How to Be Brave(45)

Shit. Now, why’d I go and do that?

I check my phone. Evelyn hasn’t texted since the day before Christmas Eve.

This was our last conversation:

Her: hey what’s up?

Me: Nothing. Sick. You? (I refuse to misspell my texts.) Her: nm. get 2gether?

Me: Sorry. Can’t. Achoo.

Her: ok. feel bettr. merry xmas.

Me: You too.

And that was it. I haven’t seen her in two weeks. Anyway, it would be just a bit awkward to text her out of the blue and say, I want brownies. I want to get high.

So I sketch and I paint and sketch and paint, but after a full day’s work, I have nothing—a few ideas and one messed-up canvas—hopefully I can paint over it tomorrow. And hopefully I can fill up the other four with something respectable.

I pull out the list. #6. Learn how to draw, like Mom.

I need to do this. It’s as much for me as it is for her.

I made a promise.

*

I pack up all of Mom’s Lee Mullican papers and carry them to the basement, and then I head back to my room. I have no other place to work. Mom had a studio she worked out of, but we closed it up when she died.

I shove my bed out from the center of the room against the wall. I push aside my desk, pile up my dirty clothes that cover the floor, and stuff them into my closet.

I put on my favorites: Lorde and Jack White and First Aid Kit, and yes, even some Taylor Swift, and, of course, Nina Simone. I blast the music, and I force it out.

I force myself to do this.

First, I draw faces on my paper. My face. Her face. His face.

I glance at photos, but mostly I work from memory.

I copy them onto a canvas. I sketch the lines of our faces, mix the colors with my knife. Cadmium red and yellow ochre with a dab of titanium white turns into my mother’s hair, which is also my hair. Ivory black mixed with burnt sienna and a bit of the yellow becomes my father’s hair.

Terra rose and cobalt blue for our skin.

Viridian for our eyes.

I etch lines like Mullican’s crop circles onto our cheeks. Our eyes fade into our skin. Our jaws fade into the ether. We form a triptych. A blurred map of a lost land.

I refuse the real. I embrace the abstract.

I eat bowls of cereal and toast with peanut butter and cold bacon-and-egg sandwiches brought home by my dad, who ignores my locked door.

I sleep in two-hour spurts and then I wake up and paint again.

I am outer world and inner world.

I am energy.

I am vision.

I am Lee Mullican.

I am Diana Melas.

I am Georgia Askeridis.

*

On the sixth day, I go to bed at eight A.M. after a full night of painting my last canvas, and I sleep for sixteen hours straight. I wake up to the sounds of firecrackers and horns.

Oh right, New Year’s Eve. I squint in the dark at the clock. Midnight. I guess I missed the countdown. Maybe Dad knocked on my door, maybe not. It doesn’t matter. All I know is that the worst year of my life is over. Hallelujah.

I turn on the light, but the rods and cones in my eyeballs protest. I’m groggy and starving and surrounded by a mess. Even though I put down old towels, I dripped paint all over the carpet. I should have used a tarp. Dad’s probably going to kill me when he sees this.

Nothing I can do about that now.

I feel like I spent the last six days dreaming, but when I look, the paintings are really there. I don’t know if they’re good. I don’t care, really. I see them, and they’re mine. They’re the first real productive thing I’ve done in months. Or maybe ever.

I reach to my nightstand and check my phone for the first time in a week.

Three messages, all from Evelyn.

Her, four days ago: u better?

Her, two days ago: hello? call me. im worried about u.

Her, yesterday: did u see insta? u ok, georgia? call me if you need to talk.

Instagram? Why the hell would I be on Instagram? Like I could give a shit.

I don’t want to go on Instagram. I don’t want to know what other people are doing. And I certainly don’t want to think about the fact that, come Monday, only a few short days away, I have to actually face Liss and Daniel and Evelyn and Gregg and Marquez in the living flesh. I don’t want to go back to reality.

But I can’t help it. Her f*cking text has piqued my curiosity. Now I need to know.

I open Instagram and scroll down.

There it is, three photos down. I know exactly why Evelyn texted me.

There’s a beach, a sunset, bare feet. Skinnydipping! Second time in three weeks. #life #love #friends.

And she’s tagged four people: Daniel Antell, Felicia Carter Kevin Lee, Rosie Cabrillo.

She did #5—again, and without me—and even worse, with Daniel. And that probably means she also did #15, with Daniel. I bet she kissed him. I bet they’re together now. I mean, she tagged him first in the damn post.

It’s really not okay.

So much for new beginnings.

So much for positive thoughts.

I reach into my bag and pull out the list.

Do Everything? Be Brave?

Fuck it all.

I rip up the list into a dozen tiny pieces, and then I throw it in the trash.

I turn off all the lights and dig my head under the pillow. I scream into the mattress in a lame attempt to drown out the blasts of celebration that reverberate through the city.