Words of Stone (12 page)

The night was thick and black and full of motion. The white painted lines on the highway slashed through the darkness as if they had been cut with a monstrous knife. There were only a few cars on the road, and when Joselle spotted one she wondered where it was going. She was going home. It may not have been under the best of circumstances, but Joselle Stark was going home.

Joselle's bags were in the trunk, but she kept her purse and her knapsack on the floor between her feet. In the knapsack were her new clothes, the lucky penny, Blaze's key collection, and the fox she had taken from his Noah's ark.

Blaze Werla.

What could she do about him now? Would he ever forgive her? How could she have been so stupid? Why had she danced in the rain?

A small part inside her wanted to forget him—put him out of her life completely, throw his things into the trash when she got home. But she knew that wasn't possible. She had already added him to her life. Most people she trusted ended up breaking her heart into a million pieces. Blaze was different. Why did she have to go and ruin everything?

“I've got something for you,” Floy said, interrupting Joselle's thoughts. “Grab the wheel a minute. Traffic's light.”

Joselle leaned over and clutched the steering wheel. She turned it ever so slightly, testing it, feeling the power. Floy had never let her do this before and it surprised Joselle. The highway curved gradually and Joselle maneuvered the car expertly.

Floy fished under the seat for a minute and came up with a small, flat bag. “Here it is,” she said. She slid the bag onto Joselle's lap and grabbed the wheel, pushing Joselle's hands away. “I bought this the night we went shopping at the mall. I paid for it while you were in the dressing room. I thought I'd keep it and give it to you when you needed it most.” Floy flipped the overhead light on.

It was a scarf. A beautiful scarf. It was black, bordered with a network of birds of all kinds, printed in gorgeously bright colors. Every color Joselle knew. And even some she couldn't identify by name.

“Thanks, Grammy. I love it.” Joselle stroked one of the birds. “I love you,” she told Floy.

“I thought it would look nice with your new sweater. Jazz it up a bit.”

A lump formed in Joselle's throat. She wanted to say more to Floy. Apologize for getting the sweater dirty. Thank her again for the scarf. She started to cry.

“I know you don't understand everything your mother does,” Floy said. “I don't understand, either. But I know she loves you.” Floy rubbed Joselle's knee. “Let's just drive,” she said. “Let's just drive and think.”

Joselle had a lot to think about. The Beautiful Vicki topped her list. But if Joselle thought about her mother too long, she was overcome with sadness. She tried to keep the sadness moving. Joselle pictured the inside of her body as a pinball machine. And she willed the sadness—the little steel ball—to stay in motion, moving around and around throughout her. Never stopping. If it stopped, she might explode.

Her mind drifted back to Blaze. He may have been the best friend she ever had. If nothing else, she knew that she had to return the key collection and the tiny fox. It was just a matter of time. Joselle remembered so clearly the night that she had thought of the words of stone, how impressed she had been by her own brilliance. And when she had first looked at Reena's name on the hillside, she had felt so elated that her toes tingled. Thinking about it all now caused her stomach to sink. She had set out to complicate someone else's life, and ended up complicating her own.

And that's when she took her pen from her purse and hiked up her nightgown.
I'M SORRY
, Joselle wrote on her thigh. And—
I'M BACK
. And she knew that she would be back. She was counting on it.

Floy glanced over, clicked her tongue, and flicked off the overhead light. “Just drive and think,” she said again, softly.

After putting her pen away and readjusting her nightgown, Joselle folded and unfolded the scarf on her lap. Then she wound it loosely around her neck and knotted it above her heart, tossing the ends casually off to the side. Even in the darkness, the birds on the scarf were so colorful, so vivid, that for a brief moment Joselle was certain that she heard them sing. A wild throaty song.

T
he bedroom simmered with stale heat. Joselle was standing at Blaze's window, looking out toward the hill. She was wearing a skirt that reminded Blaze of a tulip, upside down. The skirt changed color constantly—green to blue to gray. And everything wavered. She was intent, her body firmly fixed to the window frame like a statue. Blaze wanted to see what she was seeing. Was there a message on the hill? He tried to run toward her, but could only move in slow motion, as if he were moving through deep water. By the time he reached the window, Joselle had leaped out. He leaned over the sill, but she was nowhere to be seen. She had disappeared into a blinding yellow light. But her voice came from all around—above, below, and from within. “I'm everywhere,” her voice said, echoing in his head like a bell, making his ears ache. “I'm everywhere.”

When Blaze woke up, his sheet was pulled over his head, and his room was sizzling with the summer sun.

For days after the incident in the rain, Blaze didn't see Joselle at all. But then he hadn't gone up to the hill since then, and he wasn't exactly sure if he wanted to see her anyway.

He spent a good portion of each day preparing to paint the canvas that Glenn had given him at the start of the summer.

Blaze had decided to try to paint in a manner similar to Glenn's. He would paint a surreal landscape. Blaze knew that people rendered realistically weren't his specialty, so he thought he would choose different objects to represent people he knew. He would have the objects floating in a night sky, stars all around. Anything was possible in the darkest part of the night.

Lying on his bed, Blaze made a list of the people he wanted to include and the objects that might represent them.

           
DAD—a paintbrush, his birthmark

           
GRANDMA—a cucumber beetle, green beans, tomatoes, a flower

           
MOM—my ark, the Ferris wheel

Should I include Joselle? he wondered. Or Claire? Or myself?

He added to the list.

           
JOSELLE (maybe)—a spoon, the button, stones

           
CLAIRE (maybe)—
long
hair
(not red),
a silver barrette

           
ME (maybe)—my key collection, my ark, the Ferris wheel

Some things could stand for more than one person, Blaze realized. A paintbrush could stand for Glenn or himself. Or even Claire, seeing as there were brushes in the box of paints she had given him. His ark and the Ferris wheel could stand for Reena or himself. His key collection also symbolized Joselle, since she had it now. And Joselle's button represented both of them, too; it was hers, but it was in his possession. We're all linked in certain ways, he thought.

He sketched on paper first. While he worked, Blaze remembered the day he had told Joselle that he wanted to be an artist when he was older.

“A famous one?” she asked.

“I don't know,” he replied, shrugging. “Just an artist.”

“I'm
going to be famous,” Joselle told him, smiling.

“At what?” Blaze asked.

“At whatever I want,” Joselle answered. “Currently I plan on being a famous doctor, or at least a surgeon of the heart or brain.”

Even though Joselle was on his mind, he decided to concentrate on Glenn and Nova and Reena. Soon, a large paintbrush, green beans, and a tomato circled a full moon. And so did an ark with animals spilling out across the sky.

When Blaze sketched the ark, he set the real one on the floor in front of him. That's when he discovered that his tiny fox was missing. He looked for it under his bed, in his closet, and in all his drawers. I'll find it later, he said to himself.

He worked and reworked his ideas until he was satisfied. Then he smeared charcoal on the back of his drawing, taped it to his canvas, and traced over the drawing. Now the image was on the canvas. He left enough space for other objects he might include later.

With his paints like a box of candy before him, Blaze sat in his room waiting to begin. “Beginning is the hardest part,” Glenn always said. Blaze surely felt that now. He waited and waited and waited. He wasn't yet ready to make a mark on the canvas with paint.

The next day Glenn asked Blaze, “Where's Joselle? I haven't seen her around lately.”

“I'm not sure,” Blaze answered, trying to be as vague as possible.

“Maybe she'd like to come for dinner, too?”

“Oh, not tonight,” Blaze said.

“Okay,” said Glenn, absently. He was poking at the fire in the outdoor grill with tongs. Claire was coming for dinner. They were going to have bratwurst.

Blaze was wary of the fire. He stood at a distance and squinted his eyes. He could feel the heat and smell the lighter fluid. Blaze crossed his arms, rubbing his elbows tentatively. His ankles felt itchy. The air above the flames rolled and flickered as though he were looking through waves. It was mesmerizing.

Blaze had asked to invite Claire. It was his way of trying to make up for the times that he had ignored her. Glenn's eyes had glinted when Blaze had suggested it. “Good idea, Blazer,” he had said, placing his hand on the back of Blaze's neck and holding it there for a moment.

After dinner, Blaze found a few minutes when he and Claire were alone.

“I wanted you to come for dinner,” Blaze told Claire softly. The kitchen table stood between them, a flat brown space. They had already cleared the table of dirty dishes and rinsed them. Water dribbled down Blaze's arm. He wiped it on his pants. “It was my idea.”

“I know.” Claire's mouth was a perfect circle when she finished saying the word know. And her expression was so bright his head spun.

Before Claire left, she came to Blaze's room to say good-night. The door was open, but she knocked and waited in the hallway.

“You can come in,” Blaze said, sitting up. He had been lying on his bed. His Noah's ark was on its side, capsized atop a rumpled mess of bedspread waves. The animals were scattered, adrift among the creases of the sheets. He had been wondering (as he often did) about what happened to all the animals that were left behind, all the animals that weren't allowed into the ark. Did they all drown? And how many animals
had
been left? Hundreds? Thousands? Millions? The waters of the great flood must have stunk, he reasoned. And what about the
people
left behind? That was the worst part about the story of Noah's ark. The part they never really tell you about. What happened to all the people?

“I just wanted to thank you for inviting me tonight,” Claire said.

“That's okay,” Blaze replied. His cheeks turned hot. “This was my favorite toy when my mother died,” he said, picking up the ark and offering it to Claire. Their fingers touched in the exchange.

“It's nice,” Claire said. Nodding toward an animal, she said, “May I?”

“Sure.” Blaze handed her the tiger. “I had twelve kinds of animals, but just yesterday I realized that my fox is missing. I keep this in the ark to take its place. Until I find the fox.” He held up the round, lustrous button from Joselle's sweater.

“No foxes.” Claire looked quietly, then gently placed the ark and the tiger at the foot of Blaze's bed. “Well, I should go, but I just wanted to thank you. It was nice to see you again. And thank you for letting me look at your ark. It's an interesting story, don't you think? Mysterious.”

Blaze could only nod in agreement. Mysterious was right. He almost pulled his canvas out of his closet to show Claire, but changed his mind.

“Good-night, Blaze,” Claire said from the doorway. Her face was in shadow, but her long, ringed fingers waved in the light, catching it and sending it back like miniature comets.

“'Night,” he answered. He listened to her oddly rhythmic footsteps pattering down the hallway. She's skipping, he thought, thrilled by the sound and thrilled by the picture it created in his head: a tall adult doing what he had only seen little children and his kindergarten teacher do. Blaze fluffed his pillows and wedged them behind his back. “See you soon,” he whispered.

B
ecause he knew he would have to face Joselle sooner or later, Blaze walked up and over the hill to Floy's house and rang the bell. Gary charged for the window and barked so fiercely Blaze shuddered. After a long minute Floy answered the door, opening it just a crack and blocking Gary with her spindly legs.

“Hello, Blaze,” she said, her bespectacled nose protruding through the small gap between the door and the doorjamb.

“Hi,” he said shyly, trying to keep an eye on Gary. “Can I talk to Joselle?” he asked, twiddling his fingers nervously. “Please?”

“She went back home,” Floy replied. “It's been a few days now. I don't know what Joselle told you, but she was only here for a short visit. For all I know, she told you she moved in here.”

Suddenly Blaze felt lonely. “She didn't say good-bye.” The boldness of his voice surprised himself.

The door opened wider as Gary quieted down. Blaze could see Floy entirely now. She was wearing a sleeveless white housedress patterned with deep red roses, and she held a magazine in her hand. Her pockets were overflowing with tissues.

Gary slipped past Floy and trotted out onto the porch. He rubbed against Blaze. Blaze scratched Gary behind his ears, trying to remain calm, trying to remember everything Joselle had taught him about dogs. After circling Blaze twice, Gary made himself comfortable in the shady corner of the porch.