A Work of Art (26 page)

“Mom,” I said. “There's something I have to tell you.”

She stopped rubbing her eyes and lifted her head.

“You know how Dad always wanted me to draw nudes?”

She froze, waiting for me to say it.

“I posed for him, Mom.”

I knew I would never forget her face. She was like that woman in the Bible who looked back at her village being destroyed. She was a pillar of salt, with glassy, staring eyes and an open mouth.

I tried to make it sound reasonable, the way he'd made it sound to me. “He wanted me to practice drawing nudes. He told me I could practice on myself, like a self-portrait. So I let him take a photo of me . . . and then I sketched myself.”

“Oh, Tera.”

“I only let him do it one time.” I covered my face with my hands so she wouldn't have to look at me. “I knew it was wrong, and the next time he tried it, I kicked and cried. So it was only that one time that he took a photo. I swear.”

I heard her rapid breathing, but she didn't say anything. She didn't touch me.

“I hate myself for letting him do that.”

A pause, and then she whispered: “Don't.”

I cried into my hands, still not able to look at her. After a minute, I felt her touch on my shoulder, hesitant.

“It's not your fault,” she said. “It's mine.”

I'd been longing to hear her say that. I didn't know how badly until then. She said it again—
It's not your fault
—and I pressed my head against her chest and sobbed.

• • •

Mom wanted to talk more, but when I glanced out the window and saw Haley's Audi pull into her driveway, I told Mom I'd be back in a few minutes. There was something I had to do.

I hadn't seen Haley since I'd made her cry. Now I knew why she was so upset. Because Herman Liebowitz had shown her what was inside those porn comics—only he hadn't shown her pictures of me.

A Bowl Full of Cherries
—as in, more than one. Dad had put Haley on those pages, too.

I walked across the street and rang Haley's doorbell. Westminster chimes. I hadn't heard that sing-song tune in a long time, not since I used to play at her house when we were kids. I always felt jealous because her doorbell sounded so peaceful.

Her mom opened the door and almost shut it in my face when she saw me, but I heard Haley's voice call out. “It's okay, Mom. I'll talk to her.”

Mrs. Sweeney hesitated before moving aside. I was sure I could read her thoughts:
Who's this piece of trash setting foot in my lovely house?

Haley led me to her room and closed the door. She had the same pink canopy over her bed that she'd had when we were kids. Posters of heavy-metal bands covered her walls instead of the boy bands she'd liked when we were friends.

She sat down on her bed and hugged her knees. I stood in the middle of the room.

“I came to apologize,” I said. “For the other day.”

Her eyes got wide. “You were a total bitch to me.”

“I know.”

“I hate your dad. I hate the way you think he's so awesome.” She straightened her legs and lifted her chin. “You still think it, don't you? You have no idea what a fucked-up creep he is.”

“I do,” I said. “I know.”

She snorted.

“The lawyer told me about the porn comics,” I said.

Our eyes met for just an instant before we both looked away.

“It's fucked up,” she said.

“Yeah.”

Her fingers dug into her bedspread. “I want him to die. If I could get to him, I'd kill him. But you want to help him.”

“I don't want to help him. Not anymore. I know what he did now. I didn't know before.”

She studied me. “He drew you, too?”

I didn't say anything. She could tell by my face.

“Some fun, huh?”

“Yeah.”

She grabbed her pillow and hugged it. “I thought you knew how he came on to me when we were kids. I thought you always knew.”

“No.”

“Then I'm sorry for thinking that,” she said.

“What did he do?” I didn't want to know, but I had to know.

She stared at one of her posters and picked at a loose thread on her bedspread. “He tried one time to get me to sit on his lap. And he'd ask questions about my body. If I had hair down there yet—sick stuff like that. I wasn't even sure what he was doing, but I knew it wasn't right. I was a kid. You know?”

I nodded. I knew.

There was a long silence before she spoke. “I'm sorry I was such a bitch all the time.”

“I get it.”

“When we were little, I used to tell you I thought your dad was creepy, but you'd tell me to shut up.”

I didn't remember that.

“It was so stupid, the way you protected him. I thought you liked it.”

“Liked it?”

“I thought you let him do stuff to you.”

“Why would you think that?”

“You didn't?”

“No!” The denial came automatically.

“Oh,” she said.

I wrapped my arms around my chest and looked at the floor. If I couldn't tell her the truth, I'd never be able to testify in front of a court. And I
wanted
her to know, because I was sick of hiding in the shadow of this thing that had happened when I was nine years old.

So I lifted my head, and I blurted it out. “I lied. He took a picture of me. I let him.”

She stared at me. “That's horrible.”

“I was so stupid.”

She moved to the edge of the bed, reached out her hand, but all I wanted was to fold myself in half like a sheet of paper. Fold myself into smaller and smaller pieces.

She grabbed my hand and pulled me down beside her. We sat on the edge of her bed and stared at the pink rug at our feet. “I didn't mean
you
were horrible,” she said. “I meant . . .” She squeezed my hand. “It's horrible that he did that to you. You were just a kid. You didn't ‘let' him do anything.”

“I could have stopped him. He tried again another time and I wouldn't let him.”

“How'd you stop him?”

“I cried.”

And then I started laughing.

She laughed, too. “God, that's fucked up.”

It was.

She let go of my hand so she could press her palms into her thighs. “After your dad got all creepy, I didn't want to hang out with you. But I didn't have to treat you that way.”

I shrugged.

“And it wasn't me who posted on the forum. RubyQueen15. That's Ellen Cornwell.”

“Oh.” That made sense.

Haley brushed her hands down her cheeks. “I haven't stopped crying since I saw those pictures he drew.”

“I'm sorry.”

“It's not your fault.”

Those words again. I looked behind me at her closed door. “I should go.”

“Yeah.” She stood up. “Are we okay, Tera? I don't hate you or anything.”

“I don't hate you either.”

She laughed again, and so did I. It felt good to laugh.

• • •

As soon as I got home, I went downstairs to my dad's studio. Everything I needed was down there: canvas, brushes, paint . . . and my dad's shadow. I sat in front of a blank canvas.

I saw myself as a nine-year-old girl, waiting in her room for her father to come to her. He wanted to see the drawing she'd done, the one of her with no clothes on, when she'd pretended to be a dog. She wanted to tear it up, but he had to judge it first. She hoped it was good enough. She wanted him to be proud of her.

He came to her and looked at her drawing and said it wasn't good enough, the girl on her hands and knees, naked like a skinned animal. He wanted her to do it again, to strip and pose. He wanted her to be proud of what she was doing.

But the shame still pulsed from her eyes, her fingers, her mouth. The shame that made her want to hide herself away.

He got mad when she told him no. He didn't like how she struggled when he took her shirt off. He said she was crazy like her mom. Said he was sick of her.

“I'm so sick of you.”

So she tried. She tried very, very hard to do what he wanted. So he wouldn't be sick of her. So he'd be proud of her and love her.

The memory came out through my brushstrokes. The colors I put on the canvas came from inside me. Purple like a bruise, red like dried blood, muddy gray and black, colors slick and crusty and textured like a scab.

The girl lay on the bed. The man hovered over her, his face clouded by a smoky halo, arms slick up to the elbow, pulling out what was small and good, pulling it out like a butcher pulls guts from a slaughtered pig.

The girl on her back, kicking like a bug, her head thrown back, her mouth stretched open—too far. Her jaw unhinged.

• • •

A long time later, I laid my paintbrush down and closed my eyes. When I opened them, the memory I'd been living with—the one I wanted to disappear—lay right there in front of me. But it wasn't inside me anymore. It was out of me for good.

I breathed through my nose, enjoying the tacky smell of paint. My brushes lay scattered on my tray, each one unique, each with its own memory attached. Gifts from my dad.

I looked back at my painting of the man and the girl—me and my dad—each of us trying to get what we wanted.

Want,
I thought, and carefully printed the title on the bottom right corner. Under that, I signed my name.

“Tera!” Mom's voice drifted through the open window of Dad's studio. “Don't you have to get ready for work?” The house was sold, but she'd been outside all morning, clipping away with her pruning shears. Gardening was part of her therapy.

“Cam's not coming until four-thirty!” I called.

I left the half-finished painting on its easel and looked around at my scattered drawings, at the open tubes of paint and dirty paintbrushes. Dad liked things in their proper places. Every brush had to be cleaned and put away, every sketch kept neat and flat and sealed in a drawer. If he could see his studio now, he'd be disappointed in me. He'd shake his head in disgust.

A breeze blew through the open window. Lilacs and roses. Much better than stale cigarette smoke. I wondered if my dad could smell flowers from his cell in solitary, where they'd put him for his own protection. Not that he was ever into green stuff. He used to make fun of my mom for spending so much time in her garden. Maybe in ten to fifteen years, after breathing nothing but concrete and bleach . . . maybe then he'd appreciate the crisp scent of freshly mown grass.

“Tera?” My mom's voice again, right outside the window. She sounded nervous. “Someone's here.”

I glanced at my watch. Way too early for Cam. So who could it be? Another reporter asking about Dad?

A car door slammed. Footsteps on gravel. A man's voice, talking to Mom.

I couldn't hear what they were saying, but Mom sounded guarded. She didn't need this right now. She didn't need some reporter coming over to talk about my dad. His trial was done. He was gone. That was it.

The screen door groaned open and shut. The ceiling creaked as footsteps crossed over the kitchen floor. Whoever it was, she'd invited him inside. Then the door at the top of the stairs squeaked open.

Mom's voice called down. “Tera?”

I moved to the foot of the stairs. Mom's anxious face peered down at me. “There's someone here to see you.”

A man stepped up behind her. Not Cam. And not a reporter. It was Mr. Stewart. He smiled at me and waved. “It's good to see you, Tera. Mind if I come down for a minute?” He started down the stairs with Mom right behind him.

I rubbed my hands on my jeans, pushed my hair back. What would he think of me? I hadn't seen him in months, not since graduation.

He stepped off the bottom stair. His eyes bounced over the room. “This is where you work?” he asked.

I shrugged, self-conscious of the mess. “Not for long,” I said. “We're moving.”

Mr. Stewart turned in a slow circle, taking in the dozens of canvases lining the walls. “You've been busy.”

“She paints all the time now,” Mom said.

“I'm glad to hear that.” He kept looking around.

“Not to be rude,” Mom said. “But why are you here?”

“I'm sorry.” He stopped looking at my paintings and turned to face us. “It's nothing bad. At least I hope it's good.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“Well, it's about that contest.”

“You said you didn't win,” Mom said.

“I didn't.
Girl on a Bus
didn't even place.”

“Well, you're right.
Girl on a Bus
didn't win. But when you told me you'd entered something you weren't happy with, I took the liberty of entering one of your other paintings.
Gray Day.
It had rain in it, remember? So it fit the contest's theme.”

I remembered. The girl with the scraggly hair, standing with her dog on the playground.

“And I'm glad I entered it,” Mr. Stewart said. “Because you won third prize.”

Mom opened her mouth. Her eyes teared up.

“I'm sorry it took so long to tell you,” he said. “But there was some confusion over whether a third party could enter for someone else. I entered it under your name, but I used my e-mail address. I finally got it straightened out, though. And look.” He pulled a check from his pocket and handed it to me. “I know it's not enough to send you to art school or anything, but it'll help, right? I hope you're still planning on going?”

I looked down at the check in my hand. It was made out to me, for a thousand dollars. I swallowed hard so my words wouldn't sound choked. “I'm saving up,” I said.

“That's great.”

It wasn't great. By now, I should have been packing my bags to study art in Paris. But it was a start. The world wasn't perfect.

“Thanks for doing this,” I said. “Thanks for doing what I should have done.”