The Symptoms of My Insanity

by Mindy Raf

  They really do. Meredith is wearing this little red dress that makes her legs look like they go on forever and ever. Her strawberry blond hair is in loose curls, and up in one of those fancy ponytails. She’s wearing this sparkly green eye shadow that makes her eyes look huge, and her lipstick is the exact shade of her dress.

  And Marcus, wow. Marcus looks really good in a suit.

  “We just saw your mom,” Marcus says, smiling. “She looks great.”

  “Yeah. She’s doing good,” I say, staring back at him and nodding and—unghh—acting like a complete bobble. “I … I heard closing night went really well.”

  “It did,” Meredith says. “Jenna definitely missed you, though.”

  “Is she here?” I ask.

  “She’s with my mom, trying to calm her down,” Marcus says, looking around the studio. “So where’s Blake?” Marcus asks.

  “Oh. Um. I d-don’t. Know,” I stutter, probably sounding like a robot malfunctioning. “We. Didn’t. Um. We’re not …”

  “Izzy dumped that loser, please,” Meredith rescues me. “Such old news,” she adds, as if Marcus should know everything about it.

  “Oh,” Marcus says, “sorry, I wasn’t aware that you—”

  “Man, I feel like … such a bum.” I change the subject, looking myself up and down in Miss S.’s office mirror. “And I still have so much to do, I don’t even know if I’ll have time to—”

  “No, you look perfect,” Marcus says. “I mean … you look like … the perfect way you should look for someone who’s showing off their … artwork.”

  “Yeah …” Meredith agrees, looking at Marcus with a slight laugh. “It’s so cool you used my photos. I’m totally a part of your portfolio!”

  “Yes”—I nod—“thank you! They were perfect.”

  “Oh, my God!” we hear, and then turn to see Ina slack-jawed and staring at Viral. It’s only the second time I’ve seen her mouth open that wide.

  “What? What’s wrong?” I say.

  “Izzy Skymen,” she says, her eyes still on my canvas, tilting her head to the side, “you’ve got some huge girl-balls!”

  “Girl-balls?” Marcus repeats, furrowing his eyebrows as Ina walks past us carrying a stack of sketchbooks.

  “It’s, like, a feminist way of saying that Izzy’s got balls,” Meredith explains.

  “Oh,” Marcus says, still looking a little perplexed, “but, logistically speaking, I mean from a feminist standpoint, that doesn’t really—” But he’s cut off by Meredith erupting into giggles.

  “That is so cool!” she says to me, nodding at my canvas and grinning.

  “Oh yeah,” Marcus says, taking a look himself. “It’s really pretty. What is it, like a field with … what is that, like a … strawberry?”

  “Come on,” Meredith says, pulling Marcus away from the painting, holding her chest, she’s laughing so hard. “Izzy has work to do.”

  • • •

  I know it’s my artwork that’s displayed behind me, but I feel like I’m the one mounted up on that panel, and everyone’s ogling and analyzing and scrutinizing me. Or maybe I just feel self-conscious because I’m at a huge fancy school event in my paint clothes. Ugh, I can’t believe I didn’t have time to change. But by the time I was filling out all my description cards, the DIA people were already arriving and asking me questions and I’ve had no break to even run a comb through my hair. And I almost died when Mrs. Preston came over and started examining my latest piece from about three different angles. She kept saying how beautiful it was and how much she loved that shade of green and how it complemented the pink colors so nicely. Though I seriously thought at any minute she would stand far enough away, at that particular angle, and suspend me from school right then and there. But no, she just patted me on the back and said, “Well done, Izzy.”

  “Just ten more minutes …” Miss S. says, “of mingling with the common folks, and then you’re freeeeeeee …”

  Great, maybe I can sneak off and change before Mom sees me. Pam said she was stuck inside, manning the donation tables, but that she’d be out here pretty soon.

  “Oooh, and here’s Izzy’s!” Cathy exclaims, doing her two-stairs-at-a-time march over to my display with Jenna trailing behind her, holding a donation box. Cathy starts at the far end of my table, sifting through some of my sketchbooks, while Jenna looks at the canvases behind me.

  “Awesome,” she says, her eyes doing an initial perusal.

  “Thanks.” I give her a hug hello.

  “Looking hot, Izzy!”

  I roll my eyes, and tell her I didn’t have time to change. Then she whispers, “Nope, was talking about that,” and points to my canvas.

  “Oh,” I say, shaking my head, “right.”

  “So what do you think?” Jenna asks, modeling her silk camisole-skirt combo with an open safety-pin back.

  “I like it!”

  “I made it!” Jenna exclaims, doing a twirl.

  “Too much skin, but resourceful nonetheless,” Cathy chimes in, motioning for Jenna to move along.

  “It’s a sleeveless ensemble—shoulders don’t count as skin,” I hear Jenna say as Cathy drags her off to the next display.

  “Wow,” I hear, and I know that voice. Reluctantly, I turn to see Blake standing at my table. He’s wearing dark jeans and a blazer, and his tie’s knotted a little too short, but he pulls it off. He’s standing farther back from me than one would normally stand to have a conversation.

  “I’m not going to … throw water on you,” I finally say.

  “No, I know,” he says, but doesn’t come too much closer. “So, am I … am I allowed to comment on your stuff?”

  I really want to just icily ignore him, but the way he’s fidgeting with his tie, and tapping his hand rapidly on the side of his leg … well, he looks pretty miserable as it is.

  “Yeah, I guess.” I raise my chin a little, looking over his head.

  He walks over to the start of the display and checks out my innards canvas. “This is so freaking awesome,” he says like a boy watching a gruesome scene in a horror movie.

  “Thanks,” I reply politely.

  “So, how come you’re the only who looks like … not dressed up?” he asks.

  “’Cause I’m the only one who didn’t have time to get ready,” I say.

  “Oh. Right.” Then he makes his way around the corner to the end of the display. “I like this one a lot too. What’s it called?” he asks, leaning in closer to read the description card.

  “Viral,” I say.

  “Oh. So is it a cell … or a …” Then he tilts his head a little, and his eyes get so wide, I feel like they’re about to merge Cyclops-like into the center of his forehead. “Oh my God,” he says. I see the tops of his cheeks start to flush.

  I stay very still now, looking him right in the eyes as he turns to me.

  “Wow,” he says, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and wiping his face on the inner sleeve of his blazer. Then he leans in closer to me. “I want you to know, and I know you don’t want to hear it, but I … I deleted it right away. I didn’t send it. I … Jacob found it in my temporary … It doesn’t matter. I just— I wasn’t going to use it and I … I wish I could get some of kind of … do-over and … I wish I could do it all over, that’s all,” he says, letting a long, slow stream of air escape his lungs, like a deflating balloon.

  I nod once, not really knowing why. It’s not a bobble-type nod, though, like I’m flustered and don’t know what to say. It’s more like, I’m acknowledging he said something, but not sure it’s even worth a response. Then I see my mom, shuffling her way over to us from across the lobby. I excuse myself, leaving Blake there, and go to meet her.

  CHAPTER 30

  We’re all in the snapshot.

  Mom’s trying to pick up speed as she shuffles closer, her wheely pole rolling faster than her body is able to go, her eyes looking up at my pieces on the panel like a finish line.

  “Look at all this
!” She flings out her free hand when she finally arrives at the start of the display. “It’s so exciting!” she gushes, turning away now from the panels and looking at me. “And look … at you … you’re … in your paint … clothes,” she says, now fully looking me up and down. Then she sees Blake shifting from side to side behind me, like one of those toddler toys that never fall over.

  “Oh, hello, Mr. Hangry, don’t you look nice,” she says to him. And then to me, “I can come back if you—”

  “No, no, Blake was—”

  “I was just leaving,” Blake says, and nods good-bye to us both. We watch as he speed-walks back toward the gymnasium.

  “I’m sorry, did I interrupt something. Are you two … ?”

  I shake my head in a way that I hope implies that no, Blake Hangry and I are not anything at all.

  “Well … look at you!” Mom says again, taking in my entire ensemble.

  “I didn’t have time to change, Mom. I guess I’m the one embarrassing you,” and I’m about to add I’m sorry, but I catch myself.

  “No, no, it’s … Listen, everyone is coming up to me and telling me how talented you are, and how much they love your stuff! And I’m sorry it took me so long. I was stuck at that donation table forever. Jenny Hartigan said she was just going to the bathroom, but on her way back she stopped at the dessert table and started yapping with Mrs. Seltzer, as if I didn’t have anywhere to be,” she says, shaking her head. “It’s not like her daughter has any art on display,” Mom adds.

  I laugh and take Mom’s arm, walking her to the start of my portfolio. She leans back and feigns fright when she sees the innards canvas and then asks me a ton of questions. Mostly logistical, like what I used to get that texture, or how I got that effect. She smiled approvingly when I point out the nail polish. Then we turn the corner and when she sees Morphing Mom, the tips of her fingers on her free hand fly up to her lips.

  I turn and watch the profile of her face as she stares straight at the canvas. Which, I now realize, is practically screaming at her, “You’re sick, Linda! And we all know it!”

  I didn’t mean for this painting to scare her, or make her feel bad in the least. I guess it was just something in my head that I needed to get out. But now that I see the way Mom’s looking at it, I want to put it all back inside.

  “Mom—” I’m about to apologize, not knowing what else to say, but she cuts in.

  “No, no, no,” Mom says, a slight whimper escaping from her lips. “It’s perfect, it’s just perfect.”

  “Just a couple more minutes,” Miss S. says, bounding toward me, “and then you’re freeeeee … ! Oh hello, Lindaaaaaaa …” she says, seeing Mom. “You look wonderful. So aren’t you just burstiiiiiing …?”

  “Yes, yes, I am,” Mom says. “I am so proud of her.”

  Then a group of freshman boys crowds around my display, ogling my final canvas.

  “That’s the one!”

  “Looks like a scoop of ice cream.”

  “No, no man, it’s somebody’s butt cheek.”

  “No, no, dudes look. It’s a TIT! It’s just one HUGE TIT!”

  I press my sneakers into the tiled floor, hoping the pressure will help keep me on my feet. Mom turns her head fast, like Leroy when he hears the can opener, and shuffle-wheels herself up to my last painting. Miss S. is walking over to the boys.

  “No, gentlemen, it is not ‘just one huge tit.’ It is a landscape of nurture-dom …”

  The boys look at Miss S. like she’s talking to them out of a fourth head while my mom regards the canvas, tilting her one head in various directions.

  Miss S. continues to talk to the boys as if she has their rapt, art-loving attention.

  “… As you can see from the trajectory of Miss Skymen’s wooork … ? This last piece is saying something that is both broad and finite about the vital role of the maternal figure in an angst-filled, war-wrought humanity …”

  My mom turns to me now, looking at me as if I’m some sort of optical illusion she can’t quite figure out. Then she turns her attention to Miss S., who’s still waxing philosophical on my Viral painting.

  “It’s not just a tit, boys, it is an ample teat, a lone faucet from which the milk of human kindness driiiiips …” she concludes, shooing away the boys and smiling after them as if she just changed their lives. Then she turns to Mom and says, “I just love how Izzy went from a literal war landscape with that sculpture, to a visceral internal human guts landscape, to a figurative battle of mortal existence, to this glorious mountainous, primal nourishing landscape of maternity!”

  Wow. I wish I wrote that down in my portfolio description.

  “Oh Izzy,” Miss S. says, pushing her glasses down to the tip of her nose and giving me a dramatic stare. “Italy, here you come!”

  We watch as Miss S. dances away to the next display, and then Mom turns her attention back to the canvas. Then she turns to me. And then back to the canvas. And then back to me. And then back to the canvas. It’s as if she’s watching a very slow, invisible tennis match or something.

  “Linda, we have a dessert table crisis,” Pam announces, springing over to us, holding a plate full of brownies and cookies. She goes on to explain that Debbie Belfry hid all of Nancy Freel’s brownies behind the sign, telling another mother that they tasted like cardboard, and that now Nancy has thrown away an entire tray of Debbie’s lemon squares. “Food-wise you’re really not missing out, Linda,” Pam adds. “Debbie’s right, the brownie’s are dry like desert sand.”

  Mom reluctantly turns her attention to Pam and her dance duties, and tells me to go inside and enjoy myself. And then she’s gone.

  • • •

  I make my way to the dance, detouring to pass my map sculpture. I walk around it, stopping to catch my shattered reflection in the mirrors, and am satisfied when, at the right angle, it reflects myself flanked with Darfur teens on one side, and Meredith’s Broomington High candids on the other.

  I finally get inside and weave through our cafeteria tables, covered now in different shades of pink fabric. They’ve all been pulled back and set up in two semicircles around the dance floor. Each one is adorned with a festive pink painted vase holding Cathy and Jenna’s donation card tree bouquets. I’m pretty sure Mom didn’t approve this idea, giant donation index cards mixed in with her carefully chosen floral arrangements, but I guess it’s the cause that counts.

  The brick wall in the back flashes with the light from the DJ booth—a folding table, some strobe lights, and a laptop—and from Meredith’s pictures, the ones I didn’t end up using in my sculpture, which are playing as a slide show on all of three flat screens typically used for school announcements. The room really does look amazing, and the donation/auction table looks pretty crowded too.

  “Congratulations,” Pam shouts, speed-walking past me, like she has a fire to put out.

  “What?” I shout back.

  “I heard there were three silent bids on your ice cream painting! Woo!” she shouts, before bounding out the door. I look back at the auction table but can’t really make out anyone in the crowd. I continue scanning the room, catching sight of Blake.

  I stare at him standing against the flickering brick wall with Nate and Jacob and can’t believe I ever felt sorry for him about what a rough time he was having with basketball hazing, or for being such a “nice guy” stuck with such immature, obnoxious friends. Ha. Maybe some of Blake’s friends and all those senior guys think it was a pretty awesome thing for him to do—completing his task and taking that picture. But they didn’t see the way he acted in the art room yesterday, or come to think of it, how weird and uneasy he was in the Rap Room, and even at the museum. If he really didn’t want to do it, if he knew it was wrong, then the fact that he went through with it actually only makes it worse.

  I know I might not have a whole basketball team full of friends, but at least I have one or two who care about me enough to defend me, and stand up for me, and risk getting in trouble for me. Which is m
ore than I can say for Blake.

  I spot Jenna on the dance floor with Meredith and Cara and make my way over to them, grabbing one of Mrs. Freel’s cardboard brownies on the way and deciding to avoid the bowl of festive pink punch.

  No one on the dance floor is really dancing, just kind of standing around talking and occasionally moving to the beat.

  “Where’s your ‘date’?” I ask Meredith, making quotes with my fingers since technically they came as group. Meredith turns to me, still giggling with Cara over the fact that Ray Ray the DJ keeps looking over at them and winking.

  “I think he went looking for you.” She smiles, and then on cue Marcus walks up to us and says, “Hey, I was just looking for you,” which makes us all, well, except Marcus, crack up.

  Then Ray Ray the DJ says he’s going to “slow down this joy ride” and Cara drags Meredith over to stand closer to the DJ booth. Soon everyone starts coupling off. Even Jenna, who’s dancing with Ryan Paulson and sort of adorably stooped over his shoulder, not seeming to mind their height difference.

  “Hi,” Marcus says from behind me.

  “Hi,” I reply, turning around so we’re face-to-face and I’m seeing again—wow—how great Marcus looks in a suit.

  “So … did you hear about that really cool exhibit that’s opening in Detroit next week. Body Parts?”

  “Oh yeah, heard about that! It’s supposed to have like over three hundred specimens, and dissected organs and stuff.”

  “Yeah, they put the body parts in this vacuum chamber to preserve them and— Wait, why are we slow dancing by ourselves?” He laughs, and I realize that we’re both standing across from each other swaying to the music.

  “I don’t know!” I start laughing too, but then stop when he steps closer and puts his arms around my waist. I can feel his chest moving up and down as I lean against it and relax my arms around his neck, swaying with him to the music.

  “So …” he says now, but kind of more in my ear, “you want to go see it sometime?”

  “What?”

  “Body Parts,” he says, and I feel the warmth of his palms pressing against the back of my sweatshirt. “Or is that a weird thing to do for a date?”