Roshan
ROSHAN FOLLOWED a trail of dewy footprints left in the grass, leaving behind his own. As he walked, he turned a thick manila envelope over in his hands. Suddenly, an idea clicked in his mind. A realization.
It was Painting Day.
He checked his watch. 8:00 AM on Painting Day! He nearly thrust the envelope to the ground when he realized that this would be one of the last annoying errands that he would have to run for his mother. At last, he would get to interact with people his own age—maybe even a few attractive girls. By the time he reached the tent, he was nearly sprinting.
Roshan had already spent an entire week of his summer in the sleepy little college town of Valencia helping his mother coordinate this year’s southeastern region qualifier for the fresco competition. The heat was sweltering, and the gnats were bothersome. He had taken to spraying himself with bug spray every morning and masking the scent with deodorant body spray.
The jobs that he was given were almost always trivial and tedious. Whenever something needed to be alphabetized or delivered somewhere across the nearly empty campus, his was the first name that came to his mother’s mind. Otherwise, he was left mostly to himself. He spent his free time tucked away in various corners of the campus—Starbucks, the library, or an empty classroom—either looking over a book or a university newspaper that he had found or playing chess with adversaries around the world on his cell phone. Things became unbearably boring after the second day.
Roshan kept himself sane by remembering the reason he had offered to come with his mom—a die-hard sense of adventure. The name “Valencia” had sounded exotic to him, and the palm trees he’d spotted in online pictures of the university seemed to beckon to him. If only he’d known that this tiny island of education and Spanish architecture was surrounded by miles of farmland on all sides. Next time a tree seemed to beckon to him, he would most likely ignore it.
“Hey, you!”
Just as he crossed the threshold, Roshan immediately doubled back, his foot slipping in the wet grass. He fell flat on his back. His face crumpled—partially because of the pain, but mostly because of the embarrassment. He opened one eye to find a pretty nice pair of legs standing beside him.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” the girl said, offering him a hand. Her long, blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and the majority of her face was shaded by a Valencia State University visor. Only her shining lips were exposed to the sunlight. “Are you alright?” He noticed her slight south Georgia accent.
“Yeah, yeah.” He accepted the hand, standing up abruptly. She was surprisingly strong. “What’s up?”
“My name’s Molly,” she said with a dazzling smile. “I think you’ve got a package for me.” She pointed to the envelope. Roshan guessed that she was a college student. She looked to be around nineteen years old.
“Oh, this? No, that can’t be right,” he replied. “I was told that this envelope is for the registration coordinator—somebody a lot older, and a lot less charming.” His compliment was rewarded with a laugh. “Charming” was a good word choice. He had been tempted to say “sexy.”
“That’s me,” she told him, reaching for the envelope. He snatched it away in the nick of time.
“I’m going to have to see some ID.”
Molly looked like she was ready to wrest it from him, but she didn’t, probably because she didn’t want it to rip. “I’m a little insulted at this point,” she said instead. “That’s the list of all of the competitors. I’m supposed to check their names off when they come in.”
He handed her the envelope. “So that’s what a registration coordinator does. Pretty big job,” he teased.
“You bet it is. What’s yours?”
“I’m the assistant manager, actually.”
“Ah.” For a moment, Molly seemed impressed. “So, you’re the boss lady’s kid?”
“Uh, yeah,” Roshan laughed, admitting defeat. He wondered if Molly could tell just by looking. His green eyes were the only physical trait he shared with his mother. She was short and white, and he was tall, tan, and apparently Indian, like his father. “I run errands and oversee things.”
“Now, for a volunteer, that actually does seem pretty impressive.” She opened the envelope and pulled out a large stack of paper with columns of information printed on each page. She arranged them neatly on one of the white foldable tables that had been set up outside of the tent. “I guess I’ll see you around, then.”
“Uh, yeah, sure.” He snapped to attention after getting a little caught up in watching her. “I’ll be around to, you know, check up on things. Make sure you’re doing a good job.” He squinted at her incriminatingly, ducking into the tent.
The painting quarters were still completely devoid of painters. Roshan knew that, if he were competing, he would have probably showed up at the crack of dawn with all of his supplies. He supposed that the painters had been warned not to come and set up too soon. Behind the volunteers’ table, he found a couple of guys in Valencia State gear leaning back in their chairs. The taller, more muscular one had his feet up on the table.
Roshan was beginning to think that he himself was the only volunteer that was still in high school. He was also beginning to wonder if he was the only one that wasn’t entirely white.
“What is up, my homie G slices?” he greeted loudly, offering a fist bump. Neither of them accepted it. “Wow, tough crowd. You guys are volunteers, right?”
The big guy pulled his feet off of the table and sat up in his chair. “Yeah. I’m Mike. He’s Beau. Nice to meet you.” Roshan had never met someone who could make the words “nice to meet you” sound so intimidating. He was beginning to wonder if everyone had a Southern accent down here.
“Well, we’ve still got a few things to do before the painters get here, so we should get started,” Roshan began. “We need to get all of the paint cans from the truck, first of all, and—”
“Hey, how old are you?” Beau asked, squinting at him. It didn’t seem like he had been listening.
“Yeah, I was just about to ask that,” Mike chimed in.
“Oh, me?” The question made him a little uncomfortable. “I’m sixteen.”
Beau whistled, and Mike chuckled at his reaction. Seeing Roshan’s bemused expression, he chuckled a little more. “You’re pretty tall,” Mike said graciously, as if he were trying to make him feel better.
“Yeah,” Roshan said slowly. “I get that a lot.” He knew that his skinniness made him seem taller than he actually was. “So, as I was saying—”
“Who was it that sent you?” Beau interrupted again.
Roshan resisted the urge to yell. Why wouldn’t these guys just take him at his word? Didn’t it seem like he knew what he was talking about? He knew a lot more about the competition than they did. “The director of this entire event sent me to tell you guys, the volunteers, that we have to set up before the painters get here. I’m a volunteer too.” He spoke slowly so that they would understand.
“Oh, alright then,” Beau said, seemingly satisfied by the answer. The guys stood up, and Roshan was comforted to know that he stood eye to eye with Mike, even if he would lose an arm-wrestling contest with him in less than two seconds. “Where’s the truck?”
“The truck? Oh, the truck.” Apparently, Beau had been listening. “The truck is on the cobblestone road out at the edge of the lawn. We have to get everything out of it.”
As the three of them left the tent, Mike patted Molly’s table loudly with his palm, and Molly wrinkled her nose at him. They seemed to know each other.
“Hey, assistant manager!” Molly called. It took Roshan a moment to realize that she was referring to him.
“Yeah?”
“You didn’t say your name.”
“Oh.” He wanted to slap himself. He wasn’t sure he’d formally introduced himself to anyone so far. “Roshan. It’s Roshan.” Almost as a knee-jerk reaction, Mike and Beau laughed aloud. It occurred to Roshan that they probably didn’t run into people like
him very often. He could feel his ears burning.
“RO-shin,” she repeated. “That’s cool. Did I say it right?”
“Well, that’s the gora way to say it,” Roshan muttered, shrugging his shoulders.
“The what?”
“The, um, the American way.” He wasn’t sure why he’d said that. He wasn’t usually picky about what people called him. “Yeah, you got it right.” For the first time in his life, he wished that he had been named something else.
He walked ahead of the other two, his hands shoved into the pockets of his cargo shorts. The sun was already pretty high in the sky, and the footprints he’d left in the perfectly manicured lawn before were gone now. He couldn’t help but overhear snippets of Mike and Beau’s conversation. They seemed to utter swear words every other second. His ears perked up at the sound of the word “football.”
“You guys play sports?”
“Yeah,” Beau said slowly, as if this were a given. “Mike here is Valencia State’s cornerback.”
“Oh, you guys were talking about American football,” Roshan laughed. They were reaching the point where the grass ended and the sidewalk started.
“What other kind is there?” Mike and Beau asked, almost simultaneously. Roshan was quickly starting to see the disparity between rural Georgia and the metro.
“Well, you know, soccer is referred to as football outside of the United States. Because, you know, you play with your feet.”
“We know that. We’re just messin’ with you.” Mike thumped him on the back hard enough to push him forward. “You play?”
“Yeah. I’m a starter for my high school’s JV team.”
Mike and Beau nodded in approval. Relieved, Roshan relaxed a little bit. He nearly mentioned that he was also one of the best young chess players in the state of Georgia, but he decided against it. It would probably be best to try to fit in as much as possible.
Lifting box after box of paint cans from the truck and carrying them back to the tent was arduous, monotonous work. After a while, Roshan’s biceps began to ache, and he could feel beads of sweat collecting at the nape of his neck. He could think of only one word for a south Georgia summer: relentless.
Rule one of fitting in: watch and learn. He felt like a high school freshman all over again, watching in wonder and mild confusion as the elders went about their usual activities. This time, they were college students, not upperclassmen on the high school varsity squad. They lifted boxes like weight-training athletes, helping each other load up their trembling arms with as many as they possibly could all at once. They were holding up surprisingly well, but he knew that they would get tired fast.
He was contented with carrying the boxes one at a time, taking advantage of the opportunity to walk by Molly as many times as possible. He did something different every time—kicked the table leg, called her name obnoxiously loudly, deliberately looked in the other direction before she could catch his eye, etc. He was having too much fun.
After all of the boxes had been stacked inside the tent, Roshan gave Mike and Beau a minute or so to catch their breath. Beau was as red as a tomato, but he went on laughing and jabbering about an upcoming party as if he hadn’t broken a sweat. Roshan wondered if he always struggled to keep up with his friend.
“Alrighty,” he piped up, receiving expectant looks from the others. “The next thing we’re going to do, obviously, is open up the boxes and put the paint cans on the little tables at each station. Five per table.”
Between the three of them, this task went by surprisingly fast. Getting the paint to the tables on the elevated platform was a little more challenge—they needed their hands free to climb. They came up with a few creative solutions, including stuffing the cans into their pockets and trying to toss the cans up to each other. At last, Roshan discovered that the best method was to take advantage of the ladder instead of fighting with it—balance the cans on the rungs as you move your feet, or lean on the ladder when you need your hands. It was the same way in chess; sometimes, it is necessary to work with your opponent to defeat your opponent.
Roshan didn’t say all of that. He did say, “Use the freaking ladder to stay steady so you won’t fall!” This was enough to get the message across.
It was only when he went back to double check everything when he discovered why they managed to go as quickly as they did.
“Hey guys,” he said very slowly, feeling his heartbeat quicken. “Guys, this station has two cans of red.” His eyes darted from table to table. “And that one has all blue.”
Mike gave him a blank look. Beau shrugged. “You said, ‘five per table,’” Beau reminded him. “I specifically remember you saying that.”
Roshan felt his heart sink. “Five cans per table. Come on now, guys! Try using the mathematical part of your brains and the artistic part at the same time. Five cans, five colors. Red, blue, yellow, black, and—” He stopped short.
Rule two of fitting in: no confrontations.
“Well, you could have said that,” Mike replied calmly. He appeared to be used to people telling him off. Roshan immediately felt guilty.
“You’re right. I should have. My bad.” He paused, letting his mind run through a dozen possible scenarios. How could they go about correcting the issue in the most efficient matter? Finally, he realized that he was wasting precious time by just thinking about it. He clasped his hands together. “Okay. Come on, guys. Let’s go. We have to fix this. We have exactly—” he stopped to check his watch. “We have a little under an hour until the competition starts.”
Fewer than sixty minutes before the moment that Roshan had been waiting for an eternity of car rides and paper-pushing would finally arrive. He was starting to feel lightheaded.
They were still finishing up when the first team arrived.
Roshan sprinted out of the tent and into the sunlight. “Molly!” he cried. “Molly!”
“What?”
“Molly! Why are you letting people in?”
“Well, I am the registration coordinator—”
“Well, hold them outside the door. Do something.”
“I can’t,” she told him. She sounded apologetic and mildly amused at the same time. “I’ve been given orders. The competition starts by ten, and they’re allowed to start showing up at nine thirty.”
It was 9:32.
Roshan ran back inside. Without him having to say a word, Mike and Beau got the message that it was time to pick up the pace. They managed to rearrange the rest of cans within the next ten minutes. Within those ten minutes, two more teams arrived.
Roshan didn’t really think much of the tent. He had been there when it was built, so he knew that it wasn’t much more than a giant tarp, some PVC, and a few metal beams. The competitors and their parents, on the other hand, seemed to be positively enchanted by it. He had to admit—something about the way the light shone in was pretty cool. And the “carpet” of grass—that was cool, too.
As soon as he stooped to recline in one of the chairs behind the volunteers’ table, a competitor—a lanky guy with a Saints snapback cap—approached. He sat up in a hurry.
“Hey, what’s up?” Roshan said eagerly. “Welcome to the National High School Fresco Competition.”
“Yeah, thanks, man. Um, are we gonna have can openers or something, or is figuring out how to open the paint cans part of the competition?”
Roshan gave him a blank look. “Oh.” That was all he said for a moment. Two big mistakes before ten o’clock. That deserves a pat on the back, he thought to himself sarcastically. Suddenly, he sprang out of his chair and jammed his hand into his pocket. “Oh, wait a second. Oh, we’re in luck.” He pulled out his Swiss army knife, the one that doubled as a flash drive. It had been a gift for his fifteenth birthday. “I think I’ve got something in here that we can use. I’ll get the cans for you.”
After popping open the cans for the teams that were already there (there were seven now), he went about opening the rest of them, one by one. He d
id some math in his head as he went. Nine teams on each of the three occupied walls and nine of the ceiling—that’s thirty-six. Five cans times thirty-six teams. One hundred and eighty cans . . . Things were going painstakingly slow.
“Roshan!”
His heart nearly stopped. It was Molly calling his name. It was now loud enough inside the tent for her to have to raise her voice. He immediately stood at attention, saluting her army-style. “Yes, Registration Coordinator Molly, sir!”
“Oh, shut up, Roshan. Quit it.”
“You have to say, ‘at ease, soldier.’”
“At ease, soldier,” Molly muttered, rolling her eyes. He relaxed. “Just wanted to let you know that the boss lady is coming down here soon to see how things are going. I don’t think you want to make her mad.”
“Mom’s coming here? Soon? How soon? Like, walking over right now soon?”
“Y’got ten minutes.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“I kid you not.” Her accent was adorable. “Get to work. Make it snappy. If the boys aren’t helping, just rough ‘em up a little bit. They won’t get offended.”
That’s against rule two, he thought. “Okay. I’ll . . . I’ll hang in there, I guess.” Molly nodded and smiled, leaving as quickly as she’d come. Roshan was beginning to wish that he could have continued delivering envelopes and playing virtual chess.
Time ticked away at an almost unbelievably fast pace. The tent was filling up, and it was beginning to take longer just to get from table to table. Spotting his name tag, a number of painters and associated adults stopped him to ask questions.
“Sorry ma’am, no parking on the cobblestone in front of Vitali Hall . . . Yeah, that’s the building with the dome . . . No, you can’t start painting until ten o’clock, but you can go ahead and start mixing your colors . . . The porta-potties are right outside, to the left . . . Ma’am, I’ve only been taking Spanish for three years. You’re going to have to speak a little slower. Más despacio, por favor. No, no soy mexicano . . .”
When he was finally finished with the cans on the back wall, he cut through the crowd all the way back to the volunteers’ table like a jungle explorer cutting through vines. He tossed the Swiss knife to Beau. “Hey, could you open the cans at the ceiling stations for me? There aren’t a lot of people up there yet, so you should be alright.” Beau rose ever so slowly from his seat before disappearing into the crowd. Roshan stood by Mike, watching the chaos unfold. He loved the lively competition atmosphere.
“Dude,” Roshan began, “if one more person asks me where the bathrooms are, in English or in Spanish, I think I’m gonna—”
“Looks like things are getting pretty busy around here!”
He made a 180 degree turn. “Oh, hey, Mom. Yeah, things are alright. Pretty dandy, actually.”
His mother squinted critically as she scanned her surroundings. He casually rested his palm on the table, but it was slippery with sweat, so it slipped, and he fell yet again. He considered remaining on the ground this time.
Mike laughed up a storm before helping him back to his feet. Regrettably, his mom helped him brush the grass off of the back of his pants and out of his hair. Over the top of her head, he could see Beau struggling with a paint can lid. Almost wincing, he waited for her admonishment.
“Everything seems to be going well,” she said with a smile. “Good work. I know things can get pretty hectic at times, but that’s in the job description. Keep it up. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
Roshan waited until his mother was out of earshot to exhale. Maybe he could now take a breather for the first time all morning. At last, he took a seat behind the table.
There were only two seats. He should have taken that as a hint, but at that moment, he was busy watching the way Mike interacted with flustered competitors. Mike was like a statue; he never left his chair.
“Excuse me,” a petite girl with a not-so-petite voice said, standing with arms crossed. She addressed Mike directly without so much as a glance towards Roshan. He accepted this. I guess he looks more like the one in charge, he told himself. “Hi! Are we allowed to use our own paints from home?”
Mike hardly batted an eyelash. “Well, we wouldn’t be giving you paint if you could, right?”
The girl blanked. She hadn’t been expecting the sarcasm. “Uh . . . So, that’s a no?”
“You bet it is.”
“Okay. I mean, that’s all you had to say.” The girl laughed nervously. Roshan could tell that she was wondering whether Mike’s words were a joke or simply a rude remark. She backed away slowly.
Rule three: Imitate.
“That was a good one,” Roshan laughed. He could see another painter coming towards them. “I’ll get this one.”
“Excuse me,” she said, “but my team’s paint cans still haven’t been opened yet. I’m a little worried.”
“Oh, okay. I know exactly what you need.”
“A can opener?”
“No. A little patience,” he said curtly. “One of the other volunteers is coming around.”
“But a lot of the other teams have already—”
“Tough luck.” That was enough to send her away somewhat dismayed.
Mike chuckled. Roshan smirked halfheartedly. He could feel himself dying inside.
Upon returning, Beau tossed Roshan the closed Swiss army knife. He stood up, allowing Beau to take his seat. After a few minutes of battling with his conscious, he decided to go apologize.
“Hey, I’ll be right back, guys.”
Not too far into his search for the girl, he began to feel like finding one girl among a couple hundred would be more difficult than he’d thought. He made a couple more rounds on the ground floor before realizing that the only paint cans he didn’t get to were up on the platform. Hurriedly, he climbed the ladder.
At last, he found her and explained everything. Fortunately, Beau had done what he asked, and all of the remaining teams now had open paint cans and were ready to work.
The girl found the whole situation to be pretty funny. “It’s possible to make friends while still having your own personality,” she told him, tugging at one of her long braids. “You look like a friendly guy. I’m sure you already knew that.”
Roshan thought deeply about this advice, wondering if it applied to people over four years older than him.
He took his sweet time returning to the volunteers’ table. He got caught up in asking the contestants where they were from and listening to their ideas about painting as well as a host of other things. He exchanged jokes, mediated arguments, and helped clean up messes. Finally, he was doing what he had come to do—interact with a bunch of people that were both similar enough to him to be relatable and different enough from him to be incredibly interesting. He wasn’t even disappointed that only a few of the girls were cute.
Eventually, he did return to his post, and when he did, all he found was a couple of empty chairs. Mike and Beau were gone.
Maybe they actually got up to help someone, he thought hopefully. All he had to do was find them to make sure. Even though he was younger, he felt responsible for Mike and Beau.
After walking all around the tent until his feet ached never finding either of the guys, he was beginning to feel less optimistic. Is searching for them even worth the trouble? he wondered, slowing his pace. They never do anything useful unless someone tells them to.
Fighting the doubts from his mind, he decided to check and see if Molly knew where they had gone.
“Molly!” he called as he jumped outside.
He received no answer. Her chair behind the registration table was vacant.
Checking his watch, he discovered that nearly an hour had gone by. He quickly remembered that all thirty-six stations were now occupied, meaning that everyone had been registered. Molly’s work for the day was done. Roshan’s heart dropped.
But where did they go? They hadn’t left any sort of note to let him know. It was a
s if they had forgotten about him entirely.
Dejected, Roshan sat down at the volunteers’ table alone. He had failed to give the other volunteers even the slightest impression that he deserved to hang out with them. Molly probably thinks I’m some sort of weirdo, he thought, hiding his face in his hands.
When he looked up, he saw a short Hispanic girl squinting at the table from behind the nearest support beam. He realized that she was trying to read the sign.
“It says, ‘Volunteers,’” he told her as he walked towards her. It looked like she hadn’t seen him coming. With her large, feminine brown eyes, she looked a lot like a cute little deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. She nearly ran away. “Wait!” he called after her. Her eyes finally settled on his face as if she hadn’t noticed him standing there before. “Did you need some help?” he asked.
The deer—the girl—explained that she was looking for her glasses. That explains all of the squinting, he thought.
He introduced himself, as he done nearly a thousand times that morning alone, and took her to the lost and found, which was just one of the boxes out of which the paint cans had come. The glasses weren’t there, and he hadn’t expected them to be. He had never found one of his lost possessions in a lost and found.
He eventually learned that the girl’s name was Brenda. At first, Brenda seemed almost painfully shy, but she seemed to become a little more comfortable as she spent more time with him. He could tell that she was nervous about having to ask around to see if anyone had spotted the glasses, but he figured that it would be good for her. It was necessary for a person to leave her comfort zone every once in a while.
Somewhere along the line, Roshan and Brenda pulled away from everyone else, strolling slowly back and forth underneath the platform. They talked endlessly about their entire lives, going on and on until there was nothing left to say. He even told her about how his dad wanted him to become a doctor, but he had no idea what he wanted to be. All he knew was that he loved chess, soccer, and helping others. At the moment, he was considering becoming a teacher, like his mom.
Once Brenda started talking, she couldn’t stop. He didn’t mind at all. She seemed like a different person entirely when she spoke about the things that she was passionate about. It was as if she’d had a million things to say and no one to say them to. He wished that he could explain to her that, even outside of the confines of this tent, if she started speaking, people would start listening.
Before he could bring this idea up, however, his cell phone began to buzz in his pocket. Of course, it was his mom. Reluctantly, he excused himself to answer the call.
“Roshan, where are you?”
“In the tent, Mom. Where else would I be?”
“Roshan, are you upset about something?”
A few things, actually, he wanted to say, but he wasn’t going to start telling his mother about his social issues now. What did she know about fitting in and crushing on college girls? “No, I’m good,” he said instead. “I’m just a little tired, that’s all.”
“Oh, me too. We’ll head back to the hotel as soon as Painting Day is over. But for right now, I’m going to need you and the other volunteers—and Molly too, since she should be free—to put some more paper towels and toilet paper in the portable restrooms.”
My favorite job of all time. He wished he had a wall to bang his head against. “Where are the paper towels?”
“Check the storage closet in Vitali Hall. If you go through the front door, it’ll be the third door on your left.”
“Okay, Mom. I’m on it. I mean, we’re on it. See you later." He was going to have to be quick, being the only volunteer on duty now.
He was out of the tent in a flash. Crossing the lawn was beginning to feel like running through a desert.
He ran around to the front entrance of Vitali Hall, yanking open the heavy wooden door and jumping inside. The rush of cool air was like heaven. The buzzing fluorescent lights were only on in the front of the building; the long hallway before him stretched into darkness. He could see a pinprick of light at the end.
Finding the custodian’s closet was easy. Loading up on paper towels and toilet paper and making it out the door without dropping any was harder. He stacked everything into a pyramid and painstakingly lifted it, keeping the top roll in place with his chin. He came much too close to tripping over a really big fan sitting near the open doorway.
He took one last look down the creepy hallway, deciding that he would leave the way he’d come. He could have sworn that he heard a tapping sound coming from down there.
Loading up the portable restrooms wasn’t as bad as he had expected. All he had to do was hold his breath, and he was able to drop the rolls and jump out. He got the second and third, but the third was occupied, so he carried the remaining rolls into the tent with him.
“Hey, he’s back!”
Mike and Beau were back in their seats, munching on chicken sandwiches and waffle fries. Molly was sitting on the edge of the table, sipping from a Starbucks coffee cup. Beau waved. Roshan could feel his blood boiling.
“Hey Roshan!” Molly greeted him with a smile. Immediately, his temper cooled off.
“Uh, hey guys. Where did you guys go? I came back to the table, and you were all gone.”
“Oh, we were just chillin’ at the Student Center,” Mike told him. “It was about lunch time, so we took a break.”
“Oh, alright.” It was almost an acceptable answer. “Did you guys get me anything?”
“Oh . . . Well, we didn’t know what you wanted, buddy. Otherwise, we would have, for sure.”
Molly hopped up from the table. To Roshan’s dismay, she leaned in and gave Mike a kiss. “See you later, babe. Mom wants me to help her clean the garage. Bye Beau! Bye Roshan!”
“Bye,” Roshan croaked. Mike and Molly were going out. How had he not seen that coming? And they didn’t get him any food! His good mood was crashing and burning. He didn’t want to just fit in anymore. These guys were pretty jerk-ish anyway.
Rule one of taking a stand: Make your voice heard.
“Hey guys, don’t you think it would have been smarter to send one person to pick up food instead of leaving one volunteer to hold things down while everybody else left? Maybe you guys could have sent Molly, since her shift was done.”
“Well, that’s no fun,” Beau whined. “And we were just sitting here anyways.”
Rule two of taking a stand: Do not fear confrontation.
“That’s because you’re supposed to walk around and ask them if they need anything. That’s how a lot of volunteering jobs work.”
Mike sat up. “Look around you, dude. I’m gonna be a junior in college. Some of these people are high school freshmen. I mean, I could just walk up and say, ‘Howdy,’ but it would be a little awkward. I can’t just carry on conversations with them like you can.”
Rule three of taking a stand: Don’t assume you know everything.
Roshan realized that he was dealing with a couple of introverts. It wasn’t exactly that they were too lazy to interact with the painters; they just weren’t sure how. That was why they waited until he told them what to do before moving an inch. For once, being younger than the others was actually a good thing.
“It’s not as hard as you’d think,” he told them. “High schoolers love talking to college students. It gives them a glimpse of their future. They’ll ask you all kinds of questions about college life. All you have to do is answer.”
“These kids are geniuses, though,” Beau piped up. “No doubt, they’re aiming for places like Harvard. Not little old Valencia State.”
Roshan shrugged. “Even so, I’m sure they’d want to hear all about living in dorms and going to parties. And college dining room food. All of the universal stuff.”
Their eyes met, and they started to laugh. “Not sure if they’d want to hear about the parties,” Mike said.
“Trust me, I’m sure they would. I’m a little curious myself, actu
ally.”
They thought this over for a second. “I guess we could answer a few of their questions,” Mike replied. “What do you think, Beau?”
“Shouldn’t be too hard,” Beau said.
As soon as Roshan let them loose, they were instant hits. He had expected that, seeing that they were natural comedians. He checked up on them occasionally, but they often shooed him away for interrupting their stories.
Just as Roshan was considering finding Brenda again, Beau popped up out of nowhere and tapped him on the shoulder. “Just to let you know, some of the kids on the top floor are saying that it’s way too hot up there, and that it might start making the paint dry or something.”
Immediately, Roshan remembered the fan in Vitali Hall. “We can fix that. Come on.”
“Hey!”
A curly-haired teenager was running towards them. He was holding a big, professional-looking camera. “Hey!” he said again. “Volunteer guys. Mind if I get a picture? I want to be able to show my sister everything I saw here today. That would include you.”
“Sure,” Mike and Beau said, posing for the camera. Roshan was already standing out of the way, so he decided to wait that one out.
“What are you doing?” Beau asked as the guy held up his camera. “Hop in!”
At the very last second, he jumped into the background while making a ridiculous face. The artist thanked them before running off again.
Picking up the fan was more enjoyable work than moving the paint cans had been. For one, Roshan didn’t have to carry anything. Mike and Beau didn’t need his help with picking up the fan and its little generator. Also, even though he was still sort of the odd one out, he felt more like a good leader than he had before.
Getting the fan set up on the platform was a hassle, but they enlisted to help of a few eager painters, and things went by pretty quickly. At long last, Roshan was free to catch up with Brenda.
As he walked towards Station 7D, he could hear a couple of people arguing over the music. It was Brenda and the dude with the camera.
Brenda was almost unrecognizable. Her hair was down, falling wet and wild around her shoulders. She was wearing a simple white tank top, and her old gray hoodie was balled up in her hands. She also had her glasses on. She looked good. Really good.
“You’ve been acting just like Dad,” he heard her say. By the look on the camera guy’s face, he could tell that that was a low blow.
Nonetheless, Roshan wanted to cheer. Brenda was finally being assertive.
He considered leaving them to talk things out, but as he turned around, he heard his name.
“That’s Roshan, the volunteer,” Brenda said, pointing to the little screen on the back of the camera.
That’s my cue, he thought, running his fingers through his hair. For some reason, he felt way more nervous about talking to her than he had before. Maybe it was the fact that her brother was standing right there.
As it turned out, Camera Guy was also Brenda’s teammate for the competition. He didn’t seem happy at all about Roshan swapping numbers with his sister. Roshan tried to make a save by mentioning that it was just in case Brenda needed any more help, but really, he had something other than volunteering in mind.
Something like a movie date.
“I guess I’ll see you around, Brenda,” he said, taking his cue to leave. When he saw the look on her brother’s face, he simply couldn’t resist slipping in a smart-alecky comment. “You can tell your brother that I’ll try my best not to make any wrong moves.”
Check and mate, he thought as he strutted away. Finally, he felt like he could say that he had done something useful.
ROSHAN DREAMED OF neon lights streaking past the window of his mother’s car. He dreamed of falling asleep to the hum of a powerful air conditioner. He dreamed of pleasant, gnat-free northern Georgia.
Unfortunately, Roshan was not on his way home yet, and he was not asleep, either. He was marching across an expansive lawn towards a towering, pointed tent that glowed in the night with the light emitted from within. Looks like someone’s having a party, he thought excitedly. He could hear the laughter and chatter from many yards away. He straightened his bowtie and pulled up his black slacks, the new pair that were still a little loose, even with a belt.
Indeed, it was a party of sorts. At last, the competition was officially complete. A couple of days had passed since Painting Day, and the painters were already gone. Their parents had picked them up and whisked them away at the end. There was only a slight chance some of the ones that lived nearby might have returned for the night.
Roshan knew that Brenda was probably already back in her hometown, but that didn’t stop him from quickening his pace as he approached the entrance of the tent in hopes that she was inside.
Even before Roshan entered the tent, he noticed differences in the way things were set up. The porta-potties were still there, but Molly wasn’t sitting at the table by the doorway. The table was not there at all—it had been replaced by a large sign on a wooden easel. In elegant black letters, the sign read, “Welcome to the 2nd Annual National High School Fresco Painting Competition Southeastern Qualifier Exhibition.” What a mouthful, he thought with a smirk.
Upon entering, he was greeted by an entirely different atmosphere than what he’d seen on painting day. Instead of busy teenagers running about in old T-shirts, he found formally-dressed adults chatting and holding martini glasses. A few employees from the catering company wandered among the others with shining platters of hors d’oeuvres balanced on their palms. Coincidentally, they were all dressed in black slacks, white dress shirts, and black bowties, just like Roshan.
Miraculously, the platform where the ceiling painters had stood on painting day had being removed entirely. The only metal beams left standing were the ones that held the frescoes up high above everyone’s head. Electric candelabras hung from these beams, casting both light and shadow on the people below. Giant spotlights on the ground lit up the paintings above. Music was playing in the background like it had been on Painting Day, but this time, it was coming from a live jazz ensemble, not a little stereo.
He was at a loss for words. In a couple of weeks, a few construction workers and a bunch of teenagers had erected a museum in the middle of a big lawn on a small-time college campus. He was just beginning to understand exactly what “young talent” was capable of.
After collecting his thoughts, Roshan began to weave his way through the snazzily dressed adults and find the back wall of the tent. The paintings were labeled with elegant paper cards. Finally, he found the one he was looking for.
“Brandon and Brenda Castillo, Peachtree Ridge High School,” he read aloud to himself. “Third Place.” He touched a finger to the white ribbon, beaming with pride. “That’s my girl.”
The Castillos’ fresco told a story that was best read from bottom to top. Near the bottom, there was a rusty, wind-up caterpillar with metal body segments and two mismatched gears for eyes that looked like it needed to be wound up again. The rust-red and bronze-colored leaves glinted with a metallic shine. Roshan wondered how they’d managed to get them to look so realistic.
Looming above the caterpillar’s head was a long, low-hanging tree branch that ran directly across the center of the painting. The ominous storm clouds in the sky were only visible beneath this branch. Flying high above the caterpillar and the tree was a butterfly with a sleek black torso, binary data wings, and metal antennae on its head. The butterfly had eyes like a sideways colon and a smile like a rotated parenthesis—a face straight out of a text message.
“Sweet,” he said out loud, but only because he knew that no one could hear him over the jazzy background music. “Steampunk meets cyberpunk.” The caterpillar and the butterfly were a great presentation of this year’s theme, which was a super vague one: “Old & New.” The fresco had been titled Conversion.
After checking out a few more frescoes, Roshan located the judges’ table fairly easily. It was situated exact
ly where the volunteers’ table had been before. It was probably the same table. “Hey Mom,” he said, slipping into a swiveling chair that he found there.
“Roshan, those chairs are for the judges,” she scolded.
“Well, they’re done judging right?” He proceeded to spin in the chair with surprising speed. “Who got first place, Mom?”
“Fresco Eight-C. I highly recommend that you go take a look at it yourself.”
Roshan stood straight up and hopped over the table, much to his mother’s dismay. Just before he could disappear again, his mother caught him by the hand. “Roshan!”
“What?”
“Have you told your father about the chess tournament yet?”
He made a face. “Oh, I forgot.” In reality, he’d been thinking about it since he’d arrived at the competition. He had been hoping that escaping to south Georgia with his mom would give him some time to . . . Well, he wasn’t really sure what he needed the time for. He just wanted to put off confronting his father for as long as possible. “I’ll do it when we get back,” he assured her.
“Roshan.” She removed her reading glasses, clasped her hands together, and looked at him earnestly. “Roshan, you know that your sister and I are very proud of everything you’ve accomplished at all of your chess competitions. And to think that you’re ranked twelfth in the state of Georgia—”
“Eleventh,” Roshan corrected her. “Eleventh in the state of Georgia.” He said it as if it was a curse. “And Anjali doesn’t give a—” He searched for an appropriate word to complete that sentence. “Anjali doesn’t give a rat’s hat about chess.” Most people didn’t.
“That’s what you think. Anyway, I just think you should give your father an opportunity to share in our pride.”
“I’ll tell him when we get back,” he said. And he actually meant it this time. It was time for him to take a stand.
“Don’t forget.”
“I won’t.”
A few moments later, Roshan had successfully wedged his way into the small crowd gathering below Fresco 8C. He and everyone around him stared up at the painting like they would at a cathedral ceiling. When he glanced at the faces of the others, he smiled a little. They looked like children following airplane trails.
Fresco 8C had a very simple title: Painting. Upfront, he noticed two unusual things about the fresco. The first was that the painting was sideways in comparison to the others—instead of painting lengthwise, the group had created their image landscape-style. The second thing he noticed was that roughly half of the painting was in black and white.
Two painters stood before a brick wall. On the black-and-white side, a painter dressed he’d come from the late 1910’s appeared to be finishing a massive war mural. In his mural, soldiers with round, brimmed helmets were jumping out of trenches holding guns with long barrels. On the colorful side of the fresco, the same mural appeared faded and chipped, the soldiers’ faces nearly indistinguishable. It seemed as if time had lapsed from the left of the fresco to the right, because a young person in modern clothing—well, not quite modern, because the jeans and jacket were way too baggy to be from the 2010’s—was painting over the remains of the mural with a can of spray paint. Surprisingly, the modern artist was not writing the name of a gang or even using classic urban graffiti lettering. He was making a multicolored peace sign over the war mural.
“That’s tight,” he heard someone say in praise of the mural. “I like that.” The person who had spoken was a guy with dreadlocks wearing a T-shirt and a pair of cargo shorts. Since he was wearing a backpack, Roshan assumed he was a Valencia State student like Mike and Beau.
He agreed with the college student. The fresco was interesting and original, and it pretty much summed up everything he’d learned at the competition. Making peace often meant making a bold move.