The Chalk Artist

by Allegra Goodman

  Everyone was explaining what would happen. Some tests, some blood, some time to rest, some spinal fluid to see if he was cloudy. He knew the answer. He was so cloudy that he couldn’t see. A dark moon blocked his vision, but he could hear and he could feel. Jackhammer pain, sharp needles in his neck, and in his head, behind his eyes. Dry heaves and distant voices. A lurching, sickening puncture in his back.

  “They’re going to admit you,” his mother told him, and he thought, Where did I get in? “They’re going to help you heal,” she said. “That’s why you’ve got the IV. That’s for your antibiotics. Don’t pull it out.” He had not been aware that he was pulling. Those were just hands. Nothing to do with him.

  Kerry called Diana and told her that Aidan had to stay the night.

  “Okay,” Diana said.

  “They’re doing some tests,” Kerry said. “He has an infection.” She couldn’t bring herself to say “meningitis.”

  “Okay.”

  “I have to stay.”

  “When’s he coming home?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She took this in. “Could he die?”

  For a split second, Kerry hesitated. Then she said, “No!” as if the very question were offensive, as if from that day forward nobody would ever die again.

  A muffled sound at the other end of the line.

  “I need you to stay calm.”

  Long pause. “Okay,” Diana said.

  All that night, Kerry stayed with Aidan in the ICU. She envisioned his recovery. She had seen it happen. At the same time, she could imagine losing him; she’d seen that too.

  She watched him in the darkened room; she just sat and watched. She tried to pray, but fear silenced her. The enormity of the situation smothered her. Every thought flew to Aidan. He looked so still, so straight, so narrow, like a beautiful felled tree. His hair stuck out every which way, and Kerry thought, You need a haircut. What a strange idea, when he needed so many other things first. His hands lay quiet on his blanket. Beautiful fingers, long and tapered. Piano fingers, Priscilla always said. Piano fingers, gaming fingers, lightning quick.

  “You were hardly ever sick,” she told him. “When you were little, you barely had an ear infection. If you and Diana came down with something you’d be sick for just a day. That’s all.”

  He breathed evenly, but his eyes were only partly closed. She always told parents to assume their child could hear them.

  “You’re strong,” she told him. “You’re very strong, and you’re in the right place. This is the place…”

  He stirred and cried out softly.

  “It’s me. It’s just me,” she told him in her low, urgent voice. “I know we’ve fought. It doesn’t matter now. It didn’t even matter then. I love you just the same as I did when you were born. I’m with you now, just the way I was then.”

  Nurses came to check on Kerry and Aidan. Robyn, the duty nurse, came in to work, but she and others also came to clasp Kerry’s hand, to bring her tea, to promise, I’ll watch him if you need to sleep. I’ll sit here for you. No, no, Kerry said. I’ll stay. But all that long night, as Kerry watched over Aidan, her friends watched over her.

  While Kerry sat with Aidan in the hospital, Nina paced her apartment. She had changed from her silk dress into a cotton nightshirt, tossed her hair clips onto the dresser. She tried watching a movie on her computer. Then she tried to read her battered Thoreau. She leafed through her students’ papers, but all she saw was Collin holding his cold glass to Daphne’s wrist.

  She tried to stifle jealousy, or at least outwork it. Sitting on the couch, she stacked and restacked her students’ end-of-year portfolios. One by one, she opened composition books. She stared at Brynna’s perfect, even printing, Marisol’s huge letters, ballooning in blue ballpoint, every s a sail, every dot a circle, round as a full moon. She opened Anton’s journal and saw anime drawings, spiky-haired punks with evil grins and inky eyes.

  The sun was rising when Nina fell asleep with her computer and her headphones and her students’ journals on the couch. She woke hours later in a jumble of composition books and wires. Bleary, barely conscious, she thought of Collin and she missed him, even as the events of the evening came rushing back to her. Half dreading, half hoping for a message, she checked her phone and found a medical alert from school: ONE OF OUR STUDENTS WAS ADMITTED LAST NIGHT TO CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL. AIDAN O’NEIL IS IN SERIOUS BUT STABLE CONDITION WITH A DIAGNOSIS OF MENINGITIS.

  Now she was awake, startled from her own unhappiness. Aidan? She thought about the disciplinary meeting—Aidan’s performance in DeLaurentis’s office. SOME FORMS OF MENINGITIS ARE CONTAGIOUS. WE ARE WAITING TO LEARN WHETHER…What was it about him? A kind of chivalry as he took the blame, a strange protectiveness, although he had dragged his sister into trouble, copying her work. There was something brilliant and dangerous about Aidan. “I’ve had kids like him before,” Mrs. West had told Nina after the plagiarism meeting. “I taught a kid named Daniel with an attitude like that. You know where he is now? In jail.”

  Alarmed, uncertain, Nina sat up. She remembered that Diana had written about her brother. He was a liar or a stoner. Diana had written unhappily about him.

  Nina began searching for Diana’s Journal of Discovery. She sifted through her composition books, and eventually she found it in an unread pile in her bedroom. Nina sat in bed and returned to the black-ink thicket of Diana’s writing. Entries on The Scarlet Letter, entries on Thoreau. When she’d marked the journal the first time, Nina had been checking to see that Diana had done the reading. Now Nina skipped over Diana’s analysis, such as it was, and searched out the places where Diana digressed or misinterpreted or ignored the question.

  Q. How would you characterize Hawthorne’s ghost stories? How does he use ghosts to represent the past?

  Living with my brother its like living with a ghost. If you leave out a sandwich it might not be there later but you won’t see him, only his shoes. When I see him

  Nina turned the page.

  …I’m like who are you because he is inside his game. He is obsessed with this game like he prefers to be there—even though he is not allowed. Hes not supposed to play but he always finds a way to get inside.

  Q. How would you characterize the mood in Whitman’s opening line: “I sing the body electric”? What do you think about when you read these words?

  Danger. High voltage! People turning into machines. Instead of blood vessels wires instead of brains circuits chips etc. Or machines turning into people inhabiting people infecting their brains, controlling them so they do whatever the machine wants them to.

  Or what would it be like if a machine controlled the world instead? Like the world is a game and you just live in it? You think you’re a player but actually you’re getting played?

  Once again, Nina remembered Aidan in DeLaurentis’s office. Clear-eyed, he had countered every question. Such was his confidence. He might have been a patriot captured and questioned by the enemy, or a young saint who heard angelic voices.

  Q. Consider Bartleby’s famous line: “I would prefer not to.” What is he rejecting? What do those words mean to you?

  I would prefer not to wake up in the dark that really sucks. I would prefer not to go to school. I would prefer not to be seen. I would prefer not to enter the cafeteria. I would prefer not to eat lunch. I would prefer not to care what anybody thinks. I would prefer not to do my homework. I would prefer not to take out the recycling. I would prefer not to hear squirrels in the attic. I would prefer not to go down to the basement (mice). I would prefer no games, no paint, no lies. I would prefer you to leave since your gone already. CU Aidan. CUCU

  Nina stared at that chain of letters linked together. No paint. No lies. He had tagged the school. Diana had confessed it.

  Everybody’s got secrets. Whats more interesting is when you find out other peoples. Then the question is do you tell on THEM? For example my twin and I were like blood brothers only moreso. Now its like he moved awa
y. I hear him whispering daphne daphne.

  No, it couldn’t be. It was too strange. She reread Diana’s words, expecting them to change—but they did not. This was where she’d seen Daphne’s name—in the Discovery Journal. And this was how Daphne did her work. Aidan was Daphne’s rabid fanboy. Nina could see it even now. Daphne had led him on, although she had not mentioned where she’d led him.

  Don’t panic. Think. There were rules. There must be rules for this. The school had guidelines for red flags and danger signs. In her capacity as Language Arts Team Leader, Mrs. West had briefed new teachers on calls for help. I think I’m going to drown myself. I fantasize about shooting my parents or my teachers or my classmates. I’m going to set myself on fire in the gym. That kind of thing. “You’ll know it when you see it. And if you see it, report it,” Mrs. West told the assembled faculty at orientation. “Do not hesitate!”

  What should she do? Go to Mrs. West? Run to Miss Sorentino, the school psychologist? Diana’s journal was neither hate speech nor suicide note, but suggested Aidan had committed a crime. The diary revealed this—but could anybody apart from Nina see it?

  Her mind raced on, and she imagined Aidan with a new can of paint, then with a dagger, then a gun. Millions play, her father always told reporters. In every population of this size you’ll find a couple of crazies. That was what her father said after the mall shooting in Connecticut, the massacre in Norway. Gaming is like the world. No one can prove gaming causes violent crime. It’s not what gaming does to you. Gaming is what you bring. Despite this, she imagined Daphne enticing Aidan. She imagined EverCon, and beyond that a bigger marketplace, and she felt responsible—not theoretically, but personally, responsible. Arkadia was not simply property of her father and her uncle. Viktor had given her a share of the company when she was a little child. Nina was a silent partner in more ways than one; she never spoke of this.

  She was implicated. She had not divested herself, but had maintained her position. She had been practical, imagining she could use her money to do good work. She had been loyal to her father’s enterprise, despite her doubts. What a hypocrite she’d been.

  She threw off the covers and snatched up Diana’s journal. Took the composition book to her desk in the living room and began scanning pages, one after another.

  Nina? Collin texted Nina on her phone. u there?

  no, she typed back.

  can you talk?

  can’t.

  cant or wont?

  we’ll just fight.

  A moment later, phone in hand, he was standing in her doorway. “Let’s fight, then.”

  “You scared me!” She was pale, exhausted, her hair rough, unbrushed.

  “What are you doing?”

  She cut him off. “There’s just one thing I want to say to you.”

  “Say whatever you want.” He meant, Say you hate me. Say I drink too much. Say that I was out of line.

  But she said none of those things. She stood in front of her scanner and told Collin, “Daphne can’t play with kids. It’s wrong, and if you don’t see why, then I can never, ever be with you.”

  “Why don’t you just admit you’re angry at me?”

  “You’re not thinking what Daphne does to people.”

  “She’s never done anything to me.”

  “She plays kids. She played Aidan and he chased her and now he’s in the hospital.”

  “What? Slow down! Aidan O’Neil? Kerry’s kid?”

  At last Nina had startled him. She showed Collin the medical alert from school and he said, “What if he got Daphne sick?”

  “That’s what you’re worried about?”

  It seemed obvious to Nina that nothing bad would ever happen to Daphne. She was the perpetrator, not the victim. “She led him on. That’s her test marketing.”

  “With one sixteen-year-old. Who could be anyone!”

  “She uses him to get the word out.”

  “How would Aidan get the word out?”

  She spoke with fevered intensity. “In pranks. On walls.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “He tagged Emerson.”

  “Prove it.”

  She almost showed him Diana’s journal. She nearly opened to the page—and then she held back, afraid of making a mistake, betraying student-teacher confidentiality, exposing Aidan, helpless in the hospital.

  “You’re imagining what could happen,” Collin told her.

  She took a deep breath. “I’m not imagining. I know.”

  “You know for sure? You can say without a doubt?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “So I just have to trust you.”

  She nodded.

  “Then can I ask you something?”

  “What?”

  “Why can’t you trust me?”

  Diana slept on the couch. The air conditioners were too heavy to carry from the basement, and without them, it was too hot to sleep upstairs. Monday morning, she padded to the kitchen and listened to the house creak. The phone rang, and people left messages. Mrs. Solomon called to inform Kerry that Diana was absent from school.

  Maia came over with a casserole of vegetarian enchiladas, and Diana said thank you very much, but as soon as Maia left, she slid the whole thing into the freezer. She was too hot to eat. Too hot for anything. She took off her shirt and lay on the living room rug. Then she took off her shorts. Her long hair smothered her neck and shoulders.

  When her mother phoned that afternoon, Diana roused herself to answer. “Hello.”

  “Diana?”

  “No, this is a robber,” Diana said.

  “What?”

  “Yes, Mom. It’s Diana. Who else would it be?”

  “How are you, sweetheart?”

  “I’m fine,” Diana said.

  “He’s sleeping now. He’s stable,” said Kerry, although Diana hadn’t asked.

  “Okay.”

  “You can see him. I can’t leave, but Priscilla says she’ll drive you.”

  Diana didn’t answer.

  “Are you there? Diana?”

  “What?”

  “Just go next door and ask. She’s glad to take you. She has to finish a lesson this afternoon but then…”

  Even as her mother spoke, Diana climbed the stairs to the stifling second floor. Her entire body was slippery with sweat.

  “You’re breaking up,” Kerry said.

  Diana dropped the receiver into the laundry hamper in the bathroom. Then she peeled off her underwear.

  The bathroom had white penny tiles on the floor. There was a shower curtain printed with yellow rubber duckies, a small sink with a square mirror over it, a glass shelf cluttered with acne wash, toothpaste, and a jar of toothbrushes, combs, and scissors. Diana’s blue bathrobe hung on a hook on the door, but it was too hot to wear. For a long time, Diana stood in the cold shower. She stood there until she couldn’t stand it any longer. Then she stepped out, shivering.

  Even she was surprised by the girl in the mirror. She wasn’t thin, but she was sturdy, muscular from so much running, her breasts pink-tipped, her eyes fierce, her hair dripping down her back. She didn’t recognize herself at all.

  She took a comb and raked all her hair forward so that it covered her face. She could barely see herself in the mirror through black strands. She took the scissors and held it open in her hand, cool blades against her palm. For a moment she wanted to feel that blade slicing her skin. She imagined her own blood, red-black, spotting the tile floor. She thought about it, but she cut her hair instead.

  Deliciously cool to shear off all that heavy hair. She didn’t try to cut evenly, just hacked away until she could run her hand through the mop she had left. Her eyes were darker in the mirror, her face paler. She looked almost like a boy.

  She dressed in basketball shorts, a sports bra, and a black mesh shirt, but couldn’t find clean socks. She glanced at her bed covered with laundry, her dresser piled high
with crap. Pencils and rubber bands, marbles and beads, staplers and the wrong-size staples, a broken alarm clock covered in thick dust. She said aloud, “I feel bad for whoever lives here.”

  In the kitchen she found a stack of paper grocery bags. She took them to her room and threw them on the floor. She announced, “Let’s recycle, shall we?” and swept her dresser clean. She picked up all the stray school assignments and receipts and cardboard boxes from her floor and stuffed them into bags. Stripped her bed of its faded princess sheets and stuffed them into a bag along with her pillowcases. She pulled plush animals from her closet. Duck. Rainbow fish. Black horse with a mane matted from the dryer. There was a small bison, which she had called her “dison.” “Time to get a life,” she told her childhood elephant.

  The doorbell startled her. At first she didn’t answer. Then she heard the bell again. Her mother? No, stupid, your mother has the key. Except she might have lost it! She rushed downstairs.

  Miss Lazare.

  Diana held the glass storm door open with her body.

  “Diana?”

  “Yes?” Forgetting her new look, unconscious of the stuffed elephant in her hands, Diana wondered why Lazare seemed so confused.

  “I was so sorry to hear about your brother,” Lazare began.

  “What do you mean?” Diana felt a surge of dread.

  “I heard he’s in the hospital.”

  “Oh.” Diana could breathe again.

  “I’m sorry,” Lazare repeated.

  “Thanks.”

  “I wanted to ask if you’re okay.”

  Diana gazed into Lazare’s anxious eyes. “I’m good.”

  “Because you weren’t in school.”

  “So I hear,” Diana said.

  “And I have your Discovery Journal.” Lazare held out the composition notebook. “And I was wondering…I wanted to know if we could…You wrote some things that made me think you might want to talk, either to me or to someone at school.”

  Diana took the composition notebook.

  “There were some things you wrote about your brother,” her teacher said in that very gentle voice adults used when they wanted to pry something out of you.