Waves of Light (12 page)

I
followed Vivian out to the truck. Her newfound energy was contagious. As I opened the truck door, I realized I’d nearly run across the parking lot just now; when only an hour ago, my feet had been too heavy to lift. Up and down and up and down, my emotions were completely unpredictable. Even though I was happy not to be down right now, I still felt a little nuts.

“I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before,” Vivian said as she pulled onto the main road. “You’re not going to believe it. Wait.” She slowed the truck. “What time is your dad coming to pick you up?”

“He said we could take as long as we wanted. And he invited you to join us for dinner, too.”

“That’s sweet. But after this, I don’t think I’ll want to do anything but work. I figured out the missing piece.” Vivian
turned the truck onto a gravel road and we skidded a bit as she rounded the first corner.

“Sorry, I’ll slow down. I just can’t wait for …” She slowed the truck again and craned her neck to look back into the trees.

I looked too, but I saw nothing; so I was shocked when she shouted, “There!” and slammed on the brakes.

“Where?” I squinted but still didn’t see anything.

“It’s a little ways in. Let’s go look.”

We hiked along a poorly marked, overgrown trail, jumping over logs and wading through wet patches until we stepped into a clearing, I now felt the same way I had when I’d seen the spirit bear: As though I’d just stumbled into a dream. A grand piano and a bench, covered with trailing ivy, were just sitting there as though someone had prepared a concert for the forest dwellers.

“What …?” I began.

“Olivia Wendelson’s husband couldn’t bear the thought of visiting his wife in the cemetery, but he wanted to preserve her memory somewhere. So he bought this plot of land and put her piano out here. For a few years, people came to visit it all the time; but now it’s all but forgotten, I think. At least I’d forgotten about it until today.”

“Does it still play?” I asked.

“It probably doesn’t sound very good, but I do think it still plays,” she said. “Try it.”

I circled the piano feeling quiet and a little shy, but I really, really wanted to play it. Finally, I sat on the bench and
ran my fingers over the keys. My reflection stared back at me wide-eyed and full of wonder from the shiny black surface. How it could still be shiny after all this time, I had no idea. I smiled. I’d found my reflection picture for Frankie.

I’d memorized only three songs during my piano lesson days, but as I looked at the piano with the sun streaming down on the ivy, I knew what song to play.

“You Are My Sunshine” came out warbled and out of tune, but the notes ran together in an oddly magical way, filling the clearing and slipping under my skin.

Vivian stood with her eyes closed until I finished. “It will be perfect for the center of my exhibit. Not a tree — but a piano. And inside the ivy that’s crawling all over the piano, treasured memories will be tucked away.”

“Can I help?” I asked.

“You need to work on your set pieces for the play. But you can stay over tonight and help me — if your dad says it’s okay.”

I called Dad on the drive back, and he agreed to let me stay over. The rest of the evening was a flurry of work. We managed to build the piano with chicken wire and stretched fabric, and we also created wire ivy vines and some fabric leaves. We hadn’t eaten by eleven o’clock, so Vivian called to order takeout.

“Would it be okay if I went back to New York with you? For the exhibit?” I asked.

“Isn’t that the same night as your play?” she asked.

“Yeah, but … I’m not really sure I want to … I don’t know.”

“If you want to come with me, you’re welcome to. But consider staying for the show. You’ve worked so hard, and seeing it all come together would be really special.”

I took a bite of pizza that was still so hot the cheese stretched out in long threads. “I can work on the leaves this week, if you want me to. And maybe I can get some people to help at rehearsals, during downtime. ‘Cause you’ll need a lot of leaves — for the trees and the ivy on the piano.”

“Only if you have time,” Vivian said. “Actually, let’s make a pact.”

“About what?” I asked.

“Let’s both promise not to bury ourselves in work to try to avoid our feelings — like we did before.”

“Yeah, so we’re making a pact not to work?” I asked.

“We’re making a pact to be artists. By now you know the difference between working and creating. I do too, but I’ve been so busy working that I haven’t allowed myself to create.”

“I haven’t been able to draw in my sketchbook either,” I said. “It just feels … empty.”

“That’s what I mean. How have you felt tonight?” she asked.

I hadn’t been thinking about how I felt, actually, which was the opposite of what I’d been doing for the past few weeks. Until tonight, all I’d done was think about how miserable I was.

“I want to draw.” I took my last bite of pizza and threw away my paper plate and napkin.

Vivian had bought an inexpensive bed, but she still had the air mattress we’d brought out for her. So she set it up in the living room.

“You’re sure you don’t want to sleep in the bedroom?” she asked.

“No, this is perfect.”

Vivian set my two canvases side by side, the waves and the swinging girl. I piled up the pillows so I could lean against them and draw, facing the canvases. I turned to an empty page in my sketchbook.

I divided the page into eight squares and started sketching. First, I drew the box at the bottom of the ocean and a dolphin swimming by. Then I drew the key. In the next box, I drew the key being tossed on the waves. Then, the key was up in the air being carried by the wind. The key soared over trees, through clouds, past the nose of a spirit bear, and came to rest on top of a forgotten piano.

I looked back at the drawing of the locked box. I still wasn’t ready to open it yet, but tomorrow I’d tell Vivian that I’d accept her pact. I would try my best to be an artist. Because even when I didn’t have any answers — even when I felt confused and frustrated and lost — drawing helped me to see new possibilities.

I closed my sketchbook and went to look out the window.

I’m here
.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

T
he next day at rehearsal, I dipped my brush into the gold paint and began tracing my pencil lines. The metallic swirls stood out against the vivid green of the box, the perfect compliment. Everyone else was busy running through the show, so I could lose myself in the painting.

Across the field, Cameron and the band started playing Ruth and Annabelle’s song. I knew the music, but I hadn’t actually seen their dance. Was I being selfish? It was like Ruth and I were on opposite sides of a brick wall; each of us pushed, but neither of us seemed able to knock down the barrier. No matter how much we shouted to one another about how things looked from our own side of the wall, neither of us could see the other side.

The music stopped abruptly, mid-song. They’d start again, probably, once they’d worked out some detail or
another. I stifled a groan. I couldn’t avoid it. Maybe I couldn’t see things from Ruth’s perspective, but as long as I sat around nursing a grudge and refusing to be there for her since she hadn’t been there for me, I was making things worse between us. I’d made a pact with Vivian not to work harder, but to create. I couldn’t create as long as I held on to all of this anger.

I rinsed my brush in the water bucket and left it there to soak. The music started up again when I was halfway across the field. As I got closer, through the trees I saw a skirt twirl here and a hand extend there. Once I’d passed into the clearing, I stopped to watch. Ruth had taken on some of Annabelle’s glow. Her arms moved in graceful arcs as she leapt and spun. The dance was a call-and-response. Ruth danced, and then Annabelle responded with movement of her own.

Annabelle hadn’t taken out any of the turns in this dance. Clearly, Ruth knew some secret to turning, or else Annabelle had taught her well, because at the end of the dance, they went into a sequence where Ruth spun in looping circles around Annabelle, faster and faster until I felt dizzy just watching her. When they finally stopped, they each held up an arm and looked straight up, mirror images of one another. Then, surrounded by a cloud of fog and through a well-placed trapdoor in the bottom of the platform we’d built for this scene, Ruth disappeared.

She came out from under the platform to watch the rest of the scene — something she wouldn’t be able to do during
the actual show. No one expected her to stay curled up in the dark during rehearsal, though. The minute she saw me standing there, she stopped and looked confused. I smiled and gave her a thumbs-up, nodding toward where she’d danced just moments before. She came over to me, her expression still tentative.

“I thought you were painting.”

“I heard your music and decided to take a break. Amazing, by the way.”

She looked at me then, hope and worry mixed on her face. “Do you really think so? I got a few of the steps wrong …”

“No one would have known, Ruth. I had no idea you could dance like that.”

“Annabelle’s a really good teacher—” Ruth stopped as though she’d said something wrong.

Ruth and I were never careful around one another. This wasn’t what we did. We told each other what we thought; we argued stuff out. We didn’t do this careful, polite thing. I smiled at her, but I didn’t force the sadness out of it.

“And you’re a really good dancer. I’m sorry it took me so long to come see you.”

Now it was Ruth’s turn to smile sadly. We both knew what she was about to say, and I stopped her before she said it.

“It’s not okay, Ruth. Not really.”

“Shhh!” Claudia hissed at us, which brought real smiles to our faces.

“I’d better get back to painting,” I told her.

“I’ll come help after rehearsal sometime, if you want me to. Or I can just keep you company or whatever. We both know I’m not the best artist in the world.”

“Good thing, too. I’ve got to save one talent for myself if you’re going to be the dancing-singing-acting queen.”

“Shhh!” Claudia hissed again, even though we were whispering now.

Ruth and I did identical eye rolls and then grinned at each other.

“See ya.”

“See ya.”

My grin lasted all the way back to the music box.

After rehearsal, Ruth, Bea, and Lindsay stopped by the set-design station.

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Ruth asked. “My mom’s waiting for me with the twins now, but I can help after rehearsal on Saturday, if you want. I’ll bring paint clothes.”

Bea and Lindsay watched me with tentative smiles, like they expected me to start shouting any minute. “Actually, if any of you would like to help Vivian, she needs some help more than I do.”

“With what?” Bea asked.

“She’s making a piano covered with ivy for her exhibit, and a bunch of trees. So she needs a bajillion leaves made of fabric. I’ve been cutting some out, but if you wanted to take some fabric and patterns—”

“Fun!” Bea lost her worried expression and clapped her
hands. “We’d be helping with a real New York City art exhibit!”

As I wiped off my hands and passed out fabric to the girls, I noticed Andrew watching me while he walked across the field with Cameron. He looked away as soon as he caught my eye, but not before a half-smile crossed his face.

Bea and Lindsay left with their armfuls of fabric, but Ruth hung back. “I heard your mom came home, Sadie. How is she?”

I almost shrugged, but stopped myself. “Not so good.”

“I’m sorry,” Ruth said. “I’ve been so busy thinking about the play and Annabelle that … well, I’m sorry.”

A car honked.

“You’d better run,” I nodded toward the parking lot, “so your mom says yes about helping on Saturday.”

“Right.” Ruth gathered up her things and jogged off.

I should feel better now that Ruth and I were talking again. And while I still didn’t know what was going on between Andrew and me, that didn’t feel like the real issue — the numbness that wasn’t going away. Any minute now, the floor could drop out from under me, and I’d turn into “crazy Sadie” all over again.

“Need help with those brushes, Sadie?” Penny asked, walking past me on her way back to the office.

I remembered her promise that I was going to be okay, and I wanted to ask her to stay, to tell me how she could be so sure that was true. But I thought I knew what she’d say. Just like the dancing girl in the bakery in our play, I’d have
to find my own song, my own dance. And maybe it was enough to know that people like Penny believed I could. One day.

“I’ve got it. But thanks!” I said and then hurried to finish because Dad would be waiting for me.

And Mom. But I’d worry about her later.