The Chaos of Standing Still

by Jessica Brody

  “Yes, but I do,” Lottie said. “You’ve seen my drawings. They look like stick figures drawn by stick figures.”

  She gave my hand a tug. “It’ll be fun. I’ll learn something, and you’ll just impress everyone.”

  I reluctantly went inside. Lottie gave her name, and we were shown seats at small, white desks that were arranged in a circle. Each desk was equipped with a stack of sketch paper and an assortment of pens.

  After all the seats had been filled with students, a beautiful young woman wearing a pink silk robe waltzed into the room. She sat on a stool in the center of the sketch tables and casually untied her robe, letting it drape around her waist. I stifled a gasp while Lottie straight up giggled.

  “This is legit,” Lottie whispered to me. “I bet you’ve never drawn that before.”

  I dazedly shook my head, unable to tear my eyes away from the young woman. She was so comfortable up there. So relaxed. There were a dozen people circled around her who could see almost everything, and she was acting like she was alone in her room watching TV. My fourteen-year-old mind struggled to comprehend such confidence. I could barely bring myself to take a bath behind a closed door, convinced that someone would accidentally unlock it and walk in.

  I stared down at the blank sheet of paper in front of me. For the first time in my life I felt daunted by the thought of turning it into something. Of doing justice to my subject. That had always been my criteria. Draw only what I could make real. If I couldn’t transfer exactly what I saw onto the paper, I didn’t even bother. Because I knew I’d only look at it and remember what it should look like.

  For the next hour a middle-aged woman with wild curls and gentle eyes walked around the room, doling out advice to each student as we attempted to sketch the naked girl on the stool.

  I chose to focus on her face. I couldn’t bring myself to even look lower. And I was good at faces. Especially beautiful ones. I had been sketching Lottie for years, each drawing more realistic than the last. Lottie used to joke that it was better than looking into a mirror. That she preferred my drawings to her own reflection, because I mercifully chose to leave out all her flaws. I never told her that I just didn’t see any.

  But the longer I tried to capture this young woman’s face, the more times I failed. I went through page after page, crumpling up my efforts and tossing them into the trash can under my table. Her eyes were too difficult. There was something in them I just couldn’t capture. Something I couldn’t understand. Confidence? Fear? Loneliness?

  When the teacher finally reached my table, I had just started over on yet another attempt, my hand once again sketching the shape of the woman’s now familiar widow’s peak. The teacher paused and silently watched me sketch for what felt like hours. I grew more and more anxious with each passing second, convinced she would tell me it was horrible. That I should never pick up a pen again.

  Then, just as I thought she was going to leave without a single word, she bent down, scooped up one of my discarded attempts from the trash can, and smoothed out the crumpled paper.

  “Those are mess-ups,” I hurriedly explained. “Mistakes.”

  She nodded like she understood. Like she could relate. But her eyes never left the page in her hand. “You know,” she began pensively, “some artists believe there’s no such thing as a mistake. That we draw what we see. What we feel.”

  I gaped at her, unsure what to say to that. But it soon became obvious that she wasn’t expecting a response, because she placed the once-crumpled paper onto my table and gave it a final smoothing with her palm before continuing to the next artist.

  I stared at the page for a long time. At the warped eyes and shaky cheekbones. The wrinkles in the paper made the mistakes even more pronounced. A deformation of a deformation. Those misshapen eyes glared back at me. Taunting me. Until I couldn’t take it anymore. Until I grabbed the paper, crumpled it even tighter than the first time, and returned it to the trash.

  I gripped the pen and refocused on my current attempt, trying desperately to keep my hand steady as I traced the woman’s hairline. But it was no use. Everything was shaking. My vision. My hands. My lines. I finally dropped the pen and walked out of the studio.

  “Wait,” I say, glancing between the boy in the photograph and the one on the floor of the airport bookstore. The boy on the back of the book is dressed in pressed khakis, a collared shirt, and a conservative navy blue sweater. The one rising up from a crouch opted for the more casual Muppet look. But there’s no denying it. They’re the same person. “You . . .” I point hesitantly at the book. “You’re . . .”

  Body slouched, head bowed, Muppet Guy places the armful of spilled books onto the table in a chaotic heap, no longer caring about their order. “Xander Hale,” he says with a sigh. “Nice to meet you.”

  My mind struggles to keep up. I mean, his appearance makes sense—he has the same bright blue eyes as his mother, and the same dark hair as his father—but other than that, I’m at a loss. I mentally scroll back through all the conversations we’ve had in the past two hours, searching for a clue that I could have missed. But of course, there are none. We spent the past two hours pretending to be other people.

  “I don’t really feel like being myself today . . .”

  “Okay,” he says, looking jumpy. “You can say something now.”

  I clear my throat, glancing once again between the boy on the book and the boy in front of me. “I . . .” I stammer again. “Wow. What’s that like?”

  He laughs darkly. “What do you think it’s like?”

  Obviously, this is a rhetorical question, because he shuffles out of the store before I can formulate an answer. I place the book on the table and dart after him, but he’s already halfway to the escalator. Apparently, we’ve swapped places. Now he’s the one desperate to get away and I’m the one chasing after.

  I simply have too many questions to walk away now. I’m the girl who—with one set of faulty brakes—jumped right off the page of his parents’ book. But he’s the boy who inspired the books. Who lived the books. He doesn’t just have a Dr. Judy back home. He was raised by one. Or two, rather! On the spectrum of teenage psychological health, we’re about as far apart as two people can get.

  I picture long family dinners where everyone shares their feelings and asks insightful questions. I picture productive car rides full of scintillating conversation about anything but wallpaper samples and paint. If Dr. Max and Dr. Marcia got divorced, I bet their son wouldn’t be shipped off like an inconvenient distraction for the summer. I bet he’d be invited to the mediation meetings, maybe even asked to give his opinion on the proceedings. Not that Dr. Max and Dr. Marcia would ever get divorced.

  I catch up to Muppet Guy—Xander—by the escalator that leads down to the train. He stops and turns around. I nearly flinch at the sight of him. Everything about him—his face, his body language, his eyes—has changed. He’s transformed into someone else. The happy-go-lucky, lewd-joke-cracking, messy-burger-eating guy from the restaurant is gone.

  “I don’t—” he starts to say, but tapers off, pressing fingertips into his eye sockets. “I don’t want to talk about my parents, okay?”

  “Okay,” I say automatically, but inside, I’m screaming for answers.

  How could he not want to talk? He’s the son of two of the most famous child psychologists in the country! He’s the poster child for raising happy kids. My mom pays all-the-money per hour for me to have someone to talk to, and I just sit there and fidget with plastic universes, trying to make sure Dr. Judy doesn’t stumble upon any of my secret, locked doors. If anyone should be comfortable talking, it’s him.

  “Can we just forget you saw that?” he asks.

  “Okay,” I repeat, even though I know it’s a promise I can’t keep. Especially now that his reaction to all of this is confusing me more than anything. “Do I have to go back to calling you Reginald?”

  The tiniest hint of a smile cracks his newly hardened exterior. He pushes his
hands so deep into his pockets, I worry he might tear right through the fabric. “No,” he says. “But I think it’s only fair that I know your real name too.”

  I wince, feeling like he just kicked me in the stomach.

  I can’t. I can’t do it. If he knows my real name then there’s nowhere left to hide.

  Lottie huffs impatiently in my mind. “Just tell him, already. Stop being a baby. He’s just asking for your name. He’s not running a fucking background check. Why are you so terrified?”

  Because . . . I hesitate. I want to answer her question honestly. I want to be truthful for one goddamn time in the past goddamn year. Because it never ends well, remember?

  Lottie is quiet for a moment. If I could see her right now—if she wasn’t just an imaginary coping mechanism in my head—then I know she’d be twirling a strand of ruby red hair around her finger. It’s what she does when she’s stumped. Or, seducing someone.

  Or rather, what she did.

  “I suppose it could end well,” she finally admits, and I can hear it in her voice. The capitulation. The surrender.

  Step right up, ladies and gents, and witness the world’s first ever defeat of Lottie Valentine!

  Despite the bedlam of the B concourse, there’s a tense silence around me. Xander waits for me to answer his fairly simple and straightforward question while Lottie waits for me to claim my victory. For me to wave my arms and whoop and parade around her in a ridiculous chicken dance.

  But I won’t do that. Because I can feel the blood oozing from the wound in her pride. And because it’s not nice to gloat to a dead girl.

  I stand up a little straighter. My old skin feels tight and awkward as I roll it back on. Like a pair of jeans you haven’t worn since you were in better shape. Since you were a better person.

  “Ryn Gilbert,” I announce like I’m standing up in court, pleading guilty in the hopes of reducing my prison sentence.

  That’s what life has become for me. A constant plea bargain. Forced, for eternity, to cop to a crime I didn’t commit. To choose between two evils.

  Xander reaches out and takes my hand in his. The warmth of his skin startles me again. I’m about to ask what he’s doing—why he’s suddenly touching me—but then he starts to pump my hand like an overeager salesman. “Pleasure to meet you, Ryn Gilbert.”

  The sound of my real name on his lips sends shivers through me, and I’m suddenly reminded of that very first day in the mall food court. When I ceased to be Kathryn. When Lottie crossed out half my name on those job applications and turned me into a whole different person.

  “Ryn,” Xander repeats curiously, stepping onto the escalator and glancing back at me. “That’s an interesting name. Is it short for something?”

  As I follow him down to the train platform, I can’t help but smile.

  “Voilà! Instant conversation.”

  Where the Train Turns Around

  Even after we got our driver’s licenses, Lottie and I sometimes liked to take light rail into downtown. It was easier than trying to park.

  One sticky summer day between junior and senior year, Lottie and I took the train into the city to get ice cream. She’d claimed to have a desperate, unyielding craving for Salt & Straw, a Portland staple. But after we’d been walking for a good five minutes, I realized I’d been duped.

  I didn’t recognize my surroundings but I knew we were nowhere near any of the Salt & Straw locations.

  “Um, where are we going?” I asked as she led me through a dark alley that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I pulled out my phone and checked our location on the map. It was an area of Portland I’d never been to before, and definitely didn’t want to return to anytime soon.

  “Wanna hear something crazy?” she asked in response, and I knew I wasn’t going to like whatever came next.

  “Always,” I said, my usual confidence in the word nowhere to be found.

  “I found an amazing poker tutor on Craigslist.”

  I immediately turned around and started walking back toward the train station. Lottie jogged to catch up to me and grabbed me by the shirtsleeve. “C’mon, Ryn. Don’t be a baby.”

  “On Craigslist?” I screeched. “You realize this guy could be a rapist! Or a serial killer!”

  “Well, that’s just sexist,” was Lottie’s comeback.

  “Excuse me?”

  She paused in front of an unmarked door. “The poker tutor happens to be a woman.”

  Recently Lottie had gotten it into her head that she wanted to play poker. No, not just play it. Master it. She wanted to be the first female to ever win the World Series of Poker main event in Las Vegas. It was a random dream that, like all of Lottie’s dreams, seemed to have come out of nowhere.

  In an effort to familiarize herself with the game, she’d started watching televised poker tournaments twenty-four/seven. When there wasn’t one on TV, she’d turn to the Internet, where there was an archive of recorded games.

  I knew this was just another seat in Lottie’s constant game of identity musical chairs, so I’d gone along with it. The way I always went along with her reinventions. Humoring her until the music started again and she set off to find another chair.

  “Ryn,” she whined, stomping her foot a little. “Where is your sense of adventure?”

  “Where is your sense of survival?”

  “Will you relax? This woman is apparently a poker genius. She’s going to teach us everything we need to know.”

  “Couldn’t we just download an app or something?”

  Lottie pouted. “If you want to be the best at something, you have to learn from the best.”

  She knocked on the door. It sounded like gunshots in my ears.

  “You told me we were going for ice cream,” I complained in a whisper, glancing anxiously over my shoulder for signs of danger. The alley was eerily quiet and deserted.

  “Well, then, there’s your first poker lesson,” Lottie said smugly. “Know when your opponent is bluffing.”

  “Please stand clear of the doors. This train is departing.”

  Xander and I run through the deserted platform as the doors of the train start to close. He barely manages to slide through, and I quickly realize I’m not going to make it. Xander sticks his arm out, risking amputation. I close my eyes. I can’t watch. The doors are going to crush him.

  Lottie’s brain splattered on the dashboard.

  Lottie’s slender, mangled body buried in the ground.

  Lottie’s blood sprayed across a clock forever stuck at 10:05 a.m.

  I hear a whoosh and brave a look. The doors are opening again. Xander’s arm is intact.

  I dash inside to find the train completely empty.

  “Please stand clear of the doors,” the pleasant female voice says again. “You are delaying the departure of this train.”

  We both look up at the ceiling in unison.

  “Wow. Talk about a guilt trip,” he says.

  The doors attempt to close again. This time, there are no body parts to stop them. The train pulls away from the platform, and I take a seat on the small bench in the front, next to a window that looks out at the darkened track.

  “Nuh-uh,” Xander says. “You can’t sit. That’s cheating.”

  I look blankly between him and the bench. “Cheating?”

  He takes off his messenger bag and sets it on the floor. Then he positions himself between two of the metal poles, spreading his feet apart and extending his arms like he’s on a surfboard.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Train surfing!” he says gleefully.

  “Train surfing?”

  “I’ve always wanted to do this, but it’s usually so crowded on these things.” The train speeds up, and he adjusts his weight, leaning forward. “The goal is to never grab the handrail.”

  “For your safety and the safety of others, please hold on to the handrails,” the computerized train voice says, as though it can hear him.

  I point at
the ceiling. “She thinks you’re crazy.”

  He beckons me toward him. “C’mon. Try it.”

  “Train surfing is really more of a spectator sport. I think I’ll just watch.”

  The train lurches to the left and he goes stumbling forward. His arm instinctively reaches for the handrail, but he stops himself just in time, regaining his balance on his own.

  “Phew.” He wipes invisible sweat from his brow. “That was a close one.”

  He resumes his stance, legs apart, one in front of the other, arms out. He looks ridiculous. I watch him navigate the subtle turns and bumps of the track. I still can’t believe he’s the son of Dr. Max Hale and Dr. Marcia Livingston-Hale. I’ve heard them talk about their son during interviews. Mostly about how amazing and well-adjusted he is. “Because he comes first,” I can picture Dr. Marcia saying. “Kids should come first.”

  I want so desperately to ask him more questions about his parents. About his life. About growing up in a house where people talk about things.

  “Seriously, Ryn,” he says without breaking his concentration. “You have to try this.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Suit yourse—whoa!” The train abruptly slows, almost knocking him over again. He bends his knees until he’s nearly in a crouch.

  The woman’s voice comes back over the speaker. “Please hold on. This train is approaching the . . . C gates.”

  I look to Xander. He stares blankly back at me. Then we both crack up.

  After all of that—a mad dash across the platform, a near amputation, a guilt trip from the train—we got on going the wrong way.

  The train pulls to a stop and the doors open. “This is the C gates. All passengers please exit.”

  Across the platform, I can see the sign for the train going back to the B and A gates. I stand up.

  “Wait,” Xander says, and I notice he’s made no move to grab his bag from the floor. “Let’s stay.”