by Jen Bryant
girl in the whole school. Anyway,
she was behind me, loading her tray
with side dishes, desserts, and fruit, which she gives away
to Eddie Kuhnz and his table of most-popular guys.
She’s flashing her twenty-dollar bill, and I’m taking
a bowl of chili and a slice of apple pie
and trying to hide my voucher, and Amanda says:
“Jeez, I thought a hardworking farm girl would eat more than that.”
I felt like saying: “No, she really doesn’t, and she doesn’t
have to feed people like chickens to win friends, either,”
but I just shrugged and watched her chin rise a little higher
when the cashier took my voucher.
I sat at the last table with Danita and Marianne.
Right when I was finishing my pie, Amanda sauntered by
in her expensive jeans and sweater, and said:
“Hey, farm girl—I got an extra cookie, you want it?”
And I said, no, thanks, I’d had plenty, and she sneered
and threw it away. Marianne heard and called Amanda
a few things I won’t repeat here.
Michael heard, too, and tripped Amanda
on the way back to class.
In math, I thought about all the things I want to say
but can’t ever seem to say
to people like Amanda Ray who practice meanness
like it’s a varsity sport.
Tiffany, on the other hand, would never hesitate
to say exactly what she felt at that moment,
to Amanda, or to anyone else in seventh grade.
I started to get a stomachache, but then I decided—
hey, later today, I’ll just take Blake
for a little walk over to Amanda’s house
and let him leave
a little brown gift on her lawn.
22.
Daddy’s truck is so old,
the bed has rusted through in places
and he has to keep patching it with pieces of metal
like a pair of hand-me-down jeans.
But it still looks pretty good. Mr. Kesey has a friend
with an auto-body shop, and he told Daddy
he would give him a price break on a new paint job
and even add a detail or two.
Daddy took it there and had it painted red
(it took three coats, he said, to cover the navy blue)
and had them put a white stripe
down each side and over the back fender.
Daddy was in a good mood
while he was cleaning it this morning,
so I asked him if he remembered the three of us
taking the truck up to Dennig’s Corner
to watch the July 4th fireworks
when I was little. He kept rubbing the calf cloth harder
over the fender and bumper.
“Yes, of course I do.”
He didn’t look mad or sad, so I asked
if we could go back up there
and watch the fireworks again this year.
“Okay…yeah…maybe,” he said.
He went on buffing and scrubbing for a while, not saying anything.
Then he grabbed that football—the one he takes
to throw with the construction guys on lunch breaks—
from the backseat, and threw it to me.
“Your momma was a true Southern lady,” he told me
as we tossed it back and forth, “always mannerly and polite,
and she always kept her clothes and hair real nice. But she had
a throwing arm like a rocket, and me and her,
when we couldn’t afford a movie or a restaurant for a date,
we’d go to a park in Savannah
and have a catch.”
I tried not to look
surprised. But, Momma, I can count on one hand
the times since you died
that he has said anything about you.
The last time, it was Christmas, and I guess
I should’ve known better than to ask.
We were watching the original black-and-white TV version
of Scrooge, the one where I nearly wet my pants
when Marley’s ghost comes stumbling in,
moaning and rattling his chains.
“Daddy, what did you and Momma do for Christmas
that first year you were together in Savannah?”
Daddy’d had two drinks (don’t worry—he’s still
not the drinking kind, but on holidays he likes a little wine),
so he told me:
“Your momma and me, we walked out into the woods
with a sack full of fabric scraps left over from her collages,
and we decorated the finest pine tree we could find
and smeared peanut butter on pinecones for the birds
and hung cranberries and popcorn strings
and then camped out for the night
(I guess it didn’t get real cold in Georgia)
and in the morning we woke up to a chorus
of sparrows and finches and jays
feasting and chirping away.”
But after he told me that, Daddy had to go
outside for about an hour,
and by the time he came back in, it was past 10:00,
and from his red-eyed look,
I promised myself that I would wait a long while until
the next time I made him
remember you.
23.
In art class, Miss Benedetto pulled me
aside and said she’d give me a pass to my next class
if I’d stay after.
When everyone had gone,
we sat down at one of the long painting tables,
and Miss B. asked me if I knew
what a grant was.
I said: “He’s that general who fought at Gettysburg.”
(Why can’t I remember that in history class?)
She grinned and said I was right,
but there was another kind, too.
“The state gives money,” she explained,
“to certain schools in certain years, for certain special programs,
and next year our district’s getting one
for the arts.”
I didn’t know how this had anything
to do with me, but I listened on,
’cause I like Miss B.
“The grant—that’s the money from the state—
is mostly for high school kids, but a few
middle school students can apply
with their teacher’s approval.
Mrs. Davidson, the band leader, and I
would like you and Allison Larabee
(she’s in eighth grade and plays classical guitar)
to give it a try.”
She showed me the notice from the state
that explained everything. The students don’t get money, exactly,
but if we get picked, we get to miss regular school
once a month or so
to go on special tours and trips
to places that will “foster our talents and creative instincts.”
Miss B. said that meant museums and historic places, musical
concerts, ballets, and plays.
“Why me?” I asked.
And she said: “I think you’re smart. I think
you are serious about art, and I think you have talent.
This might be helpful for your future.”
I told her she was right about the serious part, but I
wasn’t too sure about the smart. And I wanted to tell her
that I wasn’t sure what Daddy would say, whether he would even
want me doing this.
I wanted to tell her about my visits
to the Brandywine River Museum, and that sometimes it felt like
I’d explode with
all the questions I had about drawing
and about the paintings I’d seen. I wanted her to know
that sometimes living with Daddy’s sadness,
and a hyper hunting dog,
and the ghost of my mother,
and a super-athletic best friend
was just too much.
I’m sure my face was red, and I could
feel the sweat trickling down the back of my neck.
My hands shook,
but I took the forms from Miss B.
and told her I’d fill them out
and bring them back by Friday.
Momma, we were not too religious
when you were here,
and we are not religious now. But if I believed in
guardian angels, Miss Joanna Benedetto
would be mine.
24.
I brought those forms back
to art class. I felt a little bad that I had to
trick Daddy into signing them—but not too bad. It wasn’t
that hard. I just shuffled them in with a bunch of
other forms that parents have to sign, like
rules for using the Internet in the library,
the new traffic pattern for after-school carpools,
permission to strike matches in science lab.
When he came to the grant application, I said—
as casual as I could—“This one’s for a special sort of field trip”
(which isn’t really a lie),
“here’s where you need to sign,”
and he scribbled his name right on the dotted line.
Today, Miss B. sat down with me
to be sure I understood what to send the judges
(a panel of ten, according to the forms) so they can decide
who gets to be in the program
and who doesn’t.
I asked Miss. B. if she thought, for the “portfolio” part,
I should do all five of the
required “samples of the student’s best work”
in charcoal, pencil, or pen-and-ink.
“Use whatever you want, whatever makes you feel
most confident.”
She flipped over the calendar on her desk,
and we counted a little more than four weeks
till those five samples are due in April. She gave me some
colored pencils and sketch pads, two boxes of charcoal,
and a can of fixative to spray on the best ones
so they don’t smudge.
Next, from the bottom drawer of her desk,
she pulled out a rabbit’s foot key chain.
“For good luck—you can give it back
when the judging’s done.”
I didn’t know she was superstitious, but I guess
she is. Anyway, I can use all the help I can get
to compete with those high schoolers,
who probably know a lot more about drawing
and probably have a lot more
talent and experience than I do. Momma,
if anything about art is inherited,
now would be a very good time
for your genes to kick in.
25.
Why would you put a wild animal
on a door? I’m not sure, but that’s exactly what
Jamie Wyeth did for one of his paintings.
The door (off its hinges, flat on the floor)
is smooth and white,
and the animal’s resting there, like maybe he’s
tired after breaking it down.
Jamie’s wolf is not from a cartoon or a fairy tale—
this wolf looks real. He has a thin body, small eyes, and his expression
is shifty. Jamie made his fur red, and he layered the paint
to make it look all ruffled up
(if you push your ear against the wall where it’s hanging,
like I did when the guard wasn’t looking,
you can see the paint piled on the canvas like one of those
3-D geography maps), and if you stand there long enough, staring,
you have to stop yourself
from patting him.
On the bus ride back,
I thought about what subjects I sketch best.
I guess I would have to say
animals, ’cause I’m around them almost as much
as people.
At home, Daddy left a message
saying he was stuck in traffic on the turnpike
and I should go ahead and eat.
The days are longer and warmer now and there’s still plenty
of good light…so after Blake and I each had a bowl
of Cheerios, I took him out and made him lie down
on an old stall door I’ve seen leaning against the barn.
He whimpered awhile, but I made him mind,
and I sketched him three different times.
It didn’t work.
He looked so uncomfortable lying there—
his face, usually handsome, looked all worried and twisted,
and his back was stiffened up.
My three sketches stunk.
I quit and took him for a run instead.
He found his favorite gopher den again,
and I let him sniff it as long as he wanted. I could tell
that the gopher wasn’t far down,
’cause Blake’s tail wagged as fast as a windshield wiper.
Poor little gopher, I thought. Must be scared…
Then my mind wandered like it always does….
What did Blake’s pointy spaniel face
look like from inside that dark place?
And for a few minutes, it was like I became that gopher.
My hand started working on a new drawing,
and before I knew it, without hardly trying,
I had a sketch that just might be
the best one I’ve ever done.
26.
This evening, Channel 6 News played a rerun tape
of the day Punxsutawney Phil
was supposed to see his shadow.
He climbed out of his den, all right, but there were so many
TV cameras and microphones,
he took one look at those reporters
and ducked back in.
I have days like that…when I want to pull up the covers
and make the world go away,
pretend no one will notice if I stay home. But I have no
good reason to miss school—
I hardly ever get sick, and when I do, Daddy insists
on coming home from work.
(I’m sure it reminds him of losing you
to that one-week pneumonia—
but how could he know you were that sick?
And by the time you let him get a doctor, you were
too weak to walk, and nothing they gave you worked.)
Last winter, I had a bad flu.
Daddy stayed by my bed and fed me
noodle soup and toast and tea. The foreman got mad
and said Daddy had to get a sitter and get himself back to work
or he’d be fired.
Daddy thought about it overnight. The next morning,
he quit. That afternoon, the foreman called again
and said Daddy could have off for my flu,
but he shouldn’t tell anyone on his crew.
I got better two days later.
Daddy went back to work. I went back to school.
But I still can’t eat noodle soup without picturing Daddy
wearing his construction apron, standing over our little stove,
stirring the pot with his big tan hands,
and Blake whining and pacing and licking my face,
and all of us wishing
you were here.
27.
I haven’t told Daddy yet—about the museum, I mean.
There hasn’t been a right time. He’s so be
at
when he gets home. And besides,
if he knew I was visiting an art museum,
just like you probably did
when you lived in Savannah, well…
that might make him mad—or maybe sad—or maybe both.
The truth is, I haven’t told Daddy yet because
I’m scared of what he might do.
What if he says I can’t go there anymore?
I wish whoever anonymous is
could talk to Daddy, could remind him
there are lots worse things
I could be doing with my time.
You know, even if I told him, and even if he said
I wasn’t allowed to go there anymore, I’m pretty sure
I’d go there anyhow, just like I’m doing now.
So, I suppose him knowing
isn’t going to change anything,
so why get him upset?
28.
But I did tell Tiffany. This morning on the bus,
she fell asleep again listening to her CDs. I had nothing to do,
so I sketched her as a pumpkin wearing headphones
and carrying a lacrosse stick.
When she woke up, she asked: “What’s the pumpkin for?”
so I told her about seeing Jamie Wyeth’s self-portrait
at the museum, and how I was trying to learn
by copying his idea.
Of course, being Tiffany, she wanted to know
how long I’d been visiting,
and how often I go,
and how do I get there,
and does my daddy know,
and sometime if one of her practices gets canceled,
could she come with me?
I made her promise not to tell.
She swore on her new pair of cleats that she wouldn’t
(especially Daddy).
I told her that guests were allowed anytime, and since I was
