The Opposite of Invisible (7 page)

Tuesday morning, I take a quick shower, put on my sweater, jeans, and orange puffy vest, grab an apple in the kitchen, yell goodbye to my parents shuffling around in their room, and start my walk.

Dad used to drive me to school on his way to the university. But I like walking. School is one mile away, almost exactly, which gives me enough time to mellow before hitting the hallowed halls.

I head down Phinney and almost step on a slug. I think it’s a fat stick at first. Then I stoop to look at it. It’s a teeny alien, with those eyes on top of its head. Now that I think of it,
I
feel a little alien: a strange girl on an even stranger planet that should look familiar but doesn’t.

I remember the Chihuly slug from the museum. I have glassblowing on Saturday.

I keep walking, careful where I step.

Jewel and I usually meet at Thirty-fourth and Phinney.

He’s not here.

Still mad, then. Still … whatever. Hurt.

I keep walking, having an imaginary conversation with him.

“Morning,” I say, in my head.

“Morning,” he says. “How’s my girl?”

And his eyes shift toward me.

I smile.

And then maybe he’d touch my elbow and we’d walk along. He’d tell me his dreams.

I reach Ultra Convenience, four blocks from school,
and Simon’s car is parked out front. I stop, considering running into him.

He walks out of the store.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“I’ll drive you the rest of the way.”

Nothing wrong with this.

I ignore the swarm of bees in my stomach as I get into his car.

He gives me some Juicy Fruit from his fresh pack. You can totally smell that stuff on his breath all day. Now it’ll be on mine, too.

We drive slowly past the park.

“I wish I could still play at the park,” I say.

“Like a kid?”

Maybe I’m being weird, talking about this stuff. Maybe he wants to talk about parties or something.

Before I know it, we’re in the school parking lot. Then he’s holding open the front door for me.

I don’t think anyone even saw us come in together. Good. Or maybe not.

  Mr. Smith asked me to come up with a design for the cover of our “portfolio showcase,” which will come out right before Thanksgiving break. I’m doodling.

For the showcase, Mr. Smith takes photos of our paintings, drawings, and sculptures and then gets the portfolio made at Kinko’s. If we have a few bake sales, we can get color copies.

I guess it’s an honor to be asked to do the cover, but really I think Mr. Smith suggested it because lately I’ve been doing more staring at the wall than actual art.

I doodle the shape of an artist’s palette, but that’s lame.

Apparently, Vanessa thinks so too. “Creative much?” She peeks over my shoulder.

“Constantly.”

She raises the red oil-soaked brush in her hand over my paper and for a second I think she’s going to ruin my scribbles.

She lets the brush dangle only millimeters away from my paper.

“Va—” I start, but before I can finish she’s walking toward the sink.

  That night after dinner, Mom and Dad ask me to walk to the café by the railroad tracks to see Jewel’s photos on the wall.

“All right,” I say.

“Think he’ll want to come with us?” Mom asks.

There’s no way I can invite him anywhere right now. “He’s in the darkroom.”

At the café, I sip ice water while my parents drink decaf Americanos as they walk around to each of Jewel’s photos. I stay close. I spend as much time looking at my feet as I do looking at the photos.

“Grayfur is so cute,” my mom says.

Hearing the cat’s name makes me flash on such a vivid memory of tying on her superhero cape; I feel stricken. “Yeah.”

Mom puts her arm around me. “Sick of these photos?” she asks. She thinks I’m bored. My own mother can’t even tell when I’m sad.

“Not at all,” I say.

Part of me wishes that Jewel would come in right now and we’d just face each other. It has to happen sooner or later. If I haven’t lost my best friend forever.

It’s like Jewel and I had agreed to avoid each other.

He misses two days of study hall.

I plan to skip the school art show on Thursday night. My entry is one of the watercolors of the canal that got rejected by the Green Bean. It could be hanging with Jewel’s photos there right now, but it’s not good enough. So it’s tacked to a bulletin board in the school lobby. I wish I had a beautiful glass sculpture to display—something colorful and amazing.

Mr. Smith expects us all to go, but I hope he won’t notice if I’m not there. In a pinch, I could mention what’s going on. Not that I’d tell him everything, but he’d probably understand that if Jewel and I are fighting, it would be officially not cool for us both to go to the show.

The people from my workshop set up for the show during class on Thursday. I mix up fruit punch while Vanessa cuts a block of sharp cheddar into little cubes and sticks toothpicks in the middle. The toothpicks have those sparkly cellophane curlicues at their tops, some kind of fancy.

I remember a time in fifth grade when she was at my house and we made cookies with whatever we could yank out of my cupboard: marshmallows, hot cocoa mix, butterscotch chips, walnuts.

We leave everything on Mr. Smith’s desk so he can put it in the staff room fridge.

“Hey, Vanessa,” I say. “What are you putting in the show?”

She looks at me from under her heavy black eyelashes. “That city I made.”

The city is cardboard boxes painted in metallics. She made them somehow look heavy and solid. Jewel mentioned wanting to photograph the city. It’s good. Unique. “Cool.”

“You?”

“Nothing special.”

We’re standing here in the art room, talking. Why do I feel so uneasy?

I pick up my bag and get out of the room. Vanessa’s schoolbag is made out of silver duct tape. She follows me.

“Did you make that bag?” I ask her.

“Yeah,” she says. “It’s easy.”

It reminds me of doing magazine collages with her on my bedroom floor; we ran out of glue and resorted to masking tape. The results weren’t pretty. I smirk at the memory.

“What?”

“I was just … do you remember those collages we did?”

She stops walking and looks at me.

“Collages? For Smith’s class?”

I guess she doesn’t remember. I guess it doesn’t matter. “Never mind.”

We keep walking and, at the door, go our separate ways.

I can’t stay away from the art show completely. I do care about it. Any event that brings out the curlicue toothpicks is something I don’t want to miss, pathetic as that sounds. I don’t get into the coffee shop art shows like Jewel does; I’ve gotta take what I can get.

Thursday night, I’m staked out on the brick side of the school, kneeling in the garden by the big window. I’ve worn a black sweatshirt, hoping I won’t be spotted.

Inside, Mr. Smith is gesturing at Vanessa as everyone mills around, eating the cheese and drinking the punch. Clara and Jeremy hold hands.

No one is standing in front of my painting. I kind of want to bite the bullet and go in.

I watch Jewel in front of his exhibit, up-close photos of the troll. Like the one with my note. They show the troll’s fingers, his one eye, the VW. The grooved details of his wavy hair. The pink graffiti.

Vanessa walks up to Jewel, smiling.

They talk.

He touches her upper arm, bare because she’s wearing a black sequined tank top. Just once. But it’s enough to make my stomach jump.

I’m pretty enough; Vanessa’s maybe prettier. I’m an okay artist; she’s great. I’m out here in the shadows.

We have a lot of classes together, which is just the way it works. The person you want to forget about, the gods of scheduling make sure you spend your high school years constantly seated behind.

Our friendship was just a kid thing. I guess what we are now is more … competitive, if anything. She probably doesn’t think about me. Except maybe in one way.

I’ve always had one thing that she wants like crazy. Jewel. The most creative guy at school. The artist. And I had the ability to inspire him. His only friend.

Until now.

  Friday, in art workshop, I stand at an easel by the window, looking out toward the empty courtyard. I busy myself with the painting I’ve already started as a Christmas gift for my parents. It’s a portrait of them, but I’m trying to do it all in little dots, spots of watercolor that add up to being people. I spend most of the class trying to swirl a good blue for my dad’s eyes.

Vanessa is quiet today.

When Mr. Smith announces that it’s time to clean up, I see what she’s been working on. She’s cut up a bunch of soda cans. The tops, with their tabs, litter her table. She’s fashioned a crown and a scepter.

It’s a scary thought, a world where I turn my back and Vanessa becomes royalty.

I wake up and think,
Dove Girl, tonight’s the night
. Bloodbath night. Halloween.

Part of me feels like my witch dress is appropriate because I’m being a witch to Jewel.

The other part of me is totally excited. Showing up with Simon will be a major thing. People are about to see me differently. The new Alice. Interesting. Tonight I will turn heads. Vanessa won’t outshine me. No girl will.

I’m grateful that my glassblowing class is today; otherwise, I don’t know how I’d pass a whole Saturday before the dance without exploding.

The front of the studio is a store, selling beautiful, swirly-colored lamps and bowls. I check out a green bowl and can’t help imagining Jewel’s hazel eyes.

No. Today is not about Jewel, or missing him, or how I might’ve screwed up our friendship.

I finish browsing and head to the back of the shop.

The only person there is a guy in a tie-dyed T-shirt, with a long ponytail. His back is to me. Must be Jim.

I’m nervous. Where are the other students? What am I doing here?

He turns around and smiles at me.

“Welcome,” he says. “You are?”

“Alice Davis.”

“Welcome, Alice Davis. Happy Halloween. I’m Jim.” He’s very much a hippie; he seems blissed out.

I hear footsteps and turn to see a middle-aged woman walking in, wearing hiking pants and a white tank top.

Right behind her is Mandy Walker. From the elite who sit at Simon’s lunch table. Just what I didn’t want.

“Hey,” she says. “Alice, right? I’m so glad I recognize someone here!”

She’s here, so she can’t be all bad.

“Yeah. Alice. Hey.”

Jim asks us all to sit down. Folding chairs wait underneath a shelf full of tools.

Only three people signed up for this class? I guess we’ll each be getting a lot of attention.

  Never stop spinning. The liquid glass glows orange like the sun, with green and yellow swirls, as I control it at the tip of the blowpipe. It turns in the furnace. I’m spinning hand over hand over hand. This is my best try yet, after three hours of instruction. Jim yells, “Feel the weight of your piece!” “Keep turning!” “To the bench!”

So I go to the bench, turning, quick before the glass hardens. Sit on the bench, spin the blowpipe on the chair’s rail, spin, spin. Shape. “Chill the bottom half with air!” Jim shouts. I keep spinning with one hand and grab the air hose with the other. It feels awkward, but I manage to let air out of the hose and keep spinning the glass.

The glass is cooling.

Back to the furnace. Make the glass orange again.

The heat smells like burnt marshmallows. “To the bench!”

Heat it up. Then cool it. Use air. Use water. Heat it up. Everything has to be perfect or my piece will be destroyed.

But that’s okay. I am in control of this.

  Sweaty and flushed, but happy, I say thank you to Jim and walk out to the store. Mandy is admiring a pink lamp. “How long do you think till we’re this good?”

I think of Dale Chihuly. “Years and years.” Neither one of our first attempts at a bowl survived. Jim says that’s normal. He’s a cool guy—went from blissed out to kind of militant the moment we got our hands on the tools, but that makes sense. I was a little terrified of getting burnt or burning someone else.

“Are you doing the follow-up class?” she asks.

It’s only twenty bucks to come back in for a private or pairs session with Jim. “I think so. I really liked it.”

“Me too.”

Talking to her, with her standing there just as sweaty as me, I almost forget who Mandy is at school, one of the kids Jewel and I always thought seemed silly, kind of stupid. She’s not like that.

We walk out together. “Raining again,” she says.

“As always.”

We pass the scone shop and I’m dying for a latte. She says, “Want to go in?”

“My need for caffeine shows?”

She grins and opens the door.

Chunky Glasses isn’t here; the weekend girl is a pink-haired baby-doll-dress-wearing punk girl. Her nose stud looks a lot like Vanessa’s. She gets our lattes and Mandy and I sit at a table.

“So,” Mandy says, “I have gymnastics in an hour. Can’t stay long.”

“Cool.” I wonder what it’s like to be able to use your body that way. “That must help with cheerleading.”