Many Points of Me

by Caroline Gertler

  We all look at it together. Under the fluorescent lights of the art studio, the black glows brighter than at home, and the multicolored points of the asterism seem to twinkle, like real stars.

  Theo gives my arm a squeeze.

  In the silence of us looking, I notice another sound. The steady rhythm of rain on the windows. The skies have let loose. It makes it even cozier, safer inside the studio.

  “You nailed it here.” Mr. B nods. “This one, this is awesome. It’s too late for NYC ART, but that doesn’t matter. It’s only a competition. Still, I’m disappointed that I used one of our entries on you, Georgia, when there might’ve been other deserving artists in our class. And, Theo, this could be grounds for me to notify the judges and disqualify you—”

  He sees the horrified looks on our faces, and he softens. “But I won’t. I think you’ve learned enough of a lesson on your own.”

  I nod, grateful that Theo won’t lose his chance to get in to NYC ART, but I wonder what lesson, if any, I’ve learned. That art competitions don’t matter all that much? That you risk losing everything when you take a drawing that doesn’t belong to you? Or that it’s worth the risk, when you end up proving that your dad would’ve painted you, if he could’ve?

  Maybe all I’ve learned is that the points of me don’t always connect, but at least there’s a glimmer of something—a vision of who I can become. With Theo, and Harper. With Mom, and with Dad. Our orbits are falling back into place, and I’ve found my own center, with my own gravitational pull.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Eight

  Over a month later, at the end of March, spring is here, and green is starting to bud around the city.

  Harper announces that she wants to organize another charity card sale and asks me to make designs again. I’m looking forward to it this time. I know I can do it.

  I sit with Harper and the Mermaids at lunch. And Theo’s with us, too, now. He’s also found his place, and realizes it’s not so bad to have a little more sun on us.

  There’s another super moon. The Worm Moon. It’s called that because it marks the start of spring, when the earthworms emerge. Spring, the official time of new beginnings.

  The day of the Full Worm Moon, the winners of NYC ART are announced.

  Theo beams with happiness when Mr. Butterweit tells him that his Theo-Dare self-portrait has gotten in: one of ten selected out of all the New York City sixth-graders who entered the competition.

  I, of course, am neither winner nor loser. I feel happiness for Theo’s success, a twinge of sadness for myself, and a strong ray of hope. Hope that I can find my way forward.

  To celebrate, Theo and I go to Golden Leaf Stationers for new art supplies.

  Fareed smiles to see us there together again. I haven’t been there since I bought the supplies for my lunar dust portrait. “Your mom settled the account,” he whispers to me while Theo goes to town filling a shopping basket. “Anything else you need today?”

  Theo’s rich with the thousand-dollar reward to use, and so he treats me to a new set of tempera paints and three pads of watercolor sketch paper. Plus, surprise, my own lucky eraser, but in the shape of a dog.

  There’s nothing else I need for now, but I tell Fareed about the opening of the Hank Rosenbloom exhibition and invite him to come.

  Evelyn Capstone was beside herself when I explained the whole situation to her. Actually, Mom and me. We met for lunch in the Petrie Sculpture Court. I told Evelyn what happened with G, age 10—what I discovered, what Theo did, and why I needed to get it back. She checked the backs of the canvases, and they all have the charcoal marks that correspond to the points on the drawings.

  Now the asterism drawings are at the Met, where they’ll be framed to hang in the Hank Rosenbloom exhibition. Along with G in Blue, the triangle portrait of me. It’s weird that portraits of me are going to be hanging in the Met. Upstairs, in a real exhibition gallery. Not downstairs, in the education center, with all the student winners of NYC ART.

  Before we know it, it’s April, and time for the opening of both exhibitions.

  NYC ART comes first. Mr. B and Mom and I are there, with Harriet, to help Theo celebrate on opening night. We even sneak in Krypto, in his tiny mesh carrier bag. Theo’s entry looks amazing on the wall of the Met. And original: the only winning entry that’s in comic form. Theo beams with pride, and I have just the tiniest pinch of jealousy that my work’s not up there with his. But no one mentions anything about me—it’s Theo’s night, not mine.

  The night of the opening of Dad’s show, I realize that I feel different walking into the Met than I did the last few times I was there: at one with myself, in a way I wasn’t before.

  Which is good, because tonight, Mom and I are sort of the stars of the show. And Dad, of course, too. There’s a giant banner hanging outside the building with the image of Sally in the Stars blown up and the name of the exhibition in large, bold letters: Hank Rosenbloom: Artist and Man.

  And I think how he was—is—both.

  Evelyn Capstone and Jenna are there. Along with Mr. B and Fareed. And Mrs. Velandry, supported by Theo and Harriet. Harper and her parents come as contributors to the exhibition, and also, as friends.

  It’s like a giant party to celebrate us. Our family.

  A true memorial for Dad. Here we are, keeping him alive, in the present.

  Journalists from all the big newspapers and art journals come to cover the opening: the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, ARTNews. They want to take pictures of Mom and me posing together at the entrance of the show. There’s a big empty hole next to me, on my other side, where Dad should be, where I’ll always feel him missing. I shiver.

  Then we turn around to walk into the first room, and it’s like he’s here with us. I smile at Mom, and she squeezes my hand.

  The first gallery is about Dad’s early years, from elementary school, when his artistic talent first started to get recognized by his art teacher, to his college days, when he turned away from art, to advertising. To after college, when he was miserable working a desk job at an ad agency, and spent his nights painting.

  Each room that follows shows the next decade of his life, his work, his career. In his forties, Mom and I come into the picture. Mom first, of course, but not by much. I was born four months after they were married.

  We go from that room (which has walls painted in a bright white, G in Blue glowing to great effect), when Dad was reaching the height of his career and his personal life, into the dimness of what I know is the last, small room. The one just before the gift shop. The one where the asterism paintings and sketches hang.

  It takes a second for my eyes to adjust. It’s almost like a shrine in here, how Dad wanted it to be. The lights are low, the walls painted an ice blue.

  The paintings pop against the light background, and I block out the murmurs of the people around me and let myself get absorbed in the canvases. Those paintings, hanging all together, for now.

  And then, there are the drawings. The asterism sketches. Each one is in a freestanding, double-sided case, so you can see the front and back of the paper. How Dad drew an image and then sketched the points of the asterism on the back.

  I read the label for G, age 10: “Rosenbloom’s portrait of his daughter, Georgia, when she was ten years old, comes from one of his personal portfolios solely devoted to drawings of Georgia, from the time she was a baby until she was ten, just before he died.

  “In this portrait of Georgia, we see her reading in a chair at home, eyes looking down, unaware of being drawn by her father.

  “On the reverse, we see the pencil points, ten in total, perhaps one for each year of Georgia’s life, that indicate that Rosenbloom intended to use this drawing as the model for his last asterism painting, which he never made.”

  I look at the three other asterism sketches: Mom, Dad, the bird.

  But then, near the exit, my eyes widen in surprise. There’s another framed image on the wall. A self-portrait. />
  My self-portrait. Georgia in Orbit.

  Even I have to admit that it looks beautiful.

  Mom had told me she was going to have it framed, but I had no idea she was putting it up in Dad’s exhibition.

  At the Met, no less.

  It looks perfect.

  Through the tears in my eyes, I read the label: “Rosenbloom died before he could paint the last asterism. Over the years, there’s been speculation as to what the subject might’ve been. Recently, with the recovery of the drawing G, age 10 and the recognition of the asterism points on the back by Georgia Rosenbloom, it was determined that she would’ve been the subject of the last asterism.

  “Here is Georgia’s own interpretation: a self-portrait drawn freehand in graphite. For the background, she used the same black paints that Rosenbloom used for his asterism paintings. The placement and number (twelve) and colors of the asterism points, done in tempera paint on tracing paper, laid onto the panel, are entirely her own.”

  “Wow,” Theo says, coming up next to me. “That’s yours, isn’t it?” He looks from me to the portrait and back again.

  “Yes,” I say. “It’s mine.”

  And ours.

  Acknowledgments

  There are many people to whom I give my thanks. First, my agent, Sara Crowe, for her belief in me and in Georgia, and to Pippin Properties. To my editor, Martha Mihalick, and the Greenwillow/HarperCollins team for bringing this book into the world with such care. And to Vesper Stamper, for her stunning art.

  I was fortunate to learn about the world of children’s book publishing from two talented and generous mentors, Christy Ottaviano and Wendy Lamb. Over many years of work and study, my writing grew from the feedback of teachers and guides at various stages: Mary Gordon, Uma Krishnaswami, Amy Hest, Sarah Aronson, Rebecca Petruck, Lisa Cron, and Julie Scheina. Sarah Mlynowski took me under her wing to show me what discipline means for a working writer. I’m not sure that I would’ve stuck to it without Julie Sternberg, Alyssa Sheinmel, and Jacqueline Resnick.

  Tremendous thanks to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I have the privilege of presenting world-class art to the public and the friendship of my colleagues at the Volunteer Organization. Also, great appreciation for the New York Society Library, which provided me with a writing home for hours of work.

  I’m grateful to my parents for supporting my childhood dream: my mother nourished my love of reading, and she taught me how to write by editing my work. My father read to me every night, and gave me the joy of “publishing” my first book.

  Deepest thanks to my grandmothers and role models, Lola Finkelstein and the late Lillian Meckler; I hope their strength lives on in me. And to all the friends and family who’ve cheered and encouraged me.

  Above all, never-ending love and gratitude for my chosen family: Jamie, who supports and stands by me; Dash, in his Shih Tzu glory; and Julia and Elizabeth, ideal readers, daughters of my dreams.

  About the Author

  CAROLINE GERTLER has an MA in art history, and gives tours of Old Master paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She is a former children’s book editor, and Many Points of Me is her first novel. Caroline Gertler lives with her family in New York City.

  www.carolinegertler.com

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  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used to advance the fictional narrative. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  MANY POINTS OF ME. Text copyright © 2021 by Caroline Gertler. Illustrations copyright © 2021 by Vesper Stamper. 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.

  www.harpercollinschildrens.com

  Cover art © 2021 by Vesper Stamper

  Cover design by Sylvie Le Floc’h

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020949360

  Digital Edition JANUARY 2021 ISBN: 978-0-06-302702-2

  Print ISBN: 978-0-06-302700-8 (hardcover)

  FIRST EDITION

  2122232425PC/LSCH10987654321

  Greenwillow Books

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