The studio door opened. The figure in the doorway made me gasp. It was a woman wearing a red dress with huge white polka dots. On her head, she wore a wig of bright red hair. A face covered in spotless white stage makeup stared at me without smiling. “What do you want?”
“Me? I—nothing.”
“You are staring at me as if you want something. Or perhaps my beauty is overwhelming you?”
“I—I’m—I don’t mean to stare. Are you—are you Mrs. Hashimoto?” It was the first time I’d seen her door open, so I wasn’t sure.
“I am not Mrs. anything. I am Hashimoto. That is how I am known.”
“I live here, too. Upstairs. We just moved in.”
She barked out a single laugh. “Ha. I don’t live here. I work here. I have just stopped painting for the day. My studio.” She waved her hand behind her. “Don’t look! Not even for a second! No one looks inside the mind of Hashimoto!” She smiled. “You would still like to see, though? Of course you would.”
“Sure.”
“Sure? You don’t sound very certain. I ask you if you want to step into Hashimoto’s studio and you say sure. It is yes or no.”
“Oh. Then yes.”
“Of course, yes. When Hashimoto offers, yes is the only answer. One moment.” She went in and shut the door behind her. I could hear rustling inside and what might have been whispers. I heard a door open and close. A moment later, Hashimoto stepped out. “Enter,” she commanded.
I walked inside. Huge wooden panels leaned against a wall. A long workbench was covered in old coffee cans holding various brushes. Tubes of paint were organized on shelves. Rolls of white canvas stood in a corner.
Easels were scattered around the space, each holding a large canvas. Other canvases hung from three of the walls. Some were only a few feet across, while others must have been five feet wide and seven or eight feet high. I couldn’t see what had been painted on any of them. Every painting in the room was wrapped in bright red fabric and tied with old rope, so that each looked like a flat, red present. And, of course, smoke detectors were hung every few feet on every wall.
“What do you think?”
“It’s cool, I guess.”
“You guess? Do you know how few people have been inside Hashimoto’s studio?”
“Then why’d you let me in?”
“You needed to come in. You needed a distraction. I needed one, too. How do you like my work, darling?”
“I can’t really tell. It’s all covered up.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know. It’s all wrapped up—in red cloth and rope and stuff.”
She frowned at me, then smiled. “You don’t know Hashimoto, do you?”
“Well, no. I mean. I’ve just met you, so…”
“I mean you don’t know my work! You’ve never seen any Hashimoto—not in galleries or museums or even in magazines or on television.”
“I don’t think I have.”
“You haven’t! You would know. This is my work. What you see in front of you! This cloth! These ropes! What they hide beneath is never to be revealed! No one is allowed to unwrap it. Ever! No one ever sees inside but me!”
“Why?”
“Exactly! That is what I want. That question. I want people to look at it and ask, Why? If I can get a person—you—if I can get you to ask why, well, what more on this earth could I do? Who has done greater? Tell me. Who?”
I thought for a few seconds, then nodded. “Yeah. That’s pretty cool, I guess.”
“No guessing. It is cool! It is the coolest! I am Hashimoto, the modern Alice in Wonderland! Now, forget what you have seen here and walk me to my car.”
“Hey, just a sec. Can you tell me which one you’re doing right now? I mean, I hear you in here, working away and talking to yourself—”
“You hear Hashimoto talking to herself?”
“Yeah. Sometimes. Which one of these are you working on?”
“Just to myself?”
“Yes.”
“What do you hear me say?”
“I don’t know. Not much. Mostly about how you like your work. How you think it’s beautiful.”
She smiled. “It is beautiful. Why would I say anything different, darling?”
“So which one are you working on?”
“Why?” Hashimoto asked. She laughed, then pointed to the eight-foot-tall canvas in the center of the room. “That one.”
“So you paint it and paint it, but then no one ever gets to see it?”
“Precisely.”
“But what does it look like underneath?”
Hashimoto reached out a finger and stroked one of the ropes that wrapped around the painting. “Ahh, it is the most exquisite. It is the most beautiful.”
“Then why don’t you—”
“Or! Or perhaps—perhaps it is the most hideous. Perhaps it is the most ugly.”
“Which is it?”
“I will never tell. But I will reveal that it is a painting of a woman.”
“What’s it called?”
“Or! Or perhaps it is not a woman. Perhaps it is a man. Do you know what I call it?”
“What?”
“The Mother Looking Down On the Earth and Crying. Do you know why?”
“No.”
“Do you want to know why?”
“Yes.”
“Exactly.” She laughed again, then pushed me out. “Stay here. I must go to the bathroom. I’m cursed with the bladder of a teacup poodle.” She closed the door. I waited. I swear I heard her talking again, but couldn’t hear what she said. The door opened and Hashimoto stepped out wearing a pair of round, red-framed glasses on her nose. She quickly closed the door behind her and held out her hand. “To my car.”
I took her hand and led her out to the sidewalk. The only cars parked outside were Mom’s pool-cleaning van, Mrs. Sedley’s Volkswagen Beetle, Dad’s old Honda, and the covered Ferrari. She pointed to the covered Ferrari. “I like this one,” she said.
“Do you know what’s under that?” I said.
Hashimoto shook her head no.
“Do you want to know?”
“Ha!” barked Hashimoto. “I like you, darling! Kisses! Kisses!” A red Lincoln Town Car pulled up right then. She gave my hand a squeeze and stepped inside.
I TRIED TO REMEMBER WHY I’D COME OUTSIDE. Hashimoto had succeeded in distracting me from what I’d done, but it all came back to me now in a rush.
I’d made Everton lose her job. I’d made Mr. Shoreby die. I’d made those two drivers crash their cars. I’d even made Joanna lose at Monopoly so I could win. The mental list of consequences weighed on me almost as much as the bottle in my pocket. I felt tired. I pulled the bottle out and stared at it.
“What are you looking at?” said a voice.
I spun around. Joanna was sitting on the steps, off in the shadows. I hadn’t seen her when I first came out. I quickly slipped the bottle back into my pocket. “You have to be nice to me,” I said.
“This is me being nice to you,” Joanna said. “If you want more than this, you’re gonna have to beat me at something bigger than Monopoly.”
I took a step toward her, the way you might take a step toward a bear inside a rickety cage. “What are you doing out here?”
“Just getting outside. Sometimes I need a break from my mom. She can totally drive me crazy.”
“That’s not a very nice way to talk about a—”
“A what? A sick person? A cancer patient? Just because she’s sick doesn’t make her any less annoying.” Joanna laughed. “Sometimes it makes her more annoying. She’s all into this positivity junk. ‘We have to stay positive, JoJo. I need you to smile!’”
“JoJo. So she calls you that all the time, huh?”
“Yeah, and if you call me that one more time, all bets are off. I will punch you so hard you’ll be p
icking up your teeth from here to the morgue.”
“You are the angriest person I’ve ever met,” I said.
“Shut up.”
“How long have you lived here?”
“Six months longer than you. The nut on the top floor has been here practically forever.”
“Doctor Mandrake?”
“Yeah, but if he’s a doctor, then I’m your fairy godmother,” said Joanna. “The Brackleys moved in a month before you, so about six weeks ago.”
“What do you think about them?” I said.
“I think they’re ridiculous, but entertaining. It’s like having the Kardashians for neighbors. They’ll probably be gone soon. And you’re probably already planning to move out.”
“We’ve talked about it. But we’re stuck here. My dad signed a one-year lease.”
Joanna shook her head. “Wow. I bet he’s the only one in the history of the Bright House to ever do that.”
“Yeah, my dad’s never been the greatest negotiator.”
“Sucks for you.” She rolled her eyes as a strain of Hawaiian music reached our ears. “Then you got Jimmy Hyde, who’s been here exactly five years and one month.”
“What’s his deal?”
“No idea. You’ve probably noticed he barely comes out of his apartment. And you got Hashimoto, also exactly five years and one month. But she doesn’t live here, so she doesn’t count. And then Alejandro Aguilar, but he works here. Which brings us to his boss, good old Mrs. Appleyard, who owns the dump.”
“How long has she owned it?” I said.
“I don’t know. But one time when I was in Hashimoto’s studio, she said Mrs. Appleyard inherited it from her husband. She says we should be happy he’s gone. Apparently, he was even more of a crook than she is.”
I tried to imagine someone more crooked than Mrs. Appleyard. Then I said, “So why are you living here?”
“Why do you think? Because of Mom. Turns out cancer is expensive. And she hasn’t been able to work in a while. That’s why I had to leave my old school and come to yours.”
We were both quiet, then I said, “You just said you’ve been in Hashimoto’s studio? She told me she never lets anyone in.”
“Funny. She told me the same thing right before she gave me a tour. She’s pretty weird. This whole place is weird. You can sit down if you want.”
I sat on the steps a few feet away from her. She still made me nervous. She said, “So what have you got in your pocket?”
“What? Nothing.”
“Come on. I know you’ve got something on you. You were looking at it when I came out. And you were fiddling with something in your pocket before you destroyed me at Monopoly. Let me see it.”
“It’s just a bottle. An ordinary bottle.” I took a deep breath and pulled the bottle from my jeans and held it out. “See?”
The problem was, the bottle didn’t look ordinary. It looked as if something was moving inside.
“This your good luck charm?” said Joanna. “Can I hold it?”
I let Joanna take it from my hand. She turned it slowly in the porch light. “What’s in it?”
“I don’t know. Probably nothing. The stopper thingy doesn’t come out.”
Joanna pulled at it.
“Don’t!” I said, louder than I’d planned.
Joanna smiled at me. “Why? I thought you said it doesn’t come out.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want you breaking it or anything. It’s fragile. And it’s really old.”
“Calm down. I won’t break it. Where’d you get it?”
“I—I got it—I mean—Doctor Mandrake found it out here. He gave it to me.” I figured this wasn’t a lie, even if it wasn’t the complete truth. “Mandrake said the universe told him I should have it.”
“Sounds just like something Mandrake would say. If it’s so old, why do you carry it around in your pocket?”
“I don’t know. I just like it, I guess.”
“You just like it? Then here, take it.” Joanna tossed the bottle up into the air. I grabbed for it, but missed. It landed on the concrete step, then bounced down, step by step, to the sidewalk below. I rushed down to pick it up.
“How is it?” said Joanna.
“Fine, I guess.”
“Looks like it’s not fragile. So what’s the deal with the car?” She nodded toward the covered Ferrari.
“Dad’s selling it.”
“But it’s something special, right? You seemed pretty upset about it earlier.”
“It’s a Ferrari 430.” I told her that Dad was selling it because he wanted the money more than he wanted the car. I told her that I’d never even ridden in it.
“You’re gonna sell it without even driving it once?”
“Not me. My dad.”
Joanna stared at the car. “My mom is asleep. What are your parents doing?”
“Same.”
“Very interesting. So, uh, where does your dad keep the key?”
I swallowed. I knew exactly what Joanna was suggesting, and it made me feel a little queasy, half from fear and half from excitement.
I had to think about where the key was right then. It took me a solid ten seconds to realize it was in my pocket. I’d had it with me since before the funeral. I pulled it out.
“You keep the most interesting things in your pockets, Gabriel Silver.” Joanna walked over to the car and began pulling off the cover. “So you gonna take us for a ride or what?”
I HAD A BOTTLE IN MY POCKET that I could wish on and get anything I wanted, but I don’t think I’ve ever been as excited, as nervous, or as mystified as I was when I stood there, looking at that car with the key in my hand.
I walked over to the Ferrari and ran my hand along its shiny red roof. I felt like laughing, crying, and throwing up, all at the same time. I walked around to Joanna’s side and unlocked her door, then did the same to mine. We climbed in and sat down.
“Turn it on,” she said.
I took a deep breath. I slowly slipped the key into the ignition, as if it were made of glass and would break if I pushed too hard.
“Turn it on already, would you?”
I turned the key. The car made a loud whirring noise, jerked forward, and stopped. “Oops,” I said. “Forgot to take it out of gear.” I pushed down the clutch pedal and turned the key again. The engine roared to life. “Oh, dear God in heaven,” I said. “That is the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard.”
“Yeah yeah yeah. It sounds great. Let’s go. You know how to drive?”
“You’re only asking me this now?”
She shrugged and put on her seat belt.
“I sort of know how,” I said, doing the same. “My dad’s let me drive on dirt roads a few times. But I’ve never done it on regular roads. And never in a car like this.”
“No time like the present,” said Joanna. “Stick the thingymajig in gear or whatever and let’s get out of here.”
“If I wreck this thing—if I even scratch it—my dad is gonna kill me.”
“So don’t wreck it,” said Joanna.
“Here goes nothing,” I said. I let out the clutch and the Ferrari lurched forward. I gave it a bit more gas. It jerked ahead so fast I had to slam on the brakes to keep from hitting the next car parked on the street—Dad’s old Honda. The Ferrari died. I laughed nervously, started it again, and eased it into the middle of the road in first gear. I gave it just a little bit of gas, shifted into second, and we were off.
We still jerked around every now and then, and the gears made an awful grinding noise almost every time I shifted, but I got the hang of the Ferrari well enough to make it out of our neighborhood. “Where should we go?” I said.
“Let’s go downtown,” said Joanna. “Let’s go find some life. But first, you should turn on your headlights.”
I found the knob for the lights without crashing. Joanna
fiddled with the radio until she found a song she liked. Not my style of music, but I liked listening to her sing along with it.
I could get used to this, driving around in an amazing car with—well, with a girl. Maybe the bottle was worth having around after all.
I cruised along Pacific Avenue. The people out on the sidewalks—grown-ups stepping out of bars and restaurants—all seemed to stare at us as we drove by. I hoped they were looking at the car. I hoped they weren’t noticing that a kid was driving.
Then I saw a red Lincoln Town Car parked outside a brightly lit glass building. “I know that car,” I said. “That’s Hashimoto’s.”
“What? Really? Let’s stop.”
I pulled the Ferrari over to the side of the road. It took me about three minutes to get it into a parking spot without hitting one of the cars next to it. We got out and walked up to the building.
It was an art gallery, full of people in fancy clothes. On the walls inside hung paintings wrapped in red cloth.
“Let’s go in,” said Joanna.
“Are you kidding? They’ll kick us out. Look how those people are dressed.”
“So they kick us out. That’s not the end of the world. Let’s go in.”
Dear Reader, have you ever had a moment in life where you felt like nothing much happened, but still everything changed? Like maybe you did something simple, like take a piece of toast from the toaster, and suddenly you understood the meaning of the universe? That, Dear Reader, is called an epiphany.
When Joanna said those words, I had one—an epiphany. Joanna didn’t think she was saying anything important. For her, it was just a handful of words. But for me, it was like I just learned the biggest lesson of my life. I could sit in the car. Or I could go inside. And if we got kicked out, so what? We wouldn’t go to jail. No babies would die.
It was so simple. But it seemed so important. I stared at Joanna like she was some kind of genius.
“What?” she said.
“You’re pretty cool.”
“Awww. How sweet. Now shut up and let’s go.”
We went in.
The Bottle Imp of Bright House Page 7
