Love and Vandalism

by Laurie Boyle Crompton

  My eyes move to the box I just refused to sit on, and they grow wide. The shipping label on top clearly reads SCRAP YARD.

  I scramble to cover it with my butt.

  Once I’m sitting, I look over and spot the KRYLON logo peeking out from the space between Ken’s legs. Because, of course.

  “Rory?” He’s watching me closely. “You okay? You’d better not be stoned right now.”

  I try to look like I’m insulted by this accusation. “I’d never come to work stoned. Just wondering why all these questions about Kat. Is she in any sort of trouble?”

  “Nope.” He scratches the side of his nose with one hooked finger. “I’m just working on employee evaluations. Thought it might be good to get a coworker’s perspective.”

  He throws an ankle over a knee and crosses his arms, and I realize the “dress shoes” he’s been wearing actually have “Crocs” written across the sole. It kind of wrecks the image I’ve had of him as an uptight douche bag. Apparently, he’s more of a laid-back douche bag.

  “Oh, Kat’s great,” I say. “Just great. I love working with her. Very responsible. Great with customers.”

  “I understand the two of you are friends. I’m trying to get a real sense of her as a person. Do the two of you ever hang out outside of work?”

  “Um, nope. But as you know, I do have another job. And she’s got her own artwork keeping her busy.”

  “Tell me about Kat’s art.” Ken leans forward.

  I glance down at the damning KRYLON logo that may as well be a neon light, waiting to bust me. I suddenly wonder if Ken suspects Kat is the one who ordered the graffiti supplies. Which would actually explain all these questions. I have to throw him off the trail.

  “She’s interested solely in the textile arts,” I say. At Ken’s confused look, I add, “Like screen printing? She makes these amazing patterns and T-shirts. Haven’t you ever noticed the drawings of punked-out cat cartoons on her bags and clothes?”

  “The shirts that say ‘Crazy Katz’ on the back shoulder?” Ken smiles a little. “I had no idea she made those. Did she ever ask Danny about selling her designs here at the store?”

  “I don’t think so. She sells them online and does a booth over at the fairgrounds for the Arts Festival every year. I helped out last summer and she made a killing.” Ken sits, nodding his head for a long while before I finally ask, “Was there anything else? I should really get to work.”

  “Right. Sorry.” He stands up, and I will him to not look at the box he was just sitting on. He takes a step back and I slide my knees over to one side in an attempt to cover the logo with my legs.

  He swings back around so quickly I actually flinch.

  “Has she ever said anything about me being named store manager?” He looks at me with wide eyes.

  “Um…” My mind whirls with all the things Kat has said about his promotion. All of them are pretty terrible.

  “No.” Ken shakes his head and waves his hands as if erasing the question. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have asked that. You two just seem to share a real bond.”

  I think about this a minute. In the time since my mother died, I’ve pretty much cut all my old friends out of my life. Kat was the only person who (a) knew about “the tragedy” and yet (b) treated me just the same as ever. Like I was still me.

  Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve been coming to Danny’s with my mother. When Kat got a job stacking shelves as a teen, the two of us would talk while Mom shopped for supplies. I avoided the place for months after she died.

  When I finally ventured back into the store, I braced myself for the same annoying pity looks and condolences I’d been getting endlessly at school, but Kat was working the counter alone.

  After one simple, “You okay?” she accepted my answer of “Yes,” and dropped the subject. Showed me some new supplies they’d started carrying and went right back to talking about art as if nothing had changed.

  I say to Ken, “Kat is the reason I’m working here. I have only good things to tell you about her, so if you’re looking for some sort of dirt to pin on her, you can just keep on looking.” I pause a moment and add, “Or pin it on me.”

  His brow creases. “I wasn’t asking because…” His head drops. “Never mind. It was stupid.”

  What the hell did Kat do? Ken seems to be studying the boxes I’m trying to hide and I lean over even more to cover as much of the KRYLON label as I can with my elbow.

  Between the obvious discomfort emanating from Ken’s pores and my bizarro sitting/leaning pose, the awkwardness in the stockroom is thickening fast.

  I give him a painful smile. “Welp, lots of work to do today.”

  “Yes. Good point.” He gestures to the set of our strange exchange. “Sorry about all this.” He heads for the door but stops and turns back. “Oh, and Kat mentioned you’re the one who helped out with that special order you’re sitting on there. Mind giving them a call at some point during your shift to follow up?”

  “What, these?” I look down at the boxes with false surprise. “Um, yeah, okay, sure. I’ll get on it.”

  Whew.

  • • •

  Kat and I are straightening up behind the counter when Ken finally leaves out the front door. The bell’s chime is still ringing when I grab her wrist.

  “Thank you so much for covering for me. Did you hypnotize Ken or something? He totally bought whatever it was you sold him.”

  Kat looks uncomfortable for a second and continues straightening up with the hand I’m not holding. “Sure, no problem, Rory. Anytime. Glad to do it.”

  I narrow my eyes at her and release her wrist. “What did you tell him anyway? He seemed fine with the fact that I was handling that big special order on my own.”

  “Yeah, well, I told him you’d been showing more initiative lately and he seemed really impressed.” She still hasn’t looked me in the eye.

  “Kat.” I wait for her to finally look at me. “What is happening right now? Did you…?” She glances down at the counter and blushes. “Oh. My. God. Kat!”

  She starts talking very quickly. “It was an accident really it didn’t mean anything stop looking at me that way so okay fine I kissed Ken you happy?”

  “Wait, what? Did you just say you kissed Ken? Why? Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. Was distracting him really that hard? You must want to kill me!”

  Her face is pink and growing pinker. “It wasn’t a big deal, really.”

  “That’s nuts. I owe you so big. I had no idea.”

  “I said it’s fine. It wasn’t so bad.” She has reached maximum facial pinkness.

  “Hold on a minute.” I’m scrutinizing her and she closes her eyes.

  “Yes. I’ll admit it. It actually got kind of…hot?” She runs a hand through her freshly dyed magenta hair. “It started off with me just trying to distract him, and well, it sort of went on from there.”

  I stand unmoving, looking at her with my mouth hanging open. Finally, she reaches under my chin with the tips of her fingers and closes it for me.

  I ask, “Are you planning on kissing him again?”

  “God no. I mean. I don’t know. Like I said, it got pretty hot. He’s obviously inexperienced, but wow did he get onboard quick. Like he’d been thinking about it all along or something. Anyway, no. That was a one-time favor, and now you owe me one.”

  “I’ll do anything, really.”

  “I will be holding you to that. But also, enough with you interrogating me. What the h-e-double toothpicks are you planning to do with all those fucking supplies? Do you really think I don’t recognize the materials for making graffiti art, Rory?”

  I wanted to keep the number of people who knew my secret to an absolute minimum. But Kat just made a huge and arguably disgusting sacrifice for my sake. She deserves to be let in on the truth.

  I look around, ch
ecking that the store is completely empty.

  “Okay, so you know those graffiti lions that have been showing up over the past year?” I take a deep breath. “Well—”

  “OhmyGod, you’re the artist!” Kat finishes my sentence for me.

  I nod slowly, bracing myself.

  “I should’ve guessed. Holy cow, it’s so obviously your style. Those lions are badass! And how did I miss the whole Rory connection? And the timing on when they started showing up…”

  She’s clearly a fan of me defacing public property.

  She wants to know why I ordered all the extra paint and when I describe the water tower project to her, she freaks. The news that I’m planning to turn the eyesore of a corporate soda ad into a bold work of art gets her grinning from triple-pierced ear to quadruple-pierced ear.

  “I want in,” she announces. “You can’t do it yourself.”

  “Hayes is already helping me. Well, I mean he was, anyway.”

  “Did the two of you finally hook up?”

  “Not exactly. There’s a definite attraction, but things are still really…weird and complex. He pissed me off today, and I don’t think he can handle getting in trouble, but I could really use his help.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “What? Don’t look at me like that.”

  “Oh, nothing. Just that I agree you need that boy, but for more than holding your purse up there while you paint that water tower.”

  “I don’t carry a purse.”

  “I know. I’m just… Fine, I’m saying you need him for more than just holding your ladder then.”

  “The tower has a bunch of built-in pegs that I can climb. I don’t need anybody really.”

  “Yeah, except you’re wrong. We all need someone.” She drops a hand on my shoulder and forces me to look at her. “Rory, you and I have known each other for a long time. There are things the two of us don’t talk about, and that’s the way this friendship works.”

  “I really need to get those boxes loaded into my car.”

  “We’ve never discussed the ways that shitty thing with your mom changed you, but here is something you need to hear.” I roll my eyes from the ceiling to her as she squeezes both of my shoulders. “You’ve been different this past little while, since you started hanging out with Hayes. I’m not going to get all sappy and talk about a light that went out of your eyes a year and a half ago, but I do feel the need to point out that you’re finally laughing more. When you walk into the store, I don’t get that heart-clench feeling of sadness for you as much.”

  I just look at her for a long time. Kat doesn’t talk this way ever. It’s one of the reasons we’re friends. “You’ve been secretly pitying me all this time?”

  “No.” She gives me a small shove. “Not pity. Empathy. That was a fucked-up thing that happened to you, and I am capable of empathy, you know.”

  “I didn’t realize our whole friendship was based on you feeling sorry for me over losing my mom.”

  “Nice try. You know that’s total bullshit. Now, I’ve said my piece. Give Hayes another chance. Let’s go get those boxes.”

  She helps me move them into my car and rings me up, insisting that she honor my employee discount. I hand her the rolls of cash I’ve saved up lifeguarding, and she still has to chip in twelve dollars from her own colorful Blue Q bag.

  “Thanks,” I say. “Tax was more than I realized. I’ll pay you back.”

  “My contribution to the anti-advertisement arts. Way to reclaim our public space.” There’s a pause, and I wonder if she’s about to pressure me more about Hayes. “So, this water tower project,” she says. “You have a date in the calendar yet?”

  I tell her I’ve been watching the sunsets get earlier every night, and once they hit around seven o’clock, it should give me enough time. Then, I need to get as close as possible to a half moon to balance light for working with darkness for hiding.

  “I should be good to go within a couple weeks,” I say.

  “Okay, now show me what you’ve got planned.”

  With a grin, I pull a fresh sheet of paper from the open ream underneath the counter and start sketching a rough image of the ad I’ll be covering up. Next, I sketch the lines that will transform the ad into my lion, and Kat is practically salivating over my makeover plans.

  She points out a way I can use one of the existing curves of the ad to save some time, and the two of us get so absorbed, I actually give a jump-squeal when the bell rings over the front door.

  I laugh at myself as I thrust the page we’ve been working on underneath the counter.

  “What are you two up to?” The familiar voice is gruff, and when I hear it, I give another jump-squeal and want to throw up.

  In her most innocent voice, Kat says, “We’re not up to a single thing, Officer. Just planning signs for Danny’s big end-of-summer sale coming up. Is there anything I can help you find today?”

  I’d probably laugh at her fake enthusiasm if I didn’t feel so sick. “Relax, Kat. This is my dad.”

  “Oh, wow. Good to meet you, Mr…er, Officer…oh, wait I mean, Sergeant. Sergeant Capers it must be.” Kat scurries around from behind the counter to grab my dad’s hand. She pumps it up and down with both of hers. “Let me tell you, Rory is a wonderful employee. You must be very proud.”

  “It’s okay, Kat.” I glare at my dad as he gives my one true friend a once-over. “He’s just here to hand me my ass.”

  Dad growls, “What is that supposed to mean, Rory?”

  “It means whatever you think it means, Dad.”

  He asks Kat if he can talk to me alone, and after looking back and forth between us a few times, she nods toward the stockroom. “You’re due for a break anyway,” she says, which isn’t true, but whatever. There are reasons she’s not the manager.

  Leading my dad into the back room, I’m grateful that we moved the boxes of spray cans to my car already. My dad is a much better detective than Ken will ever be.

  “We haven’t had a chance to talk,” Dad says, “but I wanted to apologize to you.”

  I cross my arms and wait for the punch line as we stand facing each other. We both watch my toe dig into the cement stockroom floor for a long moment as the smell of dusty cardboard closes in around us.

  Finally, Dad says, “I should’ve been more honest with you about Linda. I guess I was just feeling lonely, and it was nice having someone to talk to.” He stands there watching me like I’m supposed to absolve him or something.

  I uncross my arms. “I’m pretty sure you know where you can stick your shitty apology.”

  “This is not a shitty apology.” He smiles. “This is actually a not-half-bad apology.” Dad is trying to joke me out of being mad at him.

  It’s not going to work. I know I acted like a jerk in the restaurant and when I lost it on the front lawn, but I’m not ready to just pretend Dad didn’t hurt me when he moved on with his life and shut me out of it.

  I say, “Listen, I’ve got a lot of stuff to do here before my shift ends, so if you’re about finished…” I gesture toward the door.

  “Rory, we need to talk about this. I need to know what you’ve been up to. Things are getting worse, not better. You’re getting worse.”

  “Maybe if you let me spend some time back in the art studio—”

  Dad cuts me off. “You know why I can’t do that. Not yet anyway. You need to learn that art will never love you back.”

  “Says the man who is incapable of showing love at all,” I say with a grunt.

  “That’s not fair.” Dad crosses his arms. “Rory, we need to find a way of moving forward. Of being a family.”

  “We are not a family anymore.”

  “It’s been just you and me for a long time, kiddo. Now we can stop pretending is all. You’ve been watching your mom’s videos on the laptop in the kitchen, bu
t your mother hardly ever went into that kitchen. She had no idea how to mother you. Most of that footage is bullshit and you know it.”

  “You’re just trying to control me and ruin my memories of her.”

  “I loved your mother, Rory, but I remember the bad parts too. Trying to take her insane advice isn’t going to help you heal.”

  “No, but it will help me become an artist like her.”

  Dad covers both eyes with one palm. “Her obsession with being an artist drove her crazy.”

  “How do you know art wasn’t the one thing that was keeping her sane?” I turn toward the metal shelving and angrily place both palms against a large box. With a grunt, I slide it farther back on its shelf. I continue shifting boxes around as Dad silently watches me.

  My thoughts rock violently back and forth as I work. Mom went crazy. I’m just like her, so I’m probably going crazy too. Is this what crazy feels like? Does wondering if you’re crazy mean you can’t be? Or that you already are?

  Finally, Dad asks if I need any help. It’s unclear if he means help with the boxes right now or if he means some form of help in the greater sense.

  I don’t know how to answer, so I ignore his question, and he goes back to watching me in silence.

  After it grows obvious I’m just moving the boxes back and forth with no purpose, Dad gives a deep sigh. He tells me he has a late shift but he’ll see me at home after.

  I’m careful to keep my back to him as he leaves, so he can’t see the tears that have sprung in my eyes.

  It must be the stupid dust I stirred up from moving all these damn boxes.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Are you sure this is safe?”

  Hayes and I are standing at the top of a cliff, looking down at a wide pool of water forty feet below.

  “I texted you promising a true New Paltzian adventure.” The sunshine warms my belly as I reach up to retie my bikini top. “This is what you’ve been begging me for. You coming or not?”

  I run a finger seductively across the manscaped hair on his bare chest and his lips form a crooked smirk. “You really are trouble, aren’t you?” His eyes sparkle in a way that implies he likes the sort of trouble I am.