by Lauren Karcz
And one of them is closer than I expected.
Edie is wandering around the back of the crowd, poking her head in here and there, looking at the art but mostly looking for me.
I duck around Mom and through Gretchen’s family and train my eyes on Edie until she spots me.
“Let’s go over to that bench,” I whisper.
And so we sit together on the Dead Guy’s bench, and the woman on the steps goes on about the art program, and I have so many questions for Edie and I figure she has the same for me. She’s wearing jeans and a red T-shirt. I’m wearing a long orange dress that Mom picked out for me. I stare at both of our shoes.
Edie takes a breath. “I know you had your reasons for doing what you did.”
“Yeah.”
“But this . . . whatever it is you’re doing here . . . it doesn’t seem like you.”
“It is me, though.” I look out over the crowd. “It’s not everything about me, but it’s part of me. My piece very possibly sucks, but I’m glad that everyone here gets to see it, as weird at that sounds. I’m glad that you can come here to see it, too.”
“I wasn’t planning on staying,” Edie says.
“You can, though.”
The names start. Four honorable mentions, and Rider is among them.
“Chickens.”
“Chickens?” Edie looks at me sideways.
“You have no idea of the artistic potential of chickens,” I say.
She smiles.
“And third place goes to Mercedes Moreno, a senior at Sarasota Central, for her painting A Moment in Red.”
Edie nudges me off the bench. “Red, huh?”
“You just never know,” I say.
Angela, Vic, Mom, and Tall Jon didn’t see that I’d slipped away, and now they’re watching me make what looks to be a grand entrance from the other side of the courtyard, my orange dress swinging all the way. A Moment in Red—was that the right thing to call it? Is everyone narrowing their eyes at me because, yes, they understand that the two figures in the painting are girls moving toward each other? Is this the peak of my work, and is everything going to be downhill from here?
I reach the steps where Mrs. Pagonis and the judges and the honorable mentions are standing.
Enjoy it, enjoy it.
For once, it works.
I claim my certificate and smile, and Vic’s hand pops up from the middle of the crowd, waving—saying, in a way, Yes, everyone here, I know her. And for now, that is perfect.
But it’s weird when she and Edie come up to congratulate me at the same time, and I say, “Hey, Vic, this is my friend Edie,” and a realization crosses Vic’s face—quickly, like a page turning—that there’s a whole part of my life she knows nothing about.
“I think we’re going out to lunch.” Never mind the tuna sandwich and two helpings of potato salad I ate at the senior reception. “If you want to come with us.” I guess I’m saying this to both of them. As there are other people poring over the Dead Guy’s plaque and taking up the shade by the bench, we’re stuck out in the sun, all of us barely able to see one another.
“Thanks, but no,” Edie says. “I’ve gotta get home.”
The word sounds perfectly normal coming from her, and yet to imagine her anywhere but between the borders of black-and-white photos is like trying to imagine Victoria taking up woodworking.
“Where do you live?” Victoria says politely.
“Downtown,” Edie says, “with some friends.”
Now I’m the one narrowing my eyes.
“It’s probably a temporary spot. I don’t know what I’m doing right now. I might try to get a photography business started. I might travel for a while and then come back. I don’t know.” Edie looks from me to Victoria and then back to me. “It’s good sometimes, not to know.”
“I’m going to Puerto Rico right after graduation,” I tell her, “but I’ll be back in August.”
“Cool. I guess I may see you then,” Edie says.
And she wanders off, through the courtyard and off school grounds and past the Smoking Corner and on down the street. I wonder if she was lying about living downtown. There are so many things that could be true about her: she might have had a comfy room at her mom’s house waiting for her all along, or she could have had a secret girlfriend the entire time I’ve known her. Or it could be worse: she could be transient, going from couch to couch, maybe searching out another half-abandoned building to make her own.
But I don’t think so. I think she’s found a happy medium.
Vic grapples for nonexistent pockets in her dress. “Wait, dearie. Right after graduation?”
After lunch, Vic and Angela and I head down to the beach. I haven’t been here since Tall Jon’s very windy birthday party in the winter, and everything’s different now. Transitional. The locals are starting to hate the weather and the summer vacationers haven’t made their way down here yet. Angela slips out of her shoes and walks into the wet sand, but Vic and I make things hard on ourselves, trudging through the soft, dry sand in our heeled sandals.
“Think of a place,” she says.
“Um. New York City,” I say.
“I knew it. Okay, you need to narrow down. As you’ll see one day, New York’s a massive place.”
“Fine. Your future dorm room.”
“Okay. Easy way to start—how many people total have lived in my future dorm room?”
“Easy one to follow up. How many people have died in your future dorm room?”
“Morbid. Excellent. How many people who have lived or died in my future dorm room have been convinced that the spirit of Martha Graham visited them?”
We walk past a couple baking themselves faceup on beach towels. The guy turns his head toward us at the sound of Victoria’s question.
“Okay. How many people who have lived or died in your future dorm room, and who have been visited by the spirit of Martha Graham, have also been involved in the strange but necessary destruction of a beachfront property?”
“Umm,” Vic says, looking at me over her sunglasses, “I’d venture to say . . . none?”
“Oh shit, did I break the game?”
Vic laughs. “Not entirely. I think you trampled on a couple of our infinite possibilities, though.”
Here’s the thing: New York is massive. I’m sure I will be able to take note of that one day. It has mass—it is huge and heavy and somehow does not manage to sink the land it stands on. It has stretched itself into the sky and yawned into a couple of different states. But the coast down here doesn’t need to assert itself in the same way. It takes creation and destruction in stride, the tides sweeping in and out with the thump of time, under the hand of the moon. How many people have stood in the same place on this beach, this tiny place in the universe where I have chosen to sink my weight, and been so afraid and so comforted all at once? It’s getting late in the afternoon, and the water is rising. Vic takes off her shoes and goes to join Angela in the shallow surf. I wait at the place where the water just meets the sand.
It looks pretty good in the living room. I mean, black and red don’t match any of the decor in the house, so it stands out more than it should, but it’s a bold statement: red! dancers! Abstract, square-headed people framed on the wall above my school photo! It wasn’t even my idea—it was Mom’s.
“I still have no idea what this is,” she says, “but it’ll remind me of you until I see you again.”
She smiles from the recliner. She’s back to wearing her beachy clothes again: long floral skirts and sleeveless tops, capped off with a straw hat when she leaves the house.
“Can you do a small favor for me when we’re gone?” I ask, stepping into the bare spot by the window.
“In theory, yes.”
“Okay, well, I need you to get Angela a piano.”
“A piano? You do realize how much we’ve been spending on plane tickets, don’t you?”
“Seriously, people give them away for free. Nobody likes pianos,
apparently. Except Angela—she needs one. I’ve made a few calls already. There are some people nearby who have orphan pianos. All you’d need to do is arrange for pickup.”
“For this orphan piano. To go where?”
“Right here.” I sit in the spot. “It’ll fit, I promise.”
“You’ve been strange since I got home. Both of you. I can’t even say if you or your sister has been weirder.”
“Yeah. That’s a toss-up, isn’t it?”
“Mercedes, hijita. Can you tell me? Can you tell me anything?”
Anything. For the first time, I wish I could show her my self-portrait room, because I think the reaction she’d give me is fairly close to the one I’d want. She would know everything from how I hated my bedroom in Naples, to the strange days of summer camp and Mia Cortelyou, to how Lilia, damn it, is not a drug pusher. All that, and more. For a minute, I think the carpet under me feels like that rug Lilia got me to work on the room. My perfect painting rug, which got cleared away by the bulldozers last week, with the walls of the purple room and the self-portrait room and the penthouse and the rest of it.
But I know I can re-create it. Maybe it won’t be as huge and grand as the original, but it’ll say exactly what I want it to. Maybe I can start it at Abuela’s house and then assemble it at the end of the summer, piece by piece.
“Mom,” I say, “Victoria’s leaving.”
“I know,” Mom says.
“But she’s leaving.” Maybe there’s another way to say this. “But she’s leaving.”
Mom gets up from the chair and sits with me in the old piano spot. Her arm wraps around my shoulders. Her hair falls against my cheek. She’s looking at me sort of like she looked at my painting a few minutes ago, with an expression that says, I know these shapes, I know these colors, and I think I know how you’ve put them together. Sort of like that. Maybe. I mean, I know I’m not a painting. Ah, damn it, I’m crying now.
Mom rubs my shoulder. “I know. I know,” she says.
It’s strange how long a single lizard can keep our attention.
He’s on the outside of the porch screen, darting up and then down, stopping to breathe in his little lizardy way, and then racing up to the top of the screen, seemingly to grab a different spot of sun.
“How long do lizards live, do you think?” Vic says.
“A couple years, I’m pretty sure,” I say.
“I wonder if that’s the right idea.” Vic goes to press her face against the screen to get a better look at the little guy. “Spending your life going from place to place, sunning yourself along the way.”
“This is the sort of philosopher graduation turns you into, huh?” Because we’re done with school, technically. We’re caught in a strange appendix of time when everyone who’s not a senior is taking finals and we’re waiting for Friday night to walk across the stage in our goofy gowns. I have to say, I’m looking forward to it in a weird way, like I’m getting pre-sentimental about hearing “Pomp and Circumstance” played five hundred times.
I go to the kitchen to refill my orange juice, and when I return Victoria is still pressed against the screen, and I could start into a cheesy metaphor with her that we’d both laugh about: Vic, I think you’re already a lizard. You’ve lived around the whole perimeter of this country and you’ve probably sunned yourself from time to time. But instead, I put the orange juice on the table and I wrap my arms around her from behind.
“Hi,” she says.
She turns toward me and we are holding each other and that’s all we are doing. She leans her head on my shoulder and her breath collides with my neck. And I think a part of me will always want that in the same way I did last summer, but it doesn’t ache at me like it once did. We are making the possibilities wait for us. We are Florida and New York, an artist and a dancer. We are best friends and we are leaving. We aren’t stuck in beginnings anymore—we’re in the confusing, strange middle, and right now that has got to be the best place to be.
Acknowledgments
I’VE BEEN WRITING about Mercedes, Victoria, and Angela since I was a young teen. They’ve evolved from the characters they were in those early stories, but the heart of why I loved those girls at age thirteen has remained intact. It feels like both a beginning and an ending to be giving their story to you.
So, after many years writing about these characters, in stories I often kept to myself, let me tell you how strange it was to talk about them with an Actual Literary Agent, in a We Are Going to Sell This Book! kind of way. Yes, very strange. And wonderful. That agent is Victoria Marini, and I’m so lucky to be working with her. She’s strong and kind, wise and funny, a great advocate for my book and for the greatness of books in general. My thanks to her, and to the teams at Gelfman Schneider and Irene Goodman Literary Agency.
Victoria found my book a home at HarperTeen, where I began working with my editor Emilia Rhodes, a storybuilding genius who knew just the right questions to ask to make my book better. I’m so thankful for her guidance through this weird and wonderful publishing world. Thank you also to Alice Jerman, Michelle Taormina, Renée Cafiero, Valerie Shea, Gina Rizzo, and the rest of the Harper team.
The beta readers and critique partners who worked with me at various stages in the drafting and editing process have been invaluable. Thank you to Alexis Allen, Kara Bietz, Ashley Blake, Jenn Woodruff, Maryann Dabkowski, Natasha Garcia, Ashleigh Hally, Liz Lang, Dana Lee, Terra McVoy, Cathi O’Tyson, Margaret Robbins, and Ricki Schultz. A special mention to the ladies of my two fabulous writing groups, the DSDs and the WIHGs. I would never have written “the end” if not for you. Thank you for sharing chapters and conversation, despair and inspiration, and the sense that part of the answer to “why are we even doing this writing thing?” is to spend time together.
Joanna Farrow saved my plot half a dozen times. She’s brilliant, and I can’t wait for her own novels to be out in the world. Ash Parsons once told me to get out of my way, and a couple years later, I finally took her advice. Jocelyn McFarlane gave me a single word of inspiration in 2009 that eventually unspooled itself into this story. Adi Alsaid gifted this book with a gorgeous blurb. I am so thankful for all of these fine folks.
Going way back here: In the seventh grade, my friend Melanie Garrick Hill read every novel-ish thing I wrote, including some of the early Mercedes and Victoria stories. Whenever I needed a deadline or some fangirling, she was there.
Also, thanks to my high school English teachers: Jane Davis, Jim Wade, Don Perryman, and Ross Friedman. English class was always the challenging, comforting, bright spot of my school day.
I’ve got the best day job an author could ask for. Thanks to my ALTA family, particularly Annette and Rob, for the years of support, and the quiet place to write on Saturdays. Jenn Steele has shared either an office or a wall with me for years, and yet she still wants to take coffee walks with me and hear about the publishing world.
To everyone else in my various communities—the 2017 debuts, the 11/11 moms, the CPA trivia team, and the Atlanta YA crew—thank you, and I’m glad you’re in my life.
My sister Tricia and I spent years creating characters together, and Tricia, however kindly or recklessly, ceded them all to me. Our parents, John and Karen, encouraged our cottage industry of character-related stuff (posters! maps! board games!) and introduced us to books, art, and theater. Thank you for the love and support. Many thanks to the rest of my family—the Hopkinses, Karczes, Hotzes, Coppels, and DeVivos—with special mention to my grandparents the late Charles and Millie Hotze, for always encouraging me to keep writing.
To Adam and Gavin—thank you for loving me and loving books, and for always making me laugh.
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About the Author
Photo credit Vania Stoyanova / VLC Photo
LAUREN KARCZ is a linguist and project manager as well as a onetime Jeopardy! contestant. Lauren and her family live in Atlanta, Georgia. This is her first novel.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Books by Lauren Karcz
The Gallery of Unfinished Girls
Credits
Cover art and design by Michelle Taormina
Textile leaf image by shutterstock.com
Copyright
HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
THE GALLERY OF UNFINISHED GIRLS. Copyright © 2017 by Lauren Karcz. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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ISBN 978-0-06-246777-5 (trade bdg.)
EPub Edition © July 2017 ISBN 9780062467799
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