All-American Girl (21 page)

But Jack wasn't the only one who felt dazed. I did, too.

And not because of the way he'd yelled at me. Not even because, soul mates though we might be, I did not, even for a second, feel
Jack's pain as he heard the bad news.

No. The reason I felt dazed was because of what happened when Jack first came sauntering into the kitchen, when I'd been cramming that sandwich into my mouth, totally not expecting to see him. He'd come into the room, filling the doorway with his big shoulders…

And my heart hadn't flipped over.

My pulse hadn't gotten any quicker.

I had no trouble at all breathing, and not even a hint of a blush crept over my cheeks.

None of the things that happened when I saw David happened when Jack came strolling into the kitchen. There was no frisson. There was not the slightest hint of frisson.

Which could mean only one thing:

Lucy was right. I was in love with David.

David, whose dad even couldn't stand me, on account of the way I didn't agree with him over the whole painting thing.

David, who got me the daisy helmet and said he liked my boots and carved my name in a White House windowsill.

David, who I'm pretty sure never wants to see me again on account of how I used him to try to make Jack jealous.

David, who all along had been the perfect guy for me, and I was too stupid—too blind—to see it.

Suddenly the turkey sandwich I'd been chowing down on didn't taste all that good. In fact, it tasted wretched. And the bits I'd swallowed felt like they might come right back up.

What had I done?

What had I done?

More important…
what was I going to do?

Top ten
reasons I am most likely to die young (not that that would be such a tragedy, under the circumstances):

• 10. I am left-handed. Studies show that left-handed people die ten to fifteen years sooner than right-handers, due to the fact that the entire world, from automobiles to those desks you take the SATs at to cash machines at the bank, is slanted toward the right-handed. Finally, after a while, we lefties just give up the struggle and croak rather than try one last time to write something in a spiral-bound notebook with all those wires poking into our wrist.
  
• 9. I am redheaded. Redheads are eighty-five percent more likely to develop terminal skin cancer than anyone else on the planet.
  
• 8. I am short. Short people die sooner than tall people. This is a known fact. No one knows why, but I assume it has something to do with the fact that short people like me are unable to reach bottles of vital antioxidants at the General Nutrition Center because they always put them on the highest shelves.
  
• 7. I have no significant other. Seriously. People in romantic relationships just plain live longer than people who are single.
  
• 6. I live in an urban area. Studies show that people who live in areas of dense population, such as Washington, D.C., tend to perish sooner than people who live out in the country, like in Nebraska, thanks to higher emissions of carcinogens like bus exhaust and random gunfire from urban gang warfare.
  
• 5. I eat a lot of red meat. You know what group of people lives the longest of anyone? Yeah, that would be this tribe of people who hang out in, like, Siberia somewhere, and all they eat is yogurt and wheat germ. Seriously. I don't think they are vegetarians; I think they just can't find any meat because the cows all froze to death. Anyway, they all live to be, like, a hundred and twenty years old.
  I can't stand yogurt, let alone wheat germ, and I eat hamburgers at least once a day. I would eat them more often if I could get someone to make them for me. I am so dead.
  
• 4. I am a middle child. Middle children die sooner than their older and younger siblings due to being routinely ignored. I have never seen documented proof of this, but I am sure it is true. It is a story just waiting to be busted wide open by
  60 Minutes
  , or whatever.
  
• 3. I have no religious affiliation. My parents have completely ignored our religious upbringing, thanks to their own selfish agnosticism. Like, just because they aren't sure of the existence of God, we aren't allowed to go to church. When, meanwhile, there is statistical evidence that churchgoers live longer and have happier lives than nonchurchgoers.
  And just where is my memorial service going to be performed when I die? I wish my parents had thought about these things before they went with this whole “Let the kids decide for themselves what they want to believe” thing. I could very well be dead before I ever even get to explore all my religious options. Though at the moment I am leaning strongly toward Hinduism because I am totally into reincarnation. On the other hand, I doubt I could give up beef, so this might be a problem.
  
• 2. I am a dog owner. While pet owners in general live longer than non–pet owners, cat owners live the longest. It is entirely likely that thanks to Manet's being a dog, I could perish five to ten years sooner than if he were a cat.
  

And the number-one reason I am likely to die young:

• 1. My heart is broken.
  It really is. All the signs are there. I can't sleep, I can't eat—not even burgers. Every time the phone rings, my pulse leaps…but it's never for me. It's never
  him
  .
  I realize it is my own fault—I messed everything up myself. But that doesn't make it feel any better. Self-inflicted wound or not, it's still there.
  And the fact is, human beings can't really function with a broken heart. I mean, sure, I could live without David. But what kind of life would it be? An empty-shell sort of a life. I mean, I had a perfect chance at love, and I blew it. BLEW IT! Due to the fact that even though my eyes were open, I was not seeing. I wasn't seeing anything at all.
  I give myself two weeks before I croak.
  

I stood
on Susan Boone's front porch, feeling lame. But then, since I've pretty much felt lame my entire life, this was no big surprise.

On the other hand, usually I feel lame for no particular reason. This time I really had a reason to feel lame.

And the reason had to do with the fact that I was standing on Susan Boone's front porch, uninvited, and probably unwanted, on a Sunday afternoon, waiting for someone to answer the door, only no one was coming.

And it seemed to me like if someone did come, they would be all, “Um, don't you know better than to come over to someone's house without calling first?”

And they would be perfectly within their rights to say this, since I hadn't, of course, called first. But I'd been afraid if I called first, Susan would have been like, “Can't we just talk in class on Tuesday, Sam?”

But I couldn't wait until Tuesday. I had to talk to Susan today. Because my heart was breaking, and I needed someone to tell me what I should do about it. My mom and dad were no use. The whole thing just seemed to confuse them. And Lucy was no good. She just went, “Put on a tight little skirt and go over there and say you're sorry. God, what are you, retarded?” Rebecca just pressed her lips together and said, “I told you so,” and Theresa was still over at Tito's. There was no point in even asking Catherine. Her head was filled with nothing but Paul.

So I was standing on Susan Boone's front porch without having
called first. It is much harder to not see someone when that person is already standing on your front porch than when that person calls on the phone. I know this thanks to all the reporters who have been trying to talk to me.

There really is no worse feeling than standing around, waiting for someone to answer the door, when you know he or she is probably just going to slam it in your face…

…with the possible exception of standing around waiting for this person with five loaves of French bread in your backpack. I would have felt bad enough without the French bread, but the bread helped.

It was just that I had to bring something. I mean, you can't just show up at someone's house uninvited and not even bring a present. And yeah, I had to admit, the bread was kind of a bribe. Because I have never heard of anyone turning down a piece of the Bread Lady's bread. I was hoping that whoever answered the door would get a whiff of it and be all, “Oh, come right on in.”

And it wasn't like I hadn't gone through hell, practically, to get my hands on these loaves. I'd had to get up extra early in order to drag Manet out for his morning walk in the opposite direction that we normally go in, something he really did not appreciate. He kept trying to drag me toward the park, while I was trying to drag him toward the Bread Lady's house. My arms were sore all the rest of the day. Manet weighs almost as much as I do, I think.

Also it turns out the Bread Lady doesn't get up before eight on Sunday mornings. She answered the door in this very fancy negligee (for a married lady).

But she didn't seem to think it was strange, me pounding on the door and commissioning French bread for later that afternoon. In fact, she seemed kind of pleased that someone liked her bread that much.

And she delivered on time, thank God. Five loaves of golden steaming French bread, the kind you can't find anywhere in D.C. The
smell of them almost made
me
hungry. But only almost. People with broken hearts, it turns out, really have no appetite.

Then, of course, there was the whole riding-the-Metro-with-five-loaves-of-hot-out-of-the-oven-French-bread-sticking-out-your-backpack thing. Not an experience I cared to repeat. Especially since the Junior National Geographic Society was in town, and the Metro cars were jammed with all these Midwestern families with, like, ten kids each, all wearing these bright yellow T-shirts that said, “Ask me about my Junior National Geographic Champ,” which I so thoroughly did not.

But all these blond kids kept going to their parents, “Mommy, why is that girl carrying all that bread?”

To which their parents responded by telling them to “Hush up, ya'll.” Fortunately, no one recognized me as the girl who saved the president because I was wearing one of Lucy's Adams Prep baseball caps with my hair tucked all inside.

Still, one tiny Junior National Geographic Champion looked at me very suspiciously for a long time before leaning over to whisper to her friend, who also looked at me, then said something to her mom.

Fortunately, by that time the train had pulled into Adams Morgan, where Susan Boone lived, so I got off fast, leaving the Junior National Geographic Society members to their fate, whatever it was.

It was a long walk from the Metro stop to Susan Boone's house, but I used the time to reflect upon my misfortunes, which were many. By the time I got to the large blue house with the whitewashed porch railings with all the wind chimes hanging from them, I was practically crying.

Well, and why not? Nothing but sheer desperation would have forced me to ask Susan Boone's advice about anything. I mean, up until a couple of weeks ago I had totally hated her. Or at
least strongly disliked her.

Now, I had this weird feeling she was the only person I knew who could tell me what I'd done to mess up my life so thoroughly and how I could make it right again. I mean, she had taught me how to see: maybe she could teach me how to cope with everything I was seeing, now that she'd opened up my eyes.

But I have to admit that in spite of this conviction, when I finally heard footsteps—and Joe's familiar squawking—coming toward me from inside the house, I felt a little like running.

Before I could run away, however, I saw the lace curtain in the window by the front door jerk back a little, and one of Susan Boone's blue eyes looked out. Then I heard the locks on the door being undone. The next thing I knew, Susan Boone, in a pair of paint-spattered overalls, and with her long white hair done up in braids on either side of her head, was standing in her doorway, staring at me.

“Samantha?” she said in an astonished voice. “What are you doing here?”

Shrugging off my backpack and quickly showing her the bread, I said, “I was just in the neighborhood, and I thought I'd say hi. Would you like some of this bread? It's really good bread. A lady on my street makes it.”

Okay, I'll admit it: I was babbling. I just didn't know what to do. I mean, I shouldn't have come. I knew the minute I saw her that I shouldn't have come. It was insane that I had come. Stupid and insane. I mean, what did Susan Boone care about my problems? She was just my drawing teacher, for crying out loud. What was I doing, going to my drawing teacher for advice about life?

On Susan's shoulder, Joe screeched his usual greeting of “Hello, Joe! Hello, Joe!” at me. I don't think he recognized me with my hair hidden under the baseball cap.

Susan Boone, smiling a little, stepped back and said, “Well, come
in, then, Sam. It's very nice of you to, um, stop by with bread.”

I went into Susan's house, and wasn't surprised, as I crossed the threshold, to see that it was furnished in a manner very similar to the studio. I mean, there was a lot of old, comfortable-looking furniture, but mostly there were canvases stacked everywhere against the wall, and more than a hint of turpentine in the air.

“Thanks,” I said, coming inside and taking off my hat. As soon as I did so, Joe launched himself from Susan's shoulder to mine with a happy cry of “Pretty bird! Pretty bird!”

“Joseph,” Susan Boone said warningly. Then she invited me into the kitchen for a cup of tea.

I pretended like I didn't want to put her out or anything, and said I was sorry for bothering her and really, I was only going to stay a minute. But Susan just looked at me with a smile, and I had no choice but to follow her into her bright, sunshiny kitchen, the walls of which were painted blue—the same blue as her eyes. She insisted on making tea, and not in a mug in the microwave, either, but the old-fashioned way, with a kettle on the stove. As the water was boiling, she examined the baguettes I had brought and seemed pretty pleased by them. She got out some butter and a little jar of homemade jam and put them on the butcher-block table in the center of her big, old-fashioned kitchen. Then she broke off one end of a loaf, just to taste it, and looked very surprised as the crust, which was already pretty buttery without anything spread on it, melted on her tongue.

“Well,” Susan said. “It's very good bread. I haven't had French bread like this, as a matter of fact, since the last time I was in Paris.”

I was pleased to hear this. I watched as she broke off yet another piece, then ate it.

“So,” I said. “How was your Thanksgiving?” It seemed like a stupid thing to ask, something only, you know, boring people,
not artists, talked about. But what else was I supposed to say? And fortunately, she didn't seem to take offense.

“It was fine, thanks,” she said. “How was yours?”

“Oh,” I said. “Good.”

There was this silence. Not really an awkward one, but you know. Still a silence. It was filled only with the sound of the kettle starting to boil, and Joseph muttering to himself as he ran his beak through his feathers, preening a little.

Then Susan said, “I came up with a big plan for what to do with the studio this summer.”

“Really?” I said, relieved someone, at least, was talking.

“Really. I am thinking of keeping the studio open every day, from ten until five, for people like you and David to come in and sketch all day, if you want to. Like art camp, or something.” I didn't say anything about how I doubted David would be showing up—not if he knew I was going to be there. Instead, I went, “Great!”

Right then the kettle started to whistle. Susan got up and made the tea. Then she handed me a dark blue mug that said “Matisse” on it, and kept a yellow mug that said “van Gogh” on it for herself. After she'd sat back down at the butcher-block table, she said, holding the mug in both hands so the steam came up and framed her face in smoky tendrils, “Now. Why don't you tell me what you're really doing all the way out here on a Sunday afternoon, Samantha.”

I thought, you know, about not telling her. I thought about being like, “Really, I'm on my way to my grandma's,” or some other lie like that.

But something about the way she was looking at me made me be honest. I don't know what it was, but suddenly, as I sat there messing with the little tag to my tea bag, the whole story poured out. Just poured out of me, all over that butcher block, while Joe sat on my shoulder and, from somewhere in the house, I could hear the faint
strains of some classical music.

And when I had gotten it all out—everything, about David, and about Jack, and about the From My Window contest and Maria Sanchez and David's dad—I finished with, “And to top it all off, I found out last night that Dolley Madison's only kid who lived past infancy was from her first husband. She didn't even have any kids with James Madison. So I'm not related to her. Not even one tiny bit.”

Finished with my long speech, I sat there and stared down into my tea. I couldn't see it all that well, since my eyes were sort of moist. But I was determined not to cry. To do so would have been perfectly ridiculous, even more ridiculous than riding the Metro with five loaves of French bread sticking out of my backpack.

Susan, who'd listened to my entire recitation of my many problems in silence, now took a sip of her tea and said, in a very calm voice, “But, Samantha. Don't you see? You know what it is you have to do. David already told you.”

I lifted my gaze from my cup of tea and stared at her from across the table. On my shoulder, Joe picked up a strand of my hair, pretending just to be casually holding on to it, though we both knew that when he thought I wasn't paying attention, he would try to yank it out and make his escape.

“What are you talking about?” I said. “All David said was that he wouldn't talk to his dad about Maria Sanchez.”

“He said that, yes,” Susan said. “But you didn't really listen to him, Sam. You heard him, but you didn't listen. There is a difference between listening and hearing, just as there is a difference between seeing and knowing.”

You see? This is why I knew I'd had to come. I didn't know this. The difference between hearing and listening, I mean. Any more than I'd known the difference between seeing and knowing.

“David,” Susan said, “told you that you have the right to free
speech, just as much as any other American.”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “So?”

“So,” Susan said with an emphasis I didn't understand. “
You have the right to free speech
, Samantha. Just as much as any other American.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I got that part. But I don't see what that has to do with—”

And then, suddenly, I did. I don't know how or why. But suddenly, Susan's—and David's—meaning sank in.

And when it did, I couldn't believe it.

“Oh, no,” I said with a gasp—and not just because Joe had finally made his move, yanked out a strand of my hair, then taken off in triumphant flight for the top of the refrigerator. “Ow. You don't think he really meant
that
, do you?”

Susan said, breaking off another piece of bread, “David tends to mean what he says, Sam. He's no politician. He isn't a bit likely to follow in his father's footsteps. He wants to be an architect.”

“He does?” This was news to me. I was beginning to realize I really knew nothing about David at all. I mean, I knew he liked to draw, and that he was good at it. And I knew about the giant serving fork and spoon, of course. But there seemed to be a lot I didn't know, as well.

And that made me feel worse. Because I had this very bad feeling that it was too late for me to find out about them. The things I didn't know about David, I mean.