Pictures of Hollis Woods

by Patricia Reilly Giff

  I sighed. I had money Josie didn't know about. I always had money; I called it my running money. It couldn't be used for gas or food, just running. I had made that bargain with myself a long time ago.

  We rushed along in the misty rain for a couple of blocks; then Josie stepped into the middle of the street, her head up, her hands out. “Look.”

  I put my head back to see a fine sleet dropping from the dark sky, streaks of white light.

  How would I draw that? I wondered. Black paper, if I could get my hands on some, maybe with white tempera, or maybe the palest gray with a sable brush.

  Behind us a horn blared, a loud, frightening sound. Josie grabbed my hand and we darted out of the street. Strange to feel someone's hand holding mine. The last time was Izzy's. “I always wanted a daughter,” she had said, hands out. “Babies, children. Piles of them.”

  Josie and I made right turns at the next three corners. Then in front of us was the Island Theater, with small lights, blurred in the mist, that ran around the marquee.

  An old woman sat at the ticket counter. Not as old as Josie, but still her hair was a bundle of braided cotton candy on top of her head, and when she smiled her teeth were butter yellow. Her thumb pointed at me. “What's her name, Josie?”

  “Hollis.” Josie waved her hand at the woman. “This is Beatrice Gilcrest, my cousin and best lifetime friend, not counting Henry.”

  “Gorgeous,” Beatrice told Josie, and it took me a moment to realize she meant me. She leaned forward. “I would have seen you sooner, much sooner, but I've had a miserable cold.” She winked at me. “I didn't want to spread my germs around.”

  We smiled at each other; then without paying Josie and I tiptoed past her and went inside.

  I peered at the dark theater that stretched out in front of us. Almost no one else was there. It was a school night, and everyone was home, I guessed, still having supper, still doing homework. It gave me a strange feeling. I thought about Steven at the dinner table with Izzy and the Old Man, or bent over a sheet of paper working on algebra.

  “We have to work to pay our way,” Josie said, leading me to the candy counter. She turned on the lights, poured a pile of corn and a cup of what looked like parsley into the popcorn machine, then sat back on a high stool behind the counter. “Special recipe, this popcorn.” She nodded. “Beatrice and I dreamed it up last winter.”

  Josie pointed up. “Beatrice lives upstairs. Her apartment takes up the whole top. It's like a bowling alley.” She shook her head. “Can you imagine?”

  I nodded, reaching for a kernel of popcorn. It tasted better than it looked.

  A few minutes later, six or seven people came in. Josie poured popcorn into wrinkled paper bags for them, her mouth full, and then music blared and the movie came on.

  Afterward we walked home, watching the mist swirl around the bare branches above us. “That was a tearjerker,” Josie said.

  I nodded, thinking about it: the story of a boy and a dog and Christmas in a small town in New Jersey.

  “Henry would feel terrible if we brought a dog into the house,” Josie said, gliding around the icy puddles next to me.

  “I know.” I was getting used to Henry. He spent almost every night on my bed now, and as long as I didn't stretch out my feet he didn't attack.

  “But we can have Christmas,” Josie said. “I have ornaments in the attic, and an artificial tree. You've never seen the attic. What treasures.” She stopped, her face up to bathe in the sleet so it coated her eyelashes. “There's one ornament, a Santa Claus, Beatrice and I put it on the tree first every year.” She twirled around, arms up, dipping her graceful hands.

  I had that strange feeling again. Everyone was home doing homework for school tomorrow, and I was watching an old lady dance in the street.

  I comforted myself with the thought of sitting in Josie's living room after supper every night, sweet chocolate melting on our tongues, wood shavings around our feet.

  It's enough, I told Steven in my head, more than enough. I tried not to think of my W picture with the mother, the father, the brother, and the sister.

  I sat on the porch steps drawing the mountain while I waited for Steven. He was hanging over the motor of the Old Man's truck, fiddling with hoses or connections, muttering to himself. “If he'd let me drive this thing for half a minute, I'd know exactly what's wrong with it.”

  Half the arguments in that house had to do with Steven's wanting to drive the truck. “Right here on the property, that's all,” he'd say. “No big deal.” The other arguments had to do with his disappearing. It made the Old Man crazy. Up on the mountain road to follow a deer path, lying on the bottom of the rowboat to drift along searching for the kingfisher, gone somewhere and dragging me along with him.

  One night at dinner the Old Man had dropped the box in my lap: tan leather, with dozens of pencils inside, points sharp and perfect, in every color you could imagine, a thick pad of paper, erasers, a pencil sharpener. I had picked up one of the pencils: French Blue, a soft color that was almost purple. “I love this,” I told him.

  I had wanted to throw my arms around him, wanted to tell him I had never had a present like this before, no one had. I wanted to tell him but didn't tell him; I ducked my head, my bangs a fringe over my eyes. But he knew; I knew he knew.

  The Old Man was an artist, but a different kind. He drew circles and lines and squares that turned into plans for houses and buildings. He said he wished he could do what I did.

  Now Steven flew around the side of the truck like one of Izzy's hens, his eyeglasses taped to the side of his head, his hands filthy from the truck. “Move it, Hollis Woods,” he said. “We don't have all day here, you know.”

  I put the mountain picture carefully inside the box. At the end of the summer I'd give it to the Old Man as a present.

  Don't think about the end of the summer, I told myself.

  Steven and I raced each other down the road, across the bridge, dead tie, and stopped, out of breath, at the mountain road. After a moment we started up.

  Steven lurched along. At one turn in the road he was all speed; the next he'd stop short, bent over, nose almost touching the ground. “Look at this, Holly, it's a raccoon print,” he'd say, or, “See the way this branch is cut off? Beaver, building a den where the stream comes off the mountain.”

  The Old Man was right about the road: It was slippery, muddy in the shade, one side ready to slide off the mountain straight into the river. But worth it. “We going all the way to the top?” I drew in my breath. Did I want to do that, stand on top of the mountain, a mountain of trouble myself?

  Steven shook his head. “Pop would have a fit.” He ran his hand over an imaginary beard. “The rocks fall, Steven, use your head,” he said in the Old Man's voice.

  Halfway up was a spot that widened. We looked down and saw the house, and Izzy picking tomatoes, and we whistled at her until she waved, even though she couldn't see us.

  Then we sank down on a rock and Steven fished in his pocket for a squished Hershey bar. “Should I give you half?” he asked. “You're not as big as I am.”

  “Give me all,” I told him, laughing. “I'm more deserving.”

  He held up both pieces, squinting. “The Old Man would say that.”

  I knew that. Somehow the Old Man thought I was a great kid. How had that happened? I swallowed, thinking of the lemon lady: “You want tough?” she had said. “I'll show you tough.” And someone else, I didn't even remember who it was: “You've missed school half the term, how do you think you can get away with all this?”

  But I was a new person with the Old Man, with Izzy, with Steven. It was as if the angry Hollis were seeping right out of my bones, leaving chocolate as soft as that sticky Hershey bar.

  I looked at Steven, wondering if he minded that the Old Man thought I was great. But Steven was splitting the candy bar, and he gave me the bigger piece but did it quickly. I wasn't supposed to know. I took a breath.

  I thought about the W pi
cture in my backpack: the mother, the father, the brother, the sister.

  And don't think of that, either, I told myself.

  “Company's coming,” Josie said. I looked up from my pad. I was drawing a picture of a boat I had seen at Josie 's canal: white with thin blue lines of trim, the name in script on back, Danbar-J, and the captain hosing down the deck. I couldn't remember what he actually looked like, so I sketched in his back, bent over, a watch cap on his head.

  “Who's coming?” I asked, but Josie had pattered away down the hall, with Henry following her.

  “It's Monday, right?” she called back. “It is,” I said, squiggling the pencil for shadow.

  “The movie is closed. My cousin Beatrice comes on Mondays.” She smiled. “I forgot. You don't know that. Remember, Beatrice had a lingering cold?”

  Ah, I thought. A lingering cold. Perfect for my next absence note. I looked around the kitchen. “Not much to eat in here.”

  She came back into the kitchen, a thin line of red on her lips. “Ah, but Beatrice brings dinner. Wait and see. It will be …” She patted her lips together.

  “Delicious?”

  She frowned. “Yes, but …”

  “Ah,” I said, trying to guess. “Stew? Pasta? Hero sandwiches?”

  She shook her head. “Delicious.”

  I finished my drawing and propped it up on the counter to see what I thought about it. And then I heard the back door, Beatrice bustling in, her arms laden with bags, and the smell …

  “Chinese food,” I told Josie.

  “Of course,” she said. “That's what we always have.”

  I put the plates out, the knives and forks, and Josie ladled the food into bowls: cashew chicken, moo goo gai pan, bean curd, the smells making my mouth water.

  Beatrice stood in back of me. I looked over my shoulder. She was leaning over, her head tilted, looking at my picture. “Did you draw this?”

  I nodded.

  She took off her glasses and chewed on one stem. “Surprising, isn't it?” she asked Josie.

  “More than that,” Josie said, beaming, moving Henry off her chair before she sat down.

  As I reached for a shrimp roll, Beatrice slid into the seat opposite me and spooned rice onto my plate, the picture still in her hand.

  “Don't eat,” she said.

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “Not yet. Trot out some more of your pictures, please.”

  I went into Josie's peach living room with the lilac couch. We had tacked up a few of the pictures I'd done: Henry and the pelican, the rock jetties, Josie's thin tree figures in the back garden.

  I pulled out the tacks and brought the drawings into the kitchen. There was no room for them on the table, so I pulled up an extra chair and piled them on that.

  “Now you can eat,” Beatrice said, reaching for the top one.

  “Thank you.” I scooped up the chicken, piling as many cashews as I could on the spoon.

  She didn't eat, not until she had looked at all of them, holding each one up to the light. Josie kept nodding, reaching over with her fork to point at a line or a figure.

  And then Beatrice sat back. “Imagine. I never saw anyone who was able to do this,” she said, “and I was an art teacher for forty years.”

  “We taught that long?” Josie said.

  “Forty-four for you.” Beatrice brushed at her hair. “But did I ever once …”

  “No, neither did I.” Josie smiled at me, reaching across to touch my wrist with one hand.

  Beatrice took a forkful of food, eating absently, staring at me the whole time. “We worked with all those kids who didn't have any concept of perspective, or even if they had that, the composition was all wrong. If only you'd been in one of those classes, Hollis.” She shook her head, then smiled at Josie. “Never mind, she's here's now.”

  I couldn't swallow what was in my mouth. It was there in a lump, almost as large as the lump in my throat. “Thank you,” I managed to say.

  They were both looking at me, at the tears in my eyes.

  “Spicy, that chicken,” Beatrice said.

  I managed to nod, to chew, at last to swallow, thinking of the Old Man: “Where'd you ever learn to do that?” And Izzie. “You have a gift, pure and simple.”

  After dinner Beatrice spread the pictures out on the table, reaching for my pad on the counter, one eyebrow raised to ask if she could have a piece of paper. With a twist of her pencil she showed me how to deepen the shadows on a drawing of the sea.

  “Do it on my drawing,” I said.

  “Never,” she told me. “It's your world, it belongs to you.” She ran the pencil through her hair, separating the thick strands. “Drawing is what you see of the world, truly see.”

  “Yes, maybe,” I said, not sure what she meant.

  “And sometimes what you see is so deep in your head you're not even sure of what you're seeing. But when it's down there on paper, and you look at it, really look, you'll see the way things are.”

  I frowned. “Look at a picture one way and you'll see one thing,” I said. “Look again and you might see something else. That's what the Old Man …” I shook my head. “A friend of mine said that once.”

  “Ah, yes,” Beatrice said, sketching in an eye, bushy eyebrows, sharp lashes as she spoke. “But that's the world, isn't it? You have to keep looking to find the truth.” She ran one pinky finger over the eyebrow; the pencil smeared just enough to curve it upward, almost like a question mark; the other pinky softened the lashes.

  I watched her, fascinated. “And something else,” she said. “You, the artist, can't hide from the world, because you're putting yourself down there too.”

  “I'm not hiding,” I said, my eyes sliding away from her.

  She laughed. “Good thing, because your soul is right there in front of you.” She pointed to the sketch I'd drawn of Josie in her scarf. “You see, it's what you think of her.” She turned to Josie. “Maybe I can take that trip now, leave you in Hollis's hands. She loves you already.”

  I could see that Josie didn't know what Beatrice meant. “A trip?”

  “To the Southwest.”

  Josie nodded then. “Yes. Adobe houses, desert, flat rocks everywhere.”

  “I'll paint them all,” Beatrice said.

  I looked from one to the other. Beatrice had picked up the pencil again, sketching herself, drawing a suitcase in her hand. And then she looked at me once more. “You're going to be something, you and that language you speak on paper.” She drew her other hand waving. “I love what you have to say, Hollis Woods.”

  I sat there, hardly breathing.

  “You have that,” she said. “It's more than most people ever have. Count yourself lucky.”

  I thought I was alone, sitting on the bottom step in front of the house, drawing the Old Man, working with a flesh-peach pencil. Quick sketches, one after the other: hat down over his eyes in the first, standing in front of the river in the next, sleeping in the hammock in the third. His beard and the way he leaned forward, listening. I was trying to capture what he looked like so I'd have it to take back with me. To remember.

  The screen door opened in back of me with that soft swishing noise, and the Old Man came out to look over my shoulder. “Oh, Hollis,” he said. “Where'd you learn to do that?”

  I shook my head.

  “Hollis?”

  I looked toward the river, green today, a willow hanging over the edge.

  He put his hand on my shoulder. “It's a gift,” he said, “to draw things the way they are.”

  I sat very still. No one had ever said anything like that to me before.

  “And something else,” he said. “You shine through in your drawings.”

  I looked up at him, really looked at him, not a quick glance that darted away so he couldn't see my eyes. “My name …,” I began as he folded himself down on the step next to me. “Hollis Woods is a real place.” I shrugged a little. “Holliswood,” I said. “One word, I think.”

&nb
sp; When the Old Man spoke, I jumped. “It's where they found you, as a baby?”

  “An hour old,” I said in an I-don't-care voice. “No blanket. On a corner. Somewhere.” Didn't a baby deserve a blanket? “And just the scrap of paper: CALL HER HOLLIS WOODS.”

  One day I had gone to see that place. I ran away from one of my houses—tan, green, brick? I circled Queens, on the subway, off the subway, onto the Q2 bus and off the Q2 bus, until I found the spot.

  It was winter, bleak, but the houses were pretty. I never did find the woods, though. I tried to picture it in the spring when I had been born, with birds chirping and the sun shining.

  Now I saw Steven come into view in the rowboat.

  “I play hookey,” I told the Old Man. “Everyone says I'm tough, they say I'm trouble.”

  The Old Man made a sound in the back of his throat.

  “Steven is a great kid,” I said.

  The Old Man looked surprised. I waited to hear if he would say anything, but Steven banged the rowboat hard into the rocks along the bank.

  The Old Man made another sound. “Watch that, Steven.”

  “The kingfisher is on the branch downstream,” Steven called. So we went down to the boat and climbed in to go have a look.

  “Over the river and through the woods …,” Josie sang one morning at breakfast. It was a late breakfast. We had stayed up most of the night watching an old black-and-white movie.