“Yes! I just don't get it.”
He laughs. “And you're going to discover its truths by hiding behind a fence, are you?”
“I'm not hiding. I'm … I'm thinking.”
“Ah,” he says, like, Uh-huh.
“Well, I am. I mean, for instance—have you ever seen Diane, uh, Lizzy's statues?”
His eyebrows pop up and his eyes drift around, and I can tell he doesn't know how to say what he's thinking.
“They're ugly—just say it, that's what they are.”
“My mum always told me it was all in the eye of the beholder.”
“Well, behold this—they're ugly. But her paintings! Have you seen those?”
He shakes his head.
“They're displayed at the Vault right now. You should go look. They are amazing.”
“The Vault?”
“The art gallery. Next to the Bean Goddess?”
He shakes his head some more. “I don't fancy going out.”
“Well, ask her to show them to you when she brings them home. Or ask her if you can see the one she's working on. Then you'll see why I'm all confused. It's like she went from being Elizabeth Reijden, Sculptress of Grotesque Bodies, to Diane Reijden, Awesome Painter. And her paintings have so much, you know, feeling in them. There's this one with these leaves just dancing in the air. And another of a little girl whispering something. It's just so … magical. You feel like you're there. Like any second you're going to get to know the secret. And there's one of a tree and a little meadow and a fence—it's this fence, I swear it is, 'cause in the painting it's olive green, just like this one used to be. Only it's not this fence. It's all tidy and … I just don't get what's going on in her head. Is she remembering her childhood? Is she—”
“Why, hello there.”
I jerked. Just bounced on my bottom like a rubber ball. Then I turned and said, “Oh, Ms. Reijden, hello,” and stood up.
She looks from me to Flannel Man and back again. “This is an odd place to be having a conversation….”
“Well, I … I …”
She turns to Flannel Man. “How are you, Pete?”
“Fine, Lizzy,” he says, but he's suddenly looking like he's got a bit of a guilty heart. “I should be gettin' back to my critters.” And before she can ask him anything more, he's scurrying away.
“What did you say to him?” she says with a smile. But her face is sort of twitching, and she's not looking too happy.
I dusted off my pants. “Nothing! Really, nothing. I was just telling him how awesome your paintings are.”
Now, the way she was looking at me made me feel really small. Really pesky. And I just wanted to throw myself at her mercy and say, “I'm sorry! I'm just trying to understand,” but for some reason I was sort of scared to. Like I'd already blown it and making excuses for snooping around her property would just make things worse.
“Hmmm,” she says, still twitching around the mouth. Then after what seemed like forever, she says, “Samantha, this is my home. And I would really appreciate it if you would respect my need for privacy.”
“Yes, ma'am,” I said. “I was just—”
“Just don't,” she says, then turns away.
I got out of there fast. And as I dug up my board and backpack, I tried telling myself to just let it go. To leave it alone.
But the back of my brain wouldn't let it go. It was fighting for a way to make all my scrambled thoughts make sense. And it was telling me that it couldn't be as hard as I was making it. That this whole thing was like doing a giant word-search puzzle. It was all right there.
I just had to look until I found where the answers were hidden.
NINETEEN
By the time I snuck through the apartment door, I was more confused than ever. And talking to Grams about it didn't help a whole lot, let me tell you. She was mad at Hudson, mad at “Lizzy,” and especially mad at herself. “Why did I let myself get fooled by him? Why did I ever let my guard down?”
“Because he's a really nice guy and he's interesting and he's smart,” I told her.
“He's an old fool, Samantha, and I won't abide it any longer.”
“Meaning?”
“I'm through with him! I've had it! I don't even care anymore.”
I grinned at her. “Oh, pshaw.”
At first she looked pretty mad, staring at me through her owl glasses and sputtering a bit at the mouth, but in the end she chuckled and shook her head, saying, “At least let me pretend to have some pride, won't you?”
I kissed her on the forehead—just like she would have done for me—then went back to telling her what had happened at the Vault and at Diane's house. And I was trying really hard not to say anything that would hurt her feelings, but it was like walking through land mines, because everything seemed to touch on something that would set her off—Hudson, Diane, even Diane's paintings. I mean, the more I saw the paintings, the more I loved them, only Grams didn't want to hear that, or see it, or understand it, because it reminded her that Hudson felt the same way about them. And, of course, he had taken everything one step further—right off the cliff, into that scary Abyss of Love.
So when I finally managed to navigate my way to the part about the olive green fence, I thought she'd actually find it interesting—maybe even suspicious—but she dismissed it right away. “For all we know she painted those scenes before she did those statues. It would certainly lend credence to my theory that the woman has a vagrant soul.”
“A vagrant soul?”
“Sure. It wanders about, leaching on the emotions of others. Let Hudson think those hideous statues were the ugly caterpillar of her evolution into ‘magnificent art.' My intuition tells me otherwise.”
I shook my head and said, “Wow, Grams.” And I was going to add that when it came to Diane Reijden, she was cold, but I decided to skip it. Instead I told her, “Well, she couldn't have done the paintings first.”
“Why not?”
“Because in those fishy-paper articles about her statues, they called her Elizabeth, and her paintings are signed Diane Reijden, clear as day. I think she switched to Diane to start over, don't you? Like maybe she wanted to ditch the reputation of being a rejected artist?” I shook my head. “I just don't get how you can go from making something so ugly to something so amazing.”
“Amazing, pfttt!” she says, making a little raspberry sound. “They're simply the by-product of a vagrant soul.”
“Grams!”
“Well, your name-change theory just serves to make my point.”
“It does?”
“Look. There are eight of her paintings at the Vault, right? Who knows how many more she has at home.”
“So?”
“So she's just cranking them out. They don't mean a thing to her. They're a calculated attempt to tug at your heartstrings, nothing more.”
“But when we were over at her house, she said—”
“I don't care what she said. The facts speak for themselves.” She stood up and headed for the refrigerator. “She just gave you answers she knows work.”
I helped Grams with dinner, but we didn't talk to each other much while we were making it. She was pretty broody, and I felt bad. I mean, for once I was doing my best not to keep secrets from Grams or hide things from her—for once I really wanted to talk it all out with her— but I couldn't. She was too defensive.
Too hurt.
And it wasn't just Hudson who'd hurt her. It was probably me, too. After all, I wasn't exactly jumping over to her side, saying, Yeah, that Diane—boy, is she an evil witch, or what? And it wasn't because I thought Diane was so wonderful—she was fine, but she wasn't Grams. Not in a million years was she Grams. So I wanted to be on Grams' side, but those darned paintings kept getting in my way. They were wonderful. And the fact that Grams couldn't get past the creator and just admit that the paintings were amazing bothered me as much as Hudson deciding he was in love with the painter because the paintings were so brilliant.
They were both wrong.
So Grams and I made chicken salad and soup together. We ate chicken salad and soup together. We cleaned up the chicken salad and soup dishes together. And the whole time we barely said a word. And after dinner we still didn't really say anything to each other. Grams went to the couch to read, and I took out my schoolbooks and started on my homework.
Which is when everything about school came flooding back and I remembered—I couldn't even talk to Marissa.
How did my life get to be such a mess?
About halfway through my math, I couldn't stand it anymore. Yeah, things were a mess, but there were at least parts of it I could clean up.
So I checked the change in my pocket, then headed for the living room. “Grams? I'm going for a walk.”
She looked up from her book and said, “A walk,” like it was the most ridiculous lie I'd ever told. And since I'm usually sort of quarantined to the apartment after school, it did seem a little suspicious that I suddenly thought I'd just breeze out for an evening constitutional. But before I could even say, Grams, I need to get out of here, she says, “I suppose this means you're going over to Hudson's?”
I didn't have the heart to break it to her that Hudson wasn't even home. He was out with the Other Woman, probably wearing his fanciest boots.
I sighed and sat down next to her on the couch. “Look, Grams. You may be right about Diane, but I think you're wrong about her art. Hudson may be right about her art and wrong about her—I don't know. I feel confused about the whole thing, but what bothers me most is that I can't talk to either of you.”
“Hrmph,” she says, all defensive-like. “Why can't you talk to Hudson? You two seem to be on the same page about … about … her.”
“No, Grams, we're not! And besides,” I say, kind of looking down and at her at the same time, “I was talking to Hudson about Diane, and I made the mistake of calling him old.”
Her eyebrows pop up. “You didn't.”
“Well, you're right, I didn't, but that's how he took it. The last time I saw Hudson, he was making fast tracks away from me.”
“Oh,” Grams says. It's a really little oh, too.
A guilty oh.
And with that little “oh,” the way she was looking at the whole picture seemed to change. She whispered, “I'm sorry. I know he's been a good friend to you. And I haven't forgotten how helpful he's been to us. I didn't mean to make trouble between the two of you.” She took a deep breath, then let it out, saying, “If you want to go see him, that's fine.”
“Seriously, Grams. I wasn't going over to see him.”
She looked me right in the eye. “Then where were you going?”
I toed the carpet with my high-top. “There's another mess I have to try and straighten out.”
“Oh? And what mess might that be?”
I shrugged. “A school mess.”
She lifted my eyes with hers, and she didn't have to say it—I could tell what she was thinking: We had a pact.
“I know, I know, but really, it's nothing.”
She sat back a little and said, “Let me guess. Heather?”
“Sort of.”
“Casey?”
“Sort of.”
“Marissa?” “Sort of.”
She was quiet a minute, then said, “My. That certainly does sound like a mess.”
I nodded. “So I have to go make a phone call.”
“Why don't you just call from here? I'll go in the bedroom if you need some privacy.”
I shook my head. “I'm afraid he might have caller ID.”
“He? So you're calling Casey, then.”
Man, I can be so lame.
She just looked at me. Steady. Calm. Waiting.
“Okay, okay!” I told her, and then filled her in on what had happened at school. And when I'd finished explaining about Billy Pratt smooching my cheek and Marissa finding the note I'd supposedly written, Grams just shook her head and said, “That girl's an idiot.”
“Marissa? Why? If it hadn't been for her—”
“No, Heather!” She shakes her head some more. “She's just driving the two of you together.”
I blinked at her a minute, then said, “No, she's not.”
“Sure she is! Look at you—you're going off in the middle of the night to call him and—”
“It's not the middle of the night! And I have to call. Marissa won't talk to me until I do, and I need someone to talk to.”
Grams' bottom lip pouted a little. “What do you mean by that?”
“Oh, come on, Grams. Look—I'm just going to go down, call, and come right back, okay? I've got to try and straighten this out.”
The minute she nodded, I bolted. Just tore down the fire escape like an avalanche of boulders was rolling behind me. And when I got to the pay phone, I took two seconds to catch my breath, then popped in the coins and punched in the number. And the minute I heard Casey's voice on the other end saying, “Hello?” I said, “Casey, this is Sammy. I just wanted to tell you that I didn't have anything to do with that note, and I didn't have anything to do with stupid Billy Pratt smooching my cheek. Your sister was hanging around the patio, and you know she's never there unless it's to jab me in the rear end with a sewing pin or something lame like that. So we're pretty sure Heather wrote the note and set the whole thing up. Actually, I'm positive, because Marissa told her how you kissed my hand at the Faire and she got all bent out of shape about it. I know it was all just part of the act you were doing, but Marissa gets all, you know, blatherbrained sometimes when it comes to boys, so she went and made a big deal out of it to Heather, but I want you to know I didn't, okay? I know it was just part of, you know, that live theater thing you were doing.”
Now the whole time I'm blurting all this out, he's saying, “But,” and “Wait a minute,” and “Hold on,” and stuff like that, but I knew if I didn't get it all out right away that I'd probably chicken out. So I didn't let him say a thing. I just kept on going until my breath was completely run out. And when I finally come up for air, there's a second of silence, and then he says, “Uh, you said you were Sammy, right?”
Uh-oh.
“What I've been trying to tell you is that Casey's in the shower. This is Warren Acosta, Casey's dad?”
I wanted to slide down the phone booth and dissolve into a pathetic pool of moronic goo. “Oh.”
He laughed. “Don't be embarrassed. I like to know what's going on in my son's life. And my daughter's, too, for that matter.” Then he says, “Sammy …,” like he's trying to remember something. “You wouldn't be the girl that has a restraining order on my daughter, would you?”
Come on, sidewalk! Swallow me up. “Uh …,” I squeaked out. “That was Vice Principal Caan's idea, not mine.”
“So it is you.” He laughs some more. “Well, well. And believe me, I'm not criticizing. I sometimes wish I had one on her myself.” Then he adds, “Just kidding, of course, but she is a handful.” He chuckles. “But very resourceful, you've got to give her that.”
What could I say? I wanted to die. Disappear. Erase myself from this conversation. And he was in the middle of asking me if I'd like Casey to call me back, when he interrupts himself with, “Oh, here he is now. Hold on.”
So there I am, gripping the phone like I'm trying to kill it, when I hear his voice. “Sammy?”
I said, “Yeah,” but it sort of stayed trapped in my throat.
“Are you there?”
“Yeah,” I said again, and this time it actually made it out of my mouth.
“What's up?”
I almost said, I'm an idiot, that's what's up, but instead I choked out, “Your dad sounds just like you.”
He laughs. “So I've been told.” Then after a minute of painful silence, he says, “Uh, Marissa said you had something you wanted to tell me?”
“Yeah,” I said again, feeling like a cement truck was parked on my chest. “Only I just told it all to your dad.”
Silence.
??
?I thought he was you.”
Another second of silence and then, “That's cool. So, what was it?”
By now my grip on the phone is starting to shake. And all of a sudden I can't think of what to say. Of how to start. “I … I don't know if I can do this twice.”
“Are you telling me I should go ask him?”
God, was I lame, or what? So I took a deep breath and told him. The whole thing. From the beginning. And it didn't come out smooth and fast like it had the first time, but at least I got it out.
I could now hang up and die.
Then he asks me, “So … you don't like Billy?”
“No! Right now I kinda hate him.”
He laughs. “He's just Billy.”
“Yeah, I know.” Then I add, “So I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry for the misunderstanding and for Marissa telling Heather about how you kissed my hand. I know you were acting, and I want you to know that I sure didn't go around making a big deal out of it, okay?” Then before I can stop myself, out of my mouth pops, “It's a little cold to say that you'd rather kiss a codfish, but hey, I can understand why you said it.”
“What?”
I hesitated, then said, “Never mind.”
“No, seriously. I never said anything about a codfish.”
“You didn't?”
“Nuh-uh. Where'd you hear that one?”
I shook my head. “Where do you think?”
“And you believed her? God, she is such a pain!”
All of a sudden I remembered. “Oh! I forgot to tell you—I am so glad to have my skateboard back. Thank you for bringing it to school.”
“Man, you smoke on that thing. I had no idea.”
I could feel my cheeks turning roasty. “When did you—”
“Everyone on the bus was going, Dude! That's a girl?”
“Yeah, well, I was just happy to have it back. So thanks.”
“No problem. Sorry it took me so long.”
I kind of muttered, “Sorry I never asked nice.”
He laughed, then I heard some clinking and rustling on the other end. “Let me have your number, okay?”
“Uh … I can't do that.”
“Why not?”
“My mom … um … I'm not allowed to talk to guys on the phone.”