Simon Says (12 page)

Suddenly he turns to me, catching my stare, and smiles easily. Without knowing why, I feel embarrassed at being caught, and look outside our umbrella world. I'm not sure where we are. I see a grassy stretch and a long, low building like a stable running along the side of the walk beyond the grass. I glance behind us.

"I thought you might like to see my studio," he says, his voice unexpectedly hesitant "It was the closest place, and I figured you'd like to dry off." There's a trace of a question in his tone. I could say no, as simply as I told Adrian no, as firmly as I told Rachel no. But I told
Rachel I'd study Graeme Brandt and find a way to sketch him. I've seen something tonight, but I can't quite put it down on paper. It's cloudy, but it's there.
And if it's what let him write that book and get it published so the whole world could read it, then it's what I came to Whitman to find out.

"Sure," I hear myself telling him. "I'd like that."

As we turn off puddled pavement onto muddy grass, sloshing side by side, a series of doors and windows comes into focus in the long, low building. I realize ifs a row of studios, different from the building where I have mine. It must be a different arrangement for writers—or maybe ifs a special perk for seniors. Graeme shifts the umbrella to his outside hand and fumbles between us for his keys. I hadn't realized how close to each other we were standing. Then he pushes the door open, reaches inside for a light switch, and gestures me through ahead of him.

A computer sits shrouded in a dustcover on an otherwise empty desk. The room isn't much larger than my studio, but it feels more like a room in a home—a wide recliner beside an end table with a lamp and enough space for a stack of papers, a hot plate beyond the computer, even a small refrigerator tucked under one side of the desk. Graeme ducks down and pulls out a ginger ale. "Is this your favorite? Unless you'd like something hot? I could fix some coffee or something."

I hang the strap of my pack over the doorknob, feeling suddenly like a kid with an adult "Ginger ale's fine," I say, wondering how he knew. He hands it to me, and I
fumble for something to say. "You hardly need a dorm room. You can practically live right here."

He smiles again, that easy, open smile he gave me earlier under the umbrella. "Sometimes I do." He moves the desk chair over and sits on it, pointing me to the recliner.

"I'm soaked."

"It'll dry." He waits for me to sit "When I'm working on a book, I stay here for days at a time. I mean, I can eat here, work, even sleep on the recliner."

I feel the recliner's rough tweed enfolding me, and smile. This is what I'd been waiting for since I got here, for him to talk about his work. And that kind of dedication is what I wanted to hear. "I wondered just how an author goes about writing."

As he answers, I can hear an unmistakable affection for his work in his voice. "I don't know how other writers work, but it's more real for me than anything else. If I'm not here—if I'm at class, say, or in the dorm—the characters in the book get in the way. Dialogue comes alive in my head once I set up the situations, and I've got to be able to shut everything else out and just get it down on the computer, or in one of my notebooks. So I hide out here and write. My mentor worked things out with the dorm so they don't panic."

I feel a prickle of unease inside. It's almost like he's somehow reciting lines, but that can't be. This is the Graeme Brandt that I imagined, that I'd been looking for since I got to Whitman—the writer who loses himself in creating something extraordinary. And now I've
found him. He writes brilliantly, and he lets everyone see what he writes, and he's not hounded by a baying wolf pack. He's even popular. Maybe he can tell me how I can do it, after all. Maybe I really
have
found where I belong.

I take a long swallow of the ginger ale and put the idea out of my mind that he's somehow performing these lines for me. He means them—they're real. He just knows how to express his feelings so well that it sounds like a script Writers probably have that happen all the time. But what he's saying—it's something special, something true that he shares with me.

He's looking at me again, the way he looked at me in the storm, and I feel self-conscious again, inexplicably shy yet almost willing to open up to him. I start to ask him how he lives with people's expectations, how he writes the truth, knowing they won't like it
How can I open up and still stay myself, and not be torn apart?

"You're quite an artist" He breaks the silence before I can frame my words. "Have you ever thought of drawing yourself? You have a gift for capturing your subject's ... soul."

I grin wryly, thinking of the back view for the auditions committee and the better Harlequin sketch hanging in my studio. "I did, but it was masked."

He looks surprised. "Why? You have a striking face—you shouldn't hide it."

"Ah, but it's a question of souls—"

Then I stop and feel the heat creeping up my neck.
So you've developed the artistic temperament,
that student had said in the concert hall.
I never noticed that
side of you before.
Finally I get it. I realize what Graeme Brandt's patient attention to me all night must mean. Stupid, stupid, not to see it sooner. I knew with Adrian from the start, but Graeme is more—what?—discreet I remember the blond guy I saw come in with him at that Orientation Week party, and I think of the way Graeme looked at me after seeing that drawing of Adrian. God—he must think—

I fumble for a way to answer. "My ... ex-girlfriend used to say that." I can't help it if my tone is forced.

He doesn't say anything for a moment, just studies my flushed face. "Why ex-? Just because you left for Whitman?"

It would be the easy way out, implying I've got tons of eager girlfriends missing me now that I'm at a new school. But I can't completely lie to those slivers of blue ice in his eyes. I choose my words carefully. "She decided she liked jocks better than artists with piles of oily"—I bite off the word
ugly
before it can escape, and finish lamely—"paintings."

His eyes never blink, but the ice softens. "I've found that guys can be a lot more dependable than girls. And they expect less." His voice is gentle and understanding, and I want to lean against it as I leaned into the wind before the storm and let down my guard—but I can't I won't. Yet an aching emotion uncoils inside me, grieving that I'm betraying it.

I refuse to acknowledge it. Instead I look directly at Graeme. "Yeah, well, my policy since then has been to depend on nobody but me."

He doesn't say anything for a moment Then he leans
back in the hard desk chair and clasps his hands behind his head. I look away from the curve of his bare arm and stare at the wall behind him. His voice is low. "Don't you get lonely?"

The need for friendship that has been hounding me all evening (
all my life
) cries out
Yes!
but my voice refuses to articulate the longing. "No. I've got my art."

"Is that always enough?" The blue eyes and the understanding in his tone draw me toward his face again.

No!
But my shoulders shrug. "It has to be."

He nods easily and gets to his feet "Want another ginger ale?"

I look down and realize the can is empty. I don't remember drinking it but I must have. Dumbly, I shake my head. He smiles, as if amused.

"It's late," I explain awkwardly.

His smile disappears, and he asks quietly, "And you have to go?"

My sight blurs for a second, and I nod, not trusting my voice to explain how very much I do need to leave. He stands above me, not moving, and I see the pulse beat in the hollow of his throat.

"Do you really?"

His voice is an invitation to whatever I want (
another storm, or something else
), free from insistence or expectation. I struggle out of the recliner to my feet, ignoring the feet that he seems substantially taller than I am now, towering over me, where before we simply stood side by side.

"I have to go."

His face tells me that he hears the unsteadiness in my voice, that he suspects the feeling I refuse to confess, but he just takes the can from me, not commenting on the shock that passes between us as our hands touch. His eyes are still on my face, and I have to keep all my attention on not letting my own eyes betray me.

I fumble for my pack and am reaching to turn the doorknob when his voice stops me. "Good night, Charles."

The tone is warm, in spite of everything. It reminds me of the moments we shared in the brilliant lightning, of the walk through the rain together, of the dedication to his work that he so easily shared with me, as if we were friends already.

"Good night ... Graeme."

The use of his first name is as great a confession of my feelings as I can manage, and I'm through the door and into the damp night before he can say anything more. Walking, sloshing through puddles, I try to think, but the images I've seen of Graeme Brandt spin dizzily in my head, refusing to merge, but still not fragments—a kaleidoscope whirl that slowly begins to take on a cloudy shape. I concentrate on the insight, trying to forget the feelings I betrayed, but the key to the insight seems to lie within the betrayal.

I feel I've walked miles and forded flooded streams by the time I reach the dorm in the late rain. I can't bear to face Adrian, but he's sound asleep. There's a note on the floor, slipped under the door by the dorm master, reminding me about curfews and asking me to see him
in the morning. Big deal. If Graeme can "work things out" at his dorm, maybe his name can "work things out" for me. I stifle a giggle that sounds like a sob. The dorm master can figure out for himself why I was out late with Graeme Brandt in a thunderstorm.

I kick off my wet shoes and drop my soaked clothes on the floor. As I pull the covers over my head, images of Graeme Brandt flash in a kaleidoscope whirl, warning me that there's something else to him, something besides the easy closeness he offered me tonight Exhausted, I reject the warning and the images and tune out the soft rumble of Adrian's snores. I tune out the whole world of Whitman High School and try to imagine myself back to my childhood bed, where I hugged my stuffed rabbit and dreamed of colored chalks and friends. But it's not a stuffed rabbit I want tonight I long for something (
someone
) more than a friend in my bed, something more than a pillow to hold on to.

Excerpts from
Graeme Brandt's Journal

September 7 (Senior Year)

The traditional Orientation Week party last night-and what would they all say if they knew I wasn't working on anything? I went with Karl because he was expecting me to, but ifs the last time. He's getting too obvious. Last year he knew how to be discreet, but apparently he had a wild summer. I'm not about to risk that It's just-l need someone around when I'm not writing. I don't like to be by myself. If I could only start a new book, it would be okay. Then I'd have my characters. But without them, I need a person.

The party was okay. Everyone was eager to meet me, and I didn't really feel like a fraud-l mean,
The Eye of the Storm
really is a success, even if I never write another word. But I
want
to write something else....

I met someone unexpected. Not a writer, an artist His name is Charles Weston. He's new, but he's not a freshman. I wonder why he came last night? There was a strange look in his eyes-he wanted something from me, I think. Actually, he has an extraordinary face. His features are very sharply drawn, in some places overdrawn, like the hollows of his cheekbones, and his skin is almost translucent, especially around the eyes, which fairly glitter in intensity when he focuses on someone. He seemed uncomfortable in the crowd, though, and held himself stiffly, like he wanted to avoid contact I got the impression he was daring them all to try to reach him, yet at the same time hoping someone would.

He wanted to talk to me about my writing. He'd actually read my book. And there I was with Karl, who certainly hasn't read more than a page or two of it Karl's a sculptor-reading isn't a required skill, I'm afraid, though working with blocks of stone and chunks of metal certainly gives him other assets in the muscle department ... What was I supposed to do? I turned the conversation around so I didn't have to give Charles a direct answer that would snub Karl and the others. But I could see he didn't like it It was like he felt he deserved better of me. He seemed to take my book seriously and expected me to do the same. In public, no less.

But then I saw him at work. He went over to talk to Adrian Lawson for a while, and met Tyler Murdoch. And then he sketched him. Tyler, that is, not Adrian. Apparently he's going to be doing caricatures for
Ventures.
He was incredible. Right there, with everyone watching him, like it was a performance, he dashed off a searing sketch of Tyler-brutal, but totally honest.

While Charles was drawing, it was as if he retreated into another world, right there in the middle of the real world. The only way he seemed to acknowledge the kids around him was by making a big deal of his being left-handed, as though they were supposed to react to it somehow. A weird thing to feel self-conscious about Why should he care? I wonder if someone said something cruel to him about it once, and he can't forget it? Or is it a symbol of something to him, somehow? But the way that left hand can drawl When he finished, he checked the sketch over to see if he was satisfied, then signed it with a bold, sweeping hand and presented it to Rachel Holland in front of everyone-rubbing Tyler's nose in it Not that Tyler doesn't deserve it.

But I couldn't get away from the feeling that Charles wanted something from me. I went over to talk to him for a while, and the demand was in his tone of voice, in his eyes. He wanted to know what I was working on, and I didn't have an answer to give him. 1 guess he thought I was just putting him off because of the party. In a sense, I
was
putting him off. You don't talk seriously at parties, for a start And I can't help this frustration—this fear-at not knowing myself what I'm going to write next But there was no way Charles Weston could have known that.