Red(15)

Felicity’s head was suddenly spinning, and she gripped the edge of the table. Here was concrete proof that Gabby was involved in the blackmail scheme. Though Felicity had been looking for this information all week, having it only made her feel worse. Any of the other girls could have been tormenting her based on speculation. But Gabby might very well have evidence of Felicity’s strawbie status. She was by far the most dangerous adversary. Felicity wondered if she was working alone or if her friends were in on it.

“Hey, are you okay?” Jonathan’s voice seemed to be coming from very far away.

“Yeah. Just … Can I see the painting again?”

Jonathan seemed reluctant, but he reopened the file, and Felicity stared at her hyena counterpart. The neon-orange dress it was wearing was so bright it made her brain throb. Even if she managed to confront Gabby tomorrow, the terms of the note were very clear: if this painting didn’t appear on the list of winning pieces first thing in the morning, everyone would find out what she really was. For the moment, she had no choice but to obey.

Felicity swallowed hard. “I think we should include it,” she said.

“What?” Jonathan stared at her, incredulous. “Really? I mean, don’t you think it’s kind of … vicious?”

“It doesn’t bother me,” she lied. She prayed he wouldn’t see the truth on her face.

But Jonathan was too busy squirming to notice her false tone. A blush was creeping up his neck, and a bright red splotch blossomed high on each cheekbone. “But—I mean, Felicity, isn’t that … isn’t that supposed to be you?” With a pained look, he gestured to the center hyena. “I don’t want to, you know, do that. To you.”

Was it possible that a non-redhead could be so concerned about hurting her feelings? Jonathan seemed even more uncomfortable than she did. “I know it’s not exactly flattering,” she said. “But there are lots of people who don’t like the pageant, and they should get to express their opinions. I think we should put it in the show.”

They both stared at the painting on the screen for a long minute. Felicity examined the ropes of drool dripping from the Haylie hyena’s gaping maw.

“You really think so?” Jonathan asked.

“Sure. Yeah. Art’s supposed to be controversial, right?”

Jonathan was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “You’re right. And I really respect that you think that and that you aren’t, you know, taking this personally. I’m okay with putting it in if you are. But, Felicity?”

“Yeah?”

Jonathan’s blush was intensifying, and his gaze dropped to the floor. “I just want to make sure—I want you to know that I don’t think—um—that. About you.” He gestured toward the hyenas.

Felicity’s heart did a strange little flip. Hearing something so personal come out of Jonathan’s mouth was disorienting, and she was speechless just long enough for the situation to become intensely awkward. Finally, she blurted out, “Well, I hope not. I make a pretty big effort to keep my drooling under control. At least in public.”

Jonathan laughed, and the tension eased a little. He ejected the CD, and they moved on.

It took almost three hours to choose the twenty-eight best pieces. “Should we map out how we’re going to arrange everything?” Felicity asked when they had finished.

“Sure. But we haven’t seen each other’s stuff yet. Do you want to do that now, so we have a complete idea of what we’re working with?”

“Oh, right.” Felicity had felt good about her sculpture earlier, when Ms. Kellogg had praised it in class. But now that it was time to show it to Jonathan, a swarm of butterflies seemed to have taken up residence in her stomach. She really wanted to earn her place in the art show—lately, she’d had a few too many reminders that she often got things she didn’t deserve.

“I’ll go first,” she said quickly. Jonathan’s painting was sure to be of Rembrandt quality, and her piece would probably look like third-grade macaroni art by comparison. Better to get it out of the way.

She collected her sculpture from the back of the art room, where she had tucked it under a protective drop cloth. She set it down in front of Jonathan and removed the fabric with a self-conscious little flourish. “It’s called Skin-Deep.” She could hardly bring herself to look at his face.

The piece was a self-portrait, created using a technique she’d invented that combined sculpture, photography, and papier-maché. Felicity had built a life-sized wire sculpture of a seated female figure hugging her knees to her chest, her cheek resting against them as if she were pensive or exhausted. Then she had taken hundreds of digital photos of herself smiling, laughing, dancing, joyfully tossing her vivid hair. She had printed them on translucent paper and brushed them onto the frame with a glue mixture so they formed a skin. A small part of her hoped someone would see her piece and walk away with a deeper understanding of who she really was. But a larger part hoped nobody would look past the shiny outer layer.

Jonathan circled the sculpture slowly, taking it in from all angles. Then he crouched down, looked at it up close, and ran his finger gingerly over the figure’s papier-maché shoulder. Felicity’s own shoulder tingled sympathetically.

It seemed like it had been way too long since either of them had spoken, and she grew increasingly anxious. Maybe Jonathan was trying to find a tactful way to tell her that the sculpture wasn’t good enough for the show. “If you don’t like it, I have other stuff,” she finally said to break the silence. “I’ve mostly been working with this technique lately, but there are other things I could show you if—”