The Anatomical Shape of a Heart(77)

I elbowed him. “Laugh it up, fun boy. If I don’t, you’ll be in a long-distance relationship after I end up at one of my safety schools across the state.”

“Don’t tease me, Bex. I can’t take it.”

We’d both applied to the San Francisco Art Institute. The school has a rolling admissions calendar, which means they make decisions as they receive each application, instead of having one massive deadline, and Jack had gotten his acceptance letter the day before.

“You applied almost a week after me,” Jack assured me. “Who would turn down your portfolio? It’s amazing. Besides, your SAT scores are better, and your dad wrote your recommendation.”

Things weren’t perfect between Dad and me, but once a month he came into the city and we’d meet for lunch or have dinner—last month at Noah and Heath’s place (which was sort of awkward, but sort of okay, too). And it was true that he’d written my recommendation letter.

“But he’s my dad,” I protested.

“But he didn’t mention that. Besides, you have different last names. Stop worrying. You’ll get in.”

SFAI is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi River. Diego Rivera painted a mural for the institute, and Ansel Adams started the photography department. It was a great school. A school for serious artists, and God knew if I was anything, I was very serious.

The school had a reputation for encouraging students to do their own thing, so for me, that meant I could take the occasional premed anatomy class at another school in the city when I was ready. And for Jack, it meant he could attend the college where the graffiti-inspired Mission School art movement had begun. It also meant he could continue to be close to Jillian. And that was more important than ever, because she was coming home the following week.

Pretty amazing.

Jack was over the moon about it. She’d continue to go to therapy and see Dr. Kapoor several times a week, and the Vincents had hired a full-time nurse to live in the house and make sure she stuck to her routines. The new living arrangement might work, or it might be a disaster. But there was no way of knowing until they tried. And Jillian was finally ready to take that step, which was awesome. To get her acclimated to life on the outside, she’d been allowed a computer for a couple of months and had been using social media. She loved it. (A little too much: The orderlies had to stop her from staying up all night chatting.)

When the mayor’s speech ended, he left the stage to thunderous applause. Jack and I were clapping, too. It was sort of exciting. His aides were walking him back to the press for follow-up questions, but he spotted us and made a detour.

“What did you think?” he asked us.

“Nice,” Jack said, sticking out his fist for a bump.

The mayor bumped back and smiled. “Is that for Jillie?”

“Yep,” Jack confirmed, holding up his phone. “Say hi.”

“Love you, baby. Can’t wait for you to come home next week,” his father said to the screen. His chief of staff was calling him and motioning to his watch. “I’ve got to go. See you at dinner tonight, Beatrix?”

“With bells on,” I replied.

He smiled and trotted back to his staff, disappearing down a hallway.

“Okey-dokey,” Jack said, stopping the video recording. “We’d better clear out before this dog-and-pony show clogs up the exit.”

We headed out of the auditorium and made our way toward his car, which was parked in a rare curbside space just down the hill. He’d joked that finding the premium space was “Buddha’s blessing.” I told him that he was going to hell for using his enlightened philosophical leader in vain, and that it was totally the cloisonné ladybug pin I’d worn every day since the art contest. He didn’t believe in hell, but he did believe in Lucy the Ladybug, which was what I’d named the pin.

“My parents will be stuck here for a good half hour, maybe an hour,” Jack said, sliding me a seductive look. “We can stop off at the guesthouse on our way out for some quickie afternoon delight.”

“Gee, when you put it that way…”

We were headed to our last day of volunteer work—or, as Jack called it, our prison sentence. Every weekend since school had started up, we spent a couple of hours painting over graffiti tags on a block near the Zen Center. This was the “additional stipulation” that the mayor had mentioned after the art show. Punishment for Jack’s vandalism. The SFPD, who sponsored the volunteer clean-up program, thought we were just doing it out the goodness of our hearts. No way was Mayor Vincent opening himself up to the scandal of his kid being the notorious Golden Apple street artist, so we did it on the down-low. It wasn’t so bad. We painted over mailboxes, walls, windows, and sidewalks. Before we covered them up, Jack secretly snapped pictures of anything that was more than just a basic one-color tag and uploaded the images to a local graffiti online photo album. For posterity’s sake.

“What do you say?” Jack pulled out his car keys and swung the key ring around his index finger. “I’ll let you drive. Fast car and fast love. It’s the perfect combination.”

“Said no girl, ever. You sure you trust me to drive after last time?”

I nearly killed all three of us—me, Jack, and Ghost—when he was teaching me to parallel park. In my defense, it was a busy street and the guy behind us was making me supernervous with all the angry honking. Afterward, Jack had to do his seated zazen meditation to calm down.