Barbara L. Clanton - 1 - Art for Art's Sake

by Barbara L. Clanton

  “Hey, Meredith.” Dani stepped in front of her.

  Meredith’s stomach knotted. Now what?

  Dani said, “I’m sorry about Ben today. He’s got a few marbles loose.” She twirled a finger in a circle near her ear.

  Why is she even talking to me? Practically no one spoke to her unless it was absolutely necessary. Meredith kept her guard up. “Oh. That’s okay.” She pushed past Dani to go down the hallway.

  Dani caught her by the arm and Meredith froze. She stared straight ahead and didn’t turn around. She desperately hoped that this wasn’t the start of a new series of harassments from yet another person. She already had enough trouble from some tall guy on the basketball team. And now Ben Kinsey. He would probably do something to retaliate for the way Mr. Dalton singled him out. Maybe that’s why Dani grabbed her arm. Dani and Ben were friends.

  Meredith murmured, “What do you want?” She braced herself and waited for the worst.

  Dani let go of Meredith’s arm and said, “Uh, nothing except to apologize for Ben. Honest. It’s not okay that Ben picks on you, and so, um...look, I’m just sorry, okay?”

  Meredith didn’t know what to say. She looked back over her shoulder and muttered, “Thanks. I gotta go.” She wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw real apology in Dani’s eyes, but why would Dani apologize? Dani wasn’t the one that called her a name. Meredith shrugged. Maybe Dani’d had enough, too. Having the senior class president as an ally might be nice. Not that Dani Lassiter would ever consider being her friend. No. No one at this school would ever claim that honor.

  She rounded a corner and made her way toward the middle school that was attached to the high school by an enclosed walkway near the gymnasium. Meredith sometimes liked to surprise Mikey, so she paused outside the open door of his classroom. His resource teacher, Miss Stevens, was helping him get his coat on. Meredith smiled. Mikey’s dark brown hair was wild as usual. Miss Stevens hadn’t quite gotten his right arm in the sleeve when Mikey spotted her peeking around the doorjamb. He ran toward her.

  “Mewee Bewee!” he yelled and ran over to her, right sleeve dangling. He pronounced her name that way because he still had trouble wrapping his tongue around the “r” sound. He had never been able to pronounce the name “Meredith” so they had settled on “Merry.” He wrapped her in a big hug. He was in sixth grade, and hadn’t hit a growth spurt yet so he only came as high as her chest, but he was strong nonetheless. He gave her a sloppy kiss.

  When she finally extracted herself from his grip, she said, “Hey, Mikey...” She searched her brain for something she hadn’t used in a while. “...Bikey.”

  He seemed delighted with this play on his name. He jumped around and shouted, “Mikey Bikey, Mikey Bikey, Mikey Bikey.”

  Miss Stevens laughed. “Hey, Mikey Bikey, come here and let me finish putting your coat on. His immediate compliance made both his teacher and Meredith laugh. Miss Stevens was a fairly new teacher, not much older than Meredith, and had a fresh enthusiastic air about her that Meredith hoped she could capture for herself when she went to Syracuse University in the fall. If she got in, that is.

  Meredith walked into the classroom. “So how did my baby brother behave today?”

  “Oh, he was great. He always is. The other kids have warmed up to having a classmate with Down syndrome, and Mikey’s a real charmer, so they’re fine with him. Let me show you the book he started today. It’s fourth grade level.” Miss Stevens finished getting Mikey’s right arm in the sleeve of his winter coat and went over to his cubby. While his teacher pulled out the book, Meredith helped Mikey with his coat. She inserted the two ends of the zipper together and stood back. Mikey reached down and pulled the zipper up all on his own. Miss Stevens handed the book to Meredith and said, “It’s about a dog named Harry who does detective work.”

  Meredith read the cover. Harry, Dog Spy. “I don’t think he has this one.”

  “I think he had some real understanding today, too. Tomorrow we’re going to discuss the plot, so I’ll have a much better idea how he’s progressing.” She turned toward Mikey. “Mikey, do you want to take Harry home?”

  The word Harry sent him into another jumping spree. He shouted, “Hawey, Hawey, Hawey.”

  Meredith laughed and took the book from the teacher. “I think that means yes.” She put the book in his orange book bag. Actually, the color was leaning more toward cadmium orange. She looked for his lunch box, but didn’t see it. “Mikey, where’s your lunch box?”

  “Wunch box,” he repeated, his demeanor suddenly serious. He turned in a complete circle and looked around the room. His face lit up. “Winnow.” He pointed toward the row of windows.

  “Window sill, Mikey. Windowsill.”

  “Winnowsill, winnowsill, winnowsill,” he shouted and skipped over to retrieve his lunchbox.

  Miss Stevens smiled and said to Meredith, “I’ll put this in my January report, but please tell your folks he’s been enunciating more clearly, lately. He’s such a sweet little guy I figure I’d spread the good news sooner.”

  “Thanks, Miss Stevens. I’ll tell them. I think he really likes having Resource with you.” To Mikey she said, “C’mon, Mikey Bikey, we have to hit the road, in the cold, to our abode.” Meredith grimaced at her bad attempt at rhyming.

  Mikey threw his head back and laughed with his mouth wide open. “Mewey, ‘bode.” He laughed again even though he probably had no idea what the word ‘abode’ meant.

  They left the classroom and made their way through the now deserted hallways to the front of the high school. Meredith stopped in front of the main doors and took a deep breath. She said to her brother, “Ready, Mikey? It’s gonna be cold.”

  “Weddy, Mewey.” His shoulders tightened up and Meredith could tell that he was just as excited as she was to make the three-quarter mile trek home in the frigid January temperatures.

  Meredith opened the door a crack and cringed. It had to be below freezing. “Let’s do it, Mikey.” A blast of cold air hit them as they left their sanctuary.

  Chapter Two

  The Sympathy Vote

  MEREDITH SAT IN the auditorium with her sketchbook open. Mrs. Levine required a sketchbook as part of the AP Art class so now was as good a time as any to add to it. She abhorred these senior class meetings. Meredith hardly listened to anything spewing from the stage because, in the one and a half years since she had been at the school, she hadn’t gone to a single social event and didn’t intend to start now. The senior class, over three hundred in total, met every other month in the school auditorium. Meredith looked up at the stage when Mr. Dalton, who sponsored the senior class, asked Dani to give an update on senior events.

  Dani took the steps two at a time and practically leaped behind the podium. Perfectly centered against the backdrop of the heavy green velvet curtains, she looked out at her fellow classmates as if taking them in one by one. Some of the teachers at Whickett High School couldn’t get their classes of thirty quiet, but here was Dani Lassiter keeping over three hundred plus seniors quiet with just a long glance. Meredith decided she had found a good subject to sketch.

  During the first two senior class meetings of the year, she had sketched Mr. Dalton in profile, the back of some kid’s head in front of her, and Mrs. Olsen, the secretary from the main office who took the minutes. At the November meeting, she tried to sketch her father from memory, but stopped when she couldn’t quite recall how his brown eyes looked behind his glasses. She remembered how sad that had made her feel and quietly vowed to spend more time with her dad when he was home from his second shift job at Amalgamated Cardboard. She would be leaving home to head off for college soon enough.

  Dani finally spoke. “My friends and fellow countrymen, you’re probably wondering why I’ve gathered you all here today.” The Whickett senior class laughed quietly. “I have some great news. We are only one fundraiser away from having enough money for the senior prom in May.” Whoops and hollers sprang from the crowd. “And,” Dani added with
a sweeping motion, “I expect each and every one of you to participate in our last fundraiser.” The whoops and hollers turned to groans. Dani continued undaunted. “We’ll probably have a car wash once it gets warmer. I’ll give you more details at the next meeting.”

  Meredith swallowed hard. Was Dani looking right at her? No. No, it was just her imagination. Meredith turned the pad to a fresh sheet and began her sketch of Dani. Meredith decided that Dani was cute, pixie cute. Her blond hair was short like that woman who played Peter Pan on the Broadway DVD her mother had at home. Dani was the only girl in the senior class with short hair, but she was Dani, after all, and no one gave her grief about it. Not that Meredith ever saw, anyway. Dani’s skin was flawless, too, which made Meredith a little envious, even though she hadn’t had a real acne outbreak since early summer. Her mother said her sporadic outbreaks the year before were probably due to nerves about starting at a new school.

  She looked back up at Dani on the stage. Dani’s nose was straight and thin. Meredith couldn’t see Dani’s blue eyes from her last row seat in the auditorium, but she knew they would be playful and alert. Meredith smiled at the partial sketch. Yes, Dani was a good subject. Dani’s expression behind the podium was serious, but good-humored. Maybe Dani would pose for a portrait. Meredith tossed out the idea almost as quickly as it came. Dani Lassiter would never grant an audience to the likes of Meredith Bedford. She sighed, but continued her sketch.

  Dani was in mid-sentence, “—so those of you going to the Winter Ball tomorrow, remember that it’s formal. And we don’t mean your best jeans.” The class laughed and a few names were thrown about the auditorium of classmates who clearly thought jeans were perfectly acceptable formal wear. Meredith wouldn’t be caught dead at one of those formal functions. Who would she go with, anyway? Nobody would ask her. Who would want to spend time with the class loser?

  “And,” Dani continued from the stage, “the senior class officers have okayed my proposal for our spring community service project. Participation is completely optional, as you know, but I hope most of you will help in one way or another. Some of you’ve already heard about it, but in case you haven’t, let me spell it out. I call it, ‘Seniors for Seniors.’ We’re adopting the Hudson Pines Senior Center for our project. A lot of senior citizens live at the facility, but a lot more go there for activities during the day and on weekends. I think they even have a convalescence wing, too, just like a hospital. I’ll get with some of you one-on-one, but I was hoping that maybe the chorus could drop by and spend an afternoon with them. Maybe the comedy club could come up with some kind of routine, and maybe some of us could go by and read to the ones that are bedridden.”

  Meredith sensed the sudden unease of the students around her. Dani must have sensed it, too, because she said quietly, “Look, I understand this sort of thing might make you nervous, but think of these people like your grandparents. What if your grandmother lived at Hudson Pines and all she had to do all day was watch TV? If you think about it that way, then it’s not so scary. Besides, once you meet the seniors, I think you’ll be hooked.”

  Meredith sat up a little taller in her seat. She covered a smile when she noticed that many of the other students had done the same thing. Maybe, Meredith thought, she might actually participate in one thing at the school. Maybe she would go to that senior center. She had no idea what she could do to help, but she had time to think about it because Dani told them the deadline for proposals would be in February, over a month away.

  Meredith looked back up at Dani who said, “Okay, if that’s all, then—” The senior class booed their disapproval. Dani looked perplexed, but Meredith knew she was just teasing them. Dani scratched her head. “What? What is it? Did I forget something?” She read her mental list of agenda items out loud counting them on her fingers one by one. “Prom fundraiser, winter ball, community service project. Hmm, what else? I can’t think of a single thing I forgot.” The senior class booed louder. Even Meredith anticipated Dani’s announcement.

  “Oh,” she said as if realizing something for the first time, “you want to know how many days until...” She smiled the broadest grin Meredith had ever seen. “Lacrosse practice.”

  A collective groan of “Noooo...” came from the students in the auditorium.

  Dani laughed heartily into the microphone. She put her hand up as if to ward off the attack. “Okay, okay. Well, just so you know, there are twenty-five school days until lacrosse.” More boos. “But there are less than one hundred days until graduation. We have—drum roll, please.”

  The students stomped their feet and slapped their thighs. Even Meredith participated in the human drum roll.

  “We have ninety eight school days of high school left.” Cheers exploded from the students.

  Thank the Lord, Meredith thought as Dani banged the gavel, dismissing the senior class to their seventh period classes.

  Meredith didn’t smile often at school, but she smiled on her way to Mr. Dalton’s history class. Less than one hundred days of high school. What a concept. Less than one hundred days to freedom. She didn’t even mind when some kid brushed her shoulder in the hallway making her stumble. Well, she minded, but had long ago stopped trying to decide if it was done on purpose or not. It didn’t really matter. There were less than a hundred days of high school left.

  She found her usual seat in the back of Mr. Dalton’s classroom. She put her book bag on the floor next to her desk and reached down for her sketchpad. She examined the half-finished sketch of Dani and was pleased with her start. She had to get a better look at Dani’s eyes, though. Many people had trouble drawing eyes. Meredith didn’t, but she did need a good look at them to get a better feel. She decided to watch as Dani entered the room. She didn’t have to wait long.

  Dani must have walked from the auditorium with Mr. Dalton because they entered the room side-by-side. Dani’s regular entourage of Ben, Jeff, and Sarah filed in behind her. Sarah and Dani played on the girls’ lacrosse team together. They were the co-captains of the team and seemed to be best friends. Sarah was one of those pretty girls who knew she was pretty. Jeff was Sarah’s boyfriend and they were supposedly the top couple in the school. They had apparently been crowned the homecoming king and queen. Meredith didn’t really know because she didn’t go to the homecoming football game or the dance afterward when that sort of thing was decided. Meredith heard the big announcement the following Monday at school. She wasn’t sure, but she thought maybe Dani and Ben were going out. They were always together.

  Meredith decided she didn’t care to speculate on her classmates’ relationships and sought out Dani instead. Dani’s eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. The blue was so brilliant that Meredith wished she had her paints with her. Cerulean, that was just the right color. She watched the smile in Dani's eyes linger as she talked to Mr. Dalton. Yes, that was the look she had to capture. That smile.

  Meredith was about to look back down at her sketch when she realized that Dani was looking right at her. Mortified, Meredith’s eyes shot down to her sketch, but not before she saw a wide grin spread across Dani’s face. Meredith tilted her sketchbook to hide her face because she knew she must be turning a bright shade of red or purple.

  “All right, people. Settle down.” Mr. Dalton leaned against the front of his desk. “This is our last day of review before your exam on Tuesday. The exam is during the morning session, in the gym. Is everybody clear on that?” Heads nodded around the room. “Okay, now before we get to the review I want to get you set up in groups for a project next semester.” The students groaned. Ben smacked Dani, Jeff, and Sarah on the arms as if to claim them as members of his group.

  Mr. Dalton rapped his knuckles on his desk. “C’mon now, settle down. You haven’t even heard what you’re doing yet.” He paused for a moment and added, “Okay, fine. They tell you in teacher school that once you say ‘get into groups’ students lose their hearing. So...” He walked to the front white board and wrote in black marker, “Groups of two o
r three only. No groups of one. No groups of four or more.”

  He faced the students. “Okay, you have two minutes to figure it out.” He turned his back to the class. Meredith dreaded moments like these. No one ever wanted to be partners with her. Occasionally, Meredith would get the sympathy vote and a group would ask her to join them. But not today. She groaned because Mr. Dalton would have to assign her to a group again. It was better that way, though, because her new group wouldn’t feel responsible for choosing the class loser. She glanced at Dani. She and Ben had paired up after Mr. Dalton announced that groups of four weren’t allowed. As expected, Jeff and Sarah were their own group.

  Mr. Dalton held out his clipboard. He started in the front row and asked the students one by one who the group members were. When it became obvious that Meredith hadn’t been invited to join any group, a few students laughed in her direction. Meredith looked out the window at the dreary January day. Less than one hundred days to go. Could she make it?

  Ben was one of those students who laughed at her. He coughed into his hand, and this time said, “Pathetic.”

  Dani slapped Ben on the arm and hissed, “Dude, what’s wrong with you?”

  “Ms. Lassiter?” Mr. Dalton addressed Dani. “Is there a problem?”

  “Yes, there is actually.” Dani then did something that surprised everyone, including Meredith. “Ben’s on his own.” She glared at Ben. “I’m going to work with Meredith Bedford on this project.” Dani turned to face Meredith with storms flashing across her eyes. She asked, “That’s okay, right?”