You Know Me Well(20)

The bell rings before I can say anything else, and we all stand up and gather our backpacks and lunch remnants and try to ignore the tension between us.

*

Today is a studio day in Art. All I have to do is paint. I block out the world with my headphones and Sharon Van Etten.

I begin something new.

Squeeze paint from tubes. Mix the color of a circus tent, a sky at dusk.

Violet.

Fifty minutes disappear with my brush on the canvas and the thought of her, and then I am washing the colors down the sink and Elsa stops next to me to return a tube of glue to a drawer.

“Finally,” she says. “The tent.”

“What do you mean?”

“All semester you’ve had these circus elements. The elephant with the star; the tightrope; those hoops on fire. And now, finally, the tent.”

“I didn’t know it was so obvious.”

She shrugs.

“I wouldn’t call it obvious. I’d call it a theme.”

“Thank you,” I say. “And, oh, the cover of the journal looks great.”

“I was afraid they weren’t going to get it printed on time. I mean, we get yearbooks tomorrow. We have four days and then it’s over.”

I dry my brushes. I try to keep breathing. But the thought of my last yearbook, full of goodbyes from everyone I’ve known almost all my life, leaves me shaken as I make my way to the math hall. Each minute is bringing me closer to a future I’m not ready for.

But then I see Mark. And I feel better.

I sit next to him at the desk where I’ve sat every day for several months, but for the first time I turn to face him.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hi,” he says.

We smile.

“I may have blown your cover,” I confess. “I saw Ryan.”

Mark’s smile wavers.

“He asked me about a Sylvia Plath essay.”

“Hm.”

“Sylvia Plath wasn’t in our plan. I am all for bending the truth for a worthy cause, but I can’t say it comes naturally to me. But did I get you in trouble? I hope not.”

He leans back in his chair.

“Who knows? At least he asked about it, I guess.”

“Did he ask about anything else?”

“Not in a way that made me want to answer. Did she?”

“Not really.”

“Well,” he says, “it can be our secret for a little longer.”

Ms. Kelly tells us we’ll need to take notes, and soon we’re all unzipping backpacks and digging for pencils.

“Please say you can hang out after school,” I say.

“Definitely,” Mark says.

Ms. Kelly begins her review, and Mark and I turn toward the board.

I stare at equations, copy what she’s written, but soon I drift back to Violet.





7





MARK


When I find Katie after school, she looks completely freaked out.

“What?” I ask. “What is it?”

She holds up her phone.

“It’s AntlerThorn. AntlerThorn wants me.”

“Wow,” I say. “Antler Thorn, huh?”

She nods. “AntlerThorn’s already sent me a graphic to post to Instagram. So I posted it. This is so surreal.”

“It most certainly is. I just have one question.”

“What?”

“Who’s Antler Thorn? Because I wouldn’t have pegged you as the type to be getting calls from gay porn stars. And Antler Thorn sure as hell sounds like a gay porn star.”

“It’s a gallery. The one Garrison told us about, remember? AntlerThorn. One word.”

She says this as if it makes much, much more sense as one word.

“That’s awesome, right?” I say. I don’t know much about the art world, but having a gallery want you must be like being scouted by the majors, at least.

“It is awesome. Except it’s also weird. Because it’s a lie that’s coming true. The only person who thought I was having a gallery show was Violet. And now a gallery wants me to have a show there.”

As we head to her car, she explains more of the backstory. I do not tell her that I am slightly distracted thinking of some of the outfits that Antler Thorn, Gay Porn Star?, would wear. I’m not sure she’d appreciate that.

I also know that Ryan would. I almost want to text him and ask him what he thinks when he hears the phrase Antler Thorn.

Then I imagine him responding:

Let me see what Taylor says.

I have to stop. I am spiraling into ridiculousness.

We’re at Katie’s car now. She points to this big, big zip-up envelope thing sitting on the passenger seat.

“I want you to look through those and pick the twelve I should show them.”

We get in the car and I tell her, “I’m not sure that’s the best idea. Ryan’s the art person, not me. If you want to go through it, I’m happy to drive.…”

She shakes her head. “If I try to go through it, it will take me about twelve hours, and at the end of the twelve hours I’ll be certain I am the most pathetic excuse for a non-artist in the history of everything. That’s just the way it is. And we don’t have twelve hours—I am supposed to be there by four. Because they’re doing this show of queer artists, and apparently one of the photographers had to take down his pieces because they were all reproductions of his cheating boyfriend’s Grindr chats, pictures included, and the boyfriend is threatening to sue.”