Very in Pieces (11 page)

As I'm bouncing around the web I find a page about the Guerrilla Girls. The website has a woman with a gorilla mask on holding up her arm like Rosie the Riveter. They're a group of woman artists who've been around since the 1980s and they do all this art, almost like pranks, to counter the sexism they find.

My phone buzzes with a text from Britta:
Any more bottle caps?

When I'd looked at the house after school, there had seemed to be more caps. They were starting to fill in the spaces in the fan.

It's definitely growing. Do you know anything about the Guerrilla Girls?

Do I???

Then, another bubble of text:
FWIW, as rad as they are, I don't think they're the ones gluing things to your house.

I know. I just thought it could be something like that.

If only Essex was cool enough to have a group of renegade artists.

Maybe not a group?
I thought of the words on my locker. One renegade artist. Dominic. I still wasn't sure what he was trying to say, though.

True. I'll come take a look soon, and maybe Google up some other ideas.

Thanks.

See you tomorrow. Dickinson day!

Emily Dickinson can, as Grace would say, suck it. And take her stupid bird with her.

You just need some more feathers, dear.

I click off my phone and look back at the computer. The Guerrilla Girls are all political, a single mission. I take out a piece of paper and draw the T of a geometric proof.

It wouldn't hold up. There's not enough evidence. I have hunches. I have Dominic's sudden interest in me, but I don't have proof. I need to find out more about graffiti and renegade artists, and maybe even Dominic himself.

Ramona and Dad come in as I'm looking at the site. “Nice,”
he says. “That's what I'm talking about. That's the type of stuff you should be studying.”

“It's not really for a class. Just something Christian and I were talking about—graffiti and street art and their role in society.”

“You and Christian were talking about graffiti?” He scratches at his stubble. “It's not for debate team or anything?”

“Let's call it a friendly disagreement.”

He grins. “What side were you on?”

“That occasionally there is a purpose for this type of vandalism. Like with the bottle caps on our house.”

And writing song lyrics on someone's locker.

Ramona looks up from the orange she is peeling. “Do you think the bottle caps have a meaning?”

“Maybe.”

“Like what?”

“You tell me,” I say. “You're the one who knew that square of blue was the ocean. I'd say these things were open to interpretation.”

Ramona drops a whole, perfect spiral of orange peel onto the coffee table. “But what's your interpretation, that's what I'm asking.”

“That's what I'm trying to research. I'm trying to find information about more personal messages.”

“That is way cool, Very. I'm impressed.” Dad sits down in a chair across from me. “I mean, a lot of people think graffiti is just young men screaming to be heard. After all, that is why
the tag is so important.”

“The tag?”

“Like a signature, but stylized.”

“Does all graffiti have a tag?”

He laughs. “It's not like there are rules, Very.”

“Oh, there are totally rules,” Ramona says. “Like all graffiti must be completed between one thirty and four thirty a.m., local time. And all graffiti must have a tag, though said tag may not be obvious or ornate.”

“It would be easier if people just came out and said what they wanted to say,” I muse.

Dad slaps the table. “You'll like this. Way back when I first came to Essex, there was this bridge in Portsmouth. An overpass, actually. And there was a message that had been spray-painted there forever, it seemed. ‘Pam I love you sorry Julio.' But you see, there was no punctuation. So it was always a question: was the person who wrote the message apologizing to Julio for stealing Pam away? Or was it Julio himself who wrote the message and he was apologizing for loving her? And then over time I guess it faded or maybe was painted over. But then probably ten years later, a new message came up: ‘How do you like me now Julio?'”

“So Pam wrote back?” I ask.

“Maybe. Or maybe it was someone else who knew the message—and knew that everyone in the area would know it, too—and he was playing with it.”

“Or she,” Ramona says.

“Right. Or she. That's what's cool about graffiti—about any art really—the conversation, the dialogue that can go on.” He stands up. “I'm proud of you, Very. It's nice to see you branching out, breaking out of your shell.”

I shut my laptop. Dad gave me some important information, like that stuff about tagging. I'll have to check my locker and the house to see if I can find anything that looks like a tag.

It's the story of Pam, though, and Julio that I think of when I'm brushing my teeth, because I've got a picture lodged in my mind: Dominic scaling the overpass, can of spray paint in his hands.

Very, I love you. Sorry. Dominic.

iv.

There are no tags.

I mean, unless there is something hidden in the bottle caps, like some secret code. There's no name, no signature, no symbol. And the words on my locker are just the lyrics. Nothing to tie either of them to an artist or an underlying message. Nothing to support my theory that Dominic had something to do with the bottle caps.

I am sitting on the wall again after school, contemplating the lack of tags and wondering if Dominic will show up, when Ramona emerges from the school. She looks like she has ants crawling all over her legs. When she gets closer, I realize she has
completely covered her right pant leg in drawings.

“Not drawings,” she says as I back the car out of the shady spot I always choose. “Draw
ing
. See, it starts down here with under the ground.” She holds her leg up on the dashboard and points toward the cuff of her jeans, where vines tangle together. “Then it comes up to the earth, and we've got trees, and flowers.” She turns onto her side and looks at her butt. “Back here I did some birds, but I couldn't reach all the way around.”

“Put your seat belt on.”

“Yes, Mom,” she replies, and we both kind of laugh since it's more likely we'd have to remind Mom to buckle up.

“Anyway,” she says, “if you would actually look you'd see it's a whole scene.”

“I'm driving, Ramona. I can't look right now.”

“You could stop the car.”

“I'll look when we get home. How long did that take you to do anyway?”

“I started third period. I had to stop to go from class to class.”

“You did that in class?”

“It keeps me focused.” She trails her finger along the window.

“Focused on class?”

“On life.” She clenches her hand into a fist and then straightens out her fingers. “It's like sometimes my brain gets going and going and drawing lets me slow it down.”

I glance at her sideways: she's adding leafy details onto her knee.

“I love this time of year,” she says. “I love the way the light starts to clarify. Everything is crisp and perfect and you think that maybe the world is a beautiful place after all.”

“Maybe,” I agree. “Oh, hey, I forgot to tell you that I ran into Haylie. I told her that if you guys want to hang out, I can drive you both home.”

“Haylie?”

“Yeah, Haylie, or anyone you want. Rose. Mika. We can squeeze at least three of your friends back there.”

“Three of my friends. Sounds great.” I figure that's as close to a commitment as I'm going to get from her these days.

We reach a stop sign and wait for a day care group to cross the street. The teacher holds a long rope, and each child has his or her hand through a loop. “Look at that.” Ramona points. “It's like a multiheaded toddler dragon. They're marching off to fight the evil sorcerer that lives up in the mountains.”

“I didn't realize the scourge of child soldiers was so prevalent in the dragon world.”

“You'd be a good dragon army leader.”

“Uh-huh,” I say, and navigate down Main Street. It's tricky. You never know when a student might lurch out into the road.

“Oh sure. Organized. Capable. Patient. Maybe a little ruthless.”

“If you say so.”

“I don't want to be the princess in the tower. And I can't be a dragon. I'm not the sorcerer. What's left?”

“I don't know, Ramona.”

“Let's go to the library. I need to get some fairy-tale books.”

“We already passed the library.”

“So turn around.”

“Not today, Ramona, okay? I have things I need to get done.” I've promised myself that today I will go online and read up about Minnesota colleges.

She nods, and her body is still for a moment, but then she sees a collection of balloons tied to a street sign. “Oh, do you think it's a birthday party?”

And so it goes the whole ride home. Every tiny detail elicits a comment from her, from a leaf spiraling in the center of the road to an off-kilter mailbox. It's the same things we pass every day, but suddenly they are alive with meaning for her.

When we get home I forget to look at her jeans. We both bolt out of the car: she heads into the living room and I toward the kitchen for a snack, stopping to look at the bottle caps on my way. The sculpture has grown more detailed. There are maybe three times as many bottle caps, and they are starting to form patterns and shapes: swirls like a night sky.

I wonder when and how the artist added to the sculpture. It must be one of the students at the college. He or she could know Nonnie is sick and would have the free time to do something like this. I walk forward and touch the bottle caps, hot in the sun.

With a shake of my head, I go inside to the kitchen, where I open up the walk-in pantry. All I want is crackers or maybe a granola bar, but we have no typical American family snacks.
We have condiments and sauces: three different kinds of mustard; seven varieties of salad dressing; gourmet pasta sauce; mild, medium, and hot barbecue sauce. We also have things that came in cans: anchovies, marinated artichokes, something pink and slimy-looking. But after Ramona and I cleared out the kitchen for the family dinner, we have nothing that I can just sit down and eat.

Mom has probably forgotten to send in the grocery order. Now that Dad has stopped picking up meals, the responsibility for food falls on her. She never goes to the store, but orders online and has it delivered. Only she rarely remembers to place the order, even though you can set it up to send you the exact same thing every week—
Oh, but we need variety, Very!
It is a wonder we aren't all emaciated and writhing on the floor from hunger.

v.

“I'm going to the store,” I announce on my way through the living room.

Mom and Ramona are sitting on the couch, their legs all tangled up. “Wonderful, I'll come along,” Mom says. She's not the best shopping companion, but I agree. It's not like I can say no.

“Me, too?” Ramona asks.

There's this market in town that used to be a glorified convenience store but then decided it wanted to be all gourmet,
so now you pay twice as much for so-so food. Ramona disappears while Mom loads up at the ready-made section, Dad's old stomping grounds: rotisserie chicken, half-baked eggplant Parmesan, mashed sweet potatoes, macaroni and cheese, baby-size pork dumplings. “When are we going to eat all this?” I ask.

“This week,” she says. “Sometime.”

She heads off to the olive bar, carefully selecting the most ovaline of the varieties. “I'm buying a pound of these. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to eat them or paint them in a still life. Look at that color and shine!”

I peek down the baking aisle and see Ramona standing in front of the cake decorations. She's holding a jar of rainbow sprinkles, the kind that look like they should taste good but feel like wax in your mouth.

Moving on, I round the corner into the cereal aisle and pick up some of the Cocoa Krispies Nonnie likes, and some granola for the rest of us. I'm reading the labels trying to decide between Golden Berry Almond and Autumn Honey Harvest when I hear an all-too-familiar clomping.

“Very Sayles-Woodruff,” Dominic says.

I turn and face him, a bag of granola in each hand. “This is getting ridiculous,” I tell him.

“I know. It's like fate stepping in, isn't it?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of stalking.”

“You're stalking me?”

I raise my eyebrows, but he taps at a name tag and I realize that on top of his jeans and white T-shirt, he's wearing a green
apron.
DOMINIC
, his name tag reads.
MEAT
.

“Meat?”

“I'm a butcher.”

“Seriously? Isn't that like a specialized skill?”

“A butcher in training. An apprentice butcher. At your service.” He looks into my cart. “Not much of a cook, huh?”

I put both bags of granola into the cart next to the Cocoa Krispies. “We're busy, and this is easy.”

“You know what's easy? Brisket. Just pop it in the oven for a couple of hours. Or pork loin. Put a pork loin in a slow cooker.”