And We're Off

by Dana Schwartz

  “It’s Nora. Nora Parker-Holmes, like with a hyphen. And I’m from Chicago.”

  “All right, Nora Parker-Holmes-like-with-a-hyphen from Chicago, what’s your . . . least favorite film?”

  “My least favorite film?”

  “Come on, isn’t that a more interesting question than ‘What’s your favorite film?’” The stool beside Callum is vacated, and he taps it, inviting me up to sit next to him. “You want a drink?”

  “No, I’m good, thanks.” Does he think I’m a loser because I’m not drinking? “And . . . um . . . my least favorite movie is Donnie Darko.”

  “What? Noooo! I love that film!” Callum turns his body around to face me, so intent on having this discussion that his eyes lock in on mine. And then he places both of his hands on my shoulders, sending tingles down my spine. “Wait,” he says. “Hold on. We are going to have this proper showdown, but first tell me all the boring stuff: age, hometown, hopes and dreams, you know.”

  “I’m Chicago born and raised . . . sort of. I’m actually from the area just outside Chicago. And . . . my grandpa is an artist, and he paid for me to come to Europe. And . . . my mom decided to tag along.” I realize as I’m saying it how absolutely, horrifically boring my life is. There are teenagers in the world who sail across oceans alone, or who grow up as child soldiers, or who cure measles in their backyard using chemicals they find in fertilizer. And here I am, doodling on a notepad and dyeing some of my hair green and pretending it makes me special.

  “And you have shite taste in films,” Callum adds.

  “I beg to differ. And what’s your least favorite movie?” I say.

  “Avengers: Age of Ultron. Not empirically, but just such a letdown coming from Joss. Like, it was a fine film, but I wanted so much better after Winter Soldier was so good, you know?”

  Whichever angel in heaven sent me a hot boy with an Irish accent who likes the Avengers as much as I do, thank you. I will sing hymns in your honor. I will write hymns in your honor. If you are an Irish angel, I will spell it “honour” in order to properly honour you.

  Callum inverts his glass and lets the few remaining drops fall onto his tongue. “Can I ask you something else?” he says, and before I give an answer, he asks. “Why is your blog called Ophelia in Paradise?”

  I smile. “I don’t really know, to be honest. We read Hamlet in English class, and I really liked it. It was the first Shakespeare play I actually, you know, understood, kind of? The idea of this boy coming back from college and having everything in his life be different, and being faced with having to do the right thing when there’s no one telling you what the right thing is? And not having parents around with the ‘right answer’ the way they were when you were a kid, you know? Because his mom is part of the problem, and he and we don’t know if his dad is actually real or if it’s just the manifestation of his guilt.

  “And he comes up with just the worst plans—he pretends to be crazy, he puts on this whole play, he escapes from pirates . . . I don’t know. I feel bad for him. I had this vision of him on a beach somewhere, just drinking a piña colada and reading a book and not having to worry about the state of Denmark or his soul.”

  “So how come Ophelia then?” he says.

  I take a breath. The truth is I made the blog last year when Nick and I were . . . if not dating, then that horrifically nondescript nonsense, a “thing.” When I didn’t tell Lena about it because I was embarrassed. Because I knew it wouldn’t last. Because, the little voice inside reminded me, I always knew, on some level, that he was using me.

  I had waited in the driveway that night for Nick to pick me up in his Jeep. I lied to my mom, saying I was getting picked up by a girl from my chem class to work on a presentation together. When I got in the car, he and I exchanged an awkward greeting.

  “Hi.”

  “Hey.”

  We didn’t hug or kiss. We drove in silence. I had read in Seventeen that one of the most sensitive parts of a boy’s body was the hair where his head meets his neck, because it’s so rarely touched, so while Nick DiBasilio drove, I ran my left hand along the back of his prickly-soft crew cut. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t tell me to stop, so I kept it up while he turned off the highway, past downtown, and toward the beach.

  The beach is closed at night, but we didn’t go there to go to the beach. He pulled into a parking spot and turned off the engine. I withdrew my hand from his neck, and it hovered between us until, with a wave of confidence, I placed it on his jeans. Even through the fabric I could feel he was hard.

  The next day I texted him: What’s up?

  He responded an hour later: Not too much.

  Nothing else. No details about his day, not even a half-hearted: U?

  In that moment, I understood Ophelia more than I had in half a semester of my English teacher’s lectures. Whether the boy you love is mad or pretending to be mad, wanting someone you can’t understand or who won’t let you understand will make you go mad yourself. Waiting for his affection was a version of Chinese water torture, desperately waiting for the next drop of any sign that he might like me, unsure when it would come, if it came at all.

  “I don’t know,” I tell Callum. “I just think she deserves more credit.”

  Callum readjusts in his seat and clears his throat. He checks his phone, smiles a little to himself, then quickly turns his attention back to me. “I never actually read Hamlet, to be totally honest,” he says. “We were supposed to, I think.”

  Now I blush. He probably thinks I’m insane. I just went on a rant about Shakespeare. In a bar. And I don’t even know his last name. “What’s your last name?” I ask.

  “Cassidy,” he says.

  “Callum Cassidy. No wonder you like superheroes.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Callum Cassidy—CC. You know, like Lex Luthor, Lois Lane, Jessica Jones, Bucky Barnes, Bruce Banner, Pepper Potts . . . You’re practically a superhero yourself.”

  “You know a lot of comic book characters off the top of your head.”

  “I read a lot of comics when I was younger. And I have a good memory,” I say.

  “Well, there’s no telling with me—I might turn out to be a super villain, like . . . Doctor Doom, DD.”

  “What would your superpower be?”

  “I would destroy my opponent with my knowledge of obscure Lord of the Rings trivia. What would yours be?”

  I think for a minute. “I would . . . be able to draw anything and make it come to life.”

  Callum pounds a fist on the table in mock anger. “That one is so much better than mine! I shouldn’t have gone first! By the way, I like your . . .” He gestures to the green streak in my hair.

  “Thanks,” I twirl it absentmindedly. “My mom hates it.”

  Callum Cassidy doesn’t respond, and he breaks eye contact for the first time in fifteen minutes to look over my shoulder.

  “Nora, honey.” It’s my mom. And she’s right behind me. Luckily I’m almost positive she didn’t hear me say she hated my streak, or else she almost certainly would not have called me “honey.”

  “It’s getting late,” she says. “We’ve had a long day. I’m tired. I think it’s time to head back.”

  Right on cue. Just when, for the first time in my life, a cute boy seems actually interested in having a conversation with me. Now I remember exactly why I wanted to travel by myself in the first place—because when I’m alone, I get to choose where and when I go, and I don’t have to be responsible for anyone else or how they’re feeling or how they may or may not be tired just as I’m getting to know the coolest guy I’ve met in a really long time.

  But, as I remind myself, she’s leaving in a few days. And then I’ll have the rest of my time in Ireland AND my entire trip to London and Florence to be on my own and have conversations with hot guys for as long as I want.
r />   I shoot Callum an apologetic look.

  “Can I get your number or something?” he asks.

  My mother is watching us both, holding her coat over her arm. “Um,” I say, “I’m not sure my phone does the whole international texting thing, but Facebook? Here, let me see your phone.” He hands it over, and I open the Facebook app. I type in my name and request to be friends with myself. “There,” I say.

  “Let’s hang out later this week or something,” Callum says. “I didn’t get a chance to knock some sense into you about Donnie Darko, cinematic masterpiece.”

  “Sure,” I say. “Sounds fun.”

  “Hey, wait!” he calls just as I’m leaving. “Take this.” He shoves his copy of The Silmarillion into my hands. “I’ve read it a hundred times. I consider it a public service to spread the gospel.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Thank you.”

  He just smiles, and I smile back, and then I follow Alice Parker outside the pub. My ears ring in the sudden quiet.

  “Did you have fun?” she says.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I guess.” Teenage angst is a hard habit to break.

  “Well, I had a good time,” she says.

  I run my fingers across the soft pages of the book Callum gave me. “Yeah,” I say. “I did too.”

  14

  “I SPENT TWENTY years learning to paint like Raphael and a lifetime learning to paint like a child.”

  Declan pauses for effect. “Those immortal words, spoken by . . .” He pauses again and gestures with a sweep of his hand out to the classroom.

  “Picasso,” the entire class minus me chants in unison.

  “Picasso,” I say, half a beat too late.

  “Yes, Pablo Picasso. Good old Pablo. That shall be the credo for this course over the next three weeks. Yes, art is subjective. But whether you’re impressionists, cubists, dadaists, what have you, here at the Deece, we’ll be studying the fundamentals.”

  “While still fostering your own artistic vision,” Áine interrupts.

  We’re just two hours into the program, and I already get their dynamic: a classic good cop, bad cop routine. I wouldn’t have actually believed they were married if they hadn’t told us.

  Declan is about six foot five, bald, with a dark beard that he strokes incessantly, twirling his fingers through his mustache like a cartoon villain. He wears a full suit with a polka-dot tie and matching socks.

  Áine, meanwhile, is about a foot and a half shorter than Declan, with a pixie cut and a pixie nose and an affability and choice of clothing that gives off the general vibe of pixie.

  “We’ve been running this program for fifteen years,” Áine chirps (chirping thus far seems to be her primary mode of communication), “and we’ve seen artists at all levels, all styles, and all natural abilities. The important thing is that you each find and follow your own artistic path.”

  We’re in Studio B, which implies that there are probably more studios, although I didn’t see any on the shortcut Evelyn pointed out through her backyard to get here. According to universal high school lore (aka something every single person claims happened at their high school), a gaggle of intrepid seniors got their hands on two greased pigs and released them into the school, labeled #1 and #3 so that the administration spent all day looking for the missing, nonexistent pig #2. From what I’ve seen so far, it doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility that there’s only one studio labeled B as a joke.

  The room looks more like a museum than a studio: glass-fronted bookshelves filled with skulls and taxidermied animals line the walls. One entire wall is devoted to a framed display of delicately pinned butterflies. A skeleton that I’m almost positive is real slouches in the corner, wearing a top hat and tie with the Union Jack.

  As for the students, there are eight of us: six girls and two boys. The only other American is a boy from California whose name and face are equally forgettable, like a contestant on The Bachelorette who’d get eliminated on week two. He definitely introduced himself, but once he turned away, I couldn’t have picked him out of a two-man police lineup if catching the Zodiac Killer was on the line.

  POLICE:

  All right, Nora, one of these men is the Zodiac Killer, notorious San Francisco terror, and the other is a teenager from California in your program whom you met only moments ago. Please tell us which is which.

  ME:

  Can I have a hint?

  It seems that a few of the students are from Dublin and already know one another, some are from England, and one of the girls, a lanky blonde with a laugh I can hear from across the room, is from Australia. There’s only one girl actually from Donegal; her name is Maeve.

  “So now,” Declan says, clapping his hands together and then fixing his cufflinks, “partner up, and we’ll start our first activity.”

  It’s like gym class all over again. Why do teachers think teens ever enjoy partnering up, let alone on their first day, when they don’t know anyone? What happened to don’t judge a book by its cover and all that? How else are we supposed to judge when we’re forced to pick partners on our very first day?

  I turn to the boy next to me, one of the Brits, and try to make eye contact, but he’s clearly already partnered up with California-maybe-Zodiac-Killer.

  From across the room, a pair of eyes latch onto mine. “Pair up?” says my angel. It’s Maeve.

  “For sure.”

  Áine rings a bell to get our attention. “For our first class, we’re going to get to know one another a bit. First, face your partner.”

  Maeve and I square our stools and look at each other. She gives me a small smile and then winks. She’s so much calmer than I am.

  “Open to a blank page in your notebook, and pick up your pencil. You’re going to draw your partner’s face.”

  “BUT,” Declan adds with an air of mischief that seems to delight him a little too much, “you’re not allowed to look at your page. You’re to maintain eye contact with your partner the entire time. You have ten minutes. GO!”

  And suddenly there’s a scramble of paper and squeaking chairs. Áine sashays to the stereo in the corner and begins playing metal music with a thumping bassline.

  I flip to a clean page, take a deep breath, and look up at Maeve’s face, into her eyes that stare right back into mine.

  The exercise is so much harder than it sounds. Right away, I fight the urge to glance down at my paper. Maeve still seems impossibly relaxed, half-smiling while looking right at my face like this is perfectly normal for her.

  “So, where are you from?” she asks, her hand still moving impossibly fast across the page. “America, yeah?”

  “Yeah,” I reply, finding it difficult to multitask.

  “But, like, New York? L.A.?”

  “Actually, the suburbs of Chicago.” I don’t mean to sound so abrupt, but I’m desperately trying to draw something not terrible. All of my concentration is on making sure my drawing doesn’t end up looking like Mrs. Potato Head. “And . . . you . . . are from here?”

  “Yup!” she replies, and from the corner of my eye I can tell that she’s shading. How is she shading? How does she know where to shade? “Our place is actually right up the road from the studio.”

  “Oh, your parents live around here? That’s nice.” Turns out, when I’m concentrating, my conversational skills fall somewhere between uninterested waitress and lobotomized zombie.

  Maeve gives a little laugh. “Because I don’t spend enough time with them.”

  As if on cue, Áine comes up behind her and glances down at her page. “Try to lengthen your lines,” Áine says to Maeve. Maeve nods, never lifting her eyes from my face. When Áine looks down at my work, she gives a cursory nod and small smile. I’m left feeling half-proud that my w
ork was satisfactory and half-disappointed that I didn’t get more attention.

  Time passes, but I’m staring so deeply into Maeve’s blue eyes that I can’t tell if it’s been five minutes or forty minutes.

  “And . . . time!” Declan bellows, as everyone but me drops their pencil immediately. I drop mine half a beat late. This seems to be a trend.

  “And now the fun part. Everyone, bring me your drawings, and we’re going to play a little guessing game.”

  For the first time since the page was blank, I look down. My drawing is an absolute mess—lopsided features and ears that look like cartoon snails. Stomach burning with shame, I trudge up to Declan and hand him my drawing.

  “And now we mix them up,” Declan says, shuffling the papers. He then posts them on the wall. “Try to find yourselves! Off you pop!”

  Mine is easy. I instantly recognize my face because Maeve is a wizard who either cheated or has the ability to see through her hands like a blind fairytale character. She somehow managed to put together a series of lines that actually look like my face. She captured an essence about me, an impatience in my expression that makes me look alert and thoughtful. I’d be jealous if I weren’t so impressed.

  Luckily, with the exception of Maeve, it doesn’t look like anyone else’s drawing is that much better than mine. “Circle up,” Áine says. “Let’s check portraits and introduce ourselves properly.”

  There are a few mismatched portraits, which inspires laughter and the exchange of drawings. When it’s my turn, I decide to keep my introduction short and sweet: “Hi, I’m Nora. I’m going to be a senior in high school, and I’m from the suburbs of Chicago. In America.” Boring, maybe, but I’m on the spot. It doesn’t matter what I say anyway, because everyone’s attention turns immediately to Maeve’s drawing of me.

  “Woah,” someone says. “It actually looks just like her!”

  “Who drew that one?”

  “Uh, Maeve,” I say.