How to Be Brave(35)

“Well…” I fumble, “he was one of the most important artists of the twentieth century, and yet one of the most undervalued.”

“How exactly did you hear about him?”

“Oh, my mom was a huge fan,” I say. “She wrote her graduate thesis on him.”

“Ah…”

“Yeah, and I always liked his stuff okay, but I never really understood why she loved him so much. So I’d like to use this assignment to figure it out.”

“I see.” Marquez is half skimming my paper, half listening to me. Then he puts down the paper and turns to me. “Look. I said I wanted to talk to you about your art. Here it is: You’re good. Very good.”

Say what now?

“Out of the one hundred and fifty students that pass in and out of my classroom each year, I see about a dozen or so truly talented ones. But usually, I only see one or two each year who have the gift. This year, I see it in you.”

“What gift, exactly?”

“You are an artist. Sure, you have a lot of work ahead of you, but you have what I can’t teach: vision and clarity and depth. You say something with your work.”

“I do?”

“And better yet, you don’t even know it.” He shakes his head. “I love it.”

Well, this came out of left field. A) Marquez is not being sarcastic and snarky for once, and B) he’s telling me I’m good at something. Like, for real.

“Thank you, Mr. Marquez,” I say. I’m stumped for more words. I wish my mom were alive so I could tell her. I’m finally doing what she wanted.

“I’m worried, though, that you might lose yourself in this project. It sounds like Lee Mullican was your mother’s muse. I don’t want you to get consumed by her artist.”

Wait, what?

“You can focus on his art, if you want.” He shrugs. “Just be careful not to lose sight of yours.”

Ouch. That’s kind of harsh. As though I can’t have my own voice and do this, too? I mean, I was never planning on losing myself in anything.

But all in all, I still have to say, cordial Marquez is much more pleasant than caustic Marquez.

“Also, stop skipping class. You’re too much of a good kid to be a loser.”

Ah, there it is.

“Now, go home, warm up, and keep sketching. I expect to see great things.”

He stands up, shakes my hand, and walks back inside.

I sit there a while in the cold, thinking about what he said.

I’m well on my way to crossing off #6. Learn how to draw, like Mom.

I don’t care if he thinks I might “lose sight” of my art.

I know this, for sure: She would have been so happy.





10

Avery Trenholm’s party is the exact opposite of what I thought it would be. Liss said it was invite only, but I thought that was just a guise for it being open to everyone except dorks, nerdherds, emos, and wannabes, and that the party would be a swollen mass of drunken seniors guzzling kegs upside down and writhing to some lame-ass house music or some such scene. As it turns out, it actually was invite only, and there are only about fifteen people here, who are all just huddled quietly in the candlelit living room, sipping on something they’re calling Jungle Juice. I think it’s a mix of Kool-Aid and vodka with frozen fruit in it. How very classy.

Everything about her house is catalog perfect. Gray walls. Sleek gray leather couches. Odd table-side sculptures of human forms. Over the gray marble fireplace, artsy black-and-white photos of unnamed skyscrapers are juxtaposed next to equally artsy black-and-white photos of Avery when she was a kid, five years old maybe, and then in middle school, and then last year the whole family, her wide, smiling face sandwiched between her mother and father, all three faces monopolizing the frame.

She’s got the fireplace lit, snow is falling outside, and this dim winter’s evening, everyone I’ve known since the first grade suddenly looks so adult. Maybe it’s just that I haven’t really spoken to any of them since we were twelve. I swear it was only yesterday that we were all wearing pigtails and swapping friendship bracelets. I don’t know where time went.

I also don’t know how Liss convinced Avery to include Evelyn and me on this Very Exclusive List even though I couldn’t be included on the cheer squad; but we’re here, and I think I might be having some sort of out-of-body experience.

First of all, Avery Trenholm is being nice to me. When I first walked in, she gave me a hug. It was the World’s Most Awkward Hug, but still she reached her arms out and wrapped them around my neck for a good half second. She smelled like a mix of vanilla and Jungle Juice, so I could probably just credit her sudden familiarity to the fact that she was inebriated and didn’t know who I was. And now she’s laughing and smiling at me like I’m actually part of the group. Chloe, too. Then again, I think I’ve been too hard on Chloe. She was never really that mean to me. And actually, a few of the cheer girls are here and they’ve all acknowledged my existence in one form or another (while all year I’ve been another body in the hallway). I keep sort of looking over my shoulder because I think they must be looking at someone behind me, but they’re not.

And I’m drinking, too, which is a first for me. Of course, I’ve consumed plenty of Evelyn’s special brownies, which always lead to a weird combination of elation and hallucination, but beyond the random sips of wine and ouzo (blech) my dad has given me (“She should know what it tastes like”), I’ve never been drunk, and I’ve never had more than maybe an ounce of any kind of alcohol. It’s different, this sensation of drinking—I’m just calm, and my bones feel heavy, like they’re filled with water. And I’m only on my second glass of their Kool-Aid creation.