The Symptoms of My Insanity (7 page)

I get up and open the tiny, dust-covered window and stroll back to my section, grabbing new paint tubes on the way, and then stop so abruptly, my sneakers squeak on the floor.

Cara Larson is sitting on my stool. She’s leaning over my canvas. Her backpack is on my table. And why is Nate Yube strolling in, sitting down at Ina Lazebnik’s table?

I actually rub my palms over my eyes, but no, they’re still here. In fact, the whole art room,
my
art room, is filling with more and more 101 kids.

“We are invaded.”

Ina Lazebnik is now standing at my side, eyeballing the
new bodies like she’s watching mice eat her dinner.

“What are they all doing here?”

“Didn’t Miss S. inform you?” Ina’s mouth barely moves when she talks, kind of like a ventriloquist without the dummy. “The roof in 101 is leaking, so we are to combine.”

“No.” My mouth, on the other hand, drops wide open. “No, no, no. For how long?”

“Indefinitely,” she informs me with limited mouth movement.

“Hellooooooo, newly combiiiiiiined creators.” Miss Swenson dance-walks out of her junk hallway closet office and makes her way around the two large tables to the front of the studio. She swivels her head quickly from left to right. One of her pinned-up braids comes loose and whips down around her ear. Miss S.’s everyday hair looks like mine does after my campers use me as a beauty salon model. “Soooo I know it might feel a smidge cramped in here for a little whiiiiile … but let’s maaake the best of it!” She ogles the now packed room like we’re all newborn puppies she wants to pick up one by one. “We are not to be segregated by experience nooooor ability, because really”—she clasps both of her hands together—“what a blessing this is for our 101ers to be working side by siiiide with our more advanced cre
aaaaaaa
tors … .” Her air-filled voice always extends her vowels, but today they seem extra-long as she plans her next words. “And ASPers,” Miss S. adds, looking directly at my moping face, “I hope you’ll embrace your new studio-mates, and perhaps even provide some technical
assistance as weeeeeell. Okay, so breathe, and creee-
aaa—
”

The door bursts open, hitting the wall with a crash. In walks Meredith, who waves to Cara and mutters what I’m sure is a reoccurring “Sorry I’m late” to Miss S. She spills her books across my table and takes the stool on my other side, giving me a tiny smile. Then she whispers, “Can I borrow some sketch paper?” and proceeds to rip a page out of my sketchbook. She and Cara start doodling all over it.

Miss S. tries again. “Welcome, welcome. And now breathe, and creee-
aaate …”

I immediately move my canvas away from Cara before the gum she’s cracking falls out of her mouth and becomes a part of the painting. Then I survey the room. This is my hour. The one hour I have today all for myself, and now Nate’s talk-laughing, Meredith’s giggling, and the fifteen or so extra sketchbooks flipping and pencils tapping are all— Unghhh. I can’t even think, let alone paint.

I fish my earbuds out of my bag and put them on.

Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows / Everything that’s wonderful is what I feel when we’re together.

I find some of the Gregorian chants Miss S. plays a tad sleep-inducing, so Mom made a few recommendations. “Lesley Gore’s got pep,” she told me.

Brighter than a lucky penny / When you’re near, the rain cloud disappears, dear.

“Hey again, Izzy.”

And I feel so fine—

“Izzy—Izzy.” Tap tap tap.

No Meredith, sorry. I will not let you interrupt me with your shoulder taps.

“Hellooo, Izzzy?”

Does she not see that I’m trying to actually do something?

“Hey!” Tap tap tap. “Hey, Izzy! Izzy! Helloooo.”

“Yeah?” I say, turning abruptly, attempting to pull my earbuds out with my elbows since both my hands are smudged with paint.

Meredith scoots her stool closer to mine, but keeps her body a good distance from the table as if not to catch its art-germs.

“Wow,” she says as she eyes my canvas, “what’s that supposed to be?”

“I … I don’t know yet.”

“You don’t know yet? So you just like paint and then you know?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“But then how do you know what to paint?”

Ugh. Stupid roof with its stupid leak.

“We’re doing figure drawings,” Meredith says, putting on what looks like those thin plastic gloves from bio lab, and holding up a small canvas with what looks like a stick figure man on it. She lowers her voice and says, “This was supposed to be an easy elective, but it’s kind of kicking my butt.”

“Yeah, well, you should be okay. Miss S. grades mostly on effort for you guys anyway.”

“Oh,” Meredith says, looking down at her drawing, and
I feel like a total jerk. “Am I that bad?” she asks.

“No, no,” I say, backtracking and feeling even more terrible. “Not bad, no. You just need some more um, shadow … ing.”

“Hmm,” she says, looking down at it some more.

“And it would be easier to draw without those gloves, I think.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. I hate this stuff.” Meredith gestures to the charcoal. “It kind of stays under your nails for weeks. My drawings aren’t good enough to sacrifice my manicure,” she says, and then makes a face and starts laughing.

I shake my head at her, but can’t help laughing too. “That was—”

“Oh my God, that was so pathetic-sounding, I know. I just wanted to take photography, but it didn’t fit into my schedule. But Marcus says he can help me work on something digital for my final project.”

“Oh, wait, what do you mean?”

“Like with my photos? Mostly the ones that didn’t make the cut from yearbook last spring. He’s doing all the graphic stuff for yearbook, you know? The fancy stuff.”

“I know.”

“Well, anyway, he said he liked my pictures a lot, that they’re pretty good.”

“He did?”

“Yeah. He’s like so super-nice.”

“Yeah, he is.”

“Yup, yeah totally.” We both turn to Cara, who is apparently a part of our conversation now.

“We should be drawing without the gloves,” Meredith informs Cara.

“Yup, yeah totally.” Cara stretches her long arms above her head and rhythmically removes her own gloves finger by finger. She’s clad as usual in sweatpants and leg warmers as if she’s in the middle of teaching a dance class and not at school. Cara used to do competitive gymnastics. She was actually the teacher’s assistant in my after-school gymnastics class in third grade. Well, I only lasted two classes because I would rather scream for a full forty-five minutes than walk across a high balance beam.

“Doesn’t that look cool, Cara?” Meredith nods her head toward my canvas.

“Yup, yeah totally.”

I’m slowly learning that Cara still expresses herself chiefly through movement.

“Hey, do you paint your own nails?” I ask Cara, now eyeing her bright red polish as she brushes her thick bangs to the side of her face.

“Yup, yeah.”

“Do you have that color with you?”

“Totally.”

“Oh! Great! Can I have it? I’ll buy you another, I swear.”

“Why do you want her nail polish?” Meredith asks, looking at my ragged fingernails. Allissa and Mom call them my “art claws.”

“Can I have it? Please?” I ask Cara again, nodding at my canvas.

Cara shrugs and then one-handedly fishes through her bag for the nail polish, which she sets on the table. I examine the color and then shake it up a bit.

“Awesome! Thank you,” I say, seeing the clock and giving both her and Meredith an “I’m going back to work” look. I put one earbud back in.

My life is sunshine, lollipops and rainbows / That’s how this refrain goes, so come on, join in / everybody!

Man, this is cheesy. I brush in my new red texture, which to my satisfaction gives off a really nice depth and shine.

“Hey so, Izzy …” Meredith glances up at me and then back down at her canvas. “You think you might want to come out, to that party?”

“Oh. I … I don’t know.” I mix some white into the nail polish to add some pinkish tones.

“Well,” she says, looking at Cara, then back to me, and moving in even closer, “I think you should. We’d like you to come.”

“Oh. Wait. You would?”

“Yeah.” Meredith nods.

Cara nods back. “Totally.”

Okay, so Jenna wants to boycott the dance, the 101 class is ruining my portfolio chances, and now apparently Meredith actually wants to be friends with me again.

“And I was thinking,” Meredith continues, “if you wanted to, we could, you know, maybe hang out, like beforehand?”

“What?” I say, half turning.

“Yeah, I was thinking,” Meredith goes on, “that I could come to your house before and then maybe like … sleep over that night? Like old times?”

I shake my lone earbud out and drop my brush to my side, turning to face her fully.

“You want to sleep over at my house Saturday night?”

“Oooh, Izzy, gruesooooome,” Miss S. says, catching my eye and nodding approvingly at my canvas as she makes her rounds.

Meredith sighs. “Okay, sorry, so here’s the deal. Cara told her mom she’s staying at Kim’s, and Kim told her mom she’s staying at Sari’s, and Sari told her mom she’s staying at Cara’s, but my mom has basically banned me from sleeping over at any of my friends’ houses ever since Jacob—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, no need for details,” I say, cutting her off before she mentions her famous bathroom-stall feat.

She gives me a funny look, and then continues. “So see … my mom loves you. She thinks you’re über trustworthy. She’s always like, why don’t you hang out with Izzy anymore, and—”

“You want to use my house as a cover while you go to a party at U of M,” I finish for her.

She looks at me sort of embarrassed, but not really. “If I tell my mom I’m with you, she won’t even check up, and I promise it’ll be a no-brainer.”

“Hey, can you do me a favor and get my bio book out
of my backpack?” I ask through clenched teeth. Not that I should be aggravated right now at all. I should be laughing. Laughing at the fact that I actually thought Meredith was trying to rekindle our lost friendship. Of course she’s just using me; of course she just needs a favor from me.

Meredith fishes out the book from my backpack and places it on the table. “So I’ll come over for dinner …” She runs her fingers slowly down the spiral binding of her sketchbook as she lays out the plan. “I’ll sneak out after, and I’ll be back the next morning. And see, you don’t even have to go to the party. We figured you wouldn’t want to go anyway, so …”

“Oh. Well … yeah, of course. But … but what if you’re not back in time? What do I tell my mom when you’re not there? And why would you figure that … Can you just flip to chapter seven, please?”

Meredith looks deep in thought as she riffles through the pages of my bio book. “You can just tell your mom I left early in the morning for … Oh, I’m assisting Cara with the choreography for the musical, so you can say I had an early-morning dance rehearsal.”

“Oh. Right … but—” I dejectedly hunch over the bio book, reminded of my newly assigned musical duties after school.

“Come on, Izzy. I’d do it for you if you asked. I’ll so get you back, I will. I’ll owe you.”

“Meredith, there’s no way that my mom—oooh, stay on that page,” I tell her, studying the way those ridges look like little mountains.

“Wow, that’s kind of nauseating.” Meredith eyes my canvas, her shiny lips going horizontal.

“Yeah,” I say with a small smile.

“So hey, remember in, like, fifth grade when we used to play ‘college party’ and walk around my bedroom carrying plastic cups of apple juice, pretending we were drinking beer and dancing with boys?” she asks. I can practically hear her eyes sparkling.

“Yeah …” I say, still studying the bio image, fully realizing now that Meredith never expected me to say yes to going to that party. It wasn’t even a real invitation.

“We were such dorks,” she giggles.

“Yup, we were.”

“And what’s so great,” she goes on excitedly, “is that I already told my mom I was sleeping over, that we were working on our Spanish project together, so it’s not a total lie.”

“Right,” I sigh.

“So …” She holds out the word, looking at me like I hold her entire life in my paint-covered hands. “Are you cool with it all?”

“Well … maybe. I don’t know. I guess …” I give in slightly, turning back to my canvas.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, Izzy!” Meredith bursts out and then jets across the back of the room to Cara, who’s now aimlessly fishing through a stack of particle boards.

I step back to study my canvas, comparing what I’ve just added to the shapes in the text book.

“Soooo, this is neeeeew …” Miss S. is leaning in over my shoulder eyeing my work.

“Yeah,” I confirm, glad Miss S. has wandered over, feeling for a second like it’s my studio again.

“So you’re noooot … continuing with your animal theme?” She points to a page in my portfolio and fingers for her glasses, which rest on top of her head and are connected to a long beaded chain that, today, is actually woven into her hair.

“I don’t … I don’t know if I want to have an animal theme,” I admit, making circles with my fingers along the bumpy table, caked with layers of paint and dried clay.

“Okay, well, that’s okaaaay. I don’t want to put the pressure on, but I have to submit everything to the DIA by the end of the moooooonth”—another one of her braids comes loose and hits me in the face—“so now would be the time to think about tying all your amazing stuff together, you knoooooow … ?”

“I know, I know.” I nod, and then I feel my stomach drop—in a good-bad way—thinking about my non-date DIA outing with Blake on Saturday.

“Maybe you just need to mix it up with some new materiaaaaaals … ? Have you rummaged through the junk trunk?” she asks. I shake my head. “Weeeeeell … that might be fun.” She’s pointing to a tall broken mirror beside a giant pile of stuff that’s slowing taking over her hallway office and the back wall of the studio. The mirror is one of those skinny ones, the kind that’s stuck with putty to the wall of Allissa’s
dorm room. Great, a broken mirror. Isn’t that like twenty-five years of bad luck?