The Brokenhearted (5 page)

The sky has turned a purple gray in the twilight. Across the river, the old-fashioned streetlamps are beginning to flicker on. Here on the South Side, with no streetlights to speak of, the dark begins to wrap around us like a cocoon.

When we get to the top of the embankment, Gavin points toward the sky past the bridge. His hand finds mine again, the heat of it and the closeness of his body warming me. We watch hundreds of circus birds fly from west to east, a neon cacophony in the darkening sky.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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CHAPTER 5

“Will?” My voice echoes softly in the cavernous stone chapel the next day. The flying buttresses and soaring ceiling designed a century and a half ago are supposed to make God-fearing Bedlamites feel small and awestruck, and even though I know it’s a trick of architecture, it works.

The chapel, I realize as I walk slowly up the aisle, is the last place I saw Will. I pause at the pew I was sitting in on Friday, the place where I realized I didn’t want to go to any party with Will Hansen ever again. The unpleasant memory dissolves as I notice a rustle of the burgundy curtain in front of the confession booth. I slip off my shoes and tiptoe across the marble floor. Two black shoes peek out under the confessional curtain. I slip soundlessly into the booth on the other side of the wooden partition and close my half of the curtain. Pulling back the screen in the wall between us, I wait for my eyes to adjust to the darkness.

I clear my throat and adopt a stage whisper. “Father, forgive me, for I have sinned.”

Will leans his forehead against the screen, so close I can smell the expensive cedar hanger his shirt hung on this morning. “And I thought the problem was you haven’t sinned
enough
.”

“Will,” I whisper nervously.

“I know. You were
sick
.” Though I can’t see Will’s face, I can almost hear him sneering. “It was a joke, what I said about other girls taking your place,” he says from the other side of the booth. “I sent you about thirty texts apologizing.”

I nod, dreading what I know I need to do, guilt sticking in my throat. Will may be kind of obnoxious, but he deserves better than this.

“You could have called me the next day to see how it went.”

“Sorry,” I mumble. There are no good excuses for ignoring him the way I have been. “I should have called.”

“You’re not exactly in the running for girlfriend of the year,” Will continues.

“Then break up with me,” I hear myself say.

Silence. I press my spine against the mahogany wall, letting out an involuntary puff of air through my nostrils.

The curtain rings scrape against their rod as Will leaves the confessional. He pulls back my curtain and stands in front of me, a wounded look clouding his broad face. “Seriously?”

“I—I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem—” I fumble, letting the sentence hang.

He turns away and looks at the huge fresco painted beneath the east-facing windows of the cathedral. My eyes follow his gaze until I see it, the image of Judas betraying Jesus, his evil kiss on Jesus’ cheek. I turn away, but the kiss of the betrayer is imprinted on my eyes.

“I had other options, you know,” he says, shrugging. “But I chose
you
. That should count for something.”

“I should be grateful, you mean, because a popular guy like you is interested in a loser like me,” I whisper, blood suddenly roaring in my ears. I force myself out of the booth.

“All I’m saying is you should think about what you want in life,” Will says calmly, his eyes dead and bored-looking. He sighs loudly. “I’m a patient guy. I’ll wait for you to realize what’s in your best interests. Until then, you might want to be more careful about where you go dancing.”

My mouth falls open, but no words come out. “What do you mean?” I finally manage.

“Just don’t do anything you’ll regret. This is Bedlam, remember? People are watching you.”

“What people?” I say, my voice strangled. I search Will’s face for clues. Is he threatening me?

“Don’t worry about it, Anthem.” Will pauses, his eyes glittering with malice. “But I’d love to know—who’s the guy?”

“What
guy
?” Does he somehow know about Gavin?

“Forget it. You don’t have to tell me,” Will says, checking his watch. “I’ll be here when you change your mind.”

“I’m not changing my mind,” I say sharply. I lurch out of the booth and push past him, but he grabs my wrist before I can clear the pew. I whirl around and yank my hand away, opening my mouth to speak but not finding any words.

“Lie to me all you want, Anthem, but don’t lie to yourself.” He pulls his leather satchel over his shoulder and straightens up to his full six feet. Before I can think what to say, he turns and stalks heavily out of the chapel.

My hands are trembling as I adjust the burgundy tie at my collar and slowly, mechanically smooth out my pleated plaid skirt. I bend to slip my oxfords on and wait a few minutes before I leave. My eyes wander back to Judas and his false kiss. Under someone’s ordinary face can lurk the most sinister thoughts. The church bells start to clang again, but all I can hear is Will’s voice.

People are watching you
.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

.....................................................................

CHAPTER 6

When the final bells of the school day begin to clang at 2:55
P.M
., I bolt up from my seat in Honors English and hurry out the forty-foot arch of Cathedral’s front doors. Checking over my shoulder to make sure Will is nowhere in sight, I pass the security booth at the school gates. Blake and Meechum, the armed guards on duty in the afternoons, stand at the ready, watching for criminals or vagrants.

Meechum nods hello. His hand rests casually around the barrel of the BulletBlower 27 he wears strapped around one arm. “Afternoon, Miss Fleet.”

“Hi, Meech.” I smile. I’ve known him since kindergarten. He’s getting on in years, but just last week he chased down a couple of punks who’d threaded their way among all the high schoolers boarding school buses, catching them with half a dozen wallets and two Pharm-inhalers stuffed in their pockets.

I move past him onto the sidewalk and start to thread through the crowd of burgundy, navy, and white uniformed kids milling around. Then I feel my phone vibrate in my skirt pocket.

Gavin
: Can you get away? I miss you.

I look up the block toward Seven Swans. The answer should be
I’ve got ballet today,
but yesterday was too good.

I walk quickly around the block where it’s quieter, then call Madame Petrovsky. It turns out to be disconcertingly easy, lying to her.

When she answers, I tell her I overdid it on Sunday and twisted my ankle, and that I missed rehearsal yesterday because I was seeing the doctor. “He said to elevate it and rest for a while longer, until the swelling goes down,” I lie.

“Oh dear,” she says, pausing to emit a long sigh. “Please rest. No walking. Lots of ice. We are choosing parts for
Giselle
very soon,” she reminds me, a trace of panic creeping into her voice. “I suppose I can put it off a little longer . . .”

I can almost hear her frowning, can almost see the crease between her eyebrows deepening. I do my best to shake off my guilt. I’m not bragging when I say I’m among the best dancers she’s got in level six. I can practice at home, at night, I tell myself. I can still land the prima role. A few days can’t erase twelve years of training.

“Sorry. I know, it’s terrible timing.” I rise onto my toes and hold on to a light post, then move through a sloppy
pas de bourree,
my guilt about lying now almost completely overtaken by my excitement about a whole afternoon with Gavin.

We sit side by side on the deserted beach of Lake Morass watching the cotton-candy fog roll in off the water, so thick we can almost hold it in our hands. He tells me about his mother dying when he was just nine years old after being sick with a wasting disease for years, about how his father, who moved away when Gavin was a baby, never came to claim him from the orphanage he was sent to live in when his mother died. When I ask him about what the orphanage was like, he shrugs, and says simply: “The kind of place you do everything you can to get away from. I left when I was thirteen. Been supporting myself ever since.”

I ask him how he supports himself now, and he tells me he paints houses on the North Side. The work is seasonal, so he’s busy in the summer and free in the winter to work on his art.

“Drawing was all I had for a long time,” he says. “I used to steal coal from the kitchen and sketch on old newspapers. It was the only thing I could do that felt like an escape from being me. So I kept doing it.”

I nod, knowing exactly what he means. When everything else is terrible, a day of dancing is all it takes to remind myself of what’s good. I think guiltily of the studio and wonder for a second what sequence the level sixers are doing now.

Later that afternoon, we buy cups of tea from a nearby café and sit next to each other, staring out over the river with our pinkies linked on the table. The silence between us is comfortable, somehow familiar.

He drives me back with ten minutes to spare. I wait for Serge in the lobby of Seven Swans, doing my best to shake the sand from my hair.

Each day this week, I’ve called to check in with Madame and report on my ankle, then walked to a meeting place Gavin and I have chosen, just a few blocks from Seven Swans. I’ve never missed this many days of practice in my life.

I’m becoming one of those girls I normally cannot stand. Those dreamy, dopey gigglers who see the bright side of everything, who seem almost stupid with love. It was never like this with Will.

“It’s almost better,” I say to Madame on the phone, checking furtively around me for anyone I might know as I wait at the designated corner for Gavin to pull up on his bike. “I have a physical therapy appointment today, and if I get the all-clear, I’ll be at Saturday practice.”

“Very good, Anthem. You’ve been very responsible about this injury. We look forward to your return.”

Ugh.
I’ve been the opposite of responsible,
I think as Gavin’s bike pulls up. This has to stop, or I’ll have no hope of catching up . . .

When he pulls his helmet off, Gavin’s face is half-hidden by his shaggy hair, but his expression is so eager that I lose my train of thought. “Me too,” I say to Madame, and click the phone off.

“Where to?” I grin.

He takes me to his studio, in the old rail yards deep in Southeast Bedlam. When we pull up between two rows of rusted trains surrounded by tall thickets of grass and scrub, the first thing I notice is how quiet it is. Then I hear the cooing of circus birds and look up to see a nest on the closest train car, all but eaten up by deep red rust. A large albino crow announces itself on the roof another rail car a few feet away, its sharp beak open to the grey sky.

“That’s Money,” Gavin says, whistling at the crow, who regards us with one red eye.

“Money?”

“He’s here today, gone tomorrow.” Gavin grins. “I named him when I first started painting out here.”

He leads me toward an ancient-looking train car wrapped in desiccated vines that will probably become bright green in the summer. He unlocks a heavy padlock and slides open the door. My breath catches when I get inside.

It’s a riot of color. The walls are coated in layer upon layer of paint, and there are several half-finished canvases—some stunning, haunted landscapes that look inspired by this rail yard, where plants overtake the buildings and the cars. There’s a triptych of townspeople standing in front of a country church, all of them staring at the sky, horror etched into their faces, their mouths open in silent screams. Another of a couple, their bodies elongated as they run from a fire.

“This is your studio?” I breathe, moving in a slow circle to take in all the art. In one corner of the room are a few dozen large cans of house paint, some rollers, a pile of tarps.

“Yep. Also my storage space for the day job.”

“How do you stay so clean?” I ask.

“What do you mean?”

“If I hung out here, I’d be covered in paint every day,” I say.

“Coveralls,” he says. “Also, um, I’m trying to impress you with my best duds. Is it working?”

I look him over. Worn black pants with a small hole in the knee. Combat boots. A button-down shirt with a frayed collar. All topped with a motorcycle jacket. “Totally.”

I walk toward him and lean upward for a kiss. When we break away, I want to tell him he could show up in ripped rags and I’d still like him. A lot. I clear my throat. “You should stop worrying about impressing me.”

“It’s just hard to believe a girl like you would bother with someone like me,” he says softly, his eyes trained on the paint-splattered wood planks of the train car’s floor.

“A girl like me would definitely bother,” I laugh. “Though
bother
isn’t the word for it.”

The unspoken part of this conversation is that up until now, we’ve been keeping our time together a secret. He hasn’t asked me why I haven’t shown him my neighborhood haunts, my apartment, my favorite place to get coffee, but I know he senses that my parents wouldn’t approve of what we’re doing, and not just because I’ve been skipping ballet.

“It’s been a good week,” he says, then moves to a far wall and turns an easel around. There’s a palette set up, oil paints glistening on it, still wet from use. Above it, a small canvas, half of it filled with my face. He’s even done my freckles, the few darker ones under my eye and the lighter gingery ones across the bridge of my nose. “I started working on this early this morning.”