A Work of Art (21 page)

“You're not hearing me!”

But I
was
hearing him. Guilty. My dad was guilty.

The guard behind him growled something and pointed at the glass. Dad murmured a reply and the guard stepped back.

“So now you know,” Dad said.

My throat swelled. I closed my eyes and lowered my head. All those kids being forced to undress, to pose. All those scared kids. Their lives torn up so men like my dad could jerk themselves off.

The fear in my stomach, the built-up anxiety, the disgust. All of it melted into black bile and snaked its way toward my throat.

“Does your mom know you blew your future?”

His tinny voice in my ear made me shudder. I leaned forward, holding my stomach. “She knows.”

“Listen, Tera. You can still go to art school. Get a deferment on your scholarship. Then let me help you—”

“I don't want your help.”

He choked out a laugh. “You
need
my help. I was the sculptor and you were the clay, whether you like it or not. You wouldn't be the artist you are without me.”

I glared at him through tears that froze in my eyes. “You didn't make me,” I said. I had to say it to make it true. I wanted no part of his sick world.

“Jesus Christ, Tera, what do you think—”

SLAM!
I hung up on him. His mouth kept moving, but I didn't have to hear it.

He jabbed his finger at my phone, then at me.
Pick up the goddamn phone!

I stood up, waved my arm at the guard. Dad changed tactics, put on his pleading face. I tried not to look, but I could read his lips.
I'm sorry. Tera. Don't go. I'm sorry.

I watched him mouth those empty, silent words, watched his desperation. Then I turned my back and made my escape. Through the clang of metal doors and the cold maze of corridors. Past the guards with their guns and bleak expressions. Into the drizzling rain. The rain felt good on my skin. Clean.

I ran to the bus stop, not bothering to open my umbrella. On the bus, I punched in the number for Charlotte Gross. She didn't pick up, but I was happy to leave her a message. There wouldn't be any more money, I told her. When the retainer ran out, that was it. I was done.

Her dad sat on the edge of her bed, her sketchbook in his lap.

“It's at the back,” she said, and watched him flip the thick pages. When he turned to the right one, he didn't say anything. She didn't look at the drawing. Instead, she watched his eyes move over the page. Maybe he'd burn it like her mom had burned the drawing of Haley in her
Titanic
pose.

“You're getting better,” he said. “Not bad for a nine-year-old.” His big finger waved over the dark smudges shadowing the girl. Tera didn't want to look at what she'd done. She wanted to turn her face to the wall, just like the naked girl in the picture.

“Too much gray, though. See?” He pointed to a corner of the drawing. “This is where the light was coming from, so your shadows are too heavy.”

“Okay,” she said.

“Let me see the photo and I'll show you.”

She didn't move.

“Where's the photo, Tera?”

Her throat closed up, making it hard to talk. “I don't have it.”

“What happened to it?”

“I threw it away.”

Silence. Then a big sigh. “Why would you do that?”

She swallowed, trying to think of an answer he would like. Because looking at it made her feel scared. Because what she saw in the picture made her want to hide where no one could find her.

Those answers were no good, though. He'd get mad, call her a baby. He wouldn't want to look at her anymore.

Then she had it. “I didn't want Mom to find it.”

That made him smile. “Good thinking. But listen.” He closed the sketchbook and turned to look at her. “Are you listening?”

“Yes.”

“We have to take another picture.”

A bolt of fear stabbed into her back, made her sit up stiff like she'd been electrocuted. “I don't want to.”

He touched her cheek with the back of his fingers. “Don't you want to get better?”

“Yes.”

“Then you need to practice.”

It was hard to get the words out, so she shook her head.

His mouth twitched, and he wiped at a smear of paint on his hands. She thought he might smile and say it was okay, but then he blew out his breath, and she knew he was fed up with her.

She bit her lip and didn't look at his face. He'd yell. She knew it was coming, but the sound cutting the silence made her jump.

“Why do you have to make everything so hard? You think I like wasting my time trying to make something of you? You want to be like your mom when you grow up? You want to be a fucking cuckoo-bird housewife?”

“No.” She tried to swallow a big block in her throat, but it wouldn't go down. She almost made a crying sound, but she managed to choke it back by holding her breath.

“You're more like her every day. I get so sick of both of you.”

He got up to leave and didn't hear her say she was sorry. Maybe she hadn't said it. She tried again.

“I'm sorry.”

He turned before he got to the door. She pulled her shoulders in close and stared at her feet.

“You want me to leave, Tera? You want me to leave forever?”

She shook her head.

“I don't want to have to leave, but I can't stay here if I have to fight the both of you.”

“You don't have to fight me.”

He came back and sat on top of her sketchpad. It bent under his weight.

“It'll be easy,” he said. “I'll help you.”

He tugged at the front of her shirt, but she glued her arms to her side and didn't move.

“Stop fighting me, Tera.”

She loosened her arms for just a second, and with one hard yank, he pulled her shirt over her head. The cool air raised goose bumps on her skin. She crossed her arms over her chest and hunched herself together.

“That's better,” he whispered, his breath damp in her ear. One hand snaked around her, tugging at her stiff arms. His other hand moved the hair away from her neck.

She tried not to move, but the tears came anyway, slipping down her face and making her jaw quiver.

He didn't notice. He wasn't looking at her face, too busy trying to get her arms away from her chest. She locked her elbows, but he was strong. He pressed her against the mattress, saying, “Hold still,” and peeled her arms back, one by one.

At first she didn't recognize the sound that came out of her. It started in her throat, low and quiet. Then it got too heavy to hold inside, and out it came, growing louder and louder. Just one cry that stretched her throat and made her mouth hinge open like it'd never close. She tried to stop, but maybe two brains were inside her. One controlling and the other watching. The cuckoo bird and the girl.

He let go of her and sprang back, blinking like he'd got woken up from a dream. She heard him say her name, heard him plead, “Sorry, I'm sorry,” but the sound inside her kept going. Maybe it was the cuckoo bird making all that noise. The cuckoo bird didn't want to stop. Not until he went away and it was safe to take a breath.

Mr. Stewart always said that art, in whatever form it takes, is a kind of therapy for creative people. Songwriters compose songs. Poets write poetry. Musicians play music. He had said my best artwork was a reflection of things that happened in my personal life. A girl crying because her dog ran away, or celebrating her birthday with her parents, or sitting on a bus dreaming about her boyfriend. Sometimes the girl was blonde, sometimes brunette. Sometimes she was a child, other times a grown woman. Sometimes she took the form of an animal. It didn't matter. She was always me.

Mom's car was gone when I got home from the jail. The house was silent and still. I took my sketchpad to the kitchen table and thought about what Mr. Stewart said—how art was therapy.

And then I didn't allow myself to think. I started sketching, first the outline of a bed, a window, a desk. After a few minutes, I looked down at what I'd drawn. It was my room as it always looked, the room where I slept and dreamed. The room where Dad had taken that picture.

I sketched in a body on the bed, drew an oval shape for the head. Just like my dad had taught me. I imagined crosshairs on the oval, invisible markers for the eyes, nose, and mouth. But when it came time to draw the face, my hand froze.

What did Dad do, alone in his studio, after Mom and I went to bed?

I pictured him as a troll in the darkness, hunched over his computer screen, stroking himself while he grunted and drooled.

I looked down at my oval, empty and waiting for a face. Mr. Stewart's stupid slogan kept haunting me.
Find your muse.

My cheeks hardened like stone, all the muscles stiff. I clenched my jaw and sketched a face into the oval, but the features came out melted and jumbled, like Salvador Dalí's clocks or Picasso's
Guernica.
The whole thing looked wrong.

And just like that, the rock that was my real face melted in a lava flow of shame and anger. I could barely see when I gripped my pencil like a dagger and jabbed it at the paper. Over and over, until the face became a scar, torn and jagged and clotted with rash.

• • •

Joey and I worked the same shift the next day. I didn't want to face him, not after what he did to me, and not after what he called me. Would he apologize? More likely, he'd ignore me. I told myself that if things got too awkward, I could quit and find another job, maybe one that paid better tips. Now that I didn't have to pay Dad's lawyer, I could concentrate on saving for art school.

Joey sat smoking in the break room, his chair tilted back on two legs. “Hey,” he said. Like nothing at all was wrong.

I walked past him to the row of lockers, my body a taut bowstring. I felt his eyes imprinted on my back as I shoved my key into the lock. It opened with a snap.

“So you're ignoring me?” His voice like a scratch down my neck.

I stuffed my purse into my locker.

“Whatever,” he said.

I whirled to face him. “Don't act like nothing's wrong.”

He blinked at me. “What did I do? You're the one who left the party.”

“I left because of you. You're going to pretend you don't remember?”

“I don't!” He gave me that sly half-grin that had had me swooning a few days ago. “I was pretty wasted.”

I could hear Cam and Mr. Barnes talking in the hallway, which meant they could hear us, too. Now wasn't the time to bring up the fact that I'd almost had a threesome with Joey and his uncle, that Joey had drugged me up and brought me there just for that purpose.

Still, I had to stand up for myself. “You called me a
fucking bore
,” I said.

I watched my words soak in and pry up the supposedly sunken memory. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I really said that?”

“Yeah, you did. And a lot more, but I don't want to talk about it.”

“Then I'm sorry. Really, I am.” He reached for me. “Do you forgive me?”

I waved his hand away. Why had I ever thought he'd be good for me? “You're such a liar,” I said. “You're not sorry at all.”

“I
am
sorry.” He looked down at his hands. “I think you're really cool. You're edgy, you know? So I thought . . . It doesn't matter what I thought. Obviously, I was wrong.”

Since when did I give off an edgy vibe? I slammed my locker shut.

He kept talking. “You don't even realize how great you are. No one as smart as you would ever go out with me. And you're an artist. I haven't told you how cool I think that is.”

The padlock clunked as I fumbled to close it. I wasn't buying it, but I still turned my head to steal a glance at his face—just in case he looked sincere. He had his head down, scrolling through something on his phone. He didn't see me looking. His mouth was still going.

“Seriously, Tera. I'm really sorry. Sometimes when I get wasted, I lose control.”

“Maybe that should tell you something.”

“And you're more to me than . . .” He pushed a button on his phone and shoved it into his back pocket. “Than just a fuck.”

“That's beautiful, Joey.”

He got up from his chair and leaned against the lockers, his arm forming a scaffold over my head. I smelled pizza sauce, smoke in his hair, a mint disguising stale breath. “You have to believe me,” he said. “I didn't mean to hurt you.”

Just like Dad.

“You're so full of it,” I said.

He stared at me, a cat sizing up its prey. I ducked under his arm and headed for the door.

“Be that way!” he called after me. “Be a fucking bitch!”

I kept walking, pretending his words didn't hurt. I passed Cam and Mr. Barnes. They were quiet, both of them studying their shoes. They must have heard every word.

I tried to concentrate on work after that, but I kept forgetting things. Extra napkins, silverware, refills on drinks. I got stiffed more than once.

And just as suddenly as it had started, the dinner rush died. While Cam restocked the prep table, Joey volunteered to help clean the dining room. I couldn't help watching him as he tossed dirty plates and forks into a bin. I cringed when I thought about how I had sketched him. How I had lay in bed and fantasized about him. How I had let him grope me and pant on me and use me.

He worked fast, his bin overflowing with dirty dishes. And then I saw him pick up something else from a table—something that wasn't a dish—and shove it into the pocket of his jeans. He paused to stretch his back, his eyes drifting back and forth. Then he whipped out his phone. He read the screen. His body got very still.