The Astonishing Adventures of Fan Boy and Goth Girl (20 page)

And I—

And I wake up on the bus. Someone's been flicking my ear-lobe and there's some paper in my hair, which I brush out, to titters and laughter from the anonymous masses. My hand goes to my pocket—nothing. I forgot. I left the bullet at home.

God, I'm exhausted. That dream ... That dream was
way
out of line.

Schemata.
It's my revenge. It's my way out. I'll start out with this one and move on, and I'll win awards and accolades, and I'll have the revenge of never having to think about these people ever again for the rest of my life.

At home, I blow through my homework first, then move on to
Schemata.
I'm so close to having this ready for Bendis that it hurts.

Tap the hard drive case. Feel the comfort of the bullet leaking through.

But while I'm working on pages and adding in cool Photoshop effects, I find that my mind keeps drifting. Sometimes I can't use the computer to draw; it's just not organic enough for sketches and light work. It's something like automatic drawing, I suppose—where you just let the right brain take over entirely and let the pencil do what it wants.

I lie back on my bed with a sketchpad and a soft pencil. I start out with a thin parenthesis of a curve, growing slightly thicker at its terminus. Then some feathering along the length of the curve, giving it dimension and weight.

It's starting to look like someone's back, as seen in profile. I frown and shut down the analytical part of my brain and give my hand free rein. Shadows start to gather on the paper. Then a "C," heavier at the bottom. Almost graceful.

It's definitely someone's back. Definitely a profile. A woman. But not Courteney. My pencil strokes out the line of her shoulder, lengthens her arm out, bends her elbow so that it comes up to partly conceal, partly distort the visible breast. It's a study; I should be using charcoal.

But I'm not really thinking now. I'm an observer. When it's really coming—whether it's art or story or both—that's what it's like. It's like watching someone else do the creating, watching other hands and hearts at work. And it's
easy
that way. It feels
great.
It's not like work at all. It just
happens,
and I blink and it's been hours and it's done. And it's perfect.

Like this. Like this sketch.

Yeah, it's Kyra. No doubt about it. A profile, which is weird because I never saw her naked from the side, but I know—the way an artist knows—that I got it right. From the sweep of her neck to the arch of her back to the way her body goes slightly concave just under her ribs before swelling to rise. She holds her arms crossed in front of her, obscuring her breasts, making herself slightly folded.

Her neck is perfect, vanishing into a morass of sketch lines and vague forms. How much time have I spent gazing at her face, and I can't even draw it?

And then, as if I've successfully completed some bizarre, ancient summoning ritual, the phone rings.

"It doesn't work," Kyra says.

I
'M TOO STUNNED BY THE SOUND
of her voice to respond. Wasn't it just yesterday that we screamed at each other and she stormed out of here? I find myself looking down at the sketchpad. Kyra, naked. Kyra, on the phone. I shiver. Does she somehow know? I didn't mean anything by it. It's just a sketch. It's just art.

"I thought you were pissed at me."

"I am. Look, it doesn't work."

"What doesn't work?"

"I'm reading those script pages you gave me. It doesn't work. The scene where she uses her powers on her husband and sees his fantasies."

"OK." I try to remember the scene she's talking about. "Look, can we talk about
Schemata
later? I wanted to say I'm—"

"There's nothing else to talk about. I got your e-mail apology already. I don't give a shit if you're sorry. I'm trying to make this graphic novel better, do you understand? And I'm telling you that the scene doesn't work. You've got her seeing that her husband has these fantasies and she runs off crying, all horrified that he has these thoughts in his head, and it's just bullshit, man. It's complete bullshit."

On the sketchpad, the lines and scratches that should be Kyra's head start swimming.

"I don't understand what you're talking about."

"It's like you can't imagine that she could
deal
with it."

"So, what, she kicks him in the nads instead of crying?" In spite of myself, I'm getting into this.

"No, you idiot."
Not
said playfully. It's like she really thinks I'm an idiot. "She
deals
with it. Why the hell does her reaction have to be emotional? Why does she have to break down or bust his balls? Why can't she just figure it out? Why can't she realize she's turned on by it? Or realize that her fantasies would be just as tough for
him
to see?"

Courteney's fantasies? Courteney doesn't have fantasies. What's going on here?

"Kyra, help me out here." I turn the sketchpad over—it's too distracting to look at. "What happened yesterday? Why didn't you e-mail me back? You had me thinking you hated me."

"Stop talking about that!" she yells. "God, you're so wrapped up in your own pathetic little fantasies that you can't even see what's going on in front of your face! This is a terrific graphic novel, but it has a problem and I'm trying to help you fix it! Do you understand that?"

"No. Why are you helping me if you don't like me?"

"I'm
not
helping you! I'm helping the
story.
God! You get ... You get, like, ninety-nine percent of it. I never knew a guy who ... It just drives me friggin' crazy that you don't get that last one percent."

"So tell me."

"After you came so far on your own? Are you nuts? And besides—I hate you. Fix the scene."

She hangs up. I stare at the phone, trying to figure out what just happened with one part of my brain while the other part parses what Kyra said. She's right, I guess. It's such a cliché to have Courteney freak out. There's got to be something else she can do, something deeper and subtler.

I'm about to *69 Kyra when Mom shouts down from upstairs. I trudge on up out of the dungeon to find her and the step-fascist watching something romantic on TV—I can tell by the way the step-fascist is zoning out.

"When is this convention thing?" she asks.

"Saturday. Like I told you last month."

"I was afraid of that. Look, I can't take you."

What? Is this some kind of joke?

"It's this baby shower this weekend. That's all. I have to go to it."

This
is
a joke. Some bizarre, messed-up joke. I look over at the step-fascist, who's actually paying attention, watching to see if I blow up, no doubt.

"Mom..."

"I know. Look, I can take you next time."

"Next time doesn't matter." I say it through clenched teeth, using all my willpower to keep from shouting. This can't be happening to me. God, a day ago it wouldn't have mattered; Kyra could have taken me.

"I have to go to this shower."

"Mom..."

"Don't start, OK?" Her voice goes hard. I see how she's rehearsed this in her mind: She breaks the news with contrition in her voice, offers to make it up to me, and I'm just supposed to swallow it. I'm just supposed to swallow raw sewage and pretend it's Evian because she says so.

"Mom, I
have
to go. I
have
to."

"There will be other conventions."

Which is true, but what are the odds Bendis will be there? And there won't be another convention around here for a
year
at the earliest. "Mom, you promised. You said you'd take me."

"I didn't know they were going to throw this shower for me. Look, these are the people I work with. I didn't even think they liked me. This is important."

That's it. That is
it.
"So what?" My voice jumps up, cracks. "So what? This is just a small thing, Mom. You can take me down in the morning and pick me up—"

She crosses the line from I Am A Patient Mother to Why Did I Have This Kid? "I am
not
driving all the way down there, then back here, then down there again, and then back here."

"It's only, like, an
hour,
Mom!"

"Yes, which is four hours after all the up and back! And that's without traffic,
maybe.
" She winces and holds her stomach tighter, and I wish it would just explode already. "I'm not even supposed to be driving that much."

"I can't believe this! I can't believe you're doing this to me!" Bendis is slipping away. He's going to be an hour away from me and I won't see him. All my work, all my efforts, for
nothing.

"It's not about you," she says, tired.

"It isn't? You mean it's someone
else
you're not taking to the convention?"

"I don't like the tone in your voice."

Tough titty,
Kyra's voice says, deep inside. "God, Mom! This is the
one
thing I need! I never ask you for
anything.
This is the most important thing in my
life.
"

"You always exaggerate. Trust me, you'll be
lucky
if this ends up being the most important thing in your life."

It's not an exaggeration. I may lie, but I don't exaggerate.

She sighs and turns back to the TV. It's over because she's the adult and she
says
it's over. She has the power. Or so she thinks.

I go nuclear. Full-on ICBM assault. Every missile in my arsenal.

"I'll call Dad," I tell her, dumping every last ounce of spite I possess into my voice. "I'll call Dad and he'll come pick me up and take me to the show."

She spins around
much
faster than a pregnant woman should be able to, her eyes blazing, her face twisted into a mask of horror. "You will
not
call your father, do you understand me?"

"You can't stop me!"

"I do not want your father here. Do you understand me? I do
not
want your father in this house! I will not allow it!"

Mom's got a pathological thing about Dad even
looking
at the house. He's never even driven down this street before. When I visit him, we meet on "neutral ground" at a bank parking lot halfway between here and Dad's house. I think of it as "getting furloughed" when going to Dad's and "back to solitary" when coming back, but I don't tell Mom that.

"You can't stop me," I tell her. "I'll walk up to the intersection and he can pick me up there. You can't do anything about that." And I cross my arms over my chest, triumphant over the seething, hormonal she-creature in front of me. Trump
that,
Mom.

"Don't you
dare
call your father," she hisses.

I stare at her, then I turn on my heel and walk away.

"Don't walk away from me! Come back here!"

Yeah, right. Chase after me, fatso.

The gamble pays off. Her yells follow me down the stairs and into my room, then are cut off when I close the door. She's not coming after me.

I sit at my desk for a while, staring at the telephone. I just need to pick it up and call Dad. That's all I need to do.

I reach out for it, but my hand is shaking. It's not the idea of defying my mother. That's not it.

It's just that ... It's just that it's "out of sight, out of mind," like I told Kyra. It doesn't just apply to my friends from my old neighborhood. It used to be that when I saw Dad for my one weekend a month or over the summer, he'd set his time around me. I was the most important person in the world. When I first had to move to Brookdale, I used to call Dad all the time. Just to talk about ... anything. Anything at all. It was an excuse to talk to him because I never saw him, and Mom was always either miserable or angry or off being a newlywed with the step-fascist.

I would tell him about school, or about comic books I'd read, or something I'd seen on the Internet. But after a little while, even though I was talking to him ... It didn't seem like he was talking back much. He sounded distracted. Like someone clicking a remote while the TV's on "mute," which, now that I think about it, he may have been doing. A lot of "Mm-hmm" and "uh-huh. Sure" from his end. And I can remember telling him about how I met Cal, how we were going to do a comic book website together (this was a while ago; never happened), and I finished and I waited for Dad's reaction, and there was silence until he said, "OK, well. All right. That all sounds good. Anything else?"

I stopped calling him after that. It just didn't make sense anymore.

And then my weekends and vacations became Xbox and fast food between his dates, and...

So I snatch my hand away from the phone. The joke's on me, Mom. You get your way. I won't call him. Not because you don't want it, but because I guess I'm afraid that...

"
This weekend? Oh, I wish I could. Really. I have something I have to do. Some errands. I'm sorry.
"

"
Saturday? I'd love to. Oh, no, wait. There's something else.
"