Many Points of Me

by Caroline Gertler

  Dedication

  For Jamie, Julia,

  and Elizabeth—my life;

  and for my parents, where it began

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter

  One

  Here’s the thing about when your dad was a famous artist: he still lives. He still is. Because Mom is an art historian, I’ve always known that we talk about artists in the present tense. Even artists like Vermeer and Velazquez and Michelangelo, who died hundreds of years ago.

  That’s a good thing, and a bad thing. A good thing, because we still talk about Dad all the time. That’s also why it’s a bad thing: it’s like we don’t have to believe that he’s actually gone.

  And just like Dad still is, I’m beginning to think that Theo Goodwin was. Was my best friend.

  It’s a cold, gray Sunday afternoon, late in January, and Theo and I are doing what we always do at the end of the weekend: drawing.

  I’m sitting where I’ve sat a million times before, on the floor of Theo’s room. Propped up in exactly the most comfortable position against the edge of his bed.

  I know this room like the back of my hand. Where the wooden floorboards creak. Which threads hang loose in the navy blue rug. How to angle my knees to hold up my sketch pad.

  Theo and I’ve been best friends all eleven years of our lives. We were born that way. Our moms have known each other since before they were pregnant with us—they’re professors at the same college, we live in the same apartment building on the Upper West Side, and our birthdays are two days apart. Being best friends with Theo was hardly a choice.

  I skim my pencil over the paper without looking down to see what I’m making. It’s called automatic drawing. The idea is to let your subconscious express itself.

  Theo’s drawing is the opposite of automatic. He sits in the swivel chair at his desk, hunched over his sketch pad in concentration. He’s 100 percent focused as he tells the latest adventure of Theo-Dare. His comic book alter ego.

  Where real Theo’s hair color is rusty copper—also known as red—Theo-Dare’s hair is mahogany. Real Theo wears wire-framed glasses and has a knack for peeling oranges in one piece. Theo-Dare has X-ray vision and can scale walls. Real Theo has a pet lizard; Theo-Dare has a trusty dragon sidekick. Real Theo gets sulky quiet when he’s angry. Theo-Dare takes action.

  Right now real Theo is speaking a mile a minute: “So then the alarm goes off, and security comes running. And you can’t even believe how many security guards there are. They’re everywhere. So Theo-Dare runs up to the roof, but there’s nowhere to go. The gap between the buildings is too wide to jump.”

  Theo opens his arms to show me how wide.

  “He’s standing on the precipice, contemplating the fall to the pavement five stories below. And you’re thinking, how’s he going to get himself out of this situation?”

  Theo turns back to his drawing. The swishing noise of the pencil gets stronger as he shades with the pencil edge. He tweaks some lines with his lucky eraser. It’s lucky because it was a gift from me for our ninth birthdays. It’s shaped like a paint palette, with little circles of color. I saw it at the gift shop at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and knew I had to get it for Theo. He’s careful to use only one side to make it last as long as possible.

  “Suddenly, a soft buzzing noise grows louder and louder. He swats at the air, thinking it’s a mosquito. But it sounds more mechanical than that. He looks up. It’s a bird, it’s a plane . . . it’s Super G! Zooming in on her new stealth drone.” Theo draws three strong pencil lines, emphasizing the drama.

  Super G. That’s me—Georgia. A few stories ago, Theo decided Theo-Dare couldn’t go it alone. He needed a partner in crime. That’s where Super G comes in.

  Real Georgia is paper white with shoulder-length black hair. Super G has rosy, sharp cheeks and a flowing, glossy mane. Real Georgia tries to make herself disappear. Super G stands tall and proud, ready to take on the world.

  Real Georgia is starting to wonder how she feels about her best friend.

  Super G is loyal to a fault.

  As Theo describes Super G hitching Theo-Dare to a harness and airlifting him with her drone, I look down at the automatic drawing on my sketch pad page.

  It’s nothing. Not even a flower, or hearts, or geometric shapes—the things I’d normally doodle in my notebooks during school. Just a mess of lines. A spiral that turns and turns in on itself until it’s an angry tangle.

  Ever since Dad died one year, nine months, and twenty-seven days ago, I haven’t been able to draw. Not in the way I want to.

  Sure, I can do a pretty good copy of an object if you set it in front of me. Like flowers in a vase, or a stack of books on a shelf. That’s called figurative art—images that look like something in the real world.

  The kind of art I want to make—the kind of art Dad made—is abstract. Art that shows feeling through form, color, and texture. Shapes that float on backgrounds of color, splatters and drips, lines made with a straight edge. Direct expressions of feeling is how Dad explained it. I used to think I knew what that meant.

  “So that’s cool, right, G?” Theo asks, swiveling away from his desk toward me.

  I missed it. “You mean the drone?”

  “Yeah, don’t you like the idea of it being solar powered? So in the story, it’s nighttime and they’re running low on energy?”

  “Sure.” I turn back to my paper, to see if my drawing can be made into anything more than a mess of spirals.

  Because a mess of spirals is not what abstract art is about. Some people think that any little kid could make a Jackson Pollock painting—as simple as flinging paint onto a canvas. But a real artist knows it’s not that easy. For one thing, it’s about being the original person to come up with the idea and the technique. For another, it’s about having a feeling. Something important that you want to share with the world. Like how Theo can lead a whole alternate life in his Theo-Dare comics.

  “Just a sec.” Theo jumps up from his chair. “Bathroom break.”

  I run through ideas of what I could turn my automatic drawing into: A squally ocean. A sinister forest. Or—it’s late in the day and my stomach is rumbling with hunger—something sweet, like chocolate cake.

  A birthday cake. Our twelfth birthdays are in less than a month. Theo and I have always celebrated together. On February twenty-first, the day between our birthdays. Our moms started the tradition of having a special dinner at home and a cake that we bake.

  I glance at the photograph that Theo keeps on his bedside table. It’s in a red frame with a sign in loopy blue cursive that says, “My First Birthday.” A bunch of balloons in primary colors decorate the fram
e’s corners. I wonder why Theo’s mom framed that photograph for him and my mom didn’t frame it for me.

  In it, we’re sitting side by side on the floor of my kitchen, birthday cakes before us, our chubby thighs and belly rolls spilling out of diapers. We’re each reaching for the other one’s cake, smashing into it. Chocolate frosting smeared everywhere.

  I pick up the frame and study the picture more closely because something catches my eye: the toe of a boot in the corner. Not just any toe of any boot, but Dad’s toe—the brown leather work boots he always wore. I’ve never noticed, because the brown leather blends in with the brown of the floor.

  Now that I do notice, all I want is to keep that piece of Dad for myself.

  I could ask for a copy of the photograph, but I don’t just want my own copy—I also don’t want Theo to have it. That tiny piece of Dad.

  Theo already has more of Dad than I do: a drawing that Dad gave to him. Theo and I used to draw with Dad after school. Sometimes we’d play art games, like when Theo challenged Dad to draw a self-portrait in forty-five seconds. Dad did it, in this style that’s between figurative and abstract. He doodled a bit on the back while Theo and I finished our drawings. And then later, before Theo went home for dinner, he handed it to Theo. “A gift for you,” he’d said. My eyes narrowed as Theo pressed the paper to his chest like it was a map for buried treasure. Which it was, in a way.

  Because even though Dad and I made art together all the time, and his drawings and sketches were scattered all over our apartment, and I could’ve kept any one of them for myself, it wasn’t the same as him handing that drawing to Theo. Choosing to give it to him. He never made a drawing like that for me.

  The one time I told Mom how jealous I was of Theo being so close to Dad, she said I needed to be more sympathetic. Theo never had a father—he bailed before Theo was born, leaving behind only Theo’s red hair.

  But right now, I don’t feel any sympathy. Only jealousy, burning in my chest like I’ve just done the mile run in zero-degree weather.

  I could steal the photograph, but Theo might realize it was missing. Or—

  I grab a pair of scissors from Theo’s desk.

  My heart pounds as I slide the photograph from the frame, cut out the corner of the picture with Dad’s toe in it, and put the photograph back.

  I slip the corner into my pocket. Just that tiny piece.

  That one piece of Dad.

  The sole living thing that witnessed what I did is Krypto, Theo’s pet bearded dragon. He’s pressed against the glass of his tank, his neck puffed up. Theo says that’s a sign of aggression in lizards.

  “Sorry, Krypto.” I turn to the tank, pretending I just got up from the floor to talk to him, as Theo’s footsteps approach.

  I won’t apologize to Theo; he’ll never know what’s missing. Krypto won’t tell him.

  “Aw, isn’t Krypto sweet?” Theo crouches down next to me. I can’t see his eyes through the glare off his glasses, but I can picture his devoted expression. “Hey, little guy.” He shifts the mesh cover and reaches in to give Krypto a few gentle strokes.

  I don’t get his fondness for Krypto. When Theo said he was getting a pet for his seventh birthday, I’d hoped for a pet with fur. A dog or a cat. Even a hamster or a guinea pig. But a visit to the doctor confirmed that Theo’s allergic, and his mom has a thing about rodents, so it had to be a reptile. Which Theo was kind of psyched about, because it’s more original than all those other pets anyway. And he named him Krypto, for Superman’s dog, which we thought was so cool when we were seven.

  The first time I held Krypto, his softness surprised me. He even seems to like me. Sometimes we play a game where we put him on the floor in the middle of Theo’s room, and Krypto chooses me almost every single time. No idea why. It’s not like I’m the one who feeds him. I can’t even watch Theo feeding him—live crickets. The highlight of Theo’s week.

  Theo secures Krypto’s tank cover and goes back to his desk chair. “So. Where were we?”

  I’ve completely lost the thread, but I know Theo’s testing to make sure I was paying attention. I make my best guess. “The drone, right?”

  “You betcha.” He returns to his drawing. “Super G swoops in on her solar-powered stealth drone and saves the day.”

  If only Theo knew how far real Georgia is from saving the day.

  It’s almost the opposite: Theo’s creating yet another brilliant comic book, and all I’ve got is a scribble on my sketch pad and the corner of a photograph in my pocket.

  Theo never draws a messy tangle of spirals by accident. Even his doodles are like masterpieces.

  Like my dad. Hank Rosenbloom, the great artist. Sometimes I wonder if Theo and I were accidentally switched at birth in the hospital. He’s the child my dad should’ve had.

  And that much becomes even clearer to me over dinner that night.

  Chapter

  Two

  The four of us sit in our usual seats at the long wooden table, open cartons of Chinese food dotted among us. Me and Mom, Theo and his mom, Harriet. We missed our usual pizza-and-movie Saturday night because Harriet had a date with the visiting professor in her economics department, so we’re making it up with Chinese takeout Sunday night instead.

  The table is in our living room, which doubled as Dad’s studio. The walls, once covered with Dad’s paintings, are mostly bare. His paintings are in storage. All that’s left are hooks and wires where they used to hang. And the dried pools and drips of paint on the worn wooden table, which was Dad’s drafting table. I trace the paint drips and study them for patterns; I count the colors to see which Dad used the most. Blues, blacks, browns, whites. A hidden message, maybe. But as much as I look for meaning, the paint drips are random.

  Mom fills us in on the exhibition she’s curating about Dad at the Met. It’s scheduled to open in April, the two-year anniversary of his death.

  Mom’s job as an art history professor at Columbia keeps her super busy at all hours: preparing seminar notes, doing research, and marking papers and exams. And now she spends whatever free time she did have as the executor of Dad’s estate. Executor means that Mom is in charge of Dad’s art. She works with all sorts of art world people—museum curators, gallery owners, art dealers, and collectors. She sells paintings when we need money.

  “We’ve settled on a title.” She dabs a paper napkin at the brown sauce in the corner of her mouth. “Hank Rosenbloom: Artist and Man. You like that?”

  I’m not sure if I do. It’s a retrospective exhibition, which means it’s a look back at Dad’s career and his personal life. If it were up to me, it’d be called something like Hank Rosenbloom: Dad Who I Miss More Than Anything. But that wouldn’t work for anyone else. So I sip my Sprite—a takeout-night treat—and keep quiet.

  “Sounds cool,” Theo says, accidentally spitting a grain of rice across the table toward my plate. I swipe it up with my napkin.

  “Thanks.” Mom smiles at Theo, not bothered, or even noticing, that he talks with food in his mouth. But if she catches one glimpse of me with my mouth open and a speck of food in there, I’d get a whole lecture on the dangers of choking.

  “It’ll be like a grand memorial service for Hank,” Harriet says as she makes another moo-shu wrap. “The next best thing to having him here with us.”

  Mom closes her eyes as if she’s summoning Dad’s presence to join us. If he were here, he’d be sitting in his usual chair at the head of the table, with the biggest, most overstuffed moo-shu wrap of us all. He’d mainly try to get shredded chicken bits, which worked for Mom, who prefers the vegetables. I always got to fill my wrap first so I could have an even mix of everything.

  The truth is, there isn’t a next-best thing to Dad being here. He can’t be replaced with his art, even if that’s what people do—especially Mom. It’s like she throws herself into her work on Dad and the exhibit—doing research on paintings, deciding which ones to include, writing catalogue entries—so she can forget that he’s actuall
y gone.

  Mom opens her eyes and looks straight at Theo. Not at me. Him.

  “Theo, I’ve been meaning to ask you something. We’re about to go to print with the exhibition catalogue, and we have a few spare pages. I was brainstorming ideas with Evelyn Capstone, the curator in charge. We thought it could be special to include a Q&A with you—you could tell the story in your own words about how you inspired Hank’s asterism series.”

  I can’t even believe what I’m hearing. Part of me thinks Mom can’t be serious about including a Q&A with Theo Goodwin in the catalogue of my dad’s exhibition.

  What about a Q&A with me—about what it was like to be Hank’s daughter? Isn’t that more important than Theo’s claim to be the inspiration for his greatest paintings?

  Mom catches the expression on my face, because then she turns to me. “You, too, Georgia. You and Theo could do the Q&A together.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks.” There’s no way I’m going to play tagalong to Theo’s moment of glory. Theo gives me a curious look.

  “As you wish,” Mom says. A joke between us—that she’s the Westley to my Princess Buttercup from The Princess Bride, one of our favorite movies. It usually makes me crack a smile, but not tonight.

  After dinner, they do what Mom calls “prep” for the Q&A. A conversation to discuss ideas that will go into the real thing, which has to be done next week, to make it into the catalogue in time. Mom and Theo and Harriet sit on the couch in the living room, Mom’s phone between them to record their conversation.

  I say I have homework and go to my room. But I leave my bedroom door cracked open, then tiptoe out to stand at the exact spot in the hallway where they can’t see me and I can hear them. I settle in to listen, leaning my head and shoulder into the wall.

  “Where should we start?” Mom asks in her Mom-teacher voice. A younger version of how she talks to her college students. The way she used to talk to me when she tried to help me with math in lower school. Before she laughed it off and said sixth-grade math was way too complicated for her. “Tell me what you remember.”

  Without even seeing Theo’s face, I know he’s giving his saintly look: his mouth wide, the glimmer in his eyes, the glow of his skin beneath his copper freckles. The look that shows his pure goodness as a person, how he’s always there for me. The look that, lately, makes me feel guilty, somehow. Of what, I don’t know.