How to Be Brave

by E. Katherine Kottaras

  I look at Daniel and shrug, and he shakes his head.

  “Wait for me?” I mouth back to him.

  He nods in response.

  Everyone around me is laughing and whispering and oohing and aahing like they’re nine years old.

  Fuuuuuck.

  One more month.

  Twenty-nine more days.

  Just Get Through It, Georgia.

  You’re almost out of here.

  * * *

  Everyone packs up and leaves, and like last time, Marquez leads me out the door toward a bench, except this time it’s even colder than it was in December. I wrap my scarf around my mouth, but it doesn’t really help. My nostrils are freezing. My cheeks are freezing. My eyeballs are freezing.

  Marquez is just wearing a sweater, though.

  “Aren’t you afraid you’re going to get pneumonia or something?” I ask.

  “Cold like this is good for the blood,” he says, shaking his head. “Keeps us alive.”

  Okay, crazy guy.

  We sit there, watching the students scuttle away. Marquez stares off into space, not saying anything.

  My butt is starting to freeze now, too, and all I can think is that I wish I had a longer coat. That, and I wish I were at Ellie’s. Or then again, maybe not. I don’t know anymore. Ugh. What does Marquez want?

  “So … you wanted to talk to me?”

  Marquez turns to me. “You’re right. I did.” He smiles. “I never had children.”

  …

  “I sometimes wish I did.”

  …

  “I’m not going to say that if I could have had a child, she would have been like you, because that’s a strange thing to say—”

  …

  “But I will say this: She would have painted like you. She would have drawn like you. She would have had your hands.”

  Oh.

  “My sister owns this little coffee shop, over on the West Side, near the Ukrainian Village. She also hosts little gallery shows every month. I showed her your work.”

  Oh.

  “It’s kind of short notice, but she’d like to include you in a show coming up in May. You’d be showing with a couple of other artists. College students whose work is at a professional level. I think you should start thinking of yourself as a professional, too. You’re still raw, as you should be, but you’re good. But that means you’ll have to create more pieces. They want a bunch to pick from, and then they choose that night which ones to show.”

  I’m absolutely, utterly speechless.

  I’ve got nothing.

  No words. No vowels. No consonants.

  Nothing.

  I’m a dissolved liquid.

  I’m vapor.

  “There’s one problem,” Marquez says. “The show opening is the same night as prom, so you wouldn’t be able to go.”

  “Oh…” The words come out. “Like I could give a shit about that.”

  And Marquez busts out in a hysterical fit of coughs and laughter. “And she definitely would have had the same sass as you.”

  He shakes my hand and releases me into the afternoon.

  I’ve got to get to Ellie’s.

  Hopefully, I’m not too late.

  * * *

  I run down the street as fast as I can over the slippery slush piles. A little bell rings when I open the door to announce my entrance into an empty sandwich shop. Daniel’s not here. Whatever he had to say to me wasn’t important enough for him to wait ten minutes.

  Damn.

  “Are you the girl they call Georgia?” a voice calls from behind the register. A nerdy little guy, only slightly younger than me, gives me a big old grin.

  “Yeah, that’s me.”

  “You have been summoned here to meet with a certain Daniel A.?”

  “Indeed I have,” I say, playing along.

  “Well, he had to dash, unfortunately. But he directed me to deliver this to you.” Nerdy Guy reaches in his apron pocket and pulls out a note. Another little folded paper. I take it from his hand. “Mission accomplished. I can now go back to inspecting the fryer basket. Ah, the demands of the lowly employed.”

  “I can relate,” I offer, and then I say, “Thanks for this.”

  “Anytime, my princess!”

  I head outside and open the note:

  Sorry. Couldn’t stay. Emergency. Rain check?

  That’s it. No e-mail. No phone number. No inkling of a hint.

  Another rain check. We all know how the last one worked out.

  Like it matters.

  He’s with Liss now.

  He’s got her, and apparently, all of a sudden, I’ve got my art.

  I’ll take what I can get.

  * * *

  I can’t wait to tell Dad about the show. I take the warm, rattling train down to the restaurant. I stare out the window and imagine sitting across from him in the booth, telling him my news, his smile wide on his face. I bet he’ll say something in Greek, something I won’t understand, but I won’t need to understand it to know that he’s proud. I’ll be his kaló korítsi, his good girl, again.

  But when I get there, Dad is in the middle of a meeting with some guy in a suit.

  They’re huddled in a booth, very official-looking papers spread out before them. I slide into a booth two down from them. I take out my sketchbook but am distracted by trying to figure out what the meeting is about.

  It basically goes something like this: The Suit punches numbers into a very expensive laptop, then writes a number on a Post-it note and says something to my dad. My dad then peers over his reading glasses at the number. He shakes his head. It doesn’t look good. They repeat this process a few more times, until finally my dad and the Suit stand up and shake hands. The meeting is over.

  Dad sees me and waves.

  He walks the Suit to the door and they shake hands one more time.

  He comes over and sits down. “Georgia. I am glad you are here. We need to talk.” He takes a deep breath and then says this: “I have to close the restaurant.”

  Close the restaurant? What is he talking about?

  “That was Craig McIntire, our accountant. The news is not good. We finally are not making any profit at all. It’s been a very long time coming, but now I know for sure.”

  “Wait. What? Can’t we change up the place like Mom wanted?” I don’t understand. He’s just giving up so easily. “New booths? Coat of paint? Menu?”

  He shakes his head. “No money for that.”

  “What about a loan? Like small business or whatever? We could save it. I’ll be done with school in a few months. I could help.” I can’t just let him give up this place that’s been more of a home to me than our home. I swallow back tears, but I’m invigorated by Marquez’s faith in me. I could help redecorate the place. Make it superhip. Maybe make it an artists’ mecca. We could have coffee and scones and live music and shows, maybe like the one I’ll be showing at in a few weeks.

  “I already took out a loan a few years ago. Can’t do it again. Nothing to show for it.”

  Oh.

  “Well, what, then? What will you do?”

  “Remember your uncle Vassilis in California? You met him. He wants me to come there. He has a catering business in a city called Azusa, and he wants to expand. He needs my help.”

  “California?”

  He nods.

  He’s leaving Chicago for California? After thirty years in this city, he’s deciding to leave now?

  “I want you to come, of course. You could go to college out there. They have many good schools. You could even get a job with Vassilis to help pay your way.”

  I blink back tears, trying hard not to cry in front of my dad, trying hard to imagine this alternate future, one that is far away from the Midwest, far from the skyscrapers and tornado warnings and winter-tainted springs. Quite honestly, I don’t know what I want. I mean, this is what I want, right? I’m sick of being here, but then again, I never thought I’d actually leave.

  “Th
e sun is shining there now,” Dad says. “It is seventy-three degrees today.”

  “And smoggy,” I say. “I hear they can’t even go outside some days because of the pollution.”

  He responds in Greek: “H zoe einai san ena agouri. O enas to troei kai throsizete, kai o allos to troei kai zorizete.”

  “Dad. I have no idea what you’re saying.”

  “This is what I’m saying: Life is like a cucumber. One man eats it, and he is refreshed, while another man eats it, and he struggles.”

  I guess this is what I get for complaining about snowfall in April. My entire life reduced to a cucumber seed and then subsequently uprooted and replanted five thousand miles away.

  I don’t know what other choice I have. The world closes in on me. Static fills my ears.

  But finally, after a few empty moments, this is what I say: “I’ll think about it.”

  “Okay, then.”

  We sit in silence, both of us staring out the window at the pedestrians huddled in their layers, slipping and sliding across the icy sidewalk.

  He looks at me. “Now, you tell me some news.”

  This is the perfect moment to tell him about my day, about Marquez and the gallery show and my future as a professional artist.

  But I don’t.

  “I have homework.” I shrug. I can’t sit here anymore thinking about things that are out of my control, thinking about how everything is just so fucking far out of my control. “Big chemistry test in two days.”

  “Well then, you have work to do.” He stands up. He is about to turn around to go back to the register when he stops himself. He takes my chin in his hand and says this: “Eisai to ithio yia to mamasou. Oraio.”

  I understand this perfectly.

  You are the same as your mother.

  Beautiful.

  * * *

  When I get home, I google Azusa, California. I imagine sand and surf and palm trees swaying in the gentle breeze, with movie stars jogging by.

  Turns out that Azusa is a long, long way from the beach, and despite its romantic-sounding name, there’s not much there. First of all, the name itself is stupid. They’re not sure, but it might mean one of two things: everything from A to Z in the USA (ugh), or even worse, it might stem from an old Indian word meaning “skunk place.” It’s known for its brewery. It had a drive-in theater that closed in 2001. An “A” is etched into the nearby mountain. And … that’s it. Awesome.

  I log off and check my phone, hoping maybe Daniel somehow got my number from Liss and texted me or something.

  Nothing.

  I have one thing left. My art.

  I pull out my paints and dig in, working until 1:30 A.M., when I collapse on the bed.

  I dream of protons and electrons and palm trees and cucumbers.

  I dream in vivid color of new maps, new topographies.

  I’m surfing on ice.

  13

  Daniel’s desk is empty. It has been for over a week. He’s been absent in all his classes. Word on the street is his father’s sick, like really sick. I overheard a few kids in art class talking about him. Apparently, he lives here with his mom, but neither of his parents has a lot of money, and with his dad’s chronic illness, it might mean they won’t be able to afford college. He’s been working double shifts at Baskin-Robbins to try to save as much as he can. But now he had to fly out to Oregon because his dad is having some kind of heart procedure. And I have no way of contacting him. I have no way of telling him that I’ve been there, that I know what he’s going through.

  At the end of class, Marquez hands me a stack of postcards—announcements for the gallery show. They’re so official looking. On one side is this gorgeous piece that looks like an abstract cross section of human musculature. And on the other side is this:

  Shikaakwa Art Gallery and Coffee House presents

  Important Things

  Works from Georgia Askeridis, Elsa Baines, Roberta Fernando,

  and Elizabeth Revell revolve around the

  themes of creation, mutation, and destruction

  Contemporary art in all media

  Opening Reception: Friday, May 20, 8:00–11:00 P.M.

  Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing.

  Making your unknown known is the important thing.

  —Georgia O’Keeffe

  There it is, my name, first in the list, with many thanks to the creator of alphabetical order.

  Okay, enough glass-half-empty bullshit.

  This is really happening.

  I feel like calling someone, but the only person who comes to mind is my mom. Well, and Liss, of course.

  I could give her a card, invite her. And tell her to bring Daniel, too.

  Except that prom is that night.

  Either way, I want her to know that I did it.

  I completed #6.

  She should know.

  I think of Daniel’s note. I pull out a Sharpie and write in the corner of one of the postcards: “#6. Check.”

  I head to my locker for the first time in months. Liss is at her locker, talking to Avery. I open mine and pretend to shuffle my things around. I wait for them to finish up. After they leave, I run over and slide the card into the slots in her locker.

  There.

  A peace offering.

  It’s the most important thing I could do right now.

  * * *

  Dad is very excited about the show. Like, I’m kicking myself for not telling him about it last week. I haven’t seen him this happy in a year, maybe.

  “I will close the restaurant that night,” he announces.

  “Dad, you can’t close the restaurant. I mean, you’ve never closed the restaurant.”

  “Eh, why not? We’re going to close for good in a few months. What’s another night?” He places his hand on my cheek. “Anyway, koúkla mou, there is no other place I would rather be.”

  He plants a kiss on the top of my head. “You are my important thing.”

  * * *

  The next day, in the middle of chem lab, I get a text from Liss: Congratulations.

  Huh. So, she’s talking to me.

  I tell Zittel I need to go to the bathroom, and when I get there, I duck into a stall and text back: Thanks. You okay?

  A minute later, I get: Yes. Thanks. Hope ur good.

  Okay.

  I go for it: Is everything okay with Daniel’s dad? I heard the news. I hope he gets better. And I only wish the best for you guys.

  There. I said it.

  It’s a start, I guess. An exchange of words. The first in four months.

  Then nothing, for like six minutes.

  I’m sitting on the cold porcelain sink in this cold, dank bathroom waiting for the response that could bring me back my best and only friend. Ninety-nine percent chance Zittel’s going to ask if “everything came out okay.” I don’t care. I’ll stay here until the end of the period if it means a 1 percent chance of reconciling with Liss.

  Then: Not sure yet. It doesn’t look good. Thanks though. Congratulations again. Bye.

  And that’s it.

  When I open the door to the chem lab, Zittel looks at me and asks, in front of everyone, “Did you fall in?”

  Well, I took the risk and tried my chances, and regardless of the actual statistical outcome, I most definitely lost.

  * * *

  I spend every day after school working on my stuff. I have to bring it all to school three days before the show so that Marquez can drive it over to the gallery, where his sister is going to work on putting it up.

  I’ve stopped sleeping, both because I’m hungry to create more pieces and because I’m a nervous wreck. I’m just too excited for the show.

  Everyone else at school is too excited for prom. All I hear all week is “prom this” and “prom that” and “Oh, my dress is so freaking awesome” and “Oh, I still gotta rent my tux” and on and on and on. All I can think is, I still have three more pieces to finish. I like mine bet
ter.

  On the big day, half the senior class is absent, particularly the girls. Liss is among the absent ones. I imagine her at some beauty salon getting all dolled up, her normally wild hair being shellacked and coiffed with gel and spray. I imagine her in sequins and high heels. I imagine her next to Daniel in a black tux, their arms intertwined, posing for the school photographer, her hip jutting out, her chin slightly tilted. Ugh. It’s just such a pretty image, the two of them together.

  I walk into the mostly empty art room (just me and three other losers), and Marquez smiles at me. “Big night tonight!” I’m surprised he doesn’t comment on the fact that on the one day I’m allowed to cut class, I actually show up. But I can see that he’s not in a sarcastic mood today. He’s genuinely excited for me.

  I nod and head to my desk. I really have nothing to do. I’m too nervous to do anything. I have one more test left in chemistry next week (I got a C+ on my last exam! Woot woot!), and with ten days left before the end of the year, Marquez has abandoned any hint of a lesson plan for a few weeks. I think about leaving. Maybe going home and taking a nap.

  Then, Daniel walks in. It’s his first day back in weeks. I haven’t heard any news about his dad, but from the dark circles under his eyes, I can see that he’s been through hell.

  He sees me and smiles. He heads in my direction, pulls up an empty chair, and sits down next to me. “I was hoping you’d be here.”

  The familiar hollowness at the core of my being immediately returns.

  “First of all, congratulations on your big show tonight.”

  “Thanks. But is your dad okay?”

  “Oh, well.” He stops. “Yes. And no. He had an issue with his heart and needed a valve repair.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. My mom had heart problems, too.…”

  “Yeah? It’s rough, right? I mean, he’s just really tired all the time.”

  “It gets better,” I say. I don’t say, And then it gets worse. I’ve already said it once. I don’t need to say it again.

  And maybe it will be different for them.

  He nods. He knows what I mean. “He’s okay now, but his only hope is a kidney transplant. He’s on a list.” So was my mom. “The good thing is I think it’s been a real wake-up call for him. I mean, mostly.” Not like my mom. “I stayed for a while to help him settle in at home. I came back for the last few weeks—prom and graduation and all that—and then I’m going back for the summer.”