How to Be Brave(16)

And now, here I am, about to desecrate her church.

Or am I? This is what she wanted. This is what she told me to do.

“You okay, Georgia?” Liss reads me like no one else can.

I nod, and we head downstairs to the bathroom, where we go in the family stall and Evelyn hands us each a piece of brownie. I take one more. Liss takes two.

And then.

And then,

I’m light. And color. And shape. And form.

And I think everyone’s looking at me. I think everyone knows.

And maybe they do.

And Picasso’s women are thick and round and heavy.

And they’re blue, so blue.

And I’m dripping down Pollock’s paint.

And I’m a child on Seurat’s lawn.

And I’m a dancer at the Moulin Rouge.

And I’m a leaf drowning in Monet’s mist.

And Dalí is laughing at me.

And then,

my mother is there,

right there,

lounging in a striped red armchair,

her hips full and round,

her torso thick with color,

her eyes

a confusion of line and sphere,

but tender,

and warm.

They’re smiling at me.

They are right there,

so close I can touch them.

*

The brownies start to wear off. We’re leaning against a wall, staring at Chagall’s blue window, and I’m exhausted—completely and utterly exhausted. “Can we go lie down somewhere or something?”

Evelyn nods and we follow her down a long back hallway to the new building, where the exit spits us out into the park. We find a tree and collapse under it. Everything is still weirdly bright—the leaves shake in their vivid yellows and oranges—but I can feel the ground, and the earth is there. It’s spinning beneath me—I know that, too. But I also know I’m here. Chicago, Illinois. Millennium Park. Georgia Askeridis. Pothead.

“Holy shit, man,” Evelyn says. “You guys okay?”

“Oh yeah.” Liss takes off the sunglasses, and I realize she might have been wearing them the entire time we were in the museum. She lifts her head off the ground and looks at us. Her eyes are bloodshot. “That was … amazing.”

Evelyn grins. “Turns out that shit was a little stronger than I’d anticipated. Sorry, guys. Hope you’re okay.”

She pulls out a clove and lights it. Liss takes a drag, and I reach out for it. I inhale, and it burns—holy shit, does it burn—and I cough a little, but then I try it again a few more times. My brain swims a little more, but it feels good. I lick the cinnamon from my lips and rest my head back on the earth.

We stay there for a while, searching for shapes in the clouds.

“Elephant,” Evelyn says.

“Sailboat,” I say.

“Turnip,” says Liss.

She would see a turnip. This is why we’re friends.

It starts to get cold, and we realize we’re hungry as all hell. We stop at Dunkin’ Donuts, buy a dozen to share, and eat them all the way back home.

I’m not sure exactly what I accomplished today, but I know I feel good.

I know I’ve done something different.

I’m marking that down as Positive Thought #10.





5

The Second Official Locker Date occurs randomly at the end of the day on Halloween when Daniel looks over at me and says, “Nice costume.” I’m wearing an orange shirt with the silhouette of a statue of Athena that I found half price at the Alley, and I’m holding an old book with the words Forgotten Lore that I drew on with some calligraphy pens my mom had in a drawer. Oh, and best of all, I’m wearing a raven on top of my head.

Yes, an honest-to-goodness fake blackbird, one of those Styrofoam-bodied things from Michael’s that I glued to an old Blackhawks baseball cap. I said I wanted to go bold, but I think today is the day that I’ve firmly solidified my position in No-Woman’s-Land. People have been giving me funny looks all day. But it’s Halloween, people! If there’s any day to be brave and do everything, today’s the day.

Daniel’s staring at the top of my head, and I think he might actually like my costume, but it could be that he’s staring because I’m dressed like a total dork. He’s dressed normally, a jacket and jeans.

“‘Quoth the raven…’” Daniel intones in a low voice.

Yes! Except for my nerdy English teacher, Ms. Langer, he’s the only one who got it today. Liss thought I was an evil librarian, and Evelyn thought I was a witch.

He’s smiling at me. Okay, yeah. He likes it.

“Nevermore,” I respond.

“May very well be the best poem ever,” he says.

“Agreed! My mom used to read it to me when I was little. That and ‘The Bells,’ which I thought was hilarious.”

“To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells From the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells.”

Ah! He’s cute and smart. “Yes! Exactly!”

“Another great poem. Edgar Allan Poe, man. Nothing like him. How great was it that your mom read those to you?”

And … we’re having an actual, real, honest-to-goodness conversation that involves something other than stilted salutations.