“Are you sure you want to go to school today?” asks my mom. She’s worried because I haven’t cried about Lark. I’m on autopilot. I’ve been like this for a long time, only she hasn’t noticed.
I have lots of little secrets from my parents. They don’t know about the stacks of drawings under my bed or the Van Gogh pictures I’ve cut out from their art books and taped inside my closet door. They would complain I’ve ruined books, but they’ll never notice. They haven’t looked at an art book in years. They don’t know how much I know about pen and ink, how you build an image line by line without blending, only short lines or long, no room for error. If you hold the pen too firmly, the ink bleeds over the image. If you hold it too lightly, your line is insubstantial and weak. Which is one of the many reasons I love Vincent van Gogh. I’ve studied his sketchbooks and read all his letters to his brother Theo. He never missed a beat.
My parents are both artists, or used to be. I don’t consider what they do now as art. They want me to be a lawyer.
“But, honey,” says my mom. “You look so tired. Don’t you want a day off?”
I tell her I have to go to school, that I can’t possibly miss World Civ because Mr. Haus is reviewing for the test and there’s an in-class essay in English. All this is true. She bites her lip and sends me on my way. Inside my binder I’ve taped a drawing of a man carrying a lantern. Van Gogh drew it in the margins of a letter to Theo. I can’t figure out how he made it light up the dark.
The air is crystalline and brittle. I have a new superfine pen from Japan in my purse. The wind whips my coat around my legs. I wrap my scarf over my mouth and nose so I don’t breathe in the cold. I trudge through the slush to Thomas Jefferson High, home of the Rebels.
I’d forgotten it’s the day of the big game against our archrival, Washington-Lee. A wave of team spirit pushes me through the front door. People rush to get a better view of the pep parade marching through the hall. Cheerleaders shake their pompoms and bounce. The marching band steps high, tilting their instruments and blaring the fight song. In between the band members, the basketball team cruises along. People jostle and push. My new pen falls out of my bag and rolls across the floor.
The band finishes to big applause and several rounds of “Go Rebels! Kill Generals!” Then the five-minute bell rings and everyone scatters. Cheerleaders stuff pom-poms in lockers. Skaters and stoners lift their fists in mock school spirit and slink off to class. Behind me, two boys are talking about Lark.
“Pretty cold,” says one.
“What do you mean?” asks the other.
“Having a pep rally so soon after Lark Austin was found dead.”
I turn around to see a junior named Ian. He writes music reviews for the paper. I recognize him from the photo by his column. He catches my glance, then drops his eyes to the floor. He seems embarrassed or shy. The crowd thins, and I spy my pen under the drinking fountain. I slip it into my bag and rush off to class.
The day goes on, simultaneously numbing and exhausting. For the second year in a row I didn’t get Studio Art, my first choice for electives. Instead I have Debate with Ms. Curren. She assigns us to topics and teams. I’m placed on the side against stem cell research, with Darren and Scott, two boys who live for basketball, and Judith, an honors student with short hair and ennui. We push our desks together, then I pull out my binder and start drawing Van Gogh’s traveler carrying a lantern in the dark. All three of them, I am surprised to learn, are in the Animal Rights Club.
“Why?” I ask, noticing Judith’s huge leather purse.
“Because it’s an easy way to get your community service experience,” says Scott. He moves his hands when he talks, like he’s spinning a record. “You bake some brownies for a bake sale, go to the shelter, walk the dogs around the block, and bam! You’re looking good for college!”
“Colleges love animal rights,” agrees Judith. “That’s how my sister got into Bard. She was president of the club in her senior year.”
Darren is unhappy about our assignment. “Hey, Mizz Curren!” he yells. He lifts his elbows and taps his chest when he talks. He’s so animated, the chain on his wallet jingles. “We’re all for stem cell research, you know, to help the babies and all the folks with bad hearts and diabetes. We can’t debate against it!”
Ms. Curran nods empathetically. “Yes, Darren, it can be a challenge to develop an argument for a position you deeply oppose. But in the long run, nothing will help you defend your ideas more effectively than learning how to compose an argument for the other side.”
“See, bro,” says Scott, “that’s what I told you she’d say.”
Darren takes off his cap and turns it around. Judith checks her nails. I’m filling in the man’s coat with crosshatching. Ink flows from my pen, drenching the paper, smearing the lines. I’m off. If Darren and Scott would shut up, I’d control the pen better.
Hours tick by. Between classes I clutch my binder and edge through the crowd. In algebra, I will myself right back into the man’s walk in the night, rays of his lantern piercing the darkness.
Finally the last bell rings. Everyone’s pumped up, making plans about who’s driving to the game, who’s having an after party, and which one is worth going to. The marching band assembles at the flagpole, playing “Hit Me Baby One More Time,” keeping spirits high until game time. The blare of the trombones and beat of the drums make me nauseated. Alyssa, Boston, and Beth are in attendance, yelling, “Kill Generals! Kill Generals! Kill Generals!” at the top of their lungs. They imitate the cheerleaders and fall over themselves laughing, Alyssa because she’s too good of an athlete to take cheerleaders seriously, Boston and Beth because Alyssa’s their queen.
I come home to NPR blasting through the speakers my dad installed last Christmas. I dump my books on the window seat and wander into the kitchen. My parents are busy in their studios. Mom, part owner of Hand-Made ceramics gallery, is busy at the wheel, throwing teapots. Dad’s color coordinating tiles and countertops for a huge house that’s trying to look like Mount Vernon. The developer cut down fourteen trees to build it. It has a great room, a spiral staircase, and a four-car garage. When Dad showed me the plans, I told him he had sold his soul.
“And it’s ugly. With a huge carbon footprint,” I said. “No one will buy it in this economy.”
“Let’s hope you’re wrong,” he said. “Your college tuition depends on it.”
I’ve been overhearing my parents talk about money. They sit at the breakfast table with the laptop and stacks of bills. We’re overextended, they say. My mom’s store might close, and my dad has only one project going, not like the days when he and Mr. McCall built the town houses near the pool.
Somewhere behind the blueprints of all the McMansions and the subdivisions are my dad’s old canvases and paints. He used to paint landscapes. There’s a shelf of glass jars with perfect lids, the ones that you shake to blend tertiary paints. By now the pigments must be dried and cracked. One drop of water would turn them back into paint.
My dad emerges from his studio, well meaning and quizzical. “How was school?” he asks.
“We had a pep rally,” I say, putting the kettle on for tea.
“No kidding,” he says, sounding shocked. “Well . . . I suppose it’s best to get things back to normal.”
“Whatever normal is,” I say. It seems girls getting kidnapped and murdered is fairly normal. The window above the sink is edged in frost. I touch it with my fingertip, enjoying the slight burn.