twelve

MARCH 5

On Tuesday night I was in the garage, sitting on a stool at my worktable, trying to draw some fashion designs. They kept coming out looking like total crap, and I kept tearing out pages, crumpling them up, and throwing them on the floor.

My grandpa walked into the shop just in time to see me hurl the book across the room, where it cracked open against the foot shear machine we’d rigged up against the back wall.

“That’ll teach it,” he said, when I noticed him. He walked over and slowly bent down to pick it up.

“Sorry, Gramps.”

“Probably deserved it. That book’ll think twice about trying something like that again.”

He set it in front of me.

He doesn’t do his old-timey metalwork anymore because he’s got asthma and the doctor says he’s inhaled enough bad stuff to last a lifetime, but he was really good. He’d work out in the backyard for hours at a time, and he made all kinds of stuff: decorative, useful. When he noticed I was interested, he decided that the backyard setup wasn’t good enough for me. He bought me the new welding station and set up the whole garage for me to work in. He found me an ancient rolling bender and a bender break, and even made a foot shear from spare parts his friends donated. I’ve got all his old snips and scissors. Quite a few of them are too rusted or battered to be very useful, but I like having them. And he bought me new ones, too. With the big worktable and all the sculptures in various stages of completion, there’s not much room in there. Definitely not enough room for my grandparents to park their car.

I knew my grandparents really couldn’t afford to set me up like that, but I also loved having a fully equipped shop. I try to keep it real neat so he knows how much I appreciate it. At least, it’s neat when it’s not covered in crumpled paper and sketchbook parts.

“What’s cooking?” he asked, holding his stained World’s Best Grumpy Old Man coffee cup in front of him. Maybe because he was a shift worker for nearly forty years, he can drink coffee until right before bed and it doesn’t seem to affect his sleep.

I puffed out a breath. I knew my grandma had told him about the contest, but he hadn’t brought it up with me yet. That’s how my grandpa is. He doesn’t pry. He waits for me to be ready to talk.

“I guess Grandma told you about the contest? The one I just qualified to enter?”

“That’s right. She said something about that. It’s for that school up the hill there? The fancy one old man Green gave all his money to?”

Green Pastures’ founder was a local farmer who got really famous for his paintings of farms when he was already fairly old. He donated all his money to start the school. Plus, I think he also sold nearly a thousand acres of prime land.

“Yeah, well, I got into their scholarship competition,” I said.

“You going to show them some of your work? Maybe we should get professional photos taken of your projects.” He scanned the shelves that held some of my smaller metalwork projects. He looked at the big ones that stood around the room.

“That’s just it. The contest isn’t for, uh, metal sculpture. It’s for fashion design.”

He cocked his head. Waited for me to explain. My grandpa has eyes that see. He knows I’m not on a first-name basis with fashionability, if that’s a word.

“All the contestants have to make an outfit. For a fashion show.”

“Is that right?” said my grandpa. “So you want to be a fashioner?”

“I think they’re called fashion designers, Gramp. But no. It’s just a way to get into the school.”

“That place is so damned expensive,” he said. “Me and your grandmother and your mother talked about it. Wondered how we could get you in there. It just costs too much for regular working people.” He sighed.

I felt a rush of relief that they had some sense of financial self-preservation and that there was a limit to how much they would do for me.

“You know, your grandmother has an old Singer machine. Never known her to use it. I think it’s in the basement.”

This kind of calm, thoughtful vibe is why, at his retirement party, so many people got up and said my grandpa was the best foreman they ever had. That was a good night. Him and my grandma two-stepped together like two synchronized tops, spinning around the floor. He’s as present as my dad is absent. One day I’ll be more like him.

“I know it’s kind of screwed up to try to get in this way,” I said. “Since I’m not really into fashion.”

“Sometimes a person has to take the indirect path,” said Gramps. “Side roads. Access routes. Alleys, even.”

“Yeah, well. We’ll see. So far my drawings of clothes suck,” I said. I flipped a couple of pages.

The designs all looked like they belonged on superheroes who’d taken up low-end prostitution after retiring. I remembered my comments to Charlie Dean. Intellectually rigorous. I was so full of it.

“They look good to me,” said my gramps. “But my glasses prescription is way the hell out of date.”

Just like that, all my anger was gone.

I went to close the book, but spotted a phone number written in pencil, just inside the front cover. The name Tesla was written underneath. I closed the book. Opened it. The name and number were still there. I closed it again.

My gramps went back in the house, and I kept drawing, trying not to think about the number I’d just seen. An hour later Barbra arrived. She’d been out for dinner with her family for her little sister’s birthday.

She stepped into the garage from the side door, bringing fresh night air with her.

When she kissed me, I inhaled her familiar scent.

“So?” she said. “Tell me the news of the world, Grasshopper.”

Among the reasons I love my girlfriend is that she is not shy about weaving Karate Kid references into her sentences.

“I’ve figured out what they mean by a croakie book,” I said. “It’s spelled C-R-O-Q-U-I-S.” The source of this information, a book called Cool Fashions for Kids (Ages 8–12), lay open on my worktable. I began to read aloud. “‘A croquis book is where a designer sketches concepts and construction details and communicates her ideas for each look.’”

I glanced at Barbra and saw she was giving me her full, if concerned, attention and continued. “‘Your croquis book is your fashion diary and your fashion workbook! It will allow you to create collections that pop and sizzle and will wow your friends!’”

“Well, jeez,” she said. “Popping and sizzling are critically important.”

“Drawing fashion figures is way harder than you’d think. The proportions are screwy.”

She sat on one of the paint-splattered chairs beside my station. “So you’re going to keep going? In the competition?”

“Yeah. For now.”

“That’s good.”

“You mean it?” I asked. Because there was something in her voice that didn’t sound convincingly happy.

“Of course. Just please don’t get all fashion-y. Or Green Pastures-y.”

“I would never,” I said, and noted again that my girl isn’t big on change.

“Good. I like you the way you are.” She shivered. “It’s so cold in here.”

“Space heater’s busted.”

It’s a mark of Barbra’s and Booker’s excellence that they’re willing to spend any time in the garage with me. They hang on to sheets of metal when I need them to. They put up with the noise of the spot welder, riveting, the banging of hammers against metal, and the screeching and clanging of the machines. They never complain about the essential antisocialness of metalwork. If Barbra wanted to head into the house to warm up, that was okay with me.

“Well . . .” she said.

So we went in the house. Into my room.

B left at around nine o’clock, and I went back into the shop. I flipped through the sketchbook, pretending to just happen upon the number again. I stared at it for a long while. Then I sent a text.

Whoever invented fashion figures was a sadist.

The reply was nearly instant.

So you found my number.

Yes, yes. I had found the number.

Reasons to Drop Out of the Fashion Competition

When a woman says, “I have nothing to wear!” what she really means is, “There’s nothing here for who I’m supposed to be today.”

—CAITLIN MORAN