Saige Paints the Sky

by Jessie Haas

  This was a large room, and clearly it wasn’t used anymore. Tables and chairs were crammed into the center of the floor. I saw several easels at the back of the room, standing around like a flock of sandhill cranes. There was a loom holding a half-finished rug, a row of unglazed pots, and jars of beads. The large plastic bins lining the shelves were labeled “Drawing,” “Paints and Brushes,” “Paper,” and “Canvas.”

  I ran my finger along a shelf, making a trail in the dust. Nothing here had been touched in a while.

  “I thought there used to be an art program here,” Miss Fane said. “Lots of hospitals and rehab centers have them. They really help patients heal faster. It makes sense, doesn’t it? Art makes you feel better. But it tends to be the first thing cut when budgets get tight.”

  “Just like at school,” I murmured, and then I said, “I have to show Mimi!”

  We hurried back to the commons room. Miss Fane sat down beside her aunt, and I said, “Mimi, come see! We just found something amazing!”

  “How far away is this amazing thing?” Mom asked. “Can Mimi walk that far?”

  “It’s good for me to walk,” Mimi said. “But bring the chair, in case I poop out.”

  We made a slow parade down the hall, Mimi clip-clopping with her walker, Mom pushing the empty wheelchair, and me dancing around in front of them, then dashing ahead to make sure I was taking them in the right direction. It’s easy to get lost in a place like this, but I remembered right and found the room. I opened the art room door and turned to Mimi.

  “Look!” I declared, pointing out the easels, the bins of supplies, and the floor still streaked with paint and dried clay. “What do you think? Could we paint here when I come visit?”

  Mimi looked around, bright-eyed. “I don’t see why not,” she said after a moment. “At least, it won’t hurt to ask the director. If we hurry, we might be able to catch her in her office. Steady that chair for me, please.” Mimi eased herself gently into the wheelchair and then grinned up at me. “Step on it, driver!”

  That made me giggle. It sounded like the old Mimi that I know and love. As I took off with her down the hall, Mom followed with the walker, urging caution. But Mimi was in charge, as usual, and we powered down the hallways at a fast clip.

  We caught the director just as she was locking up her office, and we learned that Miss Fane was right: There had been an art therapy program here until budget cuts closed it down. The director was trying to get it up and running again.

  “And I will,” she said in a firm voice. “It’s so valuable for people recovering from illness and trauma. Meanwhile, yes—if you can clear some space, Saige, you and Mimi are welcome to paint there.”

  “May we use the easels and paints?” Mimi asked. “It would be easier than bringing them from home.”

  “Certainly,” the director said. “Feel free to use what you need.” She must have known that Mimi is an artist. Sometimes it’s useful to have a famous grandmother!

  That night, a knock on the door told me that Gabi was here, ready to help me walk the dogs. My dog, Sam, and Mimi’s dog, Rembrandt, like each other better now, and I can walk them by myself. But Gabi loves dogs and doesn’t have one. Her dog died just before they moved here, and her mother is waiting till they are settled in before getting a new one. Since I have an “extra” dog for now, we’re sharing.

  While we walked, Gabi seemed shy, the way she had before we really knew each other. She wouldn’t look me in the eye. Oh, Tessa! I thought. I had to fix this.

  “Hey,” I said. “What Tessa said about me needing time alone to do my art—don’t worry about it, okay?”

  Gabi looked startled. I knew she hadn’t expected me to bring this up.

  “It was because of something I told her, but it isn’t really true,” I said. I tried to explain to Gabi how I felt about Mimi’s studio, how I didn’t want to change things there. “I know it’s crazy—”

  “No,” Gabi interrupted, “I get it. I mean”—she used her free hand, the one not holding a leash, to gesture toward the houses on the street—“we just moved. I don’t even know where I am half the time when I wake up in the morning. I love places that stay the same!”

  I felt stunned. I’d never thought about that. “Poor Gabi!” I said, reaching over to put my hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

  Now I wanted more than ever to invite Gabi to paint in Mimi’s studio with me. I opened my mouth to ask when I suddenly remembered the room I’d discovered at the rehab center. “Hey, guess what I found today?” I said. I told Gabi about the art room and how Dad and I were going to move things around to make space for Mimi and me to work. “Do you want to help?” I asked. “Maybe we could even ask the director if you can come paint with us.”

  “With you and Mimi?” Gabi asked. “Wow!” Her smile was all the answer I needed.

  At that moment, a huge weight seemed to lift off my shoulders. I’d been ready to share Mimi’s studio, but now I didn’t have to. Gabi, Mimi, and I would finally get some art time, in a new room that we could create together.

  Sunday afternoon, Dad, Gabi, and I spent about an hour moving things around in the art room. Mimi watched from the corner, with lots of opinions about how we could do things better. “Lift with your knees, not your back,” she suggested, and “Wouldn’t you get more light if you set those up at the other end of the room?” I could tell she wished she could get up out of her chair and do all of this herself.

  We found plenty of acrylic paints in the plastic bins. Some had dried up, but others were still okay. We found brushes and palettes, too, but no prepared canvases.

  “Why don’t you bring some from my studio, Saige,” said Mimi. “There’s a stash in a box behind the couch. And bring my thumb palette, too. I think that would be easiest for me to work with.” Mimi paused to take a breath and reached over to squeeze my hand. “Oh, I’m excited about this! Aren’t you?”

  I was way more than excited. Mimi was finally focused on her art again. I couldn’t wait for tomorrow afternoon!

  That night I ate supper at Gabi’s house. Mr. Peña was away at a conference, so it was just going to be her mom and us kids. “Let’s talk about dogs a lot tonight,” Gabi told me as we went up their walk. “I’m afraid my mom’s forgetting her promise.”

  Mrs. Peña had promised that Gabi could get a dog once the family was settled in their new home. But as I walked through the front door, I noticed that nothing looked settled yet. There was still a huge box in the living room. Roberto, Gabi’s four-year-old brother, had colored on it and surrounded it with toys. A rug was rolled up in one corner of the room, and a bunch of knickknacks were squashed together on the top of what was otherwise an empty bookshelf. The house didn’t seem ready for a preschooler, let alone a dog.

  But I did what Gabi wanted. While Mrs. Peña finished cooking supper, we talked about dogs—dogs in general, dogs we’d seen on the street, the way the neighborhood dogs bark at hot-air balloons, and of course, Sam and Rembrandt.

  “They like each other so much these days,” I said. “That’s because of Gabi’s training. She’s really amazing with dogs.”

  “Sam and Rembrandt are great,” Gabi said. “But you know, if you need a break, one of them could stay overnight here. I really miss—”

  Mrs. Peña turned from the stove, with Gabi’s baby sister balanced on one hip and a dripping spoon in her other hand. Mrs. Peña was smiling, but she also looked a little annoyed.

  “Gabi,” she said pointedly, “I may be a tired mother and a busy mother, but I am not a stupid mother. You girls don’t need to keep talking about dogs. The plan, Gabi, is this: On your birthday, we’ll go to the shelter and see if we can find the right dog for our family. But until that day, you need to be patient and stop reminding me. Does that sound like a good plan?”

  As her mom talked, Gabi’s face flushed pink with excitement. She didn’t say anything, but she grabbed a pen and raced to the calendar. She flipped
the pages to December, and on December third, she scribbled a joyous five-pointed star.

  “When’s your birthday, Saige?” Gabi asked, turning around with her pen poised.

  “October eighth,” I said.

  “Oh!” Gabi said. “Right in the middle of Balloon Fiesta! What do you do for your birthday? I mean, your dad’s a balloon pilot, right? So he’s probably really into the Fiesta. How do you have time for a birthday?”

  “No, it’s fun,” I explained to her. “It’s like a nine-day birthday party! We have a little family party, just us and Mimi, at Dad’s balloon during a Glow.” Glows are when the pilots light up their balloons at night. They’re tethered, so they stay on the ground. Balloon Fiesta Park is filled with gigantic, glowing shapes, like the biggest birthday cake in the world.

  I went on. “And one night during Fiesta,” I said, “Tessa sleeps over, and we get up really early and go up in the balloon with Dad, all by ourselves.”

  Gabi’s eyes lit up. “Cool,” she said under her breath. The expression on her face read, I’d like to do that, too. She didn’t say anything out loud, but I was getting good at hearing what Gabi wasn’t saying. I liked that. It showed that we were meant to be friends.

  Gabi turned back to the calendar and marked a big star on my birthday. But now, I realized, my birthday was getting complicated.

  Dad’s balloon isn’t huge. It can carry only three adults. We’re kids and small, so probably Tessa and Gabi could both come. But what would Tessa think about that? And what about Dylan? If I had Gabi with me, Tessa might want Dylan with her. That’s definitely too many people.

  Aargh! Maybe I should hold a raffle!

  Monday morning when we all gathered at our classroom table, I told Tessa and Dylan about the abandoned art room. “I’m really glad I found it,” I said boldly, making sure Tessa was listening, “because I couldn’t ask anybody to paint at Mimi’s studio without changing things there, and I didn’t want to do that.”

  Tessa looked from me to Gabi. “Ohhh,” she said slowly, as if to say, You told her how you felt?

  I smiled and gave Tessa a knowing look, a look that I hoped would say, Yes, Gabi knows. Now there’s no more secret.

  Dylan picked up on our silent signals. “What’s going on?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.

  I wanted to give her a look that said, It’s none of your business, but I didn’t. I just kept talking about the art room until my friends seemed as excited about it as I was.

  That afternoon I walked into the rehab facility art room with canvases under my arm and smocks draped over my shoulder. Mimi was waiting for me. It was just the two of us today, trying out the art room for the first time. But I hoped Gabi would be able to come tomorrow.

  I put the canvases on our easels, helped Mimi get the smock on over her broken wrist, and opened the paint tubes. That’s hard to do one-handed. Then I settled in at my own easel, ready to start.

  I was a little distracted at first, watching Mimi figure out how to paint with a broken wrist. She’s so skillful with a brush, but all of that skill was trapped inside the plaster cast on her right hand.

  “Maybe you could try impasto,” I suggested, thinking of my cat-hair adventures.

  “Good idea!” said Mimi. She put the thumb palette on her right hand and picked up a palette knife with her left. “Let’s see if I can hit the canvas more often than I hit the floor,” she joked. She sliced into a blob of paint and squished it onto the canvas. “Bull’s-eye!”

  Mimi’s eyes sparkled. She seemed to be taking all of this change in stride. After all, she’d learned to draw with her left hand, so maybe she would get somewhere with the slice-and-squish method.

  Okay, what was I going to paint? A horse, of course—

  No, wait a minute! I already had a horse picture on the easel at Mimi’s studio. I paused to let my mind drift, and then I remembered Miss Fane talking about having her students design balloons. I love balloons, and I know a lot about them. Maybe I could do a balloon painting.

  I started sketching shapes onto the canvas with a charcoal pencil and thinking about colors. Blue, against a blue sky, would be a fun challenge. It would need a belt of red or orange…

  After a few minutes, Mimi came over, her walker clanking across the floor. She was moving better this week, stronger and more sure of herself.

  Mimi stood behind me and looked at my canvas. “That’s going to be lovely,” she said. “And I think your audience agrees.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at the doorway, where a few patients had gathered to watch us paint. “Mimi!” I whispered, suddenly wishing I could hide behind her.

  “Nothing attracts attention like an artist at work,” Mimi said calmly.

  “But—”

  “You’re in a public space, my dear,” Mimi said, “and art is a public activity. We say we do our art to please ourselves, but then we hang it on the wall, don’t we?”

  Mimi was right about that. And I certainly didn’t mind when Miss Fane turned up a few minutes later. So, okay, I guess I had mixed feelings about an audience.

  The facility director dropped by to see how things were going, too, and that gave me a chance to ask her if Gabi could paint with us. The director looked around at the patients, all so interested in watching us work. “I don’t see why not,” she said. “Especially since she helped whip this old room into shape.”

  So Tuesday afternoon I set up an easel for Gabi. I was getting her started with acrylics when Miss Fane came in with her aunt. I introduced Gabi to Miss Fane, and when Gabi began asking Miss Fane questions about how to get started on her painting, I went back to my own canvas. It felt just like art class—working away on my project and listening to Miss Fane teach.

  At the end of the afternoon, Miss Fane looked wistfully at the rest of the easels, separated from us by a maze of stacked tables and chairs. “I don’t suppose you thin young people could worm through and bring two more of those out?” she asked. “Aunt Agnes and I would love to paint with you.”

  “Sure!” I said.

  “Can you bring three?” asked a man in a wheelchair who had been watching us paint all afternoon.

  How could we say no? Gabi and I made our way back to the easels and brought out six more, just in case there were other people here who wanted to paint with us. Who knew how big this thing was going to get?

  It got bigger. A lot bigger.

  That week Gabi and I painted with Mimi every afternoon. I worked slowly and lovingly on my sky, trying to get it just right. Meanwhile the blank balloon shapes beckoned, and soon I was brushing in the colors. I felt as if I’d been hungry, and now I was getting to sit down to a big feast.

  More people joined us every day. It was fun watching them work. The man in the wheelchair squinted and stuck out his tongue as he painted. One lady frowned and sighed. Aunt Agnes put delicate little dabs of color, pinks and lavenders and golds, onto her canvas. I couldn’t tell what she was painting, but it looked pretty.

  By Friday, all the artists seemed to be enjoying their work, but as I glanced around the room, I felt a sudden pang. The people here had gotten art just by accident. We kids had worked hard for an after-school class, and what did we have? Nothing yet.

  Well, that wasn’t quite true. Gabi and I could paint here, at least, and my balloons were getting better and better. Every time the balloons improved, I had to do more work on my sky. Usually, I love how that happens, how one change leads to another and the painting takes on a life of its own. But today, I felt fidgety and restless. Why did I suddenly feel so eager to finish this painting?

  Suddenly I heard Mimi’s voice behind me.

  “Ah, Saige paints the sky,” she murmured. “That picture is lovely, but it makes me feel sad, too.”

  I turned around, surprised. “Really?” I asked.

  “It’s a fine painting,” Mimi reassured me. “But every time I see it, I want to get out of here! Go for a ride. Get up in a balloon wi
th the wind in my hair.”

  That was why I felt edgy. “Me, too!” I said. I hadn’t spent time outside in days—not since we’d started using the art room.

  “Then go!” Mimi said. “You can be out there, up in your dad’s balloon or riding Georgia. I can’t—yet.” She looked grumpy. “It’s annoying. I wanted to have Georgia rock-solid by October.”

  The thought of beautiful young Georgia made me smile. I missed her! “But why October?” I asked Mimi.

  “I was hoping to turn her over to a new owner by then,” Mimi said, clumping back to her own canvas. “She needs someone who can give her the attention she deserves.”

  My stomach clenched at Mimi’s words. A new owner?

  Mimi selling Georgia shouldn’t have been a shock. Preserving Spanish Barb horses is Mimi’s mission. That means selling them so that lots of people get to know them, show them off, and care about them.

  Georgia would become a wonderful riding horse. She had gotten steadier and smoother with every ride, and I’d felt proud about helping with that. But had I just been making her easier to sell?

  I felt a lump form in my throat. You’ve just gotten to know Georgia, I reminded myself. It wasn’t as if Mimi was selling Picasso, whom I’d known all my life. So why was I getting so upset about this?

  “Maybe I’ll go riding tomorrow,” I said, trying to keep my voice light. “If Gabi or Luis wants to.” I should grab as many rides on Georgia as possible, before it was too late.

  “Do that,” Mimi said. But as I turned back to my own easel, I couldn’t lift my hand. The sparkle and creativity had left my brush.

  Saturday morning Gabi and I went riding with Luis. It was hard to enjoy it at first. I didn’t feel like singing, and I couldn’t be happy about Georgia’s good manners or the way her stride had smoothed out. Gabi noticed and asked me what was wrong.