Drawn

  Had Damon already gotten it, or did someone else take it? I hoped no one stole it. I wanted to see it, touch it, ride on it again. What if it had all been a dream, a strange and exciting and frightening fantasy my ridiculous subconscious created?

  As I continued toward the lake I pictured Damon on the raft, elbows hooked around his knees.

  Let him be there.

  “He’s not there,” I said out loud.

  He might be. Maybe he took his bike down to the water, and he’s waiting there.

  The sun blazed as I entered the clearing. No bike or Damon anywhere; just a lonely, empty raft in the still water.

  I started toward the pier, then stopped. I couldn’t walk out there alone. If I did, I’d spoil something precious and perfect. My feet took me to the boat launch instead.

  At the lake’s edge I took off my shoes, sat down and let the water kiss my toes.

  Breath by breath my mind drew backwards, through the hours since I’d been with Damon. I lay back against the warm concrete and turned my head to rest my gaze on the raft. I called up an image from my memory and seated him there, with his back toward me, and me facing him, facing myself if I could be both there last night and here in this moment, all at once. I watched the translucent figures on the raft and replayed from memory every word and gesture. And I lived it all again.

  Footsteps crunched in the woods and a shiver went through me. I bit back a smile and leaned on one arm to look over my shoulder.

  Oh, crud. Not him.

  I wanted to bolt. Even barefoot.

  He came out of the woods, still in the shirt and flowered tie he’d worn to church. “Thought I might find you here.”

  I turned away and looked out at the water.

  He crossed the sand toward the boat launch.

  I braced myself for whatever might come. I couldn’t remember the last time Dad got involved in my life, so I didn’t know what to expect.

  He sat down beside me and undid his laces. “‘Take off your shoes, Moses. You’re on holy ground.’”

  “What?”

  He pulled off his black loafers and put them on the sand. “Am I wrong to assume that something went on here last night?”

  I should’ve run when I had the chance.

  “Well?”

  I couldn’t look at him. “What do you want to know, Dad?”

  He sighed, deep, and shook his head. “What do you think I want to know?”

  “About Pam’s party?”

  “That, and why you were in the woods with that boy when you were supposed to be at home in your bed.”

  Because Mom really ticked me off, and you should be glad that boy brought me here when he did, or you’d probably be bailing me out of jail right now.

  “Answer me, Juliet.”

  “I don’t know.”

  He sighed and scooted back to stretch his legs out in front of him.

  Then it started.

  “I know you’re growing up.” He cleared his throat and loosened his tie. “And you’re having…” He paused and stammered over the starts of several different words before he found one he could spit out. “Feelings. Feelings that you may not have had before.”

  Oh please, God. Make it stop.

  “Your mother and I aren’t so old that we’ve forgotten what it’s like to be carried away,” he rubbed his cheek with his fingers, “by passions and hormones.”

  A spanking. Grounded till I’m a hundred. Hard labor in a snake-infested rock quarry in Siberia. Anything but this. “Dad, please.”

  “But there’s a whole minefield of trouble waiting when you start getting,” he tapped his fingertips together, “physically involved with a boy.”

  “Dad, I’m not—”

  “Now listen to me, Juliet.” He thumped his fist into his palm several times. “I don’t know how much your mother has talked to you…” He sucked on his teeth like he’d eaten ten pounds of taffy. “About the birds and the bees, and babies and disease.”

  My eyeballs and eardrums threatened to explode if I didn’t get them out of this soul-shredding nightmare.

  “Dad. I know everything I need to know. I’m not going there. Really.”

  “Then what went on out here last night?”

  “We just talked.”

  He snorted. “For three hours?”

  “I wasn’t wearing a watch.”

  “Considering when Tom Barrett brought you home and what time he said the party got going, if you really didn’t stay at Pam’s house more than a few minutes, then you spent one heck of a lot of time out here alone with Damon Sheppard.”

  Yes. Yes, I did. I squelched a smile.

  He pointed his finger at me. “And I trust Damon Sheppard about as far as I can throw him. I know what’s on teenage boys’ minds.”

  I squished my toes around in the little pebbles on the cement. “You don’t know him.”

  “Neither do you.”

  “That’s what everyone keeps telling me.”

  He exhaled hard, like Mark when Ginger wouldn’t give in. “If I can’t trust you, I’ll have to institute rules. Rules you might not like.”

  I turned away because my eyes rolled before I could stop them. “Do what you’ve got to do, Dad.”

  He whistled, long and low, like I’d just challenged him to a duel. “Juliet, I don’t even know you anymore.”

  Whatever. He hadn’t known me for years.

  If ever.

  * * * * *

  “They grounded me. If I’m not at school, I have to be at home.”

  Jimmy offered me a stick of flavored sugar. “That’s not so bad. Could’ve been a lot worse.”

  I took an orange one and tore the end off. “You don’t live at my house.”

  “But I do live at mine. And I like that you’re getting to school earlier.”

  “That’s two punishments for the price of one. Mark has to drive me and I’m not allowed to hang around Pam. Even on the bus.”

  Jimmy poured red powder onto his tongue. “Mark’s lucky they didn’t take away his car.”

  “They wouldn’t do that. Too much hassle for them.”

  He swished it around like mouthwash and swallowed it. “So tell me what happened.”

  I summed up my Saturday evening in most of the few minutes before homeroom.

  He looked away a lot while I talked and picked at a raveling on the hem of his jean shorts. “So are you and Damon going together now?”

  “No,” I said. I shook my head. “I don’t think so.” Are we?

  He finished off the sugar and crumpled the paper tube.

  “Are you mad at me, Jimmy?”

  “No,” he said. He really smiled and I really did want to believe him. “It’s just that… only that you were dumb enough to go to Pam’s really dumb idea of a party.”

  “I know. Stupid, right?”

  But if I hadn’t gone, I wouldn’t have spent three hours alone with Damon.

  Jimmy half smiled and shook his head, like he could read my mind. “There’s one thing I don’t get, though,” he said. “Why were you so freaked out about your brother kissing Pam?”

  I licked sugar off my lower lip. Then the five-minute bell rang.

  He squinted across the table at me. “What’s going on?”

  “I really don’t know.” I finished my candy and tossed the wrapper in my bag. “I’ll try to explain about it in art, okay?”

  He nodded. “I’m glad you’re back.”

  “Back from where?”

  “From wherever you’ve been.”

  * * * * *

  They got Hirsch against me.

  “With this year’s new question banks, I’m afraid Parnell won’t stand a chance with our current team.” He blew his nose into a wrinkled and motley-colored handkerchief. “We could really use your fine arts expertise.”

  I leaned against the front of Hirsch’s desk and tapped my fingers on the notebook I clutched to my chest. I glanced over my shoulder at the back corner of the room. Er
ik’s big, comical grin pleaded with me. But Damon didn’t even look my way. He leaned back and read a novel.

  “Do I need to make it a math requirement?” Hirsch pushed.

  “You can’t do that.”

  He shrugged and blew his nose again.

  “I’m grounded, anyway. I have to go straight home after school every day.”

  “I’m sure your parents will relent.” He handed me a piece of paper. “Fill this out. Get it signed. Bring it back tomorrow. I submit the team’s names on Friday.”

  “I don’t want to do this.”

  “Yes, you do.” He held up his hand to silence me. “Now sit.”

  I slid into my seat and Erik reached over to pat me on the back. I gave him a dirty look and noted Pam’s empty desk.

  Another day of three-variable equations began. Lost again, I pretended to listen and doodled in the margins of my homework. Pretty soon Damon’s dirt bike split the white space at the top of the page.

  Stupid photographic memory. I’d even penciled in the manufacturer’s name and the scratch along the exhaust pipe. I flipped the page over, too loud and too fast, and everyone turned to look.

  Hirsch stared at me from the blackboard. “Trouble, Miss Brynn?”

  I shook my head and leaned over my notebook again.

  “Mr. Athaca and Mr. Sheppard,” Hirsch called. “If you want Miss Brynn’s help with art, perhaps you can offer her some with algebra.”

  People snickered and someone wolf whistled. Bethany and Tori turned toward me in their seats, mirror images of each other. Tori just stared with her eyebrows up in her bangs, but Bethany’s top lip reared up on one side and her brows met in the middle. Elvis in candy pink lip gloss.

  For the rest of class I copied everything Hirsch wrote on the blackboard, but nothing actually passed through my brain. All I could think about was how little I wanted to do the Olympics, and how great it would be if Damon tutored me.

  But after class Damon made straight for the door.

  “J.B.,” Erik said and tapped me on the shoulder. “I’m glad you’re on board! And if you want some math help, I’m your man.”

  No. Not you.

  I nodded at Erik and rubbed my thumb against the inner corner of my eye. I caught the tear inside my nail and wiped it on my jeans. “Thanks. That’d be great.”

  “And we’ll be seeing you at practice tonight.”

  * * * * *

  “Then there’s this one.” I turned the page and showed Jimmy the picture of Amica and the alligators.

  “Alligators?”

  I nodded. “Obviously, none showed up. But she did fall.” I pointed to the storm drain. “And her diamond went down the into the grate in front of the school.”

  “But she still has her hair.”

  “Yeah. That’s kind of too bad.”

  He laughed, but didn’t look away from the sketchbook. “And there’s more?”

  I flipped to the one of Mark and Pam.

  Jimmy whistled. “Whoa.”

  “It looked exactly like that, Jimmy. Exactly.”

  “Your brother Mark kissed Pam. Pam Martz.”

  I sighed. “Yeah. But I can’t figure out what makes it happen. The school closing didn’t work. Parts of the Amica one didn’t work.”

  “Does anyone else know about this?”

  I twirled my pencil through my hair. “Pam saw the first ones.”

  “The one of Damon’s T-shirt?”

  I rubbed my temple. “There was another one at the same time. Remember the two airplanes that crashed?”

  He nodded.

  “I predicted that. I drew it the night before.”

  Jimmy’s eyelids popped even wider.

  “And Kitty knows. I’ve told her about everything.”

  “This isn’t good, Juliet.”

  The bell rang and Miss Downey pulled the door shut. She took a stack of canvasses off her desk and distributed them.

  I whispered across the table. “Jimmy, if I could figure out how this works, it could be so cool.”

  His eyes bugged out. “Cool? Juliet, this is creepy.”

  “You draw superheroes all the time! I can’t believe you’re freaked out by what could be a super power.”

  He shook his head like a dog shakes after a bath. “That’s made up. This is real.”

  “I shouldn’t have told you.”

  “Does Damon know?”

  Miss Downey dropped two blank canvas boards on our desk. “Sharpen your pencils, and sketch for watercolor. The theme is ‘Sacred’.”

  After Miss Downey passed the next desk I leaned over to Jimmy. “No. Why would I tell him?”

  Jimmy just stared at me for a few seconds.

  “What?”

  “Leave this alone. It’s evil.”

  I should’ve bit my tongue before I even opened my mouth. “You sound like your mom.”

  Jimmy looked like I felt when Mom gave me the No-Damon-Sheppard order.

  Backpedal, Juliet. Quick. “I’m just kidding.”

  He pushed my sketchbook across the table at me and clenched his pencil in his fist. “Sacred,” he said, and turned his canvas the long way. “You’ll probably draw Damon.”

  My stomach did that fizzy thing again.

  Jimmy sketched a cross in the upper third of his canvas in a couple of bold strokes. Of course, he’d do something religious.

  Sacred. That didn’t have to be God, did it?

  Something sacred has special meaning. It’s valuable, and you wouldn’t trade it for anything. It represents something more than itself.

  It’s how I felt about the raft, why I couldn’t go out on it alone yesterday. What if I had, and Dad followed me out there?

  I shuddered.

  But what did it represent now? Was it sacred?

  Was Damon sacred to me?

  Don’t be so stupid.

  I picked up my pencil and laid it on the canvas. I would draw us there, him and me, together on the raft.

  But I couldn’t.

  The lines came out wrong, crooked and misshapen. I erased and tried again. But I got the wrong perspective, the wrong shape, the wrong arcs and angles.

  “What is going on?” I muttered.

  My eraser rubbed out all the smudges.

  But I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see him, or even me. I tried to recreate the image I’d resurrected at the boat launch yesterday.

  This fuzzy fog lay over top of my memory. I couldn’t grasp the picture and lay it out on the page. This never happened. Ever.

  Jimmy looked over as I ground the eraser across the canvas with my fist. “What’s the matter?”

  “I can’t make it work.”

  “Try something else. It’s like that sometimes.”

  Not for me. I could always see what I wanted to draw. It came onto the page just like it appeared in my head, every time. Well, except for Damon.

  I tried once more, but confusion and this weird kind of static overwhelmed my mental vision. I erased again. The thick paper started to flatten and peel.

  Okay. Fine. Try something else.

  Sacred.

  Jesus. Sure. Whatever.

  Jesus, walking on the water.

  I attacked the canvas with my pencil and in no time Christ walked toward me on the page. His robes billowed behind him and white caps scattered around his feet. He raised one arm toward me, as if to invite me onto the water. He smiled, with this serene, confidant expression that seemed to dare me to refuse.

  My hand kept working around the canvas, though I couldn’t take my eyes off Jesus’s eyes. Had I really drawn those? Even in gray and white they pierced into my brain and it seemed I could hear his thoughts.

  Come to me. Get out of the boat and come here.

  “Thanks, but I can actually swim,” I whispered.

  “Not where we’re going.”

  I dropped the canvas and pencil on the table and looked around. People packed up their bags as Miss Downey collected the canvasses. No one even
looked at me.

  “Did you hear that?” I asked Jimmy.

  “The bell?”

  I shook my head. “The voice,” I whispered.

  He stared at me. “You’re getting really creepy, J.B.”

  Miss Downey came to our table. “That’s a bit unoriginal for you, Juliet,” she said. “But I do like the way you’ve rendered him.”

  “I had a hard time with what I really wanted to draw.”

  She pointed to a shape in the bottom corner. “What’s that?”

  I tilted the canvas toward me so I could see it better.

  The raft.

  CHAPTER 17

  Erik invited me to sit with the guys during lunch to go over algebra.

  I rolled down the sleeves of Mark’s old plaid shirt and buttoned them over my wrists. Then I felt claustrophobic, so I rolled them back up to my elbows. Then I let them down again.

  I skipped the lunch line, my stomach too much a tornado of Tasmanian devils to eat, and I sat down next to Drew, across from Erik.

  “Nice shirt,” Drew said, and pulled on my sleeve.

  “My brother’s.” I flipped through my math notebook.

  “You look like bookends,” Erik said.

  I looked over at Drew and realized he wore the very same shirt.

  “Funny.” At least I looked like I fit in at the guy’s table.

  Drew snaked his arm around me and kissed my cheekbone so hard it hurt. “I knew you were in love with me. Now you’re copying my clothes.”

  I elbowed him. “Get off me.”

  Damon came out of the cafeteria line and sat by Erik.

  He looked at me, then at Drew. For a second I saw the same expression as when he thought Mark was my boyfriend at Pam’s party. Then he sort of shook his head. “Hey, Julie.”

  “Hi.” Stupid. I sound like Pam does about Mark.

  He pulled the book out of his back pocket and started to read.

  “Dude, why do you keep calling her Julie?” Drew raked his hand through his thick shock of wild, orange hair. “That’s not her name.”

  Damon didn’t even look up. “It fits her better.”

  Erik looked at me. “Are you changing your name?”

  “I don’t care. It’s fine.”

  “Do you want everyone to call you Julie?”

  “No,” I said, too fast. “I mean, it’s fine if Damon calls me that.”

  When I said his name the feral animals in my stomach rioted like I threw them a live deer. My eyeballs probably turned into pulsating red hearts, too.

  Erik took a bite of beef stroganoff and opened his algebra textbook. “But you don’t want anyone else to call you that?”

  Why don’t you just scream, “Juliet’s in love with Damon!” to the whole school, Erik?