Art & Soul (19 page)

I
t was
a Sunday afternoon when Dad moved out. November 22
^nd
, the Sunday before Thanksgiving.

Mom said he wasn’t
really
moving out, but he was just going to stay with his sister, Molly, for a little while. She said they needed space and time to figure out a few things. I watched him load up his truck with suitcases from my window. It looked like a lot of luggage for being a temporary move. Grace came in and stood next to me, staring out of the window. She had tears in her eyes, and I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer.

Mike came into the room next. I asked him not to blame me right now because I was on the verge of tears, too. He didn’t say a thing. He stood on the other side of Grace and wrapped an arm around her. We each stared out of the window.

It was the first snow of the winter.

As it fell from the sky, everything around us fell along with it.

After Dad drove off, the three of us stood there for a while longer. Mom joined us with KitKat in her arms. She was probably sad, but wouldn’t show it in front of us.

We didn’t eat dinner at the table that Sunday. It didn’t feel right without him.

D
uring the whole Thanksgiving break
, I didn’t see Levi, mostly because I spent the days with my family, trying to keep them from falling apart. I texted him about Dad moving out, and he sent me a word a day to keep me from going over the deep end.

Levi:
Thinking – noun| [thing-king] : the action of using your mind to produce thoughts.

L
evi
:
Of –
preposition
| [uhv, ov; 
unstressed
 
uhv
 
or, esp. before consonants, uh
] : used to indicate specific identity or a particular item within a category.

L
evi
:
You –
pronoun
|[yoo; 
unstressed
 y
oo
,
yuh
] : Aria Lauren Watson.

T
hinking of you
, too, Levi Myers.

I
stood
in front of the bathroom mirror wearing a tank top and sweatpants with Cantaloupe’s guitar case sitting open on the bathtub. The Black Crowes blasted and I practiced the song over and over again on the air guitar.

Grace walked past the bathroom. She backtracked her steps and came to a standstill. “Are you drunk?”

I laughed.

“My teacher Mrs. Thompson said she wasn’t allowed to drink when she was pregnant.”

“Well, your teacher Mrs. Thompson was awkward for talking about drinking to kids your age.”

She blinked as she watched my hands move back and forth against the invisible guitar. “Are you going crazy?”

“That’s not a nice word.”

She slapped the palm of her hand to her forehead and walked away. “Oh my gosh, my sister’s a pregnant nutcase!”

W
hen school came back
on December 1
^st
, the snow was falling overhead, and I was bundled up in my winter wear. Mom had had to get me a new coat because my normal winter coat didn’t fit as well. Simon walked over to me and gave me a halfway grin. “I heard about your dad. Are you okay?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I shook my head again, staring at the ground. When the blue Chucks stood next to me and kicked around the snow on the ground, I joined in with my shoes.

“Hi, Art.”

I released the breath I’d been holding for a week. “Hi.”

“What size are we at now?”

“An eggplant.”

He smiled. “Morning, Mr. Eggplant.”

We climbed onto the bus and set in the seats across from one another. He took out his CD player and handed me one of the ear buds. He placed the other in his ear. I took a few deep breaths.

And when he hit play, we both played our invisible guitars.

“
I
have a proposal for you
, and I’m hoping you’ll say yes,” Levi said when his music class showed up to our art room. He sat his violin case down. “I think we should be glitterati.”

“We’re not wealthy or famous,” I argued. “Plus, we don’t have any fashionable events to attend.”

“Ah! But that is wrong! Because while I was walking down the hallway, I heard people whispering and gossiping about how I could possibly be the father of your baby.”

“Is that the current rumor?”

“It is indeed the current rumor, and seeing as how most famous people are always talked about in those tabloids you read, then I think that kind of makes us famous by definition.”

“And what’s that definition?”

“Having a widely spread reputation.”

I smiled. “We do have that, don’t we? But we don’t have a fashionable event to attend, so I guess we’re out of luck. Do you want to work on a few samples of our final project? You can play as I paint and—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. You can’t just change the subject because we
do
have a fashionable event to attend.”

“And that is?”

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He unfolded it and held it my way. “Aria Watson, will you go to winter formal with me this Saturday night?”

I chuckled. “Seriously?”

He nodded.

“No way. My mom would never let me go. Plus, there’s that whole six months pregnant thing I have going on.”

“You don’t worry about that. You just have a dress ready and your dancing shoes on. I’ll deal with your mom.”

L
evi asked
Mom on Tuesday if he could take me to the dance. She said no.

He asked on Wednesday. She said no.

Thursday before my therapy appointment—no.

Friday—no.

When Saturday night arrived, I figured Levi had given up on the idea of me going to winter formal with him. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t try on every dress in my closet, but most of them didn’t fit anymore anyway.

Maybe that was for the best.

I watched Mike and his date Jamie get ready with James and Nadine before they all headed off to the dance that I wasn’t allowed to attend.

It wasn’t fair.

Thirty minutes after the dance started, there was knocking on the front door.

Peeking around the corner, I saw Mom opening the door. Levi was standing there giving her that charming smile that made everyone in the whole wide world fall in love with him.

“Hello, Mrs. Watson. First and foremost, these are for you,” Levi said, handing flowers to Mom. My heart started beating faster and faster.

“Thank you, Levi, but I think the answer is still the same. We think it’s best that Aria doesn’t attend the winter formal tonight.”

She said ‘we’ like Dad was a part of the decision when really, he didn’t even know there was a dance.

“I know, but if I may?” He gestured toward the foyer, and Mom let him step inside.

She shouldn’t have done that. Once Levi entered someone’s house—or heart—there was no way to ever get rid of him.

He was wearing a black tuxedo with a polka dot green and white bowtie. He cleared his throat and stood tall, giving Mom that dangerous smile. “I want to take her to the dance. I understand why she wouldn’t want to go. I get why you wouldn’t
want
her to go. Her life is going to change within the next few months. Nothing is going to be the same, everything is going to be different, and you fear that all of the changes are going to be too much for her. Plus, the idea of me in her life is just another stressful thing added to the equation. Trust me, I’ve been trying to leave her alone for the past few months, but she’s ruthless at getting my attention. I get that you worry about what others will say about her ever-growing stomach and how she’ll be judged and criticized by other kids. Any good parent would worry about such things and any loving parent would want to keep their kid from that.

“But I want you to know that I’ll protect her. I’ll make her forget that there is anyone else in the room. I’ll make her feel comfortable and beautiful because her beauty is comforting to me. I’ll dance slow and not too often so she’s not on her feet all evening. I’ll make her laugh at really corny math jokes and give her really watered down punch.”

Mom placed her thumb in between her lips. She was probably debating if she should shove him back outside and double bolt the locks, or if she should drag me to my room and put me in a dress.

“Levi, you have to understand. Aria isn’t in a place where she should be dating. It’s actually the last thing she should be doing.”

He nodded. He frowned. He looked past my mom and saw me hiding behind the corner. He gave me a half smile.

I gave him the other half.

His eyes traveled back to Mom. “You think I want to date Aria? God, no. There’s nothing about your daughter that I want to date. She’s cool and all, but by all means, she has officially been friend-zoned in my book.”

“I think we both know that’s a lie.” Mom sighed, crossing her arms.

“No, Mrs. Watson, it’s not. You see, there are girls and then there’s Aria. Aria is the kind of girl who you go to the music store with and listen to destroy the sounds of music. She’s the kind of girl you talk to about your views on realism compared to impressionism. She’s the girl who tells you that abstract art is the best art, even though you fight her tooth and nail about it because you think it’s meaningless, but the next thing you know you’re sitting in a library staring at books filled with pictures of abstract artwork and your heart feels ready to explode.”

Levi turned to me as I stepped out from behind the corner. Our eyes locked, and he kept speaking. “Because you get it, you know? You get that the colors and the lines and the curves aren’t trying to be like everything else in the world. You understand that the abstract art is standing out against the norm because it’s the only way abstract art knows how to stand. And you get so fucking happy because it’s so beautiful. And unique. And edgy. And…abstract.”

The room filled with silence as the three of us stood with no words coming to our minds. Levi adjusted his bowtie, turned back to Mom, and cleared his throat. “So, if it’s okay, I would like to take your abstract masterpiece to the dance tonight. Friends only.”

Mom turned to me and shrugged her shoulders. “Do you want to go?” she whispered.

“Yes.”

I badly wanted to go with Levi.

“Then go.” She nodded her head toward my room. “Go get dressed.”

Without hesitation, I turned and hurried in the direction of my room with the biggest smile that I could no longer hide. As I entered my room I couldn’t help but giggle when I heard Levi say to my mom, “I’m sorry for saying the f word in your house, Mrs. Watson.”

“It’s okay, Levi. Consider it your one free pass.”

F
ifteen minutes later
, I walked out of my bedroom wearing a black dress that probably shouldn’t have stretched out as far as it did. My feet were wearing a pair of flats because they were the only thing that didn’t make me feel exhausted from standing. Mom gave me her pearl necklace and earrings.

When I entered the living room, where Levi was waiting, he stood from the couch. “Whoa,” he said, staring my way. He didn’t say another word, or move an inch. Minutes passed, and still no movement.

“Levi.” I softly laughed nervously, tugging on the bottom of my dress. “You’re staring at me.”

“I know. I swear I’ve been trying to stop, but when I stare at you something weird happens.”

“And what’s that?”

“My mind shuts up.”

“Oh, crap,” Mom muttered, standing against the fireplace, watching Levi and I with a camera in her hands and tears falling down her cheeks.

“Mom, don’t cry.”

“I’m not, I’m not,” she promised, wiping her eyes. “It’s the dust from the fireplace, that’s all.”

She smiled and got more dust in her eyes as she took photos of Levi and me.

“I like him,” Mom whispered as she kissed my forehead. “I know I shouldn’t, but I like him.”

“You and I both suffer from the same issue, Mom.”

When Levi and I walked out to his car, he held the passenger door open for me. He hopped into the driver’s seat and turned the key in the ignition. My hands rested against my stomach as we drove in silence.

“I meant that, you know,” he whispered, his eyes on the road. “The part I said about there are girls and then there’s Aria. I meant that.”

My shoulders relaxed into the seat, and I stared forward out of the windshield.
There were girls, and then there was me.

Slowly my left hand edged toward the middle half of the front seat, my palm facing up.

Slowly his right hand edged toward the middle half of the front seat, his palm facing down.

Slowly, nervously, quietly, we tied our hands together.

“
A
re
you sure you don’t want punch? I mean, I know they don’t have diamond encrusted glasses, but they have these great plastic cups,” Levi offered for the third time. We sat in two chairs against the wall. I shook my head. I couldn’t stop pulling at the fabric of my dress, feeling as if I was standing out way too much and that I was way too fat to be there.

Girls kept walking over to us and asking Levi to dance with him, but he kept turning them down.

All of the girls looked really beautiful and very far from pregnant.

Maybe it had been a bad idea to come.

Levi rested his hands in his lap. His feet were tapping against the gym floor to the music. He wasn’t having much fun, and I felt awful about it.

“I’m sorry I’m so boring,” I said.

“You’re not,” he lied.

“I’m embarrassed.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m fat.”

He edged his chair closer to me and laid my head on his shoulder. “The way you talk about yourself makes me angry.”

“But look at all of those girls out there. You could have any of them. Clearly they all want you.”

“I don’t want them.”