. I carted them all up to my room and set them up in front of Lester. After a few measurements, I sketched out a silhouette of Jillian and started working.

Four days. That's how much time I had left until the show deadline. So I called up Ms. Lopez and explained the situation, and after a few more phone calls, I'd found three coworkers who were willing to cover my shifts.

So I started painting.

After the first day, Mom and Heath started popping in to see my progress.

On the second day, Mom opened up both the X-ray doors and watched me from the living room, bringing me tea and my favorite treat: pecan rolls from Arizmendi Bakery off Judah and Irving Streets—right down the street from the Golden Gate Park entrance where Jack painted BLOOM. She finally asked me why I was working with fragments of the cadaver drawings. “It doesn't look like the same body,” she said.

“It's not.” And partly because I wanted to offer her something honest as a show of good faith (and partly because I had nothing to lose), I told her the story of Jack's sister. About everything Jack and his family had gone through, and why he'd been doing the graffiti, and how he'd confessed it all to his parents, and that his father was threatening to send him away.

She quietly listened to every word without comment. No consolation. But no admonishment, either. Just poured me more tea, promising that the Vincents' secret wouldn't leave her lips, and told me to keep painting.

On the third day, I had the house to myself because Mom and Heath left to have dinner with Noah and his parents, an hour away in San Jose. I painted the entire time they were gone.

On the last day, when Mom was getting ready for work, the doorbell rang. I wiped paint off my hands and answered it, surprised to see Jack's friend Andy standing on my doorstep wearing an Isotope Comics T-shirt. His labret stud was now blue.

“Hey there,” he said brightly. “Jack sent us out on a mission to find your house.”

“Found me. Who's ‘us'?”

He tipped his tousled head down the stairs toward the curb, where a beat-up yellow car idled. One tiny arm stretched from the passenger window and waved. It took me a second to spot the pink-and-purple hair, and I realized it was my favorite person, Sierra.

I waved back.

“He wanted me to bring you this,” Andy said, handing me what looked to be a plastic bag wrapped into a palm-sized wad and wound up with a whole lot of packing tape.

“Oh, lovely. You've brought me what appears to be a package of illegal drugs, right in front of all our neighbors. Just what I needed.”

He laughed.

“But really, what is this?” I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders extra-high and held out his hands, but his smile told me he knew exactly what it was. “I'm just…”

“The messenger?”

“The person who's not in hot water for something that's obviously juicy and epic, because Jackson usually gets away with murder. Any idea why he's grounded?”

Jack hadn't told him? Wow. “It will go with me to my grave,” I said.

“And you just happen to be grounded, too? The whole thing reeks of scandal, if you ask me.”

“Good-bye, Andy.”

He grinned and saluted me. “I'll let him know the package has been transferred successfully.”

“Thanks.” He stood there for another moment, so I asked, “Are you and Sierra seeing each other?”

“Indeed we are,” he said, then added, “exclusively.”

As he started down the steps, I thought of all the things the girls at Jack's party were saying about her, and I'm not sure why, but instead of hating her guts, I felt a little sorry for her. “Hey,” I called out in a low voice.

He paused and turned around. “Yeah?”

“She needs someone she can count on.”

“I know.” He smiled and jogged down the stairs to rejoin her in the car.

Once they drove away, I headed back inside and examined the strange package. I was pretty eager to find out what was under all that tape, but it took kitchen shears and some elbow grease to get it open. Jack must've been paranoid about Andy sneaking a peek inside to have Fort Knox–ed it up like that. Why? Inside were a folded note and a small black bag.

The note was handwritten in perfect letters:

Bex,

 

Good news and bad news. The bad: I probably won't be able to meet up with you to show Jillian the painting, because my mom's coming with me to see her on Tuesday. But if you can email me a photo of it, I'll find a way to sneak Jillian a peek at it. The good news: I found a devious and brilliant way to attend your art show on Thursday. Don't worry! It doesn't involve graffiti.

A “devious” way? What in the world was he doing? I prayed it wasn't something risky or stupid, because him being at the art show wasn't worth it. I didn't want to make his father any angrier than he already was. But if Jack said not to worry, I wouldn't. Much. I continued reading:

As to what's inside the bag … You once gave me the choice of none of you or all of you. No matter what happens, I wanted you to know that you have all of me in return. I'm giving this to you because I trust you to keep it safe.

 

Love,
Jack

I opened up the black bag. The contents tumbled out. A sterling silver anatomical heart sat in my palm, suspended on a short chain. Maybe an inch tall and modeled all the way around, the pendant was beautifully cast and anatomically correct. It was also a locket, and when I opened the tiny clasp, two halves swung open to reveal a hollow compartment. My pulse leaped when I spied the jeweler's script engraving on the smooth inner wall:

Jack's Heart

I snapped it shut and looped it around my neck. It hung over the top of my breastbone, heavy and polished. I warmed the silver with my fingers and whispered a promise to him: “I will.”

30

When the big day finally rolled around, I was a nervous wreck. I'd finished my contest entry and received Jillian's approval through Jack, and though the paint was barely dry, I got it turned in on time. Now I just had to survive the moment of truth.

The show was downtown on Geary Street, and traffic stank. Mom, Heath, and I were stuck in the paddy wagon trying to find a parking space while I was quietly having a stroke over the fact that we were maybe-probably-definitely going to be late.

I tried to assure myself that I looked good, at least. I was wearing my most flattering dress—black and white polka dots, with buttons all the way down the front and a belt in the middle—along with the gray knee-high boots. I was also wearing Jack's heart. (When Mom saw it, she asked me where I'd gotten it, and I told her the truth; she'd only said “Hmph,” but that was better than “Throw it in the trash!” so I figured it was okay.) And when I'd stopped by Alto on my way back from dropping off my painting, Ms. Lopez gave me a cloisonn
é
ladybug for luck, which I'd pinned to the collar of my dress.

But that ladybug was already letting me down, and it only got worse when Heath casually said, “Hey, look at this
SF Weekly
article on the show tonight,” and passed me his phone. My eyes glazed over as the headline attacked me from the small screen:

MAYOR'S WIFE TO SPEAK AT MUSEUM-SPONSORED STUDENT ART EXHIBITION

I nearly choked. Heath shot me a wide-eyed look between the seats when Mom was busy complaining to herself about city parking. If this discreet silence was Heath's way of making up for his massive betrayal, I supposed I'd let him have a few points.

The article was brief. At the last minute, Marlena Vincent was scheduled to appear at the exhibition. The article described her as a “long-time patron of the arts” and remarked on her extensive art collection. (Her chair paintings? Really?) Apparently, she'd also helped raise a shit-ton of money for Bay Area art education. And
of course
the exhibition organizers were just “thrilled” to have her on board to inspire the young talent who had entered the contest.

Yeah. Bet they were.

It took me several moments of panic to connect the dots to Jack's “devious and brilliant” plan to attend the show.
He had put her up to this!
Did she even know I was entered in the contest? Because she definitely didn't know that I'd painted Jillian.

Would she recognize her own daughter hanging on the wall? Would she be shocked? Angry? Had Jack even thought this through? He'd seen the photo of the painting, for the love of Pete! He'd merely said it was “perfect,” which already made me nervous enough because he didn't elaborate, and what if he really didn't like it but he couldn't tell me because he's my boyfriend and he didn't want to hurt my feelings and this is so different than any other artwork I've done over the last couple of years and why in the world did I think it was a good idea to do something so weird for a scientific art contest … and, and …

OH, GOD!

Slow breath in through the nostrils, long breath out through the mouth …

I abandoned the idea of jumping into oncoming traffic and calmed down about the same time Mom found a parking space. Nothing I could do about this now.

Time to face whatever awaited me.

The show was being held in a building with several floors of private art galleries, and they were all open late for some once-a-month open house. A guard sat behind a desk in front of four elevators, where signs and a map identified the student exhibition gallery. We wove though stilettos and plastic champagne glasses (private gallery openings) to join the Converse and Sprite crowd (the student exhibition).

The gallery was pretty big: one room split into three sections with white walls, wood floors, and black track lighting focused on the artwork. A small area at the far end had been set up with a microphone and chairs—for the judges, I assumed. They'd already picked the winners before the show, but the judges were around there somewhere, mingling. I scanned the room for Jack or his mom. Nada. But I did spy someone beefy and muscular and smiling: Noah.

Heath waved him over, and we all greeted one another.

“How long have you been here?” I asked him.

“Long enough to see all the entries. You're going to wipe the floor, Beatrix.”

“I don't know about that.”

“Saw a couple of the judges looking at it,” he said. “
Everyone
's talking about it.”

Had Noah seen Jack's mom? He knew better than to mention this in front of my mom, right? Had my fall from grace come up during their pillow talk? I imagined it had, and my brother's shifty eyes confirmed it.

Heath quickly elbowed Noah and cleared his throat. “Show me where Bex's painting is, then tell me everything,” Heath said as he pulled Noah away.

“Good luck,” Noah told me over his shoulder.

I checked in with one of the organizers and got an artist badge with my name and school listed. Crap. There were more than a hundred entries? When I'd turned in my painting, the person who took it said there were fifty. That was twice as many people to compete against.

“It's loud,” Mom said near my ear. “More like a party than an exhibition.”

“Heathens,” I agreed, eyeing other people with artist badges. They were all boys. Like, nearly every single one. And the artwork was exactly as I imagined: magnified cells, astronomy, close-ups of flowers … oh, and one dissection: a frog. It was actually pretty good.

“A frog?” Mom mumbled. “
Please
. Amateur.”

I blinked at her in shock.

She smiled at me conspiratorially. “Give me some credit,” she said, linking her arm through mine. “I might not be happy about all the crap you've pulled this summer, but it doesn't mean I'm not a proud mama. Where is yours, anyway?”

I pushed back chaotic feelings and straightened my posture. “Must be in the middle section.” Even wearing heeled boots, I had to stand on tiptoes to peer around the room. When Mom suggested we cut around a group of parents, we turned together and ran straight into the last people I'd ever expected to see.