10

"What happened to the sketch of Graeme Brandt?"

Rachel's tone is even, not demanding anything, but I can hear she feels I've let her down. She saw me drawing him, after all. But I can't put that image of him in print I couldn't even before he looked at me on the roof, and asked to see my paintings. I certainly can't do it now, remembering him standing in my studio. It's a true sketch—it was true, when I drew it—but I don't know if it's still true. Something happened that morning, to both of us. Graeme Brandt may have changed. I may have changed. I'm not sure exactly how to draw him any longer. I don't try to explain that to Rachel, though. All I say is, "It didn't work out Will the others do?"

"Of course." She shuffles through them and smiles. "I really like the one of Marc Worley."

He's in the drama department, and I drew him poised above a puppet theater, moving strings with every finger, a look of utter panic on his face in spite of the order onstage. "He's a nice guy," I say, looking out the window crammed between her office file cabinets as a flock of birds heads purposefully for the trees. "But he's going to have a heart attack before he gets to college if he doesn't take it easy."

She nods. "Too true."

I've given her two girls and three more boys to go with the drawing I did of Tyler originally, and I have no doubts about the truth in any of them. That will have to do.

"I don't know if you're interested," she says slowly. "You may not want to sketch him after all. But you've got some time to think it over. I'm planning to do a separate piece on Graeme Brandt in the spring. Would it bother you to sketch him then?"

I drag my attention back inside the cramped office. "Why would it bother me?" What did you really see that night at the cast party?

"The way you look inside people..." She's keeping her eyes on the sketches spread out on her desk, not looking directly at me for once. "I don't know what's inside Graeme Brandt, even though I've edited his essays. He's like a puzzle that doesn't fit together, that's missing a piece, maybe? Or a plastic puzzle where one of the pieces got too near a fire and warped. I thought maybe you'd see inside him and find a way to explain him."

You wanted me to dissect him and serve him up to you, didn't you? But why?

"But I only caught a glimpse of your sketch the other night, and it didn't make any sense—just pieces again." She raises her head and looks directly at me. "Did you understand him?"

I shrug. You've got a crush on him, don't you, Rachel? Well, I hate to break it to you, but you're hardly his type ... Or do you just have a thing for puzzles you can't solve? "Why the spring?" I stall. I tried to call Graeme the other night, to make sure he was okay, but there wasn't any answer in his dorm room, and I couldn't quite muster the nerve to knock on his studio door. I wanted to hold on to the way he looked when he saw my paintings. I want to believe he hasn't pulled away from me after seeing them. I want to believe him when he said—

"He's working on a new book," Rachel says. "I'm guessing he wants to finish it before graduation."

Hope suddenly leaps in my chest Graeme hadn't known what to write before—now he's already at work on a new novel? Because he saw my paintings?

"If it's as good as Eye of the Storm," she goes on, "he could graduate with a second contract" She smiles briefly. "Think about it—two published books before he even gets to college."

"When did he start this book?" What did he see in my studio?

She must hear something (hope? happiness? fear?) in my tone. She cocks her head to one side and studies me. "Charles, are you okay?"

I can't let her (anyone) guess that Graeme saw my paintings and they—What? Inspired him? Not yet—not until I'm sure. And then I can let them all in, can't I? What I used to dream—at last. He really will be able to show me how to do it, after all. But I have to be sure. I have to wait until I see what he writes (until I see him again). I make my neck relax enough to nod, and man age a grin. "Sure. I'm just tired. I've been painting a lot" Liar. You haven't touched a paintbrush since Graeme left your studio, afraid of what you did to him—what the two of you did to each other. Except for stupid still-life blocks and cow landscapes. But now he's writing. Now you can paint again, too.

"Well" she says slowly, her eyes unconvinced, "I thought I'd interview him in the spring, when the book's done. I hear he's like a hermit when he's writing his first draft, so there probably won't be a chance to do a piece on him until he finishes. I suppose he's planning on going out with a flourish."

Like a hermit—that's why I couldn't reach him. I try to squelch the stab of regret. You thought, if someone (Graeme) liked your paintings—liked you—you wouldn't be alone anymore. You thought you'd have a friend with whom you could share the crippled tree, not find yourself still on the outside, this time stranded there by a hermit. But that's okay—if he's writing, Graeme must be all right If he's found a new book inside himself, then my paintings must have mattered more to him than my sketch. Maybe he'll even forget the things I said to him on the roof—maybe he'll prove (to whom? himself, or me?) that they're not true after all. And I can wait—wait until he's finished with the book, until he's ready to stop being a hermit until he's ready to tell me he's forgiven me for the sketch because of my paintings (or until he shows me he can't forgive the mirrors, ever).

"Are you still there, Charles?"

Rachel is looking at me curiously, and I realize a hint of my being pulled between two possibilities shows on my face. I can't help it—I loved seeing him in my studio. I want him to forgive me. I want him to be my friend. I wonder how Rachel would look in my studio. What would her clear brown eyes see in my world of canvas and paint? For a moment I imagine her turning to me, her eyes alive, her face smiling, but that's a future hope (a painting) not a present truth (a sketch). It's too soon to believe it might really be possible. I ignore the ache in my chest at the sight of one strand of shining hair caught across her cheek and shrug. "Sure, I'm here. Whitman's going to have to make a new admissions videotape advertising Graeme's success to wow prospective students."

It's a pretty good answer, but she sits there, strangely still, studying me, and I can't see what she's thinking. She's working out how to revise you, how to rearrange the pieces to show the potential she thinks she'll find in you. I shift on the hard chair, wishing I could speed up time. How long does it take to write a book? How long do I have to wait?

"What would you like to draw for me next?" she asks. Perhaps she's accepted my reaction, or maybe she's kind enough not to push. Or maybe she's hied it away to fiddle with later, like sliding around the wooden pieces of her puzzles. I don't know which.

"Nothing," I tell her, realizing it's going to be hard to wait, now that I've started hoping. All I can do is bury myself in paint (and hope he writes fast). "I'm doing too much right now—I need some time to get caught up or I'm going to flunk Introductory Programming." Am I? That's the first course I can dredge up, but I haven't a clue how I'm doing in it No, wait, Alona showed me part of the Lord Jim video game in class this morning, and it actually ran—the climax of the book as Conrad wrote it, but with the player making up Jim's mind for him.

"Will you fight?" she cried. "There is nothing to fight for," he said; "nothing is lost" Saying this he made a step towards her. "Will you fly?" she cried again. "There is no escape," he said, stopping short How do you answer her? Do you:

• a. Fight Doramin

• b. Fly from Dain Waris's death

• c Finish the pretense by dying

She showed me how to program these graphic designs for the options, and I had to admit my father was right to see possibilities in computer graphics. Alona even set up a point value for the choices so they add up to a final score at the end of the game. Not that scoring a lot of points means you've won anything, of course.

"Charles—"

"Sorry. Maybe next semester, okay?" Will he have finished the book in the spring, like she expects? Will I find out then that he's forgiven me, or will I have to face the feet that I'm destined to always be the outcast—seeing too much and hurting people with the truth? Oddly, it was easier when believing that someone might see my paintings and understand was only a distant dream, before I came to Whitman, when I only imagined that Graeme Brandt could show me how to make the dream a reality. Now that it might actually happen—that I can dare to hope I'm on the verge of letting the people I care about see my paintings at last ( or on the verge of having it all come crashing down on me), I'm afraid to count on it, afraid of Ming. I'll paint a figure poised on the parapet of the studio roof—will he leap up, to soar free at last, or crash to earth forever?

I want to tell Rachel (Graeme, someone) all this, but I don't dare. Somehow I'm out of her office, out of the student center, into a sweltering afternoon, burning from the confusion of hope and fear inside me. Students crowd the sidewalks, heading for studios and practice rooms, and I want to grab them and say, Look at my paintings! But I can't—not yet—not until Graeme has written his book and I know, for sure, what we did to each other.

Then I'm up the echoing stairs and around the corner to my studio. My key grates in the hasp lock. Inside I just sit on the tile floor, my back against the smooth wood of the door, not seeing what is, but what was. Seeing Graeme looking at the cityscape. His face was beautiful, almost transformed. That's what I dared to hope for when I imagined people seeing my paintings, a transforming rapture. I itch to paint the figure straining toward hope on the parapet, but I'm too keyed up.

I go back to the dorm. Adrian's in his practice room, though he's left pieces of himself scattered across his half of the room. I see his CDs of Ravel, and Tyler's panic when I bluffed about the quartet flashes through my mind. Why did I stand up for Adrian? Why did I show Graeme himself?

I see the sketch I made of Adrian, still hanging there, and know the answer. Both were truths. Standing up for Adrian was right, because his quartet was true, it was his self transformed into music that spoke to all of us—even Tyler. That's why Tyler hated it. The sketch I made of Adrian shows that truth. The sketch I made of Graeme showed his truth, as well. But now Graeme is writing. Can the truth change?

I think of Graeme looking at my paintings, awed and excited. I could actually see something click into place in his mind as he stood in front of my cityscape, as if he'd found his way out of a maze. That must have been when the new book came into focus for him. He was more than the mirror then, wasn't he? Could I sketch him like that, a peace offering to undo the shock of that first sketch? I imagine going to his studio (not knocking on the door, not going inside to him, not—) and slipping the sketch under the door, envisioning his face as he unfolds it and sees—what? I pull out my sketch pad and uncap my pen. Lines uncoil on the page, straining to capture pride and the moment of inspiration as his tall form rises from a framed vision the viewer can't see. Instead of drawing his head as a mirror, it's a book, open to the first page, the first line just beginning to appear, the rest of the pages blank with the potential to become—anything. Why can't I draw his face?

It's not right, somehow. The perspective is wrong... But I shake my head, knowing it's more than perspective. It doesn't have the ring of truth that reverberates in my sketch of Adrian, and I don't know why. If I could only speak to him, know he's all right, know what he's writing. He said he loved what he saw in my paintings ( loved me), and I long to draw that love. But the sketch isn't working.

I pick up the phone. Graeme is like a hermit when he's writing... I punch in my parents' number, but of course they're at work. I leave a message on their machine. Why did I call? Perhaps just to hear my mother's recorded voice. To remind me of—what?

My copy of Lord Jim lies on my bed. It's not Introductory Programming I'm in danger of flunking, it's English. I think I have a paper due on the book at the end of the month. I wonder what day it is. I wonder if the English teacher would accept the computer program instead of a paper?

I've already read the book, but I don't know what to write. It's a frightening book—spare, rhythmic words that lull the reader the way the sea lulls its passengers. But dangers wait in the sea, and in the pages—reflected images rippling in the waves. Jim self-destructs because of the image he's created of himself. He can't live up to it, but he can't betray it, either. I wonder if I can turn in a paper proving that Robinson Crusoe's desert island (with no Friday—no one playing Simon Says at all) is preferable to Jim's admiring paradise of deadly expectations.

Which is true—the endless images, or the (lonely) self within? Which will Graeme choose, in the end? Or—the thought unsettles me—do we choose who we are, or are we born that way? If Graeme was born a mirror, can he choose to change? Or did he choose to become a mirror somewhere along the way, and can he revise that choice? Did he already revise it, as he stood in my studio? Is that why the new sketch isn't working, because I don't know what he chose?

I toss Lord Jim aside and get up, pacing to the window. How can I make it through this semester, until he finishes the book, poised on the edge, not knowing whether he'll join the wolf pack or be my way out? I tell myself to concentrate on nothing but the steps along the way—write the paper about Jim's failure, paint still lifes for Mr. Wallace, paint landscapes (not cityscapes) for Ms. Katz, paint portraits (not Graeme) for Mr. Thornton. Survive until spring.

But I can't focus on meaningless schoolwork. I want to hope that spring brings Graeme out of his writing seclusion transformed—the phoenix risen from the ashes. Ill know as soon as I see him. Ill know, the way I knew the truth at the party, on the roof (in my studio). IH know whether I can let them all (Rachel, Adrian, Alona, everyone) into my studio, or whether I have to give up the dream forever.

Excerpts from
Graeme Brandt's Journal

November 27 (Senior Year)

Finally back at school, and it wasn't the day I'd hoped for-it was better.

I thought Thanksgiving would never end. Family I hardly ever saw as a kid, and never see except at holidays anymore, and all those huge bowls and platters overflowing with food, and Kyle waiting while I tried to be polite to everybody but kept wanting to escape. Then I'd try to slip away, and they'd catch me staring out the window or sitting in my room, scribbling notes, and tell me it was supposed to be a holiday-well, Dad said that, and Aunt Theresa wanted me to tell everyone the story I was working on, and Uncle Kurt just rolled his eyes. Mom told them all to leave me alone-l was "writing." She must have told them to be quiet so as not to distract me-they were all practically tiptoeing along the hallway whenever they came upstairs.

Aunt Theresa tiptoeing is something like an earthquake ... and I wanted to forget about Kyle and Whitman and Charles's paintings and go out in the hall and hug her. She thought my stories were so cute when I was little. I used to love to make up a new one to tell her, and she'd listen as if it was even better than her "stories" on television-she's so serious about her stories, she's even got the soap opera updates as the first number on her telephone's automatic dialer. She wouldn't care what Kyle did-she'd just listen, wide- eyed and nodding, and sigh at the end. I almost shoved the notebook under my mattress and went out to her. But I couldn't.

This book-l know what I want to write, I know what I want to have happen. I want Kyle to stop reflecting what other people want and to become someone better than them-better than they can even imagine. But it's not happening that way. Kyle won't do what I want him to. When I wanted him to face down the metal shop teacher, he wouldn't He ducked out when he heard him coming into the shop room so that the other guys got caught, but after class he wired the welder so that it arced when the teacher touched it the next day. It didn't burn him, but it was a nasty shock-and it frightened him.

That wasn't what I meant for Kyle to do at all. I didn't want him to be-well, to put it bluntly, sneaky. Or mean. I don't know, maybe he's not really mean. Maybe he has to start out sneaky before he can get brave enough to stand up for himself. Or maybe I've got it all wrong. I only know I can't tell Aunt Theresa about Kyle. And I can't tell my parents this new book isn't working. I've got to make it work. I will make it work.

I dumped my stuff in my dorm room before anybody noticed I was back, and left a note for Mr. Adler that I was going to be in my studio working on the book. But I didn't want to read through Kyle's pages so far. I wanted to work out how he was going to change. So I just grabbed a reporter's notebook that would fit in my back pocket and took off. I wanted to think. I wanted—

Admit it I wanted to ask Charles how he does it How does he paint like that? How did he find that bell tower inside himself and realize it in paint? If I could understand how he did it, I think I could see how I could do it with Kyle.

I was really hoping I'd run into him. Somehow, I thought he might come back early after the holiday himself. There were a few kids around, but they weren't Charles, and I didn't pay any attention to them. I was thinking about Kyle. I can't just move him around in the plot, like a pawn in a chess game. Or even a knight Or even the king. They all get moved by the player, no matter how high they rank. But Kyle's got to do it naturally, or the book won't work. Why won't he do it?

I was striding down a gravel path, and poking and prodding at Kyle, knowing there had to be a way inside him, a way to make him work, and watching for Charles (trying not to look like I was watching for anybody) and I heard a girl call my name. Except I didn't recognize it at first—the name. She called out "Graeme," but I didn't feel like Graeme right then-l didn't even feel like Kyle. I was striding for a start, really stretching my legs, and 1 don't do that often because most people can't keep up with me. I stroll. But I was striding under barren tree branches, like someone else, someone I couldn't place. Then she called me again, and I realized it was Rachel Holland, and she was calling me. Graeme. The writer who can't write....

I wondered at first if I'd missed a deadline-but I'd turned in my essay to Ventures before I left for Thanksgiving. It was an opinion piece about whether writers of one culture should be allowed to write literature about a different culture. It was good-Mr. Adler gave me an A on the original paper. So I just smiled at her and waited to get an idea of what she wanted.

Rachel didn't smile back. She looked at me and frowned. She's got this strange way of staring right into your eyes, instead of glancing at you and then looking away, like most people do. "Are you okay?" she asked me. "You look thinner."

I felt-l don't know-warm inside. It was a nice thing to notice. "Maybe I'm growing again," I told her, and laughed, because I'm tall enough.

She smiled a little, but not with her eyes. They still looked concerned, and I felt the faintest shadow of the affection in Aunt Theresa's hugs. So I gave Rachel a better answer. "No-its just, all that food at Thanksgiving, ifs kind of a turnoff." I shrugged. "And I've been writing. I guess I just haven't been thinking about eating all that much."

Her eyes had relaxed by then, so I added, "Besides, you can't ever be too thin."

"Or too rich," she finished, and her eyes were definitely smiling. "So-that's what I wanted to ask you about How's the book going? Will you really have it finished before you graduate? Another contract? Rich and famous? I'd like to do an interview with you about it for the graduation issue."

That'd be great," I told her, suddenly feeling how wonderful it will be to have two books sold by the time I got to college. Not just something excellent to actually do when you're still a teenager, not just what my parents hoped for, not just something Mr. Adler expected, but a real achievement-something terrific-something as great as those paintings.

And then I knew what I was feeling earlier, before Rachel had named me. I was feeling like Charles's figure, striding under those trees.

She must have seen my face change. "You look as if something just hit you," she told me. "I'd better let you get it down on paper before you lose it"

I think I waved, but I didn't see her go. And I didn't pull out my notebook, either. It wasn't something I needed to write down then and there or I'd lose. It was inside of me now, a part of me. I turned back toward my studio, striding again, but this time the pace wasn't accidental. I was deliberately striding like the figure in Charles's painting, not afraid of the rustling cloud of birds overhead.

I hadn't seen Charles, but it was all right Even better, in fact I didn't want to ask him to tell me how to do this. I wanted to show him I could do it, myself. I could do what he gave me credit for. I'd seen that painting again, in my mind, and it showed me how. Don't be afraid of striding forward-just do it-just let Kyle grow and the story will follow naturally. Just become the figure in the painting. I lengthened my stride still further. The birds couldn't stop me. I had to get back to the book. I'd write until I found a way to show Kyle it was all right to be himself, to break free. I could do it I would do it.