A Work of Art (5 page)

She went on, encouraged. “It makes me feel like I shouldn't be looking.”

“Why?”

“Because she's naked.”

He nodded his head like she'd said something important. “And that's what you need to get over. That uncomfortable feeling is what a girl your age who is
not
an artist would feel when she lays eyes on the naked human form.”

She chanced a glance at his eyes, even though she was embarrassed to look at him with the naked woman between them. He wasn't looking at her, though. He was studying the naked lady like it was no big deal.

“Did you ever feel that way?” she asked.

“Embarrassed? Enthralled? Excited?” He laughed. “All of the above.” Then he leaned back in his chair and smiled. “When I was in college I signed up for this class where we had live nude models. You know what that means?”

“Huh-uh.”

“It means someone stood in front of our class and took their clothes off so we could draw them.”

“Oh.” She wondered if people really did that.

“And I was so . . .” He smiled like he was remembering something really good. “So fascinated, you might say, that I was distracted from doing my job. You know what my job was?”

“No.”

“To learn. To learn everything I could about drawing the human form. Because once you get good at drawing nudes, it'll be easier to draw everything else.”

“Like dogs?” Tera said. She loved drawing dogs but always had a hard time with their faces.

He chuckled. “I was thinking more along the lines of human faces, human torsos, hands, feet.”

She found herself staring at the nude woman's body in a new way. Now she looked at the way the charcoal was smudged under the curves of her breasts. She noticed the feathering shades between the woman's legs.

“You get it, don't you? I see it on your face.”

He was proud of her, she could tell. But she still felt shy. She laid her hand on the book so it covered the woman's body. “It's for me?”

“Who else?” He winked at her. “And I have a surprise for you.” He craned his neck to look out the window behind her. She turned to see what he was looking at, but it was only a car going by.

“A surprise? Do I get to guess what it is?”

“You can try, but you'll never guess.”

“Tell me,” she said. “Please.”

His eyes strayed back to the window for a moment. “You have to keep it to yourself. It's a secret.”

Tera knew all about keeping secrets. Just last week she and Haley had watched a dirty movie that Haley found buried in her dad's sock drawer. Haley made Tera promise not to tell anyone. Like Tera would ever in a billion years say what those people had been doing to each other. She couldn't even think about it without feeling excited and weird and ashamed.

“Did you hear what I said? You can't tell anyone—not your friends, not your teachers, not your mom.”

Tera nodded. “I promise.”

He tilted his head to look at her. “You won't see the value of it, not until later. But it
is
valuable.”

“Tell me.”

“I'm building it up too much. You'll be disappointed when I tell you.”

“I won't be.”

He placed his hands flat on the table. “I made arrangements for you to sketch your first nude model. Next week.”

Her smile froze. “You mean a real person?” A real
naked
person. Already her heart felt jumpy. There was no way she could draw someone naked. One time at Burger King, she walked in on a lady going to the bathroom, and even though the lady said it was okay, Tera ran away crying with her hands covering her eyes.

“I went to a lot of trouble to arrange this.” Her dad reached across the table and took her chin in his hand. “Look at me. You know what I see?”

She tried to shake her head, but he was holding her too tightly.

“You're supposed to say, ‘Yes,'” he said. “You're supposed to know what I see when I look at you. I'll give you a hint. Do I see a girly-girl who's too busy playing with dolls to become a serious artist?”

“No,” she whispered, even though she still liked playing Barbies.

“Do I see a loud-mouthed tattletale who's going to tell all her friends that she's learning to draw naked people?”

“No.” She knew better than to tell her friends, especially Haley, who had a big mouth.

“Do I see a budding young artist? A protégé? A young lady who's serious enough to handle what many people in their twenties aren't ready for?”

She knew she was supposed to say yes and when she hesitated, she saw his eyes flicker like he was getting fed up. “Yes,” she said.

He smiled and let go of her chin, tugging on her ponytail. “Good girl.”

But then his smile disappeared, wiped from his face. He stared out the window behind her, his eyes scared. A second later she heard a car rattling down the driveway.

“Mom's home,” he said, which wasn't scary at all, but the way he scuttled to his feet with his head whipping toward the door made her feel like she should run and hide. He swept the book off the table and shoved it at her chest so hard that she stumbled backward.

Then he snarled at her. “What the hell are you waiting for?”

“I don't know.” She tried not to cry as the key rattled in the lock.

“Hide the goddamn book,” he hissed. “Hide it where she won't find it.”

My high school wasn't that big, so it didn't take long for everyone in the building to hear about my dad. No one said anything, but I could see it in their faces, the way their eyes slid away as they huddled at their lockers, the way conversations stopped when I approached. In AP Biology, everyone kept turning around to look at me, so by the time class was over I felt like a specimen in one of Mr. Rudolph's glass jars.

World History was next, the class I dreaded most because I shared it with Haley. The less time I had to spend in the same room with her, the better, so before class started I stopped at the library to borrow one of the school's laptops.

As soon as I stepped into the library, a peaceful quiet surrounded me. I stood in the doorway for a few seconds, listening to the hum of silence, breathing in the smell of books, wishing I could hide among the tall shelves for the rest of the day.

I didn't see anybody except for Mrs. Sloan, the tall, willowy librarian. She sat behind her desk sorting books from the return bin into wobbly stacks. She glanced up from her work and smiled. “How are you, Tera? Reading anything good these days?”

I shrugged. “Not really.”

“Well, then, I have some recommendations for you.”

I tried to sound casual as I approached her desk. If she hadn't heard the rumors about my dad, I didn't want to tip her off that something was wrong. “I didn't really come here to check out a book,” I said. “I wanted to see if we're allowed to borrow school laptops. To check out, I mean.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Mine got stolen,” I adding, knowing I was giving too much information. Wasn't that the first sign of a lie?

“I'm sorry to hear that.” She pushed her chair back from her desk. “It'll take me a few minutes to get it checked out for you. Do you want to swing by after school and pick it up? I don't want you to be late for class.”

Up until that moment, I had every intention of finishing out the school day, but then it occurred to me that, if I cut class, I wouldn't have to deal with Haley. Instead of sitting through World History, I could go to the public library with the laptop and learn all I could about child pornography charges without Mom sticking her nose in.

“I'm not worried about being late,” I said. “I have permission to leave.”

“Oh.” She should have asked me to show some kind of note from a teacher to prove I was telling the truth, but that's one of the perks of being a good student. Teachers don't expect you to lie through your teeth. They don't expect you to skip class.

A few minutes later, she handed me the laptop and all its cords. “Sorry I don't have a carrying case,” she said.

“That's okay.” I shoved the laptop into my backpack. “Thanks.”

From there, it was easy to walk out the front door of the school.

• • •

I sat in one of the private computer cubicles at the public library and searched the Internet for how to help my dad.

The more I learned, the more hopeless it all seemed.

One of the first things I read was how anyone found guilty of possessing child pornography would get
at least
five years in prison. So that drawing I did all those years ago could cost my dad five years of his life.

And then I read how the other prisoners preyed on anyone convicted of a sexual crime against children. In their eyes, that person was the lowest of the low. I read about a case in Omaha where the inmates actually killed a priest who was serving time for child molestation.

And then I read something that scared me even more.

In cases like my dad's—cases that involved just the
accusation
of child pornography without any real proof—most lawyers told their clients to plead guilty in exchange for less prison time. The article said juries almost always gave a guilty verdict to anyone being accused of a sexual crime against children. Most lawyers felt child pornography cases were such a lost cause that they didn't even try to help their clients unless they were paying them big money.

My dad wasn't paying his lawyer anything. The courts appointed him. That meant there was a good chance Chase Hardy would tell my dad to plead guilty just to get the case off his books.

I had to talk to Dad's lawyer. I had to explain to him that I was the one who did the drawing. Once he knew all the facts, my dad's case should be easy. They might even drop the charges and Dad could come home and everything would go back to normal.

• • •

I learned one other important thing from my Internet research. Prisoners had to call collect to reach the outside world. And since my cell phone didn't accept collect calls, Dad would have to call the house if he wanted to talk to me. That meant he had to get past Mom's defenses. She had a habit of taking the phone off the hook when she wanted to hide from the world. And if she answered the phone before I could get to it, there was no way she'd let me talk to him.

The first thing I did when I got home was check the phone in the kitchen to make sure it had a dial tone. It did. Then I checked to make sure Mom was in her bedroom. She was.

After that, I went to my room and shut the door. While I started up my borrowed laptop, I tried calling Dad's lawyer again on my cell phone. The house phone rang before I could finish dialing.

I jumped up. It could be Dad. I had to answer it before Mom got to it.

Another ring. I made a dash for the kitchen, but then it stopped. Shit. I heard Mom's voice from her bedroom, sounding bone-tired as she answered it. I picked up the phone in the kitchen and listened.

“. . . don't call here again,” Mom was saying.

Then my dad. “I just want to talk to her, Connie.”

I practically screamed into the phone. “Dad, it's me!”

“Tera! I don't—”

And then nothing. A chasm of silence. She must have unplugged the phone.

I slammed down the receiver, so angry I wanted to break it. “Mom!” My voice bounced against the walls as I stormed down the hallway. I burst into her room. The loose phone cord dangled from her fist. “What is your problem?” I yelled.

She didn't even blink. Her mouth was set in a smug line. “The school called. They said you skipped class.”

Of course, she would try to change the subject. I grabbed the phone cord out of her hand and threw it on the bed. “Why won't you let me talk to him? It's not hurting you to let me talk to him.”

My yelling didn't seem to faze her. She pulled at a loose string on the blanket like it was the most important thing on the planet. “They're not giving you a detention this time,” she said, “but don't expect them to be lenient in the future.”

“Will you shut up for a second? He's all alone in there. Don't you get that? He needs to know I'm here, that I haven't given up on him.”

“There's nothing you can do for him, Tera.”

“That's not true!”

She stopped fiddling with the blanket long enough to stare me in the face. “I'm trying to help you and you won't let me. Always, since you were a little girl, you've taken his side. Why is that?” Her laugh sounded limp and hollow as she pulled the blanket onto her lap. “Never mind. I don't want to know.”

“Of course you don't. All you want to do is torture me. All you want to do is ruin my life.”

“That's not true, and you know it.”

“It
is
true, Mom. I'm so sick of you. Sometimes I hate you.”

I stayed long enough to see the hurt on her face. Then I left the room, slamming the door behind me. Guilt bit at me—I shouldn't have said I hated her—but I told myself not to feel bad. Let her sit there and wallow in her sweaty sheets. She didn't want me, and I didn't need her.

Back in my room, I dialed Dad's lawyer.

This time he answered, snapping out his name like a rubber band. “Chase Hardy here.”

“Um, hi.” My heart was pounding. I scooted to the edge of my bed. “This is Tera Waters. I'm the daughter of Tim—”

“Yeah, I know who you are.”

“Okay.” My voice shook. I tried to hold it steady so I didn't sound like a stupid kid. “I wanted to tell you about why my dad is innocent. The police found that drawing of the girl, but he didn't do it. I did.”