The Chalk Artist

by Allegra Goodman

  “You deserve it.” Diana was talking to Xavier, but Nina thought Diana might as well have been speaking to her.

  As a child, Nina had wondered why some teachers were so boring. Now she understood. They were bad actors—terrible at performing what they knew. Everything those teachers said fell flat, every lesson trailed off. First the class stopped listening. Then kids began whispering, laughing, talking openly. Finally, they seized power for themselves. As a student she had seen it happen. Now she watched her students turn on her. Xavier’s attempts at comic relief, Marisol’s and Cierra’s and Sevonna’s disrespect. Diana’s scorn, Brynna’s exit into the real drama of the girls’ bathroom. Clear-eyed, Nina watched her class spin away from her.

  You don’t look like a teacher, Collin James had said at Grendel’s. How does a teacher look? Old, he’d said, and bitter. He was a flirt—she’d seen him with the waitresses—but he was right: Teachers had to be hard and spiky, barbed in self-defense. You had to be bitter, to deter kids from eating you alive.

  Already the bell was ringing, and she was trying to explain the homework, even though she hadn’t finished her lesson. Her class was racing out the door and Nina wanted to run after them. Standing on the bare ground,—my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,—all mean egotism vanishes. She would carry Emerson to them. Wait! You forgot this! But they were gone. Too late, too late. She’d lost her chance.

  “Now!” Sword in hand, he ran through tall grass. “Jump!” Together they bounded over rushing water.

  The sky was darkening. Smoke clouded the landscape, smudging hills and trees. Faster and faster he ran, and she flew after him, blue hair streaming. No time to talk, no time to breathe. They raced to the edge of the Trackless Wood, which crackled with fire. Danger never stopped them. They kept running, weaving through the burning trees.

  She was a Tree Elf named Riyah. He was a Water Elf, Tildor. They came from different realms, but for the past three nights they’d qwested, traded, and killed together. They had hunted basilisks, slain dragons, and retrieved two diamonds, which Riyah carried in the bag hanging at her waist. She was an amazing marksman, and beautiful, even for an Elf, her eyes huge, her body supple. Her breasts swayed as she ran, her quiver bouncing behind her.

  Flaming branches crashed around them, the crack of falling trees—then something else—a ripping sound.

  They whirled around to face a colossus with jagged teeth and claws, a shifting, seething monster, half man, half bear, tar black. He rose up on his hind legs to seize them with clawed hands. They slashed him with their swords, but he reconstituted, oozing and bubbling. He snatched up his left hand and jammed it on again. Screaming with pain, he retrieved his severed leg and screwed it onto his own bloody stump.

  “Can’t finish him with steel,” Riyah gasped.

  “Shoot.”

  “Arrows can’t penetrate.”

  “Take a—”

  “Let me!” The beast heaved up roaring and she sent her silver dagger into his eye. The colossus melted like a pile of burning tires. “Yes!” Breathing hard, she raised her arms in celebration.

  A diamond glittered at the melting monster’s core. As Tildor plucked the jewel, a white nimbus glowed around him.

  Riyah’s voice was hushed. “The third.”

  Thorny branches overhead turned into talons, flaming twigs to ashen feathers. The forest phoenix woke, and Riyah and Tildor threw themselves onto the bird’s back. The landscape shifted under them as they soared into the air. With each wingbeat, the phoenix carried them over smoldering trees and moonlit fields, twisted sunflowers, stubble glowing with white frost. Wind whistled in their ears. “That’s the Keep.” Riyah pointed to stone towers in the distance.

  “And there’s the—”

  “Aidan?”

  “Wait for me,” he told Riyah.

  He hurried to his bedroom door.

  “Aidan!”

  He opened the door. “What?”

  “Take off that headset.”

  He obeyed and lost the music of the wind and air, the hoots of owls and beating wings, the sound of Riyah’s voice. Onscreen the phoenix soared over tangled woods and frozen ponds in the silver winter night of EverWhen. Offscreen, only a computer on a desk, an unmade bed, a backpack open on the floor.

  “Do you know what time it is?” his mother demanded. She was home from the night shift at the hospital and he was supposed to be getting ready for school.

  Kerry snatched the headset from his hands. “Do you even know what day it is? Aidan? Look at me when I’m talking to you!”

  He looked at her. Unprotesting, he sat down on his bed. Lately when his mother screamed at him, he listened. When she said EverWhen was sucking the life out of him, he didn’t argue. If she asked for remorse, he showed remorse. If she declared, You’re sixteen years old, you’re wasting your time, you’re failing school, he said he was sorry and promised to do better. He said whatever she wanted him to say, and all the time he kept his computer screen in view. The landscape dark and hidden, stars spelling out the name ARKADIA.

  —

  She worked so hard. He said, I know. She loved him so much. He bent his head. She asked what he thought she should do. He couldn’t think of anything. She asked whether he thought life was precious. He said yes.

  But his mother defined life as singular. He rejected that. He didn’t live one life. He lived two. Was it his fault that he preferred the second? In EverWhen he was a healer and an Elvish prince, a leader of his company. He had a pile of gold, and a sword worth eighty marks, a magic ring, a diamond flask filled with a hatchling dragon’s blood. He had fashioned his own gear: chain mail, silver helmet, enchanted boots. He’d trained for transformation. If he wanted to run like a deer, he could become one. If he qwested underwater, he could be a beaver, otter, or eel. And now in EverWhen he fought with Riyah at his side. Meanwhile, in the outside world, he was just a skinny kid, blue-eyed, dirty-blond, ignored at school. His friends were equally unpopular. Jack was a Water Elf, but in real life he took college-level math. Liam was an amazing warrior, but in real life he smoked so much pot Kerry refused to let him in the door.

  Aidan’s mother worried about drugs, and games, and bad influences—not to mention the transmission on the car, the second mortgage on the house. They lived in a two-family. Priscilla, the piano teacher, paid rent on the other side of the living room wall, but Kerry owned the place. If the roof leaked or the pipes burst, Kerry was responsible. She slept mornings and worked nights, and in her world every day was like the last. No qwests awaited, no treasure maps arrived, no burning trees turned into birds, no cities into stone.

  He knew he could outlast his mother because she was so tired. He let her confiscate his headset and joystick. He promised that he’d stop playing; he would get to school. When Kerry dragged herself to bed, he hunted up his other joystick and slipped back into EverWhen.

  The sun was rising. Not the sun outside his window, but the sun inside the game, blood orange, melting frost and warming icy air. The colors were so clean and bright it took him a moment to adjust his eyes. Riyah was waiting for him in a thicket. She spoke, but without his headset he couldn’t hear.

  He typed into the chat box: sorry

  After a moment, her answer appeared on the screen. you should be. But she turned toward him, beautiful as ever, in the glowing morning light. more?

  cant

  too bad.

  later? he pleaded.

  maybe

  wheres the bird?

  look

  Joystick in hand, he turned his Water Elf around. Pivoting onscreen, Tildor searched the thicket.

  Now Aidan saw the phoenix in new form, long feathers changed to white birches marked with what had been the bird’s black eyes and claws.

  !!!

  i know!

  His sister’s alarm was beeping in the next room. He could hear Diana in the bathroom, flushing the toilet, starting her shower, getting ready for school.
<
br />   I have togo

  Riyah answered, bfn.

  wait whats your name?

  He waited and waited. He heard the water stop, the shower curtain slide on its metal loops, Diana thumping down the stairs, the kitchen cabinets, the jolt of silverware in the drawer.

  Even as he gave up hoping, a word materialized onscreen: daphne

  For a moment he just stared. He had never met a Daphne, and assumed the name was another alias. no, he typed, your real name

  That IS my real name! Riyah folded her arms across her chest.

  He took a breath. i want to see you.

  What do you want to see?

  He began to answer and then he stopped. Her question confused him. Did he want to see the girl who played with him at night? The one who said her name was Daphne? Or the archer, dagger-thrower, Riyah? It seemed spell-breaking to write, I want to know who you really are—and he wasn’t sure if that was true. He wanted to play with Riyah forever. Not his school friends, or his old company. He wanted his headset back. He wanted to talk to her: I need to stay in EverWhen with you.

  “Hey, Aidan.” Diana was knocking.

  “What?” Instinctively he shifted in his chair to block his screen.

  She opened his door and stood before him in black jeans and a black sweatshirt. “You never took the recycling out.”

  “Because it was your turn.”

  “It wasn’t my turn. Check the calendar.”

  “You check.”

  “The truck’s already coming up the street.” She yanked his window shade, but it didn’t roll up. She pulled again, harder, and the shade only grew longer.

  “Let go. I believe you.”

  Too late. One final tug and his shade came crashing down. “Diana! God!” he whispered fiercely. “You’re going to wake Mom.”

  Gray sky. Dirty snow. The orange recycling truck lumbered up Antrim Street under a small, cold winter sun.

  u there? Riyah’s question floated onscreen.

  “Are you taking it out?” Diana pressed.

  “No! Get out of my room.”

  The broken window shade billowed on the floor, but Diana did not apologize. She turned on him. “I can’t believe you’re playing again right after you promised Mom not to.”

  “I said get out.”

  “I’m going to tell her,” Diana said slowly as she backed away.

  “Go ahead,” he said, but he knew she wouldn’t tell. They were close, or had been. They had a pact, and even now he trusted Diana. He knew his twin would not betray him.

  Diana slammed the door, and the house rattled. He could hear his mother’s voice, “Aidan!”

  He typed, Invaded. I’ll comeback.

  Would you try another world?

  RL???

  another game

  which one?

  can you keep a secret?

  “Aidan?” his mother called.

  “I’m getting dressed.”

  huge? Riyah asked.

  what????

  His screen faded to gray. The network hung. No, it only blinked. He and Riyah stood together as before, surrounded by white birches.

  I have UnderWorld beta, she told him.

  !!!!!! ru shitting me?

  no I have it

  noone has it

  i do

  how???

  you want it?

  YES

  wanna play?

  HOW WHERE WHEN?

  you need black box

  send!

  not yet

  when??

  youwant it?

  He pounded out his answer in frustration: Comeon

  what can you do for me?

  Was he still offended? All evening Nina tried to catch his eye, but he was carrying armfuls of dishes, dashing between tables—keeping his distance. She hadn’t meant to hurt him. The play had sounded funny and he was charming and she laughed when she was nervous. She couldn’t help it.

  She tried to work. In the play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by William Shakespeare portrays many characters, all with distinguished characteristics. She marked this sentence: In the play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” by William Shakespeare portrays many characters, all with distinguished do you mean distinguishing? characteristics. Then, looking up, she saw him emerging from the kitchen.

  He saw her too, and then avoided her.

  She couldn’t work at all. She waited for her chance when he passed by. “Collin,” she said.

  Pivoting, he turned toward her.

  “How was the play?”

  “I’d tell you, but I’d get in trouble standing here so long.”

  “Oh!” Instantly she turned back to her work, like a kid caught talking during study hall. Puck is one of the most unique characters who…But this was no study hall, and even with her head down, she felt the warmth of his smile.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Nina.”

  He bent over his order pad, scribbling, before he rushed away.

  A scrap of paper floated down over her student’s essay. A drawing no bigger than a silver dollar. Lines quick and confident. Her own face, half hidden by her hair, her chin propped up on her hand. She looked up, trying to find him in the crowded room, but he had disappeared into the kitchen.

  Had he really drawn all this just now? His work looked finished, less a sketch than a miniature portrait in black pen. He couldn’t have, but yes—she’d told him her name a second ago, and he’d printed in rapid block letters: NINA WAIT FOR ME I’M OFF 11.

  —

  That winter was so cold that the drifts never melted, and each storm topped off the one before. Even now, fresh snow was falling, velveting the streets.

  They stood in front of Grendel’s, facing JFK Street. The park there, colorful in summer with pigeons, buskers, tourists, now pure and white.

  “I know where to go,” Collin said. “I grew up here, so.”

  “So did I.”

  “You did not.”

  “I went to college here too.”

  Oh, great, he thought. “Went to college” meant Harvard. If she had gone to Lesley she would have come out with it. If she’d attended Boston University, she would have said BU. Anywhere else, she would have named the school.

  “My dad and stepmother still live here,” she told him.

  “What street?”

  She hesitated for a fraction of a second. “Highland.”

  There were two Highlands in Cambridge. One down near his mother’s place, and one west of the Square with spreading trees and Victorian houses layered like wedding cakes. He looked at her and knew which one she meant. I was right the first time, he thought. You’re not from here.

  Even so, he told her about the play, and he made it sound amazing. Deep instead of flippant, poignant where it had been absurd.

  Nina said, “I wish I’d seen it.”

  You have a boyfriend, Collin thought.

  But Nina said, “I’m always behind preparing class.”

  He led the way between snowbanks as they walked up Brattle. Without asking, he took her bags, two canvas totes filled with composition notebooks. “Where do you teach?”

  “Emerson High School.”

  “No way.” He turned around so fast she almost stepped on him. “I went there!”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I know Mr. DeLaurentis.”

  She could picture Collin in the principal’s office. Prankster, troublemaker, effortlessly popular.

  “We had these same notebooks.” Collin glanced down at her tote bags.

  “You kept Discovery Journals too?”

  “Mostly I drew pictures of…”

  “What?” she demanded playfully.

  “What do you think?” Collin said.

  They went to Café Algiers, with its polished samovars and copper bar, its Egyptian almond cookies behind glass. The red walls were hung with ceramic tiles and antique maps, a framed illustration of “the oriental coffee shop.” They sat at a wobbly t
able and Collin ordered hummus, pita triangles, bulgur salad, and Lebanese wine. They were the last customers in the door.

  “Is this table okay?” He sounded nervous. Actually he sounded like a waiter as he asked, “Do you want to switch?”

  “I think they all wobble,” Nina said. Her knee was almost touching his.

  When the food came she didn’t eat anything. “I already had dinner,” she explained.

  Of course. He had forgotten that. She’d been nibbling at Grendel’s all evening.

  “Go ahead,” she said.

  “Okay, I’m starving,” he confessed, but he tried not to eat too fast. He tried not to finish all his wine at once. She was just sipping hers. He could see she didn’t really drink.

  He asked Nina, “Why did you decide to teach?”

  She parried, “Why did you decide to draw?”

  “For the money.”

  “Oh, okay. That’s why I teach too.”

  “No, really.”

  Still, she didn’t answer. She turned the conversation back to his own art. “I’ve never seen anybody draw so fast.”

  “That’s nothing,” he said. In the summer he could chalk a whole Van Gogh painting in an afternoon. Sunflowers outside of Faneuil Hall. Irises. He laid down one wet color after another, deep purple, violet, scarlet, gold. Oh, he thought, you don’t know what I can do.

  “Are you in art school?”

  “Well…” Collin hedged. “I’ve been in art school.”

  You dropped out, she thought, surprised, confused.

  He said, “I think, in general, school is overrated. No offense!”

  “No problem.”

  “But you’re an educator.”

  “Not a good one,” Nina said.

  “You look like the sort of person who’s good at anything they try.”

  “Kids hate me.”

  His eyes were sparkling, full of fun. “Why?”

  “My last name is Lazare, so they call me Laser Lips.”

  “Let me see.” He got up and leaned over the table. Her smile was tender, rueful. How would you draw a mouth like that? Ever so slightly, she drew back.