Still Life with Tornado(19)

“I did it in second grade,” she says. “Mom bought me canvas and acrylics. She painted one, too.”

“Just get out of my room and let me sleep, will you?” Mom yells.

Dad comes down the stairs and we’re still standing in the study looking at our painting of abstract flowers. He storms past us and into the kitchen. He opens the back door and then stops.

“Sarah?”

“Yeah?”

“I thought you were out.”

“I was. I just had to pee.”

I hear him walking back toward the study and I try to hide ten-year-old Sarah behind me, but she won’t stay hidden.

He looks at us—both of us—from the doorway between the kitchen and the study and he says, “I didn’t know you had a friend over.”





Oh



Ten-year-old Sarah smiles at Dad and I say, “We’re going back out now. Home by dinner.”

He says, “I’ve seen you before,” to ten-year-old Sarah.

“Yep,” she answers. “I live a block that way.” She points east.

Dad blinks a few times and says, “Oh.”

We can still see the anger on his face from the fight he just had with Mom. There’s a line that curves like a c above his nose. When we went to Mexico and he got a dark tan, that line stayed white because even when he lies in the sun, he’s angry.

Ten-year-old Sarah walks to the front door first and I follow her. Dad stands in the doorway to the kitchen watching us. I can feel it.

I follow Sarah east even though I know Alleged Earl has gone west. I suddenly don’t care about Alleged Earl. I care about my parents getting divorced. Or I care about how they call each other names. Or I care about what Bruce said to me in Mexico. I feel this burr in my chest, right behind the top of my sternum. It’s where my tears live. They never come out. Maybe my muse is there, too. Stuck on a burr in my sternum.

We keep walking, me following ten-year-old Sarah, and we end up on Broad Street. It’s Sunday and it’s pretty empty. The banks are closed. The theaters are closed until later today when the matinees will open and people will drive in from out of town and try to find the cheapest parking.

I see Carmen taking pictures half a block up Broad Street. She’s never been afraid to lie flat on the sidewalk to get the right angle for a shot and, when I see her at first, she’s sitting, brushing the dirt off her T-shirt and looking through images on her camera. Part of me doesn’t want to talk to her but part of me knows she’s Carmen—the only one who stayed my friend after the art club fissure. We walk up to meet her and she says, “We miss you in school.”

She looks at ten-year-old Sarah and smiles the same strange smile Dad had. I’ve known Carmen since I was in first grade. She knew ten-year-old Sarah when she was ten.

“Nobody was even talking to me when I left,” I say.

“Well, I miss you.”

“I miss you, too,” I say.

“They say you got expelled.”

“I didn’t.”

“They say you got caught with drugs.”

This makes ten-year-old Sarah laugh. She laughs so well. I don’t laugh like that.

“I don’t do drugs and you know it,” I say to Carmen.

“Yeah. I told people it was a lie.”

Ten-year-old Sarah asks, “So why aren’t you going to school, anyway?”

I look at Carmen looking at ten-year-old Sarah and see she’s blinking and trying to figure us out.

“I drew four more tornadoes,” Carmen says. “Big. On pieces of recycled wood. We’re doing acrylics on canvas for the next month.”

Ten-year-old Sarah says, “That sounds so fun.”

“Yeah,” I say, but I don’t really mean it. Carmen can paint all the tornadoes she wants. I’m not painting anything. Muse, burr, sternum.

“I know you,” Carmen says to ten-year-old Sarah.

“I live down the street,” ten-year-old Sarah says. “That way.” She points south.

“So . . . are you ever coming back?” Carmen asks me.

“I don’t think so,” I say. “Things are kinda messed up right now.”

“Miss Smith thinks it was something she said,” Carmen says. “I’ve been helping her after school. She says she thinks she’s the reason you’re not coming to school.”

Carmen was born to be the art teacher’s pet. There is nothing original about being the art teacher’s pet. I only hope Carmen steers clear of Miss Smith’s lipstick. I don’t think Carmen is her type anyway.

Either way, Miss Smith is kinda right about it being her fault. But telling Carmen this wouldn’t be original because Carmen already knows, only she can’t talk about it. So I say, “Nah. It wasn’t Miss Smith.” I look at the sidewalk and a piece of gum that’s been ground into it. “We’ll see you around,” I say. Ten-year-old Sarah has been walking around a signpost for the last minute and she’s making me dizzy.

“I hope things get better,” Carmen says.

“Have fun painting your tornadoes,” I say.

I walk up Broad Street, and ten-year-old Sarah follows me until I realize that she brought us here and I have no idea where she wanted to go.