My tears came like a flash flood, sudden and fierce and draining. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cried. But there I was, in the basement of his uncle’s bar, bawling like someone had died. What was wrong with me?
Joey reeled back, his hands in the air like he’d been caught stealing. And as suddenly as my tears had come, they stopped. I sat there on the futon with my arms crossed over my naked chest, staring at the cement floor. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “I don’t know why I’m crying.”
Joey looked around like he was searching for an escape route, his eyes landing on my bright red bra. “Here.” He snatched it up and tossed it into my lap. “I’ll take you home.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Then what? You want me to call a cab?”
I shook my head.
“Then what’s with you?” He sat on the futon a good two feet away and rubbed his forehead like I was giving him a headache. “I like you, Tera, but I can’t handle this mental shit.”
He liked me—he’d said it himself. And here I was screwing it up. What could I do to make him stay? Should I scoot next to him? Pick up his hand and put it on my breast? But I couldn’t bring myself to do anything except sit there with my head down. Afraid to look at him.
Joey watched me while he rubbed his eyes. I could see his patience wearing thin.
“It’s just . . .” My fingers dug into my arms. “I’ve never done this before.”
“Yeah, I kind of got that.”
“And it’s stupid, I know, but . . .” I stared at the bra in my lap. Why did I pick red, of all colors? Red was for confident girls.
“But what?”
Good question. My mind whirled as I turned to slip my arms into the bra straps. Why would I suddenly burst into tears when I wanted him so badly? Then it came to me—what I could say. Something that might make sense to him.
“I promised myself I’d wait,” I said. “Until I turn eighteen. My birthday’s so close. Next Sunday. So to get this close and screw it up . . .”
As I blurted all this out, I almost believed it. When I turned eighteen, I’d be a grownup—at least technically—and maybe that would make a difference.
Silence. I fumbled with my bra clasp. Maybe he’d reach out and help me.
“You could have just said that.”
“I know.” I finally got my bra fastened and turned to face him. My sweater was in his hands. He held it out to me.
Another long silence as I pulled it over my head. All the sweaters I’d tried on, and I’d chosen this one because it hugged my chest. Stupid.
“You ready?” he asked.
To go home, he meant. My sweater was on, so I guess I was. I stood.
At least he didn’t seem mad anymore. I stole a look at his face. Eyes narrowed, mouth a straight line. Did he still like me? Even a little?
My legs wobbled as I followed him up the dark stairwell, and not because I was drunk. When we surfaced into the bar, I kept my eyes on Joey’s back, afraid to wave goodbye to his uncle, afraid to catch a glimpse of his dad. Surely everyone in the bar was staring.
Outside, I lowered my head against the cold as I followed him to the car. If only I could rewind the night. We could be resting on the futon, my head on his chest. He could be stroking my hair. We could be laughing.
The song on his stereo picked up where it left off when I was still happy. He turned the sound down with an impatient flick of his fingers. I was about to apologize again, anything to break the awkward silence. But then he twisted in his seat to look at me, his eyebrows raised.
“So you want to try this again?”
My heart jumped. Did he want to go back inside? Have sex in the car? Did it matter? I knew my answer should be “yes” before he changed his mind.
“What I meant was . . .” He shook a cigarette from his pack and lit it. “We could go out for your birthday. Unless you have other plans.”
I struggled to sound casual so I didn’t look too eager. “Nothing definite,” I said.
Which was a joke. With Dad in jail, I had no plans for my birthday. Mom’s birthday duty started and ended with making a cake, and I’d be lucky if she remembered even that. Dad was the one who tried to make things special. When I was little, he took me to Chuck E. Cheese’s. And when I got older, we’d get pizza delivered and eat it in front of the television with Mom’s cake waiting for us on the coffee table. Up until a few years ago, I had this ritual where I’d paint a watercolor of the day so I’d always remember it. I kept the paintings in a special scrapbook decorated with ribbon to make it look like a present. Sometimes I took it out and looked at it.
Joey tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “So your birthday’s on Sunday, right? I’m trying to remember if I work that day.”
I knew for a fact he didn’t, but I wasn’t about to tell him I’d memorized his schedule. I held my breath, watching him rub the stubble on his chin.
“I’ll switch with Cam if I have to,” he said. “Are you up for that? For going out on your birthday?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Sure.”
“We’ll go somewhere nice for dinner. Somewhere special.”
Tears welled up, but I froze them in place. I didn’t realize, until that moment, how afraid I’d been to spend my birthday alone.
• • •
Mom was sitting on the couch when I got home. Not watching TV, not reading, just sitting there. Her pills sat on the coffee table next to a glass of water.
She blinked when I came in, like I’d woken her from a trance.
“Hey,” I said.
“You’re home early. What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“It didn’t go well?”
“It went fine. We’re—” She cut me off before I could tell her how I’d be going out with Joey on my birthday.
“Something came in the mail for you.” She slid a white envelope the size of a magazine off the coffee table and handed it to me.
At first, I thought it was from Dad. But if Dad had sent me anything, she would have thrown it away. When I turned the envelope over, I saw where it came from. The Paris Art Institute. I thought maybe they’d answered my request for a scholarship deferral, but their website said they’d reply by e-mail.
“I thought you might want to see it,” Mom said. “Even though you’re not going.”
I glanced at her face. She didn’t look smug, like I expected. She looked hopeful. Maybe she thought seeing mail from the art institute would make me change my mind about paying for my dad’s lawyer. Didn’t she know it was too late for that?
“Thanks.” I made sure to keep my face neutral. I didn’t want her to see how it hurt me not to be going this fall.
“Aren’t you going to open it?”
“I’ll open it later.” I stood up from the couch, still holding the envelope. “Good night.”
As soon as I shut my door, I tore the envelope open. Inside was a letter from the school, along with a course catalog. I read the letter first. The dean welcomed me to the most prestigious art school in the world and invited me to choose my classes for the coming fall semester.
I let the letter drop to my bed and turned on the laptop I’d borrowed from school. Almost a week had gone by since I’d written the school to ask for a deferral. If they were sending me a course catalog, did that mean they hadn’t gotten my letter?
I did an e-mail search to see when, exactly, I’d sent my request. That’s when I found their reply in my Spam folder. Please, I thought as I clicked it open. Please be good news.
Dear Ms. Waters,
We received your request for deferral of your scholarship. The Institute will, if necessary, defer some scholarships for a single period of up to two years. However, your circumstances do not meet our deferment policy. If you choose not to employ your awarded scholarship for the upcoming fall and spring semesters, you will need to reapply for both admission and scholarship . . .
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I read the letter again to make sure I understood what they were telling me. I had to use my scholarship this year or I’d lose it.
The course catalog lying on my bed mocked me. Don’t look at it, I told myself. You can’t go, so don’t torture yourself. But I picked it up anyway. On the slick front cover was a photo of the campus. The school’s iconic bell tower overlooked a busy Paris neighborhood, the kind where people drink coffee at sidewalk cafés and walk to the local bakery to buy their bread. I turned to the first page and stared at the collage of photos: students painting, sculpting, sitting on hilltops with easels and paintbrushes. Teachers looking over students’ shoulders at their work. Everyone smiling.
Their smiles cut through me.
I scanned the courses—all those classes I wouldn’t be taking: Introduction to Sculpture. Renaissance in the Modern Age. Depth and Light for Acrylics.
I hurled the catalog across the room and it smacked against the wall. I wanted to hear a crack, a break, but all I got was a fluttering of pages. I grabbed the catalog and shoved it into a drawer.
I wouldn’t be going because of Dad. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t his fault. A part of me still blamed him. I reminded myself that it was my drawing that had landed him in jail. And the photo he had taken of me naked—the one the police might have found on his computer? That was a mistake, the kind people make when they don’t know any better. Dad was so much the artist that he was blind to the bigger picture. He’d realized, though, that it was a mistake. I’d made him realize it.
And it all seemed like a hundred years ago.