Drawn

  I dug around inside my bag. Seventeen dollars and eighty-three cents. My colored pencils, a sketchbook and the day’s homework. A ballpoint pen. The last stick of gum.

  Could I really never go home again?

  I didn’t have enough money to get back. Kitty’s parents would probably buy me a ticket and make me go back.

  Maybe I shouldn’t call her. But where else could I go on seventeen dollars?

  Hang on, I thought. What if I could draw myself some cash?

  I laid my head back on the seat and stared at the ceiling.

  The prophetic drawings hadn’t worked since the accident, because I couldn’t see anything I wanted to. And it never seemed to work when something really mattered.

  Then I remembered the one of Pam and Mark. Why had that one worked at all? Did God want Mark to kiss Pam? God didn’t make sense.

  Anyway, what did I have to lose?

  With back to the aisle and my knee propped against the window, I started a sketch.

  Might as well make it good.

  “A huge roll of twenty-dollar bills is under my seat.” I whispered as I sketched some money, wrapped in a rubber band, and drew my shoe right next to it.

  I could see it in my head, and it came out fine on the paper.

  Don’t get your hopes up, I told myself. “Like this is ever really going to work.”

  I took a deep breath, pretended to fumble and drop my pen, then reached down to for it. I glanced under my seat.

  And it was there.

  It did work.

  The scream almost got out before I could swallow it. Quick as a frog catches a fly, I grabbed the money, tucked it between my hip and the window, and opened up the roll to count it.

  Eighteen twenty-dollar bills. Three hundred and sixty dollars!

  I did it!

  A shiver of euphoria washed through me as I held the money in both hands.

  I could go anywhere, do anything I wanted. Get my own apartment. Sketch another wad of money whenever I ran out. If I needed a driver’s license, I could probably draw up one of those, too.

  Could I even drive a car?

  I’d figure it out.

  Freedom. Total freedom.

  Who needed God, anyway?

  “Oh my god.” The guy behind me bumped the back of my seat.

  “What’s wrong?” the woman next to him asked.

  “It’s gone. I can’t find it.”

  My seat back bounced against me again.

  “I swear, it just slid right out of my pocket!” he said.

  “Then where is it?” The woman’s heels scuffled on the floor. “How could you drop it?”

  “It has to be here somewhere.”

  No. No, no, no.

  “Call the conductor,” the woman said. “Oh, lord.”

  Finders keepers, losers weepers.

  Catherine looked over at me.

  I ignored her. I ignored the people behind me. I looked out the window and slipped the money under my shirt.

  “Excuse me, miss?” the man’s head popped up over the seats. “Would you mind looking around on the floor? I just dropped something.”

  I’ll just tell him there’s nothing on the floor. That’s the truth.

  “Julie?” Catherine said.

  Did she see? How could she have seen?

  The man looked half sick. More than half. A lot sick.

  “What was it?” I asked.

  He hesitated. “Some cash.”

  Crud.

  “Julie,” Catherine said, in a voice too much like my mom’s.

  No. It’s mine.

  No, it isn’t yours.

  I wanted to scream! Why did I keep hearing that stupid voice in my head?

  Maybe just having the gum with me made me hear it. If I could’ve opened a window, I’d have thrown the last piece out into the darkness.

  “Miss?” The man’s eyes pleaded as much as his voice.

  Fine.

  I cursed under my breath and handed him the roll of money.

  Color flooded back into his face. “Thank God.”

  Yeah, thanks God.

  “Oh, sweet Jesus,” the woman said when she looked up from the floor. “That’s all the money we have.”

  I swallowed and tried to smile as they thanked me and thanked me and thanked me. When they finally sat down, Catherine still stared at me.

  “What?”

  “You did the right thing.”

  “For all the good it does me.”

  “‘All things work together for the good of those who love the Lord and are called according to his purpose’.” She smiled, this big, angelic, wide-eyed grin.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Quite.”

  I looked back out the window, but darkness hid the world and I stared into the reflection of my own eyes.

  * * * * *

  “Julie.” Catherine’s voice startled me.

  I must’ve fallen asleep again. “Juliet,” I said.

  She sighed, kind of loud. “Oh, come on.”

  “What?”

  “Damon calls you Julie. You told me you prefer it.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I was messed up. And he’s just a guy.”

  “Aren’t you still messed up?”

  “Whatever. It—”

  “I know,” she interrupted. “It doesn’t matter.”

  I twisted around in my seat and glared at her. “That’s right. It doesn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  Why not?

  “What’s changed?” she asked.

  “Since when?”

  “Since things did matter.”

  Is she serious?

  Calm cool laugh crossed my mind, but the depth and length and width of totally freaking mad wiped it out completely.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Well, that’s a lie.”

  “The truth is overrated.”

  She sucked in her breath like I’d admitted to murder or something. “The truth is what sets you free, Julie.”

  “Bullcrap. I set me free. I left home. I’m the only one taking care of me, and I’m the only one who cares about me.”

  “So you think you’re free now?”

  Excuse me? I did my best Amica face. “Who do you think you are?”

  “Someone who may know a little more about truth than you do.”

  I started to shake. “Oh, really?”

  My fingers clutched the armrests and I clenched my teeth to keep from screaming at this woman, this red-headed ditz who obviously knew nothing about anything.

  “Perhaps.” She chewed on her pinky fingernail.

  “Okay. I’ll tell you about my truth.” I swallowed hard. “Here’s my truth. My parents are splitting up. They’re selling my house, my grandparent’s house, the house I grew up in. I’ve lost everything I have and everyone I care about.

  “I crashed in a pile of cow crap and everything hurts, except for all the places I can’t feel anything at all, like whenever Damon touches me or looks at me and all I get is absolutely, zero nothing, and I wish more than anything that I’d died, because there’s nothing for me anywhere here.”

  She nodded. “You’re angry.”

  “You think? Just a little.”

  “A lot.”

  “No duh.”

  “I’m so sorry, Julie.”

  I turned back to the window. “Whatever.” The glass reflected Catherine, a double image that stared at the back of my head.

  “It’s okay to let it out,” she said.

  “Crying doesn’t fix anything.”

  “Who told you that?”

  My eyes filled up again, and I knew I was right. Tears only make things worse, make you weaker. I wiped the back of my hand under one eye.

  “You know, if you’d died in that accident, Adam Sheppard would be dead too.”

  The blood taste filled my mouth again.

  I sniffed and scowled at her over my shoulder. “You’re the one who said there are worse thing
s than dying.”

  She closed her notebook. “It’s awfully hard on those left behind, though.”

  “Mom and Dad wouldn’t care.”

  “What about Damon and his dad?”

  I closed my eyes and leaned back. “Yeah. I kept Adam breathing. Great for the Sheppards.”

  “But you wish God hadn’t kept you breathing,” she whispered.

  My eyes snapped open. “He didn’t. He didn’t keep me breathing. He didn’t do one lousy, freaking thing.”

  She started to say something else, but I cut her off.

  “He let us crash. I’m going to have scars. Ugly ones.” I held up my arm, still bandaged. “He doesn’t care about me. Who says he even exists?”

  Now the tears tumbled out of Catherine’s eyes.

  I made her cry. Good.

  “He could have kept that fence from breaking. He could have kept the cows in the field. If he’s so great and powerful and loving,” I said with every bit of snide I had inside me, “he could’ve kept them from crapping all over the place.”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “His greatness and power could have.”

  “So why didn’t he?”

  “Because of the loving part.” She looked at the empty seat beside me, then at me. I shrugged and put my bag on my lap. She moved over to me, and set hers on the floor between us.

  “Julie,” she whispered.

  “-et.”

  “Where were you going before the accident?”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Where was I going?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “What does it matter?”

  “Maybe it matters, maybe it doesn’t. Can you remember?”

  I looked out the window, into the darkness, and went back to that night.

  It was cold.

  Adam picked me up on the bike, and I didn’t want to see Damon. I just wanted to get away from everything and everyone. And he took me.

  “Coming with me, or going home?” he asked.

  That night I’d have gone anywhere but home.

  “I feel like partying.”

  A shudder ripped through my bones.

  Catherine leaned closer. “And where did you tell me you would you have gone, the next day, after you woke up? Friday.”

  To Amica’s house.

  “It was a total make-out party… Bethany was crying.”

  “Are you bringing Damon?”

  “She gets an asterisk.”

  Drew said he wanted to make it up to me. But I was in the hospital.

  “Oh, God.” I looked at Catherine.

  She blinked. “Exactly.”

  “I didn’t let Drew kiss me because of Damon.”

  Catherine just stared at me.

  “Is that why I had Damon? Just to protect me from Drew? Why?”

  She put her hand over mine. “Do you assume that’s all there is? Why think so small of God?”

  “God. Whatever.” I pulled my hand away. “And I don’t even want Damon anymore. That’s over.”

  “Is it really?”

  My lips started to quiver.

  “Why does talking about him make you cry, then?”

  I wanted to scream at her, to hit her, something. “I don’t feel anything for him.”

  “Is that so?”

  “He’s so… ” The tears erupted and I couldn’t even try to stop them. “And I can’t feel anything with him.”

  “Why is that, do you think?”

  A sob billowed up like a vinegar and soda volcano. “I don’t know.”

  Catherine put her hand on my arm. “I think you do.”

  I shielded my face with both hands as the tears poured out and my chest convulsed. “He won’t kiss me.”

  “So?”

  “So?” I shook my head. “He doesn’t want me.”

  “That’s wholly untrue.” She wrapped her arm around my shoulder and whispered into my hair. “I’ve met Damon. I’ve seen the way he is with you.”

  “Was, maybe.”

  “Is. He wouldn’t kiss you because of how much he cares for you.”

  “That’s dumb.” I hiccupped. “That’s stupid. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  She pushed me away and looked in my face. “A kiss is important, Julie. It means something. Quite a lot, actually.”

  “It just means you like each other.”

  “No.” She laughed and shook her head. “It’s much more than that.”

  “I needed him that night. I needed him to love me.”

  “Had Damon kissed you that night,” she said, “that would have been no evidence of love.”

  She handed me another tissue and I wiped my cheeks and nose.

  “He chose not to take advantage of you, of the state you were in. He chose not to damage you or your relationship.”

  “Right.” I looked out the window again.

  “Right. Some people make a game of it, abusing and abandoning each other, but that doesn’t change the way things are. Ignoring the truth only makes you ignorant of the truth. Not free of it.”

  “Well, what if it doesn’t mean anything? What if you just do it because you like it, and it’s fun?”

  “Then you reap consequences.”

  I turned back to her. “Like what?”

  “Like a broken heart, for one. And broken hearts frequently become hardened hearts.”

  The humiliation of Damon’s rejection burned through me. “Mine’s already broken.”

  “Not yet.” She shook her head and tapped my chest. “It’s only been wounded. Whether it heals now is entirely up to you.”

  * * * * *

  Catherine got up then, right in the middle of our conversation. “I’m going to get something to eat. Like anything?”

  I shook my head and watched her pass through the doorway into the next car.

  “What the heck?”

  A couple of people in nearby seats arched their eyebrows at me. I turned to stare out the darkened window again.

  We passed a streetlight that illuminated the intersection of two deserted roads. Then a series of houses blinked by. Their windows glowed out of the night, golden, like fat fireflies. Ever more lights and windows broke the darkness, and my face dimmed in the glass as we pulled into a town.

  We stopped inside a bright station. A Pink Floyd movie ad hung on the nearest wall. The haunting face imbalanced the poster and reminded me of an Edvard Munch. Gray and salmon on a flood of deep blue; a twisted fish wrenched from its sea.

  I could jump off the train, cross to the other tracks and get on one going the other way, back toward Damon. Toward home.

  But I had no home. And I wouldn’t have Damon much longer. So why go back?

  The doors closed and the engine heaved us forward a few inches. Further away, into the dark.

  I glanced back at the Pink Floyd poster again, but someone crossed in front of it and blocked my view. A green suit. Red curls bouncing as she walked.

  I pressed my hand against the glass.

  Catherine turned the corner and disappeared into the station.

  * * * * *

  The train station’s white wall flew past my window and we plunged into the boundless night again. The seat pressed into my back, pushed me with it, and I had no choice but to go on, forward and away, alone.

  She got off the train.

  She didn’t even say good-bye.

  Tears prickled in my eyes again.

  No. I’m not crying. Not for her. Not for anything or anyone.

  The train jolted and Catherine’s bag fell against my leg. She forgot it.

  Serves you right, Cat.

  My lack of money prompted a brief impulse to see if she had any.

  No. I’m not a thief.

  I’d give the bag to the conductor the next time he came through.

  After all her talk about God, she just got up and walked out on me.

  “Nice.”

  I put up the armrest between the two seats.
With her bag for a pillow, I curled up with mine snuggled against my stomach and slept.

  * * * * *

  Something jabbed me several times on the shoulder. Hard.

  “This is your stop, Miss.”

  When I opened my eyes to the bright, warm light of morning, the conductor smiled at me.

  “You awake?” he asked.

  I nodded and yawned.

  My neck felt cricky and my left arm prickled with pins and needles. I sat up and shook it out, rubbed the muscles at the base of my skull. Then I remembered I still had Catherine’s bag. But the conductor already moved on to another car. I’d have to turn it in at the station.

  I stood up and slung my bag over my shoulder. I grabbed Catherine’s by its curved leather handles, but only got hold of one. The bag gaped open when I picked it up.

  “Doors closing,” a voice announced.

  The sliding door started to move and I lunged for it. I got through, but tripped over the gap at the platform. Catherine’s bag swung forward and slipped off my shoulder. It fell all the way open, and a bunch of envelopes spilled out.

  “Crud!” As the train pulled away it sucked air along with it and dragged the envelopes down the platform. I threw myself on top of several of them, then grasped at the others and stuffed them into the bag as fast as I could get hold of them.

  After the last car of the train had gone, I got to my knees and picked up the ones beneath me. When I grabbed the last envelope I noticed a picture drawn around the address on the front.

  An angel.

  A golden-haired angel.

  A round, black post office mark of my city and zip code canceled the stamp and left wavy lines over the angel’s forehead.

  “To Kitty Brandon,” it read.

  I sat down right there on the platform and dug through Catherine’s bag.

  “What the heck?”

  * * * * *

  We came to a small neighborhood with ranch-style stone houses.

  “Not too many young families live here.” The cab driver watched me in the rearview mirror as he picked his teeth with his fingernail. “This is an older area. Mostly retired and elderly folks.”

  We came to Kitty’s street, turned onto her road and went only half a block till he found the address. But a big, black mailbox, painted with orange and pink roses, read, “Tufte”.

  Tufte? Oh, right. Uncle George and Aunt Millie. They’re Kitty’s neighbors. Duh.

  “That’s sixteen dollars.” He looked at me over the back of the seat, with narrowed eyes and lifted brows.

  “I have it.”

  “That’s good you do.”

  Only one dollar and some change left.

  I watched the cab back out, crawl down the street and turn out of the entrance. A bird whistled and somewhere nearby the opening music to a soap opera spilled out of an open window.